H́nh ảnh trang
PDF
ePub

MANNERS, CUSTOMS, &c.

OF

NATIONS AND CLASSES OF PEOPLE.

ACCOUNT OF A SINGULAR SECT surgical process sufficiently rude.

AT MYSOOR.

From Historical Sketches of the South of India, by Lieut. Col. Mark Wilks,

Ν

The finger to be amputated is placed on a block: the blacksmith places a chisel over the articulation of the joint, and chops it off at a single blow. If the girl to be betrothed is motherless, and the mo

IN passing from the town of fil ther of the boy bare pot before

gut to Deonhully in the month of August, 1805, I became accidentally informed of a sect, peculiar, as I since understand, to the north-eastern parts of Mysoor, the women of which universally undergo the amputation of the first joints of the third and fourth fingers of their right hands. On my asrival at Deonhully, after ascertaining that the request would not give offence, I desired to see some of these women, and the same afternoon seven of them attended at my tent.

The sect is a subdivision of the Murresoo wokul, and belongs to the fourth great class of Hindoos, viz. the Souder. Every woman of the sect, previously to piercing the ears of her eldest daughter, preparatory to her being betrothed in marriage, must necessarily undergo this mutilation, which is performed by the blacksmith of the village for a regulated fee, by a

been subjected to the operation, it is incumbent on her to perform the sacrifice.

After satisfying myself with regard to the facts of the case, I inquired into the origin of so strange a practice, and one of the women related with great fluency the following traditionary tale, which has. since been repeated to me with no material deviation by several others of the sect.

A Rachas (or giant), named Vrica, and in after times Busmaasoor, or the giant of the ashes, had, by a course of austere devotion to Mahadeo, obtained from him the promise of whatever boon he should ask. The Rachas accordingly demanded, that every person, on whose head he should place his right hand, might instantly be reduced to ashes; and Mahadeo conferred the boon,without suspicion of the purpose for which it was designed.:

The

The Rachas no sooner found himself possessed of this formidable power, than he attempted to use it for the destruction of his benefactor. Mahadeo fled; the Rachas pursued, and followed the fugitive so closely, as to chase him into a thick grove, where Mahadeo, changing his form and bulk, concealed himself in the centre of a fruit then called tunda pundoo, but since named linga tunda, from the resemblance which its kernel thenceforward assumed to the ling, the appropriate emblem of Mahadeo.

The Rachas, having lost sight. of Mahadeo, inquired of a husbandman who was working in the adjoining field, whether he had seen the fugitive, and what direction he had taken. The husbandman, who had attentively observed the whole transaction, fearful of the future resentment of Mahadeo, and equally alarmed for the present vengeance of the giant, answered aloud, that he had seen no fugitive, but pointed at the same time with the little finger of his right hand to the place of Mahadeo's concealment.

In this extremity Vishnou descended in the form of a beautiful damsel to the rescue of Mahadeo. The Rachas became instantly enamoured: the damsel was a pure bramin, and might not be approached by the unclean Rachas. By degrees she appeared to relent; and as a previous condition to further advances, enjoined the performance of his ablutions in a neighbouring pool. After these were finished, she prescribed as a further purification the performance of the Sundia, a ceremony in which the right hand is succes

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

sively applied to the breast, to the crown of the head, and to other parts of the body. The Rachas, thinking only of love, and forget-ful of the powers of his right hand, performed the Sundia, and was himself reduced to ashes.

"Mahadeo now issued from the linga tunda, and after the proper acknowledgments for his deliverance, proceeded to discuss the guilt of the treacherous husbandman, and determined on the loss of the finger with which he had offended, as the proper punishment of his

crime.

The wife of the husbandman,` who had just arrived at the field with food for her husband, hearing this dreadful sentence, threw herself at the feet of Mahadeo. She represented the certain ruin of her family, if her husband should be disabled for some months from performing the labours of the farm, and besought the deity to accept two of her fingers, instead of one from her husband. Mahadeo, pleased with so sincere a proof of conjugal affection, accepted the exchange, and ordained, that her female posterity, in all future generations, should sacrifice two fingers at his temple, as a memorial of the trans action, and of their exclusive de votion to the god of the ling.

