Exorcism soon followed in the train of most of these superstitions, and a class of people supposed to be possessed of devils, and called “energumens,” sought out those who professed to drive them away with a magical form of words. The Moslems term all these systems of belief “Kahānah,” or a “causing to tell,” and deem them such as to call for disapproval, as indeed also do most Christians in these days.
BAHADŪR SINGH AND THE BLIND BEGGAR.
There lived once in the Punjaub many years ago an old Seikh soldier who had gained much renown amongst his fellow-countrymen for the many acts of bravery he had shown in the tribal wars that in those days used often to take place between the chieftains of the various independent states thereabout. We all know that the Seikhs belong to a sect whose founder was one “Nanak,” who lived in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and that the word Seikh means in the Sanscrit language a “disciple.”
This old soldier had for his first name the distinguished appellation of “Bahadūr,” which in the Persian language means “brave,” so he was brave by name as well as by nature.
At the time the incident occurred which I am now about to relate to you all, he had retired from active service and had settled down on a small competence for a native, in the village of Shumshabad.
In this village, as indeed may be found in many towns and villages of Upper India, there was a little colony of blind men who subsisted on the alms of the benevolent, and they were generally to be found near the markets or bazaars, or along the thoroughfares leading to them. They had moreover, a little settlement of their own situated on the confines of the town.
One of these blind men at Shumshabad, a wizen-faced, attenuated, old fellow, clad in poor garments, and wearing a “Kummul,” or native blanket, thrown about him, used to sit daily by the wayside begging, and ever in the same spot. This old blind man had the habit of calling out in a piteous tone, “Friends have pity on the blind, and let him only feel and handle a hundred gold mohurs and he will be made happy for ever.”
Now, as few people who passed that way had even one coin of that value, his wish never seemed likely to be gratified, but he made a pile of money for all that, as the sequel of the story will show.
Bahadūr Singh used to hear this plaintive cry almost daily when he went to the Bazaar, and being kind as well as brave, he often thought to himself, I should much like to satisfy that old blind man’s wish, but I suppose I shall never be able to do so, for the little I have scarce supplies my own daily wants; so he contented himself, with others round him, in casting a pice into the blind man’s wallet.