Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 86

78
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
to hoodwink the ghost of the deceased husband, not so much by escaping his notice altogether as by making him think that the ceremony is merely a sham and not a real one22. And even the Bhagavadgita of the Hindus seems to have a magical character, for there we read: 'gitâyâḥ slokadasakam sapta pañca catuştayam
dvau trinekam tadardham vá élokânâm yaḥ pathennaraḥ candralokamavápnoti varṣaṇâmayûtam dhruvam.33
or," He who reads ten, seven, five, four, two, three, one or (even) only one-half a sloka (verse) from the Gîtâ will certainly live for ten thousand years in the lunar heaven."
(To be continued.)
MISCELLANEA.
[APRIL, 1929
SACRIFICE OF TWINS FOR RAIN.
The accompanying note from The Times of 17 August 1928, reporting the case of murder of twins as a rain-charm, might have been sent from India; but it refers to Rhodesia. It exhibits two points commonly observable all over India: the persistence of old custom under British discouragement and the woodenness of the application of British law to a civilisation entirely foreign to the inhabitants of the British Isles.
"Two cases were before the Court here [Bulawayo] to-day [16 August 1928] of natives murdering twins in accordance with native law. It is the belief of the blacks that to kill twins ensures a good rainfall, the process adopted being strangulation with a grass rope, placing the bodies of the victims in a pot, and throwing them into a river.
The parents in these cases are not accused, but the grandparents and a mother-in-law are; one mother, however, said that she did not object. She
had not fed the children since their birth, as it was against native law.
This custom has been followed here for many years. One of the cases before the Court to-day having occurred several years ago, the Judge said it was undesirable to go back too far, or half the natives in the country would be in Court. He passed sentence of death in each case, but expressed the view that it was not likely to be carried out. The custom, he explained, was one which Europeans were seeking to eradicate, but the accused in each case had pleaded that they were unaware that they were committing any criminal act: they were acting according to their law."
R. C. TEMPLE.
husband's first wife would ordinarily be the main object of the spirit's revenge, and that a man not previously married might be attacked himself unless he provides a bogus wife as a substitute.
"An objection to this theory is that the dark half of the month is specially associated with spirits, and that the night is the very time when they return to earth. The mock marriage of a bachelor seems rather to be intended to bring him on the same level with the widow. The Punjab superintendent suggests that the real object in view in selecting the time mentioned for a widow's marriage is to prevent the gods from knowing anything about it; the dead of the night and the dark half of the month are particularly disagreeable to the gods, and all worship is forbidden between midnight and 4 a.m. On the other hand, certain customs exist which support the theory. In the Central Provinces a second wife of the Chitari caste worships the spirit of the dead first wife, offering it some food and a breast cloth, in order to placate it and prevent it from troubling her. In the Punjab, the death of subsequent wives is often believed to be caused by the angry spirit of the first (cf. the German superstition where the ghost of the former wife is said to dance at the second wedding of her husband-A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, p. 216, quoted in A Dictionary of Superstitions and Mythology, p. 212); and for this reason, amongst the Aroras of the western Punjab, the subsequent wife, at the time of her marriage, wears round her neck the picture of the first, or a paper on which her name is written, thus identifying herself with hor predecessor. The Koltas of Sambalpur believe that a bachelor marrying a widow would become an evil spirit after death, if he did not go through a mock marriage of the kind described above.
"The real explanation may be much simpler. Sometimes there is a rule that ordinary marriages must take place during the bright half of the month so that the moon may witness them. As widow marriage is looked down on, the converse rule may simply mean that the ceremony, being of a less reputable character, is one which the moon should not witness."-The italics are my own.
23 See note 21.
23 Srigitámáháimyam, 15 (Srimadbhagavadgita, edited with Commentaries and Notes [in Bengali], by Abinâs Chandra Mukharji, Calcutta, Metcalfe Press, 1319 [Beng. era), p. 414).