Pu'non (Heb. Punon', 'pIS, darkness [Gesenius], ore-pit [Fiirst] ; Sept. Qivwv v. r. <Pivw), a camp sta- tion of the Israelites on their journey to Canaan (Numb. xxxiii, 42), on the east side of the mountains of Edom, and perhaps belonging to that district, since a duke Pinon is mentioned (Gen. xxxvi, 41 ; 1 Chron. i, 52) among the chieftains of the Edomites. It lay next be- yond Zalmonah, between it and Oboth, and three days' journey from the mountains of Abarim, which formed the boundary of Moab. By Eusebius and Jerome (Ono- masticon, <&tv6Ji>, "Fenon") it is identified with Pinon, the seat of the Edomitish tribe of that name, and, fur- ther, with Phceno, which contained the copper-mines so noted at that period, and was situated between Pe- tra and Zoar. It is often mentioned by other Christian authors (see Gesenius, Thesaur. p. 1095). It is not to be identified with the modern Tufileh (Burckhardt. ii, 677 ; see Raumer, Zug der Israel, p. 46) ; but on the Kalaat Phendn of Seetzen (Zach's Monad. Corresp. xvii, 137) we must await more particular intelligence. See Exode.
Punti Version. The Punti, or Canton Collo- quial, as it is sometimes called, is a dialect spoken by a large population which is to be found in and around Canton, in China. Into this dialect only portions of the Bible were translated, viz. Mark's Gospel, by the Rev. G. Piercy, and published in 1872, with the title Ma kofiih yin chuen. Luke's Gospel was translated in the Roman character by members of the Rhenish Mis- sion, and published in 1867, with the title Das Evange- liiiin des Lucas in Volkesdialekte der Punti Chinesen. John's Gospel was translated by the Rev. C. F. Preston, and published at Canton on wooden blocks, under the title Yd han chuen fiih yin shoo. In 1872 St. Paul's Epistles — Galatians to Philemon — were published, un- der the title Paou le ta hwuy seaou shoo, as translated by Mr. Piercy; while the Acts of the Apostles were also published in the same year, with the title She t'oo hiny chuen, in the translation of Mr. Preston. These are ail the parts of the New Test, published in that dialect, of which St. Mark and St. Luke have been reprinted by the American Bible Society, changing the term for "God." Of the Old Test., the book of Genesis was translated by the Rev. G. Piercy, and published in 1873, under the title K'ew yo chwang she k'e, to which the book of Psalms must be added, which has been trans- lated by the Rev. A. B. Hutchinson, of the Church Mis- sionary Society, and was published in 1876. Comp. the annual reports of the British and Foreign Bible Society for 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1877. (B. P.)
Pupilla Oculi {pupil of the eye) is a clerical manual written by John de Burgh. It was very popular during the 15th and 16th centuries.
Puppet-plays (Lat. pupa, a girl; Fr. poupee, a
doll) are exhibitions in which the parts of the different characters are taken by miniature figures worked by wires, while the dialogue is given by persons behind the scenes. These plays are of very ancient date, and, originally intended to gratify children, they ended in being a diversion for adults. In China and India pup- pets are still made to act dramas, either as movable fig- ures or as shadows behind a curtain. In Italy and France puppet-plays were at one time carried to a con- siderable degree of artistic perfection ; and even Lessing ' and Goethe, in Germany, thought the subject worth their serious attention. In England, they are mentioned under the name of motions by many of our early au- thors; and frequent allusions to them occur in the plays of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, and the older dramatists. The earliest exhibitions of this kind consisted of repre- sentations of stories taken from the Old and New Tes- taments, or from the lives and legends of saints. They thus seem to have been the last remnant of the morali- ties of the 15th century. See Mysteries. We learn from Ben Jonson and his contemporaries that the most popular of these exhibitions at that time were the Prod- igal Son and Nineveh with Jonas and the Whale. Even the Puritans, with all their hatred of the regular stage, did not object to be present at such representations. The most noted exhibitions of the kind were those of Robert Powel, in the beginning of the 18th century (see Chambers, Book of Days, ii, 167). So recently as the time of Goldsmith, scriptural "motions" were common; and in She Stoops to Conquer reference is made to the display of Solomon's Temple in one of these shows. The regular performances of the stage were also sometimes imitated ; and Dr. Samuel Johnson has observed that puppets were so capable of representing even the plays of Shakspeare that Macbeth might be represented by them as well as by living actors. These exhibitions, however, much degenerated, and latterly consisted of a wretched display of wooden figures, barbarously formed, and decorated without the least degree of taste or pro- priety, while the dialogues were jumbles of absurdities and nonsense. — Chambers.
Purana (literally, "old," from the Sanscrit purd, before, past) is the name of that class of religious works which, besides the Tantras (q. v.), is the main foun- dation of the actual popular creed of the Brahmin ical Hindus (q. v.). According to the popular belief, these works were compiled by Vyasa (q. v.), the supposed ar- ranger of the Vedas (q. v.), and the author of the Ma- habhdrata (q. v.), and possess an antiquity far beyond the reach of historical computation. A critical inves- tigation, however, of the contents of the existing works leads to the conclusion that, in their present form, they do not only not belong to a remote age, but can barely claim an antiquity of a thousand years. The word Purana occurs in some passages of the Mahabhdrata, the law-books of Yajnavalkya and Manu (q. v.) ; it is even met with in some Upanishads and the great Brah- mana portion of the White-Yojur-Veda; but it is easy to show that in all these ancient works it cannot refer to the existing Purana, and therefore that no inference relative to the age of the ancient can be drawn from the modern. There are, however, several circumstances tending to show that there were a number of works called Purana which preceded the existing, and were the source whence these probably derived a portion of their contents. The oldest known author of a Sanscrit vocabulary, Amara-Sinha, gives as a synonym of Pu- rana the word Pancha-lakshana, which means "that which has five (jpanchan) characteristic marks" (Jak- shana) ; and the scholiasts of that vocabulary agree in stating that these lakshanas are : 1. Primary creation, or cosmogony ; 2. Secondary creation, or the destruction and renovation of worlds; 3. Genealogy of gods and patriarchs ; 4. Manwantaras, or reigns of Mantis ; and, 5. The history of the princes of the solar and lunar races. Such, then, were the characteristic topics of a Purana at the time, if not of Amara-Sinha himself— which is