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142
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JUNE, 1895.
Deyî was carried to one Birmana Baidya. When they made Deyi sit down, she saw the people around her and said :-"O men! I am called by the God; so bring my children!"
She looked well at her children and wept bitterly. "Why do you weep so bitterly ?" asked Parimaļe BallA!.
· Ballal! Ballal! Pour into my mouth water from a pot with tulasi leaves in it. I leave my body here and enter Kailasa," said she. “Hold up the tulasi plant and pour water into my mouth. I will leave my body here and enter Vaikuntha."
Saying this again and again, she left her body and went away to Kailasa. She went to Kailasa first, and then to Vaikuntha. Wood for barning was placed at the burial ground, roango tree before and a jack tree behind, being cat down. Sixty bundles of sandal-wood were put upon Deyi, and she was burnt with oil and ghi. Then her caste people were called and told to appoint a day for her funeral ceremony. The day was appointed. On the third day after her burning, the ashes were gathered, and on the fourteenth day the funeral cerewony was performed.
"Now, take the children to my bidu," said the Balla! (to his servants).
He reared the children, supplying them with food, a mora of rice, and a piece of thick rachade cloth, and of mandiri. He presented them also with a white silk cloth from Bôlûr, & black silk cloth from Kalûr, and a girdle, too. He presented them with coats also. After they began to take their meals at the bidu of the Balla! they waxed fat.
"It is not enongh for us to drink only water, we shonld live in the world like ornamente of gold," said Kôți and Channayya. “It is not enough that we walk round the four sides of a kambula, we must live together with our caste-people. We must go to the wars. We have inquired at Adumanja Kotya about some playmates, and we want to persuade the Ballal to help us in this matter."
Accordingly they indaced him to help them. "A letter is to be sent by a man to our uncle Sayina Baidya at Erajha," said they.
A letter was written to him telling him to start at once, without taking a meal or looking to his dress. The letter was carried to Erajha, where it was read, and when it was read, there wwe found to be written in it, that Sayins should go to the bidu in a ghalige. Sayina went to the bidu in a ghalige, and saluted the Ballal. He sent for the children and said:
"Send these boys to play as happily as they have been reared carefully ap to this time."
So Sayina took them to Erajha. When he left the bidu, it was known to Byar Abbe of the Chavadi, and as the children were leaving the bidu Eilar Abbe saw them. She took off her padumáreke girdle of silver and presented it to them. She brought a hat of parrot-colour for Koţi Baidys, and a hat of the colour of the puda bird for Channayya. She had them dressed in these, and presented them by her own hand with a dagger called Rama Kengude.
“Your food is like that of the Baidya, of Edambar !" said Eppar Abbe, as she blessed them.
“O Sayina ! take the children home! Such children as these have never yet been born, nor will be born hereafter."
He took them to Erajha, and made them sit on a swinging cot hung from a rafter. “We will go to play, uncle," said the children.
“Ah, my children ! Other children of your age cannot even crawl on the ground upon their bellies. The oil and the ghi on your heads are not dry yet, and the smell of birth is still upon yon," said their uncle to them.
"Our mother died at our birth, and so you make reflections on us and are too plain. Send wa to play, or we go, uncle," said they.
