Thomas Lambert Barlow

“ He gazed in amazement for a little, when suddenly, in the hearing of them all, a voice came from the broken ruby, saying, “Now, behold! I have on purpose made myself of no value or service to you! When I was on the donkey’s neck I was in the hands and charge of one who knew not my real value; when, again, I was on the Ferryman’s oar, he was just as ignorant of his treasure; when I came into your hands, who knew well my worth, you estimated my price at five to ten rupees only! Learn, therefore, not to undervalue what is good for a mean and selfish object ”

“ Bahadūr Singh used to hear this plaintive cry almost daily when he went to the Bazaar, and being kind as well as brave, he often thought to himself, I should much like to satisfy that old blind man’s wish, but I suppose I shall never be able to do so, for the little I have scarce supplies my own daily wants; so he contented himself, with others round him, in casting a pice into the blind man’s wallet. ”

“ He had only just time to say to his disciple, “See what you have brought on yourself by your greediness and avarice; and now do as I tell you. When you see me prostrate myself before the King, call out at the top of your voice, ‘No, I will not suffer my holy “Guru” to die for me; I must and will die, so go on with the execution.’ Mind you do this, for I intend as I prostrate myself to offer my life in exchange for yours.” ”

“ He was in quite a whirl of delight, and one might have thought that he would have kept the money and not have disclosed the secret to anyone, but as there were just the very one hundred gold mohurs that by their feeling and handling might make the old blind man of his village happy for ever, the first idea that entered his head was to go straight to the spot where he knew he always asked for alms, to let him run his fingers over them. ”

“ We believe that Hindus are to Mahomedans as horses are to jackasses, and you see, your Majesty, that all the washing and lathering in the world will not make the donkey into a horse, neither can I by any power that I possess transform a Moslem into a Hindu. ”

“ As they were talking and chatting, they heard a great noise in the village, and suddenly they saw a farmer who was being pursued and beaten by his wife. The young men recognised the woman, and at once said to the stranger, “We know the character of that wretched woman; she is worse than ‘Shāitān’ himself.” Whereupon “Shāitān” said, “No! there I cannot agree with you, for how can any woman be more hateful than ‘Shāitān,’ who is the accursed one, and wears on his neck the necklace of evil?” ”

“ The wife had no sooner lost the flower than she became depressed and like a mad thing, and at last told “Sakhi” that she should die unless it could be recovered; so distressed indeed was she, that she quite worried him out of his life. “Sakhi,” one morning when he was at his usual place of prayer by the riverside, thought of the jackal, and he was not long before he made his appearance. He then told him all about the flower, and what misery and suffering it had brought upon his wife since the day she had lost it. ”

“ But he was in a fearful rage, and vowed he would have his revenge, and going by a back way to his hut (for he found he was being pursued) , he reached it unperceived.
Taking down his sword from the wall, he said to himself, “I know the place where the blind men live, and I know too that the old blind villain will be going home about dusk; I will lie in wait for him and cut him down.”
Bahadūr Singh’s heart, however, began to fail him, “for,” said he, “Is he not a blind man?” Yet the feelings of revenge had so worked him up, that he was furious at being so cunningly deceived and robbed. ”

“ Looking at the donkeys the Ferryman came at last to the donkey with the ornament on his neck, and he said to the grain-carrier, “Where did you find this pretty stone?” He told him that he was crossing the bed of a little river and saw it. The Ferryman looked at it again, but he did not know that it was a precious stone, yet he wanted it to decorate one of his oars; so he said to the Donkey-man, “You do not seem to care much for the stone; give it to me, and I will take you and your donkeys across for nothing.” ”

“ The snake to evince its gratitude, vomited from its mouth a small lump of gold, which Indian snake-charmers quite believe that certain snakes can do; and asking “Sakhi” to follow him, he shewed him some wonderful herbs that would cure most of the ills that flesh is heir to, and which no man was yet acquainted with.
SAKHI, THE GENEROUS MOSLEM.
On his return to the well, the jackal expressed his thanks for his deliverance by saying that whenever “Sakhi” was in trouble, if he thought of him, he would come to his relief; “but beware,” he said, “of the man, for he will get you into distress.” ”

