PUNCHKIN.
Page [27].—The Rajah’s seven daughters, taking it by turns to cook their father’s dinner, would be nothing unusual in the household of a Rajah. To a chief or great man in India, it is still the most natural precaution he can take against poison to eat nothing but what has been prepared by his wife or daughter, or under their eye in his own zenana; and there are few accomplishments on which an Indian princess prides herself more than on her skill in cookery.
RAMA AND LUXMAN.
Page [107].—The little black and white owls, which fly out at dusk and sit always in pairs, chattering to each other in a singularly conversational version of owl language, are among the most widely-spread of Indian birds, and in every province where they are found are regarded as the most accomplished of soothsayers. Unlike other ominous creatures, they are anxious to do good to mankind, for they always tell each other what the traveler ought to do, and, if mankind were not so dull in understanding their language, would save the hearer from all risk of misfortune.
LITTLE SURYA BAI.
Page [118].—The sangfroid with which the first Ranee, here and in the story of Panch-Phul Ranee, page 164, receives the second and more favored wife to share her throne, however difficult to understand in the West, is very characteristic of Oriental life. In Indian households of the highest rank it would not be difficult to find examples of several wives living amicably together, as described in some of these stories; but the contrary result, as depicted in this story of Surya Bai and others, is far more common, for as a general rule human nature is too strong for custom, and under an external serenity bitter jealousies exist between the several wives of a royal Hindoo household, which are a constant source of misery and crime. Among the curious changes of opinion which are observable of late years in the Indian empire, none is more remarkable than the conviction, now frequently expressed by the warmest supporters of native governments at native courts, that the toleration of polygamy is one of their most serious dangers, the removal of which is of vital importance to the safety of any Indian dynasty, and indeed to the permanence of any Indian family of rank.
THE WANDERINGS OF VICRAM MAHARAJAH.
Page [131].—The Dipmal, or Tower of Lights, is an essential feature in every large Hindoo temple. It is often of great height, and furnished with niches or brackets, each of which holds a lamp on festivals, especially on that of the Dewali, the feast of lamps celebrated in the autumn in honor of the Hindoo goddess Bowani or Kali, who was formerly propitiated on that occasion by human sacrifices.
Page [132].—The story of Vicram’s act of devotion is thoroughly Hindoo. It is difficult to understand the universal prevalence and strength of the conviction among Hindoos that the particular god of their adoration can be prevailed on, by importunity or self-devotion, to reveal to his worshiper some act, generally ascetic or sacrificial, the performance of which will insure to the devotee the realization of the object of his wishes. The act of devotion and the object of the devotee are both often very trivial; but occasionally we are startled by hearing of some deed of horror, a human sacrifice or deliberate act of self-immolation, which is quite unaccountable to those who are not aware that it is only a somewhat extreme manifestation of a belief which still influences the daily conduct of the great majority of the Hindoos.
And even those who have known the Hindoos long and intimately frequently fail to recognize the extent to which this belief influences the ethics of common life and action in India. To quote an instance from well-known history, there are few acts regarding which a European traveler would expect the verdict of all mankind to be more generally condemnatory than the murder of Afzul Khan, the general of the Imperial Delhi army, by Sivajee, the founder of the Mahratta empire. Sivajee, according to the well-known story, had invited his victim to an amicable conference, and there stabbed him with a wag nuck[109] as they embraced at their first meeting. It was a deed of such deliberate and cruel treachery that it could find few defenders in Europe, even among the wildest advocates of political assassination. A European is consequently little prepared to find it regarded by Mahrattas generally as a most commendable act of devotion. The Hindoo conscience condemns murder and treachery as emphatically as the European; but this act, as viewed by the old-fashioned Mahratta, was a sacrifice prescribed by direct revelation of the terrible goddess Bowani to her faithful devotee. It was therefore highly meritorious, and the beautiful Genoese blade which Sivajee always wore, and with which his victim was finally despatched, was, down to our own days, provided with a little temple of its own in the palace of his descendants, and annually worshiped by them and their household—not as a mere act of veneration for their ancestor’s trusty sword, but because it was the chosen instrument of a great sacrifice, and “no doubt,” as the attendant who watched it used to say, “some of the spirit of Bowani,” whose name it bore, “must still reside in it.”