The following is from the British Medical Journal, April 26, 1884, p. 844:—
“PREMATURE INTERMENT.
“The Times of India, for March 21, has the following story:—On last Friday morning the family of a Goanese, named Manuel, aged seventy years, who had been for the last four months suffering from dysentery, thinking that he was dead, made preparations for his funeral. He was placed in a coffin and taken from his house, at Worlee, to a chapel at Lower Mahim, preparatory to burial. The priest, on putting his hand on the man’s chest, found his heart still beating. He was thereupon removed to the Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Hospital, where he remained in an unconscious state up to a late hour on last Friday night, when he died.”
In a communication to the author from Mr. Nasarvariji F. Billimoria, dated March 14, 1896, the writer says that, where cases of premature burning have occurred in India, the relatives are unwilling to have the facts published, and shrink from making them known. Moreover, when members of a family once declared dead have been rejected by their friends in the land of shadows, and have returned to this life, they are believed to bring misfortune with them, and discredit is attached to the families in consequence. Mr. Billimoria says the following cases can be relied upon as authentic:—
“In the year 18—, in the town of B——, a Marwari was taken as dead and carried to the cremation ground. Unfortunately, at that time a superstition was prevalent among all classes of Indians that, if a dead one is brought back to his or her house, a plague would break out in the town. When, therefore, the Marwari survived, instead of bringing him back to the house, or even allowing him to roam elsewhere, he was killed, it is said, by a hatchet, which they were in the habit of carrying with them to break the fuel for the funeral pyre. This had happened in the old Gaekwari days when Governments did not interfere in the superstitious customs of the people.”
Fortunately, however, those days are gone, and with them the old superstitions. Some time ago a fisherwoman, after taking a liberal dose of alcoholic drink and opium, was found (apparently) dead by her relatives—low-caste Hindus. No time is lost among the Hindus, high or low caste, to remove the body to the cremation ground after a man is found dead.
“A bamboo bier was being prepared to carry the fisherwoman to the Samashân (cremation ground), upon which the body was laid as usual, and the relatives were to lift it to their shoulders: when, lo! the woman turned herself on the bier on her side, and, thanks to the good sense of the fishermen, she is still enjoying her life while I am writing.
HASTY CREMATION.
“A young daughter of a Bania was sick for a long time, and was found apparently dead by her relatives, and carried to the Samashân. These grounds are generally situated at a river side. When the bier was prepared for certain ceremonies, the girl showed signs of revival, and, one by one, the relatives would go near the bier, bend down, stare at the face, and retire aghast. Information had reached the town that the girl had survived; but the body, nevertheless, was cremated, and never brought back to the house. It is believed that in this case, although the girl had revived for a little time, she had died soon afterwards, as she had been ill for a long time previously. Granting that it was a case in which the dying became actively conscious a few minutes before real death, it is certain that great and indecent haste was practised by the relatives in pressing on the cremation, as is the usual mode in India.”
The Bombay Guardian, January 11, 1896, under the head of “The Week’s News,” announced that—