“ Where did you put it?” “Here, here,” he said, pulling the stranger to the money corner. “But what a fool you were to keep it there! Why didn’t you do as I always do? When I get enough together to make up a gold mohur I sew it up into my turban.”
Bahadūr Singh, hearing this, at once by a quick and quiet movement reached forward and took off the turban of the stranger and put it aside, whereupon the stranger rushed at the old blind villain and said, “Why did you take my turban off and where is it?” “I didn’t,” he replied. ”

“ Some say he was also a general in the army, and that by his skill he greatly assisted Akbar to extend his dominions. Bīrbal was, however, a Hindu, a Brāhman of the tribe of Bhât, and his real name was Mahes Dās, but so tolerant was “Akbar Badshah” to all religious sects that if a man were wise and skilful he cared not of what faith he might happen to be. Bīrbal was also full of wit and humour, and had such a pleasing way of putting things, that he could talk to the Badshah in a manner that other ministers would not dare to do. ”

“ India is full of it, where the evil spirits are called “Bhût,” and so is Persia, where necromancers examine for marks and signs the blade bone of a newly killed sheep, very much as is done in the art of Palmistry which by marks and signs professes to discover the character of any person from the palm of his hand. ”

“ The view, however, looking from the village has a distinct charm of its own, owing to the wild, mountainous, and well-wooded country which encircles it. Within a few xmiles to its rear are the Hills of “Gundghur,” the highest peak of which is by the natives of the place called “Pir Than,” and is the scene of many of their local legends.
Far away towards the north and west are lofty ranges of mountains, running, as it were, in graduated succession to join the distant line, which is in point of fact but an extreme western extension of the Himalayas. ”

“ In a measure they were right, for the Mahomedan Fakir when he witnessed his ascent, was at his wits’ end to know how to prevail against such a rival. Collecting, however, a few of his own followers around him, he drew out his “Qoran” from its case. Then opening it with great caution and solemnity, he took off the shoe from his right foot, and threw it into the air with all his might. To the bewilderment of all, the shoe did not return, but seemed to go also into the skies whither the Hindu Fakir had gone. The Hindus then raised a cry: “What is a shoe compared to a man! ”

“ A voice is produced by most mammals, birds, and reptiles, by which they make known their wants and feelings; but to speak with the human voice by imitation merely, is given only to birds, and to very few of those. The power of the lower creation to speak and to understand the human language passes, however, through the folk-tales of every country. On the hill Jako, near Simla, it is well known that the Monkeys are fed by a Fakir, who has taken up his abode amongst them, and they come down in troops at his well known call. ”

“ In every shop and market all the goods are of one and the same value: gold, silver, precious stones, wheat, fruit, vegetables, and, indeed, everything that man can wish for and want, can be had for the same sum. ”

“ One day, as the tale goes, two Fakirs, “Kallundars,” or begging monks as they are sometimes called, were on their way to Mecca to perform that pilgrimage which is obligatory on every devout Moslem once in his life, and on their way thither they had to pass through the village in which “Sakhi” resided, so they made up their minds to pay him a visit, and obtain his blessing on their journey.
As they entered the village they accosted the first man they met, and asked him to direct them to the house of the famous “Sakhi.” ”

“ When you reach the summit it is there only that you
drink the love juice, but if you are timid as you rise you are
sure to fall and be dashed to atoms. In Akbar’s reign the followers of a seceder from the strict tenets of Islam, one Pir Roshan, when given to austere devotion, had, it is said, to pass through the several gradations of the external ordinances, or “Sheriat,” viz., reality, or “Hakikat,” true knowledge, or “Marifat,” proximity, or “Kurbut,” union, or “Wasalut,” the Arabic for mediation, and the indwelling in God, or “Sakūnut,” the Arabic for tranquility. ”

“ After feeding their horses and refreshing themselves with a little food the travellers were about to take their leave of the old Fakir, and trust themselves again to their wanderings, when the Fakir said “No! you must not go without protection.” So saying, he gave another whistle, and more “Lungoors” came, and detaching about twenty of them he told them to go before the travellers and to put them on the high road leading to the King’s country, and then slightly raising his voice he said, “And mind you do not go beyond your boundary.” ”

