Old Deccan Days Part 25

1. The ship's on the sea-- Which way is it coming?

Right home to land.

What cargo has it?

The ship brings the sacrament and praying beads.

2. The ship's on the sea-- Which way is it coming?

Right home to land.

What cargo has it?

The ship brings white paper and the Twelve Apostles.

3. The ship comes home to land-- What cargo does it bring?

Silver money, prophets and holy people.

4. The ship comes home to land-- What does it bring?

All the saints and holy people, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

5. The ship comes to our doors-- Who brings it home?

Our Saviour.

Our Saviour bless the ship, and bring it safely home.

The second song, "The Little Wife Watching for her Husband's Return,"

Anna had almost entirely forgotten.

It was, she said, very pretty, being the song of the little wife as she decks herself in her jewels to please her husband when he comes home. She laments his absence, fears he has forgotten her and bemoans her loneliness.

M. F.

NOTES ON THE FAIRY LEGENDS.

PUNCHKIN.

Page 27.--The Rajah's seven daughters, taking it by turns to cook their father's dinner, would be nothing unusual in the household of a Rajah. To a chief or great man in India, it is still the most natural precaution he can take against poison to eat nothing but what has been prepared by his wife or daughter, or under their eye in his own zenana; and there are few accomplishments on which an Indian princess prides herself more than on her skill in cookery.

RAMA AND LUXMAN.

Page 107.--The little black and white owls, which fly out at dusk and sit always in pairs, chattering to each other in a singularly conversational version of owl language, are among the most widely-spread of Indian birds, and in every province where they are found are regarded as the most accomplished of soothsayers. Unlike other ominous creatures, they are anxious to do good to mankind, for they always tell each other what the traveler ought to do, and, if mankind were not so dull in understanding their language, would save the hearer from all risk of misfortune.

LITTLE SURYA BAI.

Page 118.--The sangfroid with which the first Ranee, here and in the story of Panch-Phul Ranee, page 164, receives the second and more favored wife to share her throne, however difficult to understand in the West, is very characteristic of Oriental life. In Indian households of the highest rank it would not be difficult to find examples of several wives living amicably together, as described in some of these stories; but the contrary result, as depicted in this story of Surya Bai and others, is far more common, for as a general rule human nature is too strong for custom, and under an external serenity bitter jealousies exist between the several wives of a royal Hindoo household, which are a constant source of misery and crime.

Among the curious changes of opinion which are observable of late years in the Indian empire, none is more remarkable than the conviction, now frequently expressed by the warmest supporters of native governments at native courts, that the toleration of polygamy is one of their most serious dangers, the removal of which is of vital importance to the safety of any Indian dynasty, and indeed to the permanence of any Indian family of rank.

THE WANDERINGS OF VICRAM MAHARAJAH.

Page 131.--The Dipmal, or Tower of Lights, is an essential feature in every large Hindoo temple. It is often of great height, and furnished with niches or brackets, each of which holds a lamp on festivals, especially on that of the Dewali, the feast of lamps celebrated in the autumn in honor of the Hindoo G.o.ddess Bowani or Kali, who was formerly propitiated on that occasion by human sacrifices.

Page 132.--The story of Vicram's act of devotion is thoroughly Hindoo.

It is difficult to understand the universal prevalence and strength of the conviction among Hindoos that the particular G.o.d of their adoration can be prevailed on, by importunity or self-devotion, to reveal to his worshiper some act, generally ascetic or sacrificial, the performance of which will insure to the devotee the realization of the object of his wishes. The act of devotion and the object of the devotee are both often very trivial; but occasionally we are startled by hearing of some deed of horror, a human sacrifice or deliberate act of self-immolation, which is quite unaccountable to those who are not aware that it is only a somewhat extreme manifestation of a belief which still influences the daily conduct of the great majority of the Hindoos.

And even those who have known the Hindoos long and intimately frequently fail to recognize the extent to which this belief influences the ethics of common life and action in India. To quote an instance from well-known history, there are few acts regarding which a European traveler would expect the verdict of all mankind to be more generally condemnatory than the murder of Afzul Khan, the general of the Imperial Delhi army, by Sivajee, the founder of the Mahratta empire. Sivajee, according to the well-known story, had invited his victim to an amicable conference, and there stabbed him with a wag nuck[109] as they embraced at their first meeting. It was a deed of such deliberate and cruel treachery that it could find few defenders in Europe, even among the wildest advocates of political a.s.sa.s.sination. A European is consequently little prepared to find it regarded by Mahrattas generally as a most commendable act of devotion.

The Hindoo conscience condemns murder and treachery as emphatically as the European; but this act, as viewed by the old-fashioned Mahratta, was a sacrifice prescribed by direct revelation of the terrible G.o.ddess Bowani to her faithful devotee. It was therefore highly meritorious, and the beautiful Genoese blade which Sivajee always wore, and with which his victim was finally despatched, was, down to our own days, provided with a little temple of its own in the palace of his descendants, and annually worshiped by them and their household--not as a mere act of veneration for their ancestor's trusty sword, but because it was the chosen instrument of a great sacrifice, and "no doubt," as the attendant who watched it used to say, "some of the spirit of Bowani," whose name it bore, "must still reside in it."

