Birds: The Crow.
Passing on to birds, the crow is a famous totem or sacred bird.[118] It personifies in Indian tradition the soul of the dead man; hence, to give food to the crows, known in Northern India as Kâgaur, is equivalent to offering food to the Manes. Râma in the Râmâyana orders Sîtâ to make this offering, and Yama, in reward for its services, conceded to it the right of eating the funeral meats, for which reason the souls of the dead, when this food is given to the crows, are enabled to pass into a better world. Hence the bird is known as Balipushta or “nourished by offerings,” and Balibhuj or “devourer of oblations.”[119]
In the Mahâbhârata, the son of Drona, one of the few survivors of the Kauravas, sees an owl killing the crows on a sacred fig tree, and this suggests to him the idea of attacking the camp of the Pândavas. This contest of the owl and the crow forms the subject of one of the tales of Somadeva.[120] The incident of the wicked crow, which bit the foot of Sîtâ, is related in the Râmâyana. The Bhâtus of Central India, a class of migratory athletes, worship Nârâyana and the bamboo, with which all their feats are performed. When they bury their dead they place rice and oil at the head of the grave, and stand near to worship whatever animal comes to eat the offerings. They draw the happiest omen of the state of the departed from crows visiting the spot.[121]
In the Garuda Purâna a tale is told of a wicked hunter who was killed by a tiger in the depths of the forest, and his ghost became a troublesome Bhût, until one day a crow carried off one of the bones and dropped it into the Ganges, when the sinner was at once carried in a heavenly chariot to the mansions of the blessed. This legend is localized in the Hills and tells how Karma Sarma was killed by a tiger in the forest. A crow took up one of his bones and carried it to the shrine at Tungkshetra, and such is the virtue of the soil there that the hunter was at once carried off to the heaven of Indra.[122]
Bhusundi is the legendary crow of the battlefield, who drinks the blood of the slain. He had more blood than he could drink in the wars of the two Asuras, Sumbha and Nisumbha, who contended with the gods. He just quenched his thirst in the wars of Râma, but broke his beak against the hard, dry ground, which had soaked in the small amount of blood shed by the comparatively degenerate heroes of the Mahâbhârata. He now croaks over the armies as they go out to war, and looks for some Armageddon, when his thirst will at last be satisfied.
Manifold are the ideas about crows and omens taken from their appearance and cawing. Some people think a crow has only one eye, which he shifts from one cavity to the other as he finds it convenient. In the Panjâb, if a crow picks up a woman’s handkerchief and then drops it, she will not use it, but gives it to a beggar.[123] The brains of a crow are a specific against old age, but the cawing of a crow is ominous at the beginning of a journey. If a crow hops and caws on the roof a guest may be expected. Musalmâns have both fear and respect for the crow, because it was he showed Cain how to bury Abel.
The Hand of Glory.
It is a common belief in Europe that the Hand of Glory, or the dried-up hand of a criminal who has been executed, is a powerful charm for thieves. In Ireland, “if a candle is placed in a dead hand, neither wind nor water can extinguish it, and if carried into a house, the inmates will sleep the sleep of the dead as long as it remains under the roof, and no power on earth can wake them as long as the dead hand holds the candle.” The hand of a dead man is also used to stir the milk when butter will not form.[124] So, in Northern India, thieves have a superstition that the ashes of a corpse will, if sprinkled by the door of a house, prevent the inmates from awaking during the commission of a burglary. The Hand of Glory, according to Sir G. Cox, is “the light flashing from the dim and dusky storm-cloud,”[125] but this can hardly, with the utmost ingenuity, be invoked to explain the similar usage of Indian burglars, who carry about with them the stick out of a crow’s nest, the Gad kî Lakrî, which opens locks and holds the household spell-bound. The Indian thief, like his English brother, by the way, often carries about a piece of charcoal as a charm in his operations.