[1812.—Morier (Journey through Persia, 32) describes similar proceedings by a Dervish at Bushire.]
1819.—"It is this which is called tukaza[[108]] by the Mahrattas.... If a man have demand from (? upon) his inferior or equal, he places him under restraint, prevents his leaving his house or eating, and even compels him to sit in the sun until he comes to some accommodation. If the debtor were a superior, the creditor had first recourse to supplications and appeals to the honour and sense of shame of the other party; he laid himself on his threshold, threw himself in his road, clamoured before his door, or he employed others to do this for him; he would even sit down and fast before the debtor's door, during which time the other was compelled to fast also; or he would appeal to the gods, and invoke their curses upon the person by whom he was injured."—Elphinstone, in Life, ii. 87.
1837.[[109]]—"Whoever voluntarily causes or attempts to cause any person to do anything which that person is not legally bound to do ... by inducing ... that person to believe that he ... will become ... by some act of the offender, an object of the divine displeasure if he does not do the thing ... shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.
Illustrations.
"(a) A. sits dhurna at Z.'s door with the intention of causing it to be believed that by so sitting he renders Z. an object of divine displeasure. A. has committed the offence defined in this section.
"(b) A. threatens Z. that unless Z. performs a certain act A. will kill one of A.'s own children, under such circumstances that the killing would be believed to render Z. an object of the divine displeasure. A. has committed the offence described in this section."—Indian Penal Code, 508, in Chap. XXII., Criminal Intimidation, Insult, and Annoyance.
1875.—"If you have a legal claim against a man of a certain rank and you are desirous of compelling him to discharge it, the Senchus Mor tells you 'to fast upon him.'... The institution is unquestionably identical with one widely diffused throughout the East, which is called by the Hindoos 'sitting dharna.' It consists in sitting at the debtor's door and starving yourself till he pays. From the English point of view the practice has always been considered barbarous and immoral, and the Indian Penal Code expressly forbids it. It suggests, however, the question—what would follow if the debtor simply allowed the creditor to starve? Undoubtedly the Hindoo supposes that some supernatural penalty would follow; indeed, he generally gives definiteness to it by retaining a Brahmin to starve himself vicariously, and no Hindoo doubts what would come of causing a Brahmin's death."—Maine, Hist. of Early Institutions, 40. See also 297-304.
1885.—"One of the most curious practices in India is that still followed in the native states by a Brahman creditor to compel payment of his debt, and called in Hindi dharná, and in Sanskrit ācharita, 'customary proceeding,' or Prāyopaveçana, 'sitting down to die by hunger.' This procedure has long since been identified with the practice of 'fasting upon' (troscud for) a debtor to God or man, which is so frequently mentioned in the Irish so-called Brehon Laws.... In a MS. in the Bodleian ... there is a Middle-Irish legend which tells how St. Patrick 'fasted upon' Loegaire, the unbelieving over-king of Ireland. Loegaire's pious queen declares that she will not eat anything while Patrick is fasting. Her son Enna seeks for food. 'It is not fitting for thee,' says his mother, 'to eat food while Patrick is fasting upon you.'... It would seem from this story that in Ireland the wife and children of the debtor, and, a fortiori, the debtor himself, had to fast so long as the creditor fasted."—Letter from Mr. Whitley Stokes, in Academy, Sept. 12th.
A striking story is told in Forbes's Rās Māla (ii. 393 seq.; [ed. 1878, p. 657]) of a farther proceeding following upon an unsuccessful dharnā, put in practice by a company of Chārans, or bards, in Kathiawāṛ, to enforce payment of a debt by a chief of Jailā to one of their number. After fasting three days in vain, they proceeded from dharnā to the further rite of [trāgā] (q.v.). Some hacked their own arms; others decapitated three old women of their party, and hung their heads up as a garland at the gate. Certain of the women cut off their own breasts. The bards also pierced the throats of four of the older men with spikes, and took two young girls and dashed their brains out against the town-gate. Finally the Chāran creditor soaked his quilted clothes in oil, and set fire to himself. As he burned to death he cried out, 'I am now dying, but I will become a headless ghost (Kavīs) in the Palace, and will take the chief's life, and cut off his posterity!'
DIAMOND HARBOUR, n.p. An anchorage in the Hoogly below Calcutta, 30 m. by road, and 41 by river. It was the usual anchorage of the old Indiamen in the mercantile days of the E. I. Company. In the oldest charts we find the "Diamond Sand," on the western side of what is now called Diamond Harbour, and on some later charts, Diamond Point.