[109] An instrument so called from its similarity to a tiger's claw.

It consists of sharp curved steel blades set on a bar, which fits by means of finger-rings to the inside of the hand, so as to be concealed when the hand is closed, while the blades project at right angles to the cross bar and palm when the hand is opened. It is struck as in slapping or tearing with the claws.

An attentive observer will notice in the daily life of those around him in India constant instances of this belief in the efficacy of acts of devotion and sacrifice to alter even the decrees of Fate. It is one of the many incentives to the long pilgrimages which form such a universal feature in Hindoo life, and the records of the courts of justice and the Indian newspapers constantly afford traces of its prevalence in cases of attempted suttee and other acts of self-immolation, or even of human sacrifice, such as are above alluded to. It must be remembered that Hindoo sacrifice has nothing but the name in common with the sacrifices which are a distinctive part of the religion of every Semitic race. Many a difficulty which besets the Hindoo inquirer after truth would be avoided if this essential distinction were always known or remembered.

Page 136.--This belief in the omnipotence of "Muntrs," or certain verbal formulas, properly p.r.o.nounced by one to whom they have been authoritatively communicated, is closely allied to, and quite as universal as, the belief in the efficacy of sacrificial acts of devotion. In every nation throughout India, whatever may be the variations of creed or caste usage, it is a general article of belief, accepted by the vast majority of every cla.s.s and caste of Hindoos, that there is a form of words (or Muntr) which, to be efficacious, can be only orally transmitted, but which, when so communicated by one of the "twice-born," has absolutely unlimited power over all things visible or invisible, extending even to compelling the obedience of the G.o.ds and of Fate itself. Of course it is rather dangerous, even for the wisest, to meddle with such potent influences, and the attempt is usually confined to the affairs of common life; but of the absolute omnipotence of "Muntrs" few ordinary un-Europeanized Hindoos entertain any doubt, and there is hardly any part of their belief which exercises such an all-pervading and potent influence in their daily life, though that influence is often but little understood by Europeans.

The cla.s.sical reader will remember many allusions to a similar belief as a part of the creeds imported from the East, which were fashionable under the Empire at Rome. There is much curious information on the subject of the earliest-known Hindoo Muntrs in the _Aitareya Brahmana_ of the learned Dr. Haug, the only European who ever witnessed the whole process of a Hindoo sacrifice. The reader who is curious on such matters will do well to consult the recently-published work of Professor Max Muller, which might, without exaggeration, be described as a storehouse of new facts connected with the religion and literature of the East, rather than by its modest t.i.tle of _Chips from a German Workshop_.

HOW THE SUN, THE MOON AND THE WIND WENT OUT TO DINNER.

Page 194.--I have not ventured to alter the traditional mode of the Moon's conveyance of dinner to her mother the Star, though it must, I fear, seriously impair the value of the story as a moral lesson in the eyes of all instructors of youth.

M. F.

SINGH RAJAH AND THE CUNNING LITTLE JACKALS.

Page 198.--This story is substantially the same as one well-known to readers of Pilpai's _Fables_. The chorus of the Jackals' song of triumph is an imitation of their nocturnal howl.

THE JACKAL, THE BARBER AND THE BRAHMIN.

Page 203.--The touch of the poor outcast Mahars would be pollution to a Hindoo of any but the lowest caste; hence their ready obedience to the Jackal's exhortation not to touch him.

The offerings of rice, flowers, a chicken, &c., and the pouring water over the idol, are parts of the regular daily observance in every village temple.

MUCHIE LAL.

Page 265.--The popular belief in stories of this kind, where the Cobra becomes the companion of human beings, is greatly strengthened by the instances which occasionally occur when particular persons, sometimes children or idiots, possess the power to handle the deadly reptiles without receiving any injury from them. How much is due merely to gentleness of touch and fearlessness, and how much to any personal peculiarity which pleases the senses of the snake, it is difficult to say, for the instances, though not few and perfectly well authenticated, are sufficiently rare to be popularly regarded as miraculous.

In one case, which occurred in the country west of Poona not long after our conquest of the Deccan, a Brahmin boy could, without the aid of music or anything but his own voice, attract to himself and handle with impunity all the snakes which might be within hearing in any thicket or dry stone wall, such as in that country is their favorite refuge. So great was the popular excitement regarding him, under the belief that he was an incarnation of some divinity, that the magistrate of Poona took note of his proceedings, and becoming uneasy as to the political turn the excitement regarding the boy might take, reported regularly to government the growth of the crowds who pressed to see the marvel and to offer gifts to the child and his parents! The poor boy, however, was at last bitten by one of the reptiles and died, and the wonder ceased.

CHUNDUN RAJAH.

Page 274.--There are innumerable popular superst.i.tions regarding the powers which can be conveyed in a charmed necklace; and it is a common belief that good and bad fortune, and life itself, can be made to depend on its not being removed from the wearer's neck.