“ Distance and climate do not stand in the way of their conveying grain from one part of the country to the other, and being held in fear by other natives, they are never molested or interfered with. They are gradually dying out, as the traffic in grain is being carried on by other means.
“Faithful Dog.”—Dogs play a prominent part in the Folk-tales of most countries, and in India they have ever been the cherished companions of many tribes. With the Banjāras they are the sentinels of their encampment; as it is so well known they are equally so to the Bedouins in the desert. ”

“ It is the custom of this country that when a person dies in a family, cooked bread is always given away in charity to the poor, for it is supposed to do good to the deceased. Now, I am going to ask you when you hear of my death, only to give cooked bread in charity to those who have never lost a relation. Again, should you ever come to the place of my burial and call out, ‘Secundur, Zulf-kur-Nain,’ I will reply to you from my grave.”
Now the first request was so designed because Alexander knew that his mother could not find a family that had not to mourn some loss or other ”

“ It is also very clear that the Folk-lore of xiva long-established and independent community such as that of Ghazi, or other out-of-the-way village of India, is not to be got at all of a sudden, for it lies deep down in the memories of only a certain few of the people, and these not always willing to impart it unto strangers to their country. ”

“ The natives who dwell in the village are of that mixture of races usually to be found in most of the towns and villages in the “Hazara” district in which Ghazi is situated.
The Head men are Pathans of the “Thar” tribe, commonly called “Thar Kheyles.” They are believed to be the descendants of Afghan soldiers who came into India with the armies of Timur Baber and Nadir Shah.
Then there are two or three divisions of the farmer class known as “Awans,” good soldiers and no better people in all India, and “Ghurkās”—fine, tough men. ”

“ It so happened, however, that one day he unwittingly gave offence to the Badshah, and so enraged did Akbar become that Bīrbal, fearing his wrath, fled the country. Disguising himself as a Fakir, he begged his way from village to village, and at last settled down on the extreme frontier of the Badshah’s empire. ”

“ The seizure of the leg of the Jackal by the Crocodile is common to many folk-tales throughout India, and is an indication of the general groundwork of many Aryan tales.
“Jackal.”—So often described, it is not necessary to do more here than to refer to the fact that they usually hunt in packs. When a jackal is heard to cry without a response, the natives know that he is a lone animal and what they call “Yekaria,” and by some “yeklota,” meaning in Sanscrit “single.” ”

“ The Malays, who are Mahomedans, have the same beliefs as their co-religionists in India, their beneficent spirits being styled Dawā, with supernatural powers.
The Chinese idea of Jinns and Genii, as given by one of their writers, is that they will live upon air, or even give up breathing the outer air, and carry on the process of breathing inwardly, as they say, for days together as in a catalepsy (like an Indian Fakir) . They will become invisible; they will take the form of any bird, beast, fish or insect; they will mount up above the clouds ”

“ If you ask a shepherd why he grazes goats and sheep together, he replies that but for the nimble goats he would never get the sheep along. When a murrain breaks out amongst the goats, which it sometimes does, there is a class of men called “Unga” who inoculate the healthy goats behind the ear with a portion of the caul of the liver of one diseased, and this has the effect generally of stopping the spread of the disease. ”

“ Those who take up purely financial matters are astute men of business; lending money at exhorbitant rates of interest they get many of the farmers into complete subjection to them. They are wise enough to keep in with the people generally, and often build masonry tanks and dig wells for general use. Sometimes in the very hot weather they will employ a high caste Brahmin to provide drinking water to passing travellers, and will keep them in their pay for a whole hot season. ”

“ So spit them out; they are bitter, “Tanks.”—In the Persian the word is “Talâb,” and in the original in Punjabi it is “Surr,” a Sanscrit word signifying a large pond or tank. A small tank in Punjabi is called a “Bunni.”
There is hardly a tank in India that is not more or less associated in the minds of the people with some legend, and many are held sacred to one or other of their titulary gods and goddesses.
Some tanks are supposed to contain treasure which is reserved under the custody of a Yaksha, or sprite.
—Crooke. ”