Indian Antiquary Vol 51

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 351

JULY, 1922]
HIR AND RANJHA
CHAPTER 23.
(Ranjha meets Hir.) And Sehti replied: " Jogi if you have all these powers, perhaps you can cure our bride Hir. Every day she is getting weaker."
And Ranjha replied: "Sehti, beguile me not with vain words. Bring your bride here that I may see her and inspect the colour of her eyes and face. I will see her veins and feel her pulse. Then I will prescribe & remedy. But she must tell me when the disease began and tell me the taste in her mouth. Through the blessing of my Pir and teacher, I can tell the names of all diseases. I can whisper the call to prayer in the ears of a newly-born babe. I can weave spells and put children to sleep with lollabies. I can dry up the womb of women and slay liars, adulterers and infidels. With cunning oils and potent herbs I can cure pains and paralysis and the eighteen kinds of leprosy. With the spleen of a roasted goat I can oure blindness. With boiled Ghaghar herbe I can bring about miscarriage. I can make a perfect cure of a barren woman by letting out blood from her ankle vein. I can assuage the pain of wounds with an ointment of soap and soda. If a man has toothache I can pluck out his tooth with my pinoers. Those who cannot see in the dark, I can restore to sight by giving them hot roasted oil-seeds. I can cure & withered arm or a benumbed leg by rabbing in oil of a pelican. If a man is attacked by epilepsy, I apply the leather of my shoe to his nostril. If a man's face is awry, I show him the looking-glass of Aleppo and he is cured. I cure stomach-ache with the milk of a she-camel. With cooling draughts of Dhannia, I can assuage the fires of passion. When a man is at the point of death and gasping with his last breath, I put honey and milk in his mouth. At his last hour, when the expiring life sticks fast in the gullet of the dying man, I recite the Holy Koran and his soul passes away in peace. But you must tell me what disease your bride has got or else all your talk will be vain and all my spells and power will be of no avail. Also, my beautiful one, you should not be proud of your beauty or hold your head so high, for what cares & Fakir for your beauty or for your beautiful sister-in-law Hir? Your Hir is a crane and she has been mated to an owl. Your fairy has been yoked to an ass. Like to like. You should not mate a high-bred Arab mare to an ass."
About this time Hîr came into the courtyard and from one of the inner chambers she overheard the words of the Jogi. And she wondered who the speaker might be and she said to herself: "He calls me a docile mare and the Khera an ass. Perhaps he will sympathise with me. Perhaps God has sent my cowherd back. Perhaps he has obeyed my word and got his ears bored. Who else can speak in such dark riddles. The girls bint mysteriously, he is a Jogi, but perhaps he is my king Ranjha. Nobody but Ranjha could know my name. I will stand up to him and answer him face to face."
And Hir said to the Jogi : “Jogi, go away from here. Those who are unhappy cannot laugh. Why should one disclose the secrets of one's heart to Jogis, strangers and fools ?”
The Jogi replied to Hir: “We are the perfect Fakir of God. Ask anything from us, fair beauty, and we can bring it about. If a lover parts from his beloved one, with spells of magic numbers we can unite them. We can reconcile friends who have fallen out. We can cure all pain and disease and avert the onslaught of calamity. Do not be obstinate but give alms to a poor fakir."