DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.641#0171
164 THE HINDOO MYTHOLOGY.
and, without making the lsast provision for me, has left me
to crouch and fawn for, a handful of rice. When waiting
upon him in his last moments he did not say, ' I leave you
this or that; you will not be destitute:' but, shutting up
my food and garments, he has thus abandoned me. He !
he was my greatest enemy. If I meet him in a future state,
I'll certainly revenge myself. Instead of putting fire into
his mouth after death, if I had known that he would have
served me thus, I would have put fire in his mouth while
living. I entreat the gods, that in the next birth I may be
a man, and he my wife, and that I may bring upon him
exactly what he has brought upon me; and that this may
be continued through numerous births. Vile enemy------.'
Continuing her address to a married woman, she says:—
' See! you have two meals a day, while I have but one;
you have all manner of ornaments, and I am naked; you
are invited to all the feasts d; you can eat of all kinds of
delicacies, but I must live on the meanest food; I must
fast twice a monthe 5—there is no end of my sorrows.'
If a person die an untimely death, it is attributed to
crimes committed in a former state of existence. A person
born blind, is supposed to have destroyed the eyes of some
one in a former birth. A few neighbours sitting together,
as a person afflicted with an incurable distemper passes
along, observe, ' Ah! no doubt, that man was guilty in
a former birth of such or such a crime, and now the con-
sequences appear in his present state.'
J A widow can take no share in marriage ceremonies, &c. She is not
even permitted to touch the bride.
0 This fast is kept by widows on the eleventh of the increase and de-
crease of the moon in every month; and is observed so strictly among
the higher casts, that notwithstanding a widow has eaten only once on
the preceding day, she does not touch the least aliment, not even a drop
of water, on this day.
and, without making the lsast provision for me, has left me
to crouch and fawn for, a handful of rice. When waiting
upon him in his last moments he did not say, ' I leave you
this or that; you will not be destitute:' but, shutting up
my food and garments, he has thus abandoned me. He !
he was my greatest enemy. If I meet him in a future state,
I'll certainly revenge myself. Instead of putting fire into
his mouth after death, if I had known that he would have
served me thus, I would have put fire in his mouth while
living. I entreat the gods, that in the next birth I may be
a man, and he my wife, and that I may bring upon him
exactly what he has brought upon me; and that this may
be continued through numerous births. Vile enemy------.'
Continuing her address to a married woman, she says:—
' See! you have two meals a day, while I have but one;
you have all manner of ornaments, and I am naked; you
are invited to all the feasts d; you can eat of all kinds of
delicacies, but I must live on the meanest food; I must
fast twice a monthe 5—there is no end of my sorrows.'
If a person die an untimely death, it is attributed to
crimes committed in a former state of existence. A person
born blind, is supposed to have destroyed the eyes of some
one in a former birth. A few neighbours sitting together,
as a person afflicted with an incurable distemper passes
along, observe, ' Ah! no doubt, that man was guilty in
a former birth of such or such a crime, and now the con-
sequences appear in his present state.'
J A widow can take no share in marriage ceremonies, &c. She is not
even permitted to touch the bride.
0 This fast is kept by widows on the eleventh of the increase and de-
crease of the moon in every month; and is observed so strictly among
the higher casts, that notwithstanding a widow has eaten only once on
the preceding day, she does not touch the least aliment, not even a drop
of water, on this day.