The practice is accordingly confined to the supposed posterity of this single woman, and is not common to the whole sect of Murrésoo wokul. I ascertained the actual number of families who observed this practice in three successive districts through which I afterwards passed, and I conjecture that within the limits of Mysour they may amount to about two thousand houses,

2 E 2

The

The hill of Seetee, in the talook of Colar, where the giant was destroyed, is (according to this tradition) formed of the ashes of Busmaasoor it is held in particular veneration by this sect, as the chief seat of their appropriate sacrifice; and the fact of its retaining little or no moisture, is held to be a iniraculous proof that the ashes of the giant continue to absorb the most violent and continued rain. This is a remarkable example of easy credulity. I have examined the mountain, which is of a sloping form, and composed of coarse granite.

The name of Seetee is stated by the bramins of the vicinity to be

[blocks in formation]

an abbreviation of Sree-puttee- ON THE NAIRS. From the same. Shwerageriee, or the hill of the husband of Sree and Ishwara.

Siva's adventure with the giant of the ashes is stated by these bramins to be related in one of the Puranas, with some change in the circumstances, which does not seem to improve its merit as a tale. The flight of Siva is continued through the seven lower and seven upper regions to Vicunta, the paradise of Vishnou, who there appears in the form of a young Bramin, and with the aid of Maya (delusion) persuades the giant that Siva never yet uttered a truth, and that the boon was fallacious, as he might easily ascertain by placing his right hand on his own head.

Swatadry, or Belacul (the white mountain), a temple near the south-eastern frontier of Mysoor, claims, in common with many other places, the honour of possess ing the ashes of Busmaasoor; and I am informed that the descent of Visbnou in the form of a damsel, as stated by the Murresoo wakul,

The Nairs, or military class of Malabar, are, perhaps, not exceeded by any nation on earth in a high spirit of independence and military honour; but, like all persons stimulated by that spirit without the direction of discipline, their efforts are uncertain, capricious, and desultory. The military dress of the Nair is a pair of short drawers, and his peculiar weapon is an instrument with a thin but very broad blade, hooked towards the edge like a bill hook, or gardener's knife, and about the length of a Roman sword; which the weapon of the chiefs often exactly resembles. This hooked instrument, the inseparable companion of the Nair whenever he quits his dwelling on business, for pleasure, or for war, has no scabbard, and is usually grasped by the right hand, as an ornamental appendage in peace, and for destruction in war. When the Nair employs his musquet, or his bow, the weapon which has

been

cavalry. This disposition was made for the purpose of striking terror, by not allowing a man to escape destruction. The Nairs defended themselves until they were tired of the confinement, and then leaping over the abbatis and cutting through the three lines with astonishing rapidity, they gained the woods before the enemy had recovered from their surprise.

been described is fixed in an instant by means of a catch in the waist-belt, with the flat part of the blade diagonally across his back; and is disengaged as quickly whenever he drops his musquet in the wood, or slings it across his shoulders for the purpose of rushing to close encounter with this terrible instrument. The army of Hyder had not before engaged so brave or so formidable an enemy: their concealed fire from the woods could neither be returned with ef- ON THE JUNGUM. From the same. fect, nor could the troops of Hyder be prevailed on to enter the thickets, and act individually against them. In every movement through the forests, with which the country abounds, bands of Nairs rushed by surprise upon the columns of march; and, after making dreadful havoc, were in a moment again invisible. On one occasion they were so imprudent as to depart from their characteristic warfare, and openly defended the passage of one of those rivers with which the province is everywhere intersected to discharge the mountain torrents. Hyder, by passing a column of cavalry at a higher ford, and combining their charge on the flank of the Nairs with a heavy discharge of grape in front, made a dreadful carnage among them. As he advanced to the southward he secured his communications by a series of block houses; and the Nairs, perceiving the object of these erections, impeded his progress by the defence of their own small posts. One of these, which my manuscripts name Tamelpelly, was surrounded by Hyder in the following manner: first, a line of regular infantry, and guns with an abbatis; second, a line of peons; third, of

