Vikram and the Vampire

157

Kama again.

158

From ‘Man,’ to think; primarily meaning, what makes man think.

159

The Cirrhadæ of classical writers.

160

The Hindu Pluto; also called the Just King.

161

Yama judges the dead, whose souls go to him in four hours and forty minutes; therefore a corpse cannot be burned till after that time. His residence is Yamalaya, and it is on the south side of the earth; down South, as we say. (I Sam. xxv. 1, and xxx. 15.) The Hebrews, like the Hindus, held the northern parts of the world to be higher than the southern. Hindus often joke a man who is seen walking in that direction, and ask him where he is going.

162

The ‘Ganges,’ in heaven called Mandakini. I have no idea why we still adhere to our venerable corruption of the word.

163

The fabulous mountain supposed by Hindu geographers to occupy the centre of the universe.

164

The all-bestowing tree in Indra’s Paradise, which grants everything asked of it. It is the Tuba of El Islam, and is not unknown to the Apocryphal New Testament.

165

‘Vikramaditya, Lord of the Saka.’ This is prévoyance on the part of the Vampire; the king had not acquired the title.

166

On the sixth day after the child’s birth, the god Vidhata writes all its fate upon its forehead. The Moslems have a similar idea, and probably it passed to the Hindus.

167

Goddess of eloquence. ‘The waters of the Saraswati’ is the classical Hindu phrase for the mirage.

168

This story is perhaps the least interesting in the collection. I have translated it literally, in order to give an idea of the original. The reader will remark in it the source of our own nursery tale about the princess who was so high born and delicately bred, that she could discover the three peas laid beneath a straw mattress and four feather beds. The Hindus, however, believe that Sybaritism can be carried so far; I remember my Pandit asserting the truth of the story.

169

A minister. The word, as is the case with many in this collection, is quite modern Moslem, and anachronistic.

170

The cow is called the mother of the gods, and is declared by Bramha, the first person of the triad, Vishnu and Shiva being the second and the third, to be a proper object of worship. ‘If a European speak to the Hindu about eating the flesh of cows,’ says an old missionary, ‘they immediately raise their hands to their ears; yet milkmen, carmen, and farmers beat the cow as unmercifully as a carrier of coals beats his ass in England.’

The Jains or Jainas (from ji, to conquer; as subduing the passions) are one of the atheistical sects with whom the Brahmans have of old carried on the fiercest religious controversies, ending in many a sanguinary fight. Their tenets are consequently exaggerated and ridiculed, as in the text. They believe that there is no such God as the common notions on the subject point out, and they hold that the highest act of virtue is to abstain from injuring sentient creatures. Man does not possess an immortal spirit: death is the same to Bramha and to a fly. Therefore there is no heaven or hell separate from present pleasure or pain. Hindu Epicureans: – ‘Epicuri de grege porci.’

171

Narak is one of the multitudinous places of Hindu punishment, said to adjoin the residence of Ajarna. The less cultivated Jains believe in a region of torment. The illuminati, however, have a sovereign contempt for the Creator, for a future state, and for all religious ceremonies. As Hindus, however, they believe in future births of mankind, somewhat influenced by present actions. The ‘next birth’ in the mouth of a Hindu, we are told, is the same as ‘to-morrow’ in the mouth of a Christian. The metempsychosis is on an extensive scale: according to some, a person who loses human birth must pass through eight millions of successive incarnations – fish, insects, worms, birds, and beasts – before he can reappear as a man.

172

Jogi, or Yogi, properly applies to followers of the Yoga or Patanjala school, who by ascetic practices acquire power over the elements. Vulgarly, it is a general term for mountebank vagrants, worshippers of Shiva. The Janganis adore the same deity, and carry about a Linga. The Sevras are Jain beggars, who regard their chiefs as superior to the gods of other sects. The Sannyasis are mendicant followers of Shiva; they never touch metals or fire, and, in religious parlance, they take up the staff. They are opposed to the Viragis, worshippers of Vishnu, who contend as strongly against the worshippers of gods who receive bloody offerings, as a Christian could do against idolatry.

173

The Brahman, or priest, is supposed to proceed from the mouth of Bramha, the creating person of the Triad; the Khshatriyas (soldiers) from his arms; the Vaishyas (enterers into business) from his thighs; and the Shudras, ‘who take refuge in the Brahmans,’ from his feet. Only high caste men should assume the thread at the age of puberty.

174

Soma, the moon, I have said, is masculine in India.

175

Pluto.

176

Nothing astonishes Hindus so much as the apparent want of affection between the European parent and child.

177

A third marriage is held improper and baneful to a Hindu woman. Hence, before the nuptials they betroth the man to a tree, upon which the evil expends itself, and the tree dies.

178

Kama.

179

An oath, meaning, ‘From such a falsehood preserve me, Ganges!’

180

The Indian Neptune.

181