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OF THE HINDUS.
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whilst inferior faculties may be obtained by even a six month's practice.
There are few Jogis, however, who lay claim to perfection, and their pretensions are usually confined to a partial command over their physical and mental faculties. These are evinced in the performance of low mummeries or juggling tricks, which cheat the vulgar into a belief of their powers. A common mode of display is by waving a Chaurí, or bunch of peacock's feathers, over a sick or new-born infant, to cure it of any morbid affection or guard it against the evil eye. A trick of loftier pretence has of late attracted some notice in the person of a Brahman at Madras, who, by some ingenious contrivance, appeared to sit in the air, and who boasted of being able to remain for a considerable period under water. He and his followers ascribed the possession of these faculties to his successful practice of the obvervances of the Yoga'.
in the practice of the Yoga, the Yogi becomes perfect after a year: of this there is do doubt.” Hatha Pradipa.
1 "Sitting in the Air. - An exhibition at Madras has excited considerable curiosity. A Brahmin, old and slightly made, represented to be of high caste, contrives to poise himself in a most extraordinary manner in the air. He performs this feat at any gentleman's house, not for money, but as an act of courtesy. The following is a description from an eye-witness, given in a Calcutta paper:-- "The only apparatus seen is a piece of plank, which, with four pegs, he forms into a kind of long stool; upon this, in a little brass saucer or socket, he places, in a perpendicular position, a hollow bamboo, over which he puts a kind
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