Vikram and the Vampire Part 25

[Footnote 77: The beautiful wife of the demiG.o.d Rama Chandra.]

[Footnote 78: The Hindu Ars Amoris.]

[Footnote 79: The old philosophers, believing in a "Sat" (xx xx), postulated an Asat (xx xx xx) and made the latter the root of the former.]

[Footnote 80: In Western India, a place celebrated for suicides.]

[Footnote 81: Kama Deva. "Out on thee, foul fiend, talk'st thou of nothing but ladies?"]

[Footnote 82: The pipal or Ficus religiosa, a favourite roosting-place for fiends.]

[Footnote 83: India.]

[Footnote 84: The ancient name of a priest by profession, meaning "praepositus"

or praeses. He was the friend and counsellor of a chief, the minister of a king, and his companion in peace and war. (M. Muller's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 485).]

[Footnote 85: Lakshmi, the G.o.ddess of Prosperity. Raj-Lakshmi would mean the King's Fortune, which we should call tutelary genius. Lakshichara is our "luckless," forming, as Mr. Ward says, an extraordinary coincidence of sound and meaning in languages so different. But the derivations are very distinct.]

[Footnote 86: The Monkey G.o.d.]

[Footnote 87: Generally written "Banyan."]

[Footnote 88: The daughter of Raja Janaka, married to Ramachandra. The latter placed his wife under the charge of his brother Lakshmana, and went into the forest to worship, when the demon Ravana disguised himself as a beggar, and carried off the prize.]

[Footnote 89: This great king was tricked by the G.o.d Vishnu out of the sway of heaven and earth, but from his exceeding piety he was appointed to reign in Patala, or Hades.]

[Footnote 90: The procession is fair game, and is often attacked in the dark with sticks and stones, causing serious disputes. At the supper the guests confer the obligation by their presence, and are exceedingly exacting.]

[Footnote 91: Rati is the wife of Kama, the G.o.d of Desire; and we explain the word by "Spring personified."]

[Footnote 92: The Indian Cuckoo (Cucuius Indicus). It is supposed to lay its eggs in the nest of the crow.]

[Footnote 93: This is the well-known Ghi or Ghee, the one sauce of India which is as badly off in that matter as England.]

[Footnote 94: The European reader will observe that it is her purity which carries the heroine through all these perils. Moreover, that her virtue is its own reward, as it loses to her the world.]

[Footnote 95: Literally, "one of all tastes"--a wild or gay man, we should say.]

[Footnote 96: These shoes are generally made of rags and bits of leather; they have often toes behind the foot, with other similar contrivances, yet they scarcely ever deceive an experienced man.]

[Footnote 97: The high-toper is a swell-thief, the other is a low dog.]

[Footnote 98: Engaged in shoplifting.]

[Footnote 99: The moon.]

[Footnote 100: The judge.]

[Footnote 101: To be lagged is to be taken; scragging is hanging.]

[Footnote 102: The tongue.]

[Footnote 103: This is the G.o.d Kartikeya, a mixture of Mars and Mercury, who revealed to a certain Yugacharya the scriptures known as "Chauriya-Vidya"--Anglice, "Thieves' Manual." The cla.s.sical robbers of the Hindu drama always perform according to its precepts. There is another work respected by thieves and called the "Chora-Panchashila,"

because consisting of fifty lines.]

[Footnote 104: Supposed to be a good omen.]

[Footnote 105: Share the booty.]

[Footnote 106: Bhawani is one of the many forms of the destroying G.o.ddess, the wife of Shiva.]

[Footnote 107: Wretches who kill with the narcotic seed of the stramonium.]

[Footnote 108: Better know as "Thugs," which in India means simply "rascals."]

[Footnote 109: Crucifixion, until late years, was common amongst the Buddhists of the Burmese empire. According to an eye-witness, Mr. F. Carey, the punishment was inflicted in two ways. Sometimes criminals were crucified by their hands and feet being nailed to a scaffold; others were merely tied up, and fed. In these cases the legs and feet of the patient began to swell and mortify at the expiration of three or four days; men are said to have lived in this state for a fortnight, and at last they expired from fatigue and mortification. The sufferings from cramp also must be very severe. In India generally impalement was more common than crucifixion.]

[Footnote 110: Our Suttee. There is an admirable Hindu proverb, which says, "No one knows the ways of woman; she kill her husband and becomes a Sati."]

[Footnote 111: Fate and Destiny are rather Moslem than Hindu fancies.]

[Footnote 112: Properly speaking, the husbandman should plough with not fewer than four bullocks; but few can afford this. If he plough with a cow or a bullock, and not with a bull, the rice produced by his ground is unclean, and may not be used in any religious ceremony.]

[Footnote 113: A shout of triumph, like our "Huzza" or "Hurrah!" of late degraded into "Hooray." "Hari bol" is of course religious, meaning "Call upon Hari!" i.e. Krishna, i.e. Vishnu.]

[Footnote 114: This form of suicide is one of those recognized in India. So in Europe we read of fanatics who, with a suicidal ingenuity, have succeeded in crucifying themselves.]

[Footnote 115: The river of Jaganath in Orissa; it shares the honours of sanct.i.ty with some twenty-nine others, and in the lower regions it represents the cla.s.sical Styx.]

[Footnote 116: Cupid. His wife Rati is the spring personified. The Hindu poets always unite love and spring, and perhaps physiologically they are correct.]

[Footnote 117: An incarnation of the third person of the Hindu Triad, or Triumvirate, Shiva the G.o.d of Destruction, the Indian Bacchus. The image has five faces, and each face has three eyes. In Bengal it is found in many villages, and the women warn their children not to touch it on pain of being killed.]

[Footnote 118: A village Brahman on stated occasions receives fees from all the villagers.]

[Footnote 119: The land of Greece.]

[Footnote 120: Savans, professors. So in the old saying, "Hanta, Pandit Sansara "--Alas! the world is learned! This a little antedates the well-known schoolmaster.]

[Footnote 121: Children are commonly sent to school at the age of five. Girls are not taught to read, under the common idea that they will become widows if they do.]

[Footnote 122: Meaning the place of reading the four Shastras.]

[Footnote 123: A certain G.o.ddess who plays tricks with mankind. If a son when grown up act differently from what his parents did, people say that he has been changed in the womb.]

[Footnote 124: Shani is the planet Saturn, which has an exceedingly baleful influence in India as elsewhere.]

[Footnote 125: The Eleatic or Materialistic school of Hindu philosophy, which agrees to explode an intelligent separate First Cause.]