Creatures of the Night (Boxed Set Edition). Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

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      112. [ Properly speaking, the husbandman should plough with not fewer than four bullocks; but few can afford this. If he plough with a cow or a bullock, and not with a bull, the rice produced by his ground is unclean, and may not be used in any religious ceremony.]

      113. [ A shout of triumph, like our “Huzza” or “Hurrah!” of late degraded into “Hooray.” “Hari bol” is of course religious, meaning “Call upon Hari!” i.e. Krishna, i.e. Vishnu.]

      114. [ This form of suicide is one of those recognized in India. So in Europe we read of fanatics who, with a suicidal ingenuity, have succeeded in crucifying themselves.]

      115. [ The river of Jaganath in Orissa; it shares the honours of sanctity with some twenty-nine others, and in the lower regions it represents the classical Styx.]

      116. [ Cupid. His wife Rati is the spring personified. The Hindu poets always unite love and spring, and perhaps physiologically they are correct.]

      117. [ An incarnation of the third person of the Hindu Triad, or Triumvirate, Shiva the God of Destruction, the Indian Bacchus. The image has five faces, and each face has three eyes. In Bengal it is found in many villages, and the women warn their children not to touch it on pain of being killed.]

      118. [ A village Brahman on stated occasions receives fees from all the villagers.]

      119. [ The land of Greece.]

      120. [ Savans, professors. So in the old saying, “Hanta, Pandit Sansara “—Alas! the world is learned! This a little antedates the well-known schoolmaster.]

      121. [ Children are commonly sent to school at the age of five. Girls are not taught to read, under the common idea that they will become widows if they do.]

      122. [ Meaning the place of reading the four Shastras.]

      123. [ A certain goddess who plays tricks with mankind. If a son when grown up act differently from what his parents did, people say that he has been changed in the womb.]

      124. [ Shani is the planet Saturn, which has an exceedingly baleful influence in India as elsewhere.]

      125. [ The Eleatic or Materialistic school of Hindu philosophy, which agrees to explode an intelligent separate First Cause.]

      126. [ The writings of this school give an excellent view of the “progressive system,” which has popularly been asserted to be a modern idea. But Hindu philosophy seems to have exhausted every fancy that can spring from the brain of man.]

      127. [ Tama is the natural state of matter, Raja is passion acting upon nature, and Satwa is excellence These are the three gunas or qualities of matter.]

      128. [ Spiritual preceptors and learned men.]

      129. [ Under certain limitations, gambling is allowed by Hindu law and the winner has power over the person and property of the loser. No “debts of honour” in Hindustan!]

      130. [ Quotations from standard works on Hindu criminal law, which in some points at least is almost as absurd as our civilized codes.]

      131. [ Hindus carry their money tied up in a kind of sheet which is wound round the waist and thrown over the shoulder.]

      132. [ A thieves’ manual in the Sanskrit tongue; it aspires to the dignity of a “Scripture.”]

      133. [ All sounds, say the Hindus, are of similar origin, and they do not die; if they did, they could not be remembered.]

      134. [ Gold pieces.]

      135. [ These are the qualifications specified by Hindu classical authorities as necessary to make a distinguished thief.]

      136. [ Every Hindu is in a manner born to a certain line of life, virtuous or vicious, honest or dishonest and his Dharma, or religious duty, consists in conforming to the practice and the worship of his profession. The “Thug,” for instance, worships Bhawani, who enables him to murder successfully; and his remorse would arise from neglecting to murder.]

      137. [ Hindu law sensibly punishes, in theory at least, for the same offence the priest more severely than the layman—a hint for him to practice what he preaches.]

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