We have already met with the Kalasa or sacred jar. The same idea of the pollution of earthen vessels prevailed among the Hebrews, when an earthen vessel remaining in a tent in which a person died was considered impure for seven days.[210]
Funeral Rites in Effigy.
When a person dies at a distance from home, and it is impossible to perform the funeral rites over the body, it is cremated in effigy. The special term for this is Kusa-putra, or “son of the Kusa grass.” Colonel Tod gives a case of this when Râja Ummeda of Bûndi abdicated: “An image of the prince was made, and a pyre was erected on which it was consumed. The hair and whiskers of Ajît, his successor, were taken off and offered to the Manes; lamentations and wailing were heard in the Queen’s apartments, and the twelve days of mourning were held as if Ummeda had really deceased; on the expiration of which the installation of his successor took place.”[211]
Ghosts Lengthening Themselves.
Ghosts, as we have already seen in the case of the Naugaza, have the power of changing their length. In the well-known tale in the Arabian Nights the demon is shut up in a jar under the seal of the Lord Solomon, as in one of the German tales the Devil is shut up in a crevice in a pine tree, and the ghost of Major Weir of Edinburgh resided in his walking-stick.[212] Some of the Indian ghosts, like the Ifrît of the Arabian Nights, can grow to the length of ten yojanas or eighty miles. In one of the Bengal tales a ghost is identified because she can stretch out her hands several yards for a vessel.[213] Some ghosts possess the very dangerous power of entering human corpses, like the Vetâla, and swelling to an enormous size. The Kharwârs of Mirzapur have a wild legend, which tells how long ago an unmarried girl of the tribe died, and was being cremated. While the relations were collecting wood for the pyre, a ghost entered the corpse, but the friends managed to expel him. Since then great care is taken not to leave the bodies of women unwatched. So, in the Panjâb, when a great person is cremated the bones and ashes are carefully watched till the fourth day, to prevent a magician interfering with them. If he has a chance, he can restore the deceased to life, and ever after retain him under his influence. This is the origin of the custom in Great Britain of waking the dead, a practice which “most probably originated from a silly superstition as to the danger of a corpse being carried off by some of the agents of the invisible world, or exposed to the ominous liberties of brute animals.”[214] But in India it is considered the best course, if the corpse cannot be immediately disposed of, to measure it carefully, and then no malignant Bhût can occupy it. We have already met with instances of a similar idea of the mystic effect supposed to follow on measuring or weighing grain.
Kindly Ghosts.
Most of the ghosts whom we have been as yet considering are malignant. There are, however, others which are friendly. Such are the German Elves, the Robin Goodfellow, Puck, Brownie and the Cauld Lad of Hilton of England, the Glashan of the Isle of Man, the Phouka or Leprehaun of Ireland. Such, in one of his many forms, is the Brahmadaitya, or ghost of a Brâhman who has died unmarried. In Bengal he is believed to be more neat and less mischievous than other ghosts; the Bhûts carry him in a palanquin, he wears wooden sandals, lives in a Banyan or Bel tree, and Sankhachûrnî is his mistress. He appears to be about the only respectable bachelor ghost. In one of the folk-tales a ghostly reaper of this class assists his human friend, and can cut as much of the crop in a minute as an ordinary person can in a day.[215] So, the Manx Brownie is called the Fenodyree, and he is described as a hairy, clumsy fellow who would thresh a whole barnful of corn in a single night for the people to whom he felt well disposed.[216] This Brahmadaitya is the leader of the other ghosts in virtue of his respectable origin; he lives in a tree, and, unlike other varieties of Bhûts, does not eat all kinds of food, but only such as are considered ceremonially pure. He never, like common Bhûts, frightens men, but is harmless and quiet, never plaguing benighted travellers, nor entering into the bodies of living men or women, but if his dignity be insulted, or any one trespass on his domains, he wrings their necks.