[91] A sum of money varying, says the Pandit, in different localities in the south of India. In old Chola grants “two pons” occurs.
[92] i.e. “Lion among beasts.”
[93] Setti, or Sethi, is a term applied respectfully to many of the races engaged in trade or financial transactions; to the Zoroastrian Parsí, the Muhammedan Bora, and to Hindús in the north and south of the Madras Presidency, occupied as bankers, merchants and shopkeepers.
[94] A species of weasel, commonly, but incorrectly, written “mungoose,” as though the animal was of the goose kind. The mungús is very expert in killing snakes.
[95] Visvesvara: “Lord of all,” a name of Siva, the third deity of the Hindú triad.
[96] The want of children is doubtless felt more or less keenly by all the races of mankind, but the Hindú is taught to believe that he cannot attain ultimate salvation without leaving a son behind him. The Chinese who hold to their old religion have also a great horror of dying and leaving no male offspring to sacrifice to their manes, and to avoid such a calamity they adopt children when they have none of their own. Among most Asiatic peoples, indeed, a childless wife is generally but most unjustly despised, hence the thousand and one nostrums in which Hindú women vainly put faith in expectation of having their sterility removed. We have four notable instances in the Bible of women bearing famous sons after having been long sterile: Sarah, mother of Isaac, the Hebrew patriarch; Rachel, mother of Joseph, viceroy of Egypt; the wife of Manoah, mother of Samson, the Hercules of the Hebrews; and Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist.—After all, sterile wives may console themselves with the reflection that children are not always an unalloyed blessing!
[97] “The most useful, plentiful, and best fruit,” says Forbes, in his Oriental Memoirs, vol. i, p. 30, “is the mango, which grows abundantly all over Hindústán, even in the forests and hedge-rows, on trees equal in size to a large English oak, but in appearance and foliage more resembling the Spanish chestnut. This valuable fruit varies in shape, colour, and flavour as much as apples do in Europe. The superior kinds are extremely delicious, and in the interior resemble the large yellow peach of Venice, heightened by the flavour of the orange and agana; and so plentiful are mangoes in the hot season throughout most parts of India that during my residence in Guzerat they were sold in the public markets for one rupee the cusly, or 600 lbs. in English weight for half-a-crown. They are a delicacy to the rich, a nutritious food for the poor, who in the mango season require but little other sustenance.”—The skin of the mango is described as being smooth and tough; its colour when ripe is grass green, or yellow in many shades, with occasional tinges and streaks of bright red; the pulp is as juicy as our wall-fruit. The kernel is of a hot and rather offensive flavour, but the poor people collect it, and when dried grind it into flour for bread, which is more wholesome than agreeable. An orchard of mango-trees is a small fortune to the possessor, and when they are in blossom it forms a luxurious resort to the lovers of Nature.—Mrs. Meer Hasan Ali.
[98] “Alas!” says Somadeva, “fickle is the mind of woman!” Again: “A woman desires fresh men, as the humble bee wanders from flower to flower.” And again: “A fickle dame is like a sunset—momentarily aglow for everyone.”
[99] Compare with this the question asked of Jesus Christ by his disciples (John ix, 2): “Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” from which it would appear some of the Jews in those days entertained notions akin to the Hindú (and Pythagorean) doctrine of metempsychosis.
[100] The parrot, of course, was a human being re-born in that form, in accordance with the doctrine of metempsychosis, which is a fundamental article of the Hindú religion.