A SNAKE-CHARMER
But there are theosophists who declare that in watching a snake-charmer's tricks we are witnessing manifestations of occult mysteries. "Then is the moon of ripe, green cheese compact." Yet is he connected with the Gods by one article of his equipment. The dauru, a small, hour-glass-shaped drum-rattle of fearsome noisiness (drawn in the fore-front of my sketch), is the badge of all his vagrant tribe, and also of the great God Siva, who bears it slung on his trident in many pictures, and will one day rattle it furiously to usher in the destruction of the world, which will be set afire by the flame of the midmost of his three eyes.
The amphisbæna, because it appears to have two butt ends, is believed by some to have a head at each, while others, with a scientific turn, say that for six months its head is at one end and for other six at the other. And it is universally known as the do mûnhia—two-faced one. The delightful Sir Thomas Browne seems, in his Vulgar Errors, inclined to accept this double-headed serpent, but at last he "craves leave to doubt." The era of doubt is not yet reached in India.
The large lizard, varanus dracæna, which is perfectly innocuous, like all Indian lizards, is called the bis-cobra by some, though the name really belongs, according to others, to a different creature, and is counted highly dangerous, while it is believed to be so strong that Sivaji, the renowned Marathi chief, escaped from a fortress wherein he was confined by being dragged up the wall by one of these creatures, and some say they are habitually used by burglars for this purpose. I used to keep one of these harmless animals, and even while holding it in one hand I have been assured by natives of its vast strength and deadliness. The cry of the small house lizard, a kind of gecko, is unlucky in certain conditions. In Southern India, where lizards are numerous and are perpetually falling from the thatched roofs, there is a marvellously elaborate code of omens drawn from the varying circumstances, the parts of the body, house utensils, etc., upon which they drop. Less attention seems to be paid to lizards in the North, but even there they say, "A lizard has fallen on you, go and bathe."
Crocodiles are occasionally regarded as sacred, one cannot say kept and periodically fed. Muggur pir near Karachi is a pond full of these creatures, which are often fed for the amusement of visitors. There is a legend of a British officer who crossed this pool, using its inhabitants as stepping-stones in his daring passage. In some of the lakes in Rajputana they are cherished and come to the Brahman's call; not one may be visible at first, but there is first a ripple, then a slow, hideous head protrudes, then another, till the water is alive with crocodiles.
Some out-caste river-side tribes are in the habit of eating tortoises and crocodiles. Of one of these castes a current Punjab gibe says the crocodile can smell a Mor when he passes on the river bank, and truly no very delicate nose is necessary for this feat.
General Sir Alex. Cunningham has identified ancient sculptured representations of the tortoise as meant to indicate the river Jumna—an ascription of which modern Hinduism takes no account. Describing sculptures at Udayagiri he writes: "The figures of the Ganges and Jumna are known by the symbolic animals on which they stand—the crocodile and the tortoise. These two representative animals are singularly appropriate, as the Ganges swarms with crocodiles, and the Jumna teems with tortoises. The crocodile is the well-known vâhan or vehicle on which the figure of the Ganges is usually represented; but the identification of the tortoise as the vâhan of the Jumna, though probable, was not certain until I found, amongst the Charonsat Jogini statues in the Bhera Ghât temple, a female figure with a tortoise on the pedestal and the name of Sri Yamuna inscribed beneath." Much graceful and significant symbolism of this nature seems to have been dropped in recent times, and a tortoise is now a tortoise and no more. In a Hindu temple at Volkeshwar, Bombay, they were kept and worshipped within the last thirty years, perhaps even now. They say of low-born people that "their words are like a tortoise's head," to be put forth or withdrawn according to circumstances. But no saying reflects on the infamous tyranny of ages that has made the low-caste man a timid time-server and a sneak.