Vikram and the Vampire

107

Wretches who kill with the narcotic seed of the stramonium.

108

Better known as ‘Thugs,’ which in India means simply ‘rascals.’

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 begin 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.

110

Our Suttee. There is an admirable Hindu proverb, which says, ‘No one knows the ways of woman; she kills her husband and becomes a Sati.’

111

Fate and Destiny are rather Moslem than Hindu fancies.

112

Properly speaking, the husbandman should plough with not less 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.

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.

114

This form of suicide is one of those recognised in India. So in Europe we read of fanatics who, with a suicidal ingenuity, have succeeded in crucifying themselves.

115

The river of Jaganath in Orissa; it shares the honours of sanctity with some twenty-nine others, and in the lower regions it represents the classical Styx.

116

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

117

An incarnation of the third person of the Hindu Triad, or Triumvirate, Shiva the God 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.

118

A village Brahman on stated occasions receives fees from all the villagers.

119

The land of Greece.

120

Savans, professors. So in the old saying, ‘Hanta, Pandit Sansara.’ – Alas! the world is learned! This a little antedates the well-known schoolmaster.

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.

122

Meaning the place of reading the four Shastras.

123

A certain goddess 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.

124

Shani is the planet Saturn, which has an exceedingly baleful influence in India as elsewhere.

125

The Eleatic or Materialistic school of Hindu philosophy, which agrees to explode an intelligent separate First Cause.

126

The writings of this school give an excellent view of the ‘progressive system,’ which has popularly been asserted to be a modern idea. But Hindu philosophy seems to have exhausted every fancy that can spring from the brain of man.

127

Tama is the natural state of matter, Raja is passion acting upon nature, and Satwa is excellence. These are the three gunas or qualities of matter.

128

Spiritual preceptors and learned men.

129

Under certain limitations, gambling is allowed by Hindu law, and the winner has power over the person and property of the loser. No ‘debts of honour’ in Hindostan!

130

Quotations from standard works on Hindu criminal law, which in some points at least is almost as absurd as our civilised codes.

131

Hindus carry their money tied up in a kind of sheet, which is wound round the waist and thrown over the shoulder.