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APPENDIX.
197
is supposed to be the declaration of the god, and he accordingly speaks in the first person, as if he were the god. All this is done generally without any apparent inward emotion or outward agitation; but, on some occasions, his countenance becomes fierce, and as it were inflamed, and his whole frame agitated with inward feeling ; he is seized with an universal trembling, the perspiration breaks out on his forehead, and his lips turning black are convulsed; at length tears start in floods from his eyes, his breast heaves with great emotion, and his utterance is choked. These symptoms gradually subside. Before this paroxysm comes on, and after it is over, he often eats as much as four hungry men under other circumstances could devour.'”
Commenting upon this instance, Prof. T. H. Huxley observes :
“The phenomena thus described, in language which, to any one who is familiar with the manifestations of abnormal mental states among ourselves, bears the stamp of fidelity, furnish a most instructive commentary upon the story of the wise woman of Endor. As in the latter, we have the possession by the spirit or soul,
.... the strange voice, the speaking in the first person. Unfortunately nothing (beyond the loud cry) is mentioned as to the state of the wise woman of Endor. But what we learn from other sources (e. g. 1 Sam. X. 20-24) respecting the physical concomitants of inspiration among the old Israelites has its exact equivalent in this and other accounts of Polynesian Prophetism."
Similar sights can be witnessed by any one at the tomb of Miran Sahib at Amroha in India, and even an ordinary syânâ (medium) can manage to 'turn up' something in this line without much trouble.
As stated above, this is not an instance of revelation, but of 'possession' by an idea.
The true characteristics of revelation are mentioned in the Ratna Karanda Shravakâchâra, and may be briefly described as follows:
(i) it should proceed from an omniscient tirthamkara;
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