From conversation with some intelligent Jungum priests, I learn that they derive the name from a contraction of the three words, junnana, to be born; gummana, to move; murrana, to die. The word jungum thus constantly reminds them of the most important dogma of the sect, namely, that, the man who performs his duties in this world shall be exemptedfrom these changes in a future state of existence, and shall immediately after death be re-united with the divine spirit from which he originally emanated. This doctrine, not altogether unknown to the braminical code, is pushed by the jungum to the extent of denying the metempsychosis altogether. This sect condemns as useless and unmeaning the incessant detail of external ceremonies, which among the bramins of every persuasion occupies the largest portion of their time, and forms the great business of their lives. The jungum disclaim the authority of these gods upon earth, as they impiously and familiarly call themselves. The priests of the jungum are all of the fourth or servile cast, and habitually distinguish the bramins by the opprobrious

opprobrious appellation of dogs; yet, strange to tell, in some districts, by reciprocal concessions, and a coalition of religious dogmas with temporal interests, they have descended to receive as their spiritual preceptors the cast of which they have been successively the martyrs and persecutors, and are consequently considered as heretics or renegadoes by the genuine jungum.

The religion which inculcates what is real, in preference to the observance of form, is, according to this sect, of great antiquity; and they consider Chen Bas Ishwur, a native of Callian in the Deckan, the reputed founder of the sect in the eleventh century, to have been only the restorer of the ancient true belief; and in spite of the most sanguinary persecutions, they are found scattered in considerable numbers over the Concan, Canara, Deckan, Mysoor, and every part of the south of India, and constitute a considerable portion of the population of Coorg, the Raja himself being of that persuasion, as were the former Rajas of Mysoor, Bednore, and Loonda.

The fanciful notions of internal and external purity and uncleanness (the former having a twofold division of bodily and mental) are the foundation of most of the distinction of casts which seem so absurd to Europeans. To the question of what is the difference between such and such a cast, the first answer will certainly be to indicate what they respectively can and cannot eat; but when we consider the plausible dogma not altogether unknown in Europe, that a regular and abstemious life (which they would name the internal purity of the body) contributes to mental

excellence, we may be disposed to judge with more charity of the absurdity of these distinctions. The Jungum priests and the elect among their disciples abstain altogether from animal food; while the Sheneveea bramins of the Concan and the Deckan indulge in fish; and many of Bengal, Hindostan, and Cashmire, eat the flesh of fawn, of mutton, and whatever is slain in sacrifice the bramins of the south abhor these abominations, but the latter at least is distinctly authorized by Menu and all the ancient Smirtis, as the most bigoted are compelled to admit.

In the leading traits of the doctrine of the Jungum which have hitherto been noticed we recognize the hand of a rational reformer. The sequel is not so favourable. The Jungum profess the exclusive worship of Siva; and the appropriate emblem of that deity in its most obscene form, enclosed in a diminutive silver or copper shrine, or temple, is suspended from the neck of every votary as a sort of personal god; and from this circumstance they are usually distinguished by the name of Ling-ayet, or Lingevunt. They profess to consider Siva as the only god; but on the subject of this mode of devotion they are not communicative, and the other sects attribute to them not very decent mysteries. It is however a dogma of general notoriety, that if a Jungum has the mischance to lose his personal god, he ought not to survive that misfortune.

Poornia, the present minister of Mysoor, relates an incident of a Ling-ayet friend of his who had unhappily lost his portable god, and cane to take a last farewell. The Indians, like more enlightened

nations,

« TrướcTiếp tục »