Daksha

“ We know of Daksha, first as the son of Brahmâ, the creative Prajâpati when the life-process rapidly worked itself out in Elemental forms. Then there was no sexual procreation. Creation meant the materialisation of the Jiva. Satî, the daughter of Daksha, was the guiding energy of life-evolution. She became wedded to Śiva, the Lord of Bhûtas, Pretas and Pisâchas who by the infusion of their Tâmasic energies could bring down Jivas from their high spiritual plane. ”

“ In days of yore, the Self-born Brahman commanded the Rishi Daksha, saying,—'Do thou create living creatures!' From desire of doing good to creatures, Daksha, in the first instance, created food. Even as the deities exist, depending upon nectar, all living creatures, O puissant one, live depending upon the sustenance assigned by Daksha. Among all objects mobile and immobile, the mobile are superior. Among mobile creatures Brahmanas are superior. The sacrifices are all established upon them. It is by sacrifice that Soma (nectar) is got. Sacrifice has been established upon kine. ”

“ If ever there were a girl who, in the nature of things was a typical American, it was Ethelbert Daksha, with the race-drift 6of Europe, Asia and Africa in her individual veins, as our nation carries it in its aggregated citizenship. ”

“ Therefore, Daksha's sacrifice to the Gods is shown to have been interfered with by Shiva—the Destroying Deity, Evolution and Progress personified, who is the Regenerator at the same time; who destroys things under one form but to recall them to life [pg 193] under another more perfect type. Shiva-Rudra creates the terrible Vîrabhadra, born of his breath, the “thousand-headed, thousand-armed” monster, and commissions him to destroy the sacrifice prepared by Daksha. ”

“ Re-born in every Kalpa, they generally try to impede the work of human procreation. When Daksha, the chief of the Prajâpatis or Creators, brings forth 10,000 sons for the purpose of peopling the world, Nârada—a son of Brahmâ, the great Rishi, and virtually a Kumâra, if not so in name—interferes with, and twice frustrates Daksha's aim, by persuading those Sons to remain holy Ascetics and eschew marriage. For this, Daksha curses Nârada to be “re-born as a man,” as Brahmâ had cursed him before for refusing to marry, and obtain progeny, saying: “Perish in thy (present [Deva or Angelic] form) ”

“ Creatures of every class, born from the womb, the egg, from vapour, or vegetation, came upon their invocation; as did all the gods, with their brides, who, in their resplendent vehicles, blazed like so many fires.
Beholding them thus assembled, the sage Dadhicha was filled with indignation, and observed: “The man who worships what ought not to be worshipped, or pays not reverence where veneration is due, is guilty, most assuredly, of heinous sin.” Then, addressing Daksha, he said to him: “Why do you not offer homage to the god who is the lord of life (Pasubhartri?) ”

“ Tradition identifies Chátná with Vâsuli or Vâhuli Nagara. At Daksha’s sacrifice it is said one of the limbs of Parvati fell here, which thence derived its name of Vâsuli Nagara or Bâhulyá Nagara, a name mentioned in the old Bengali poet Chandi Dás. ”

“ Do nothing rash, thou art not Daksha [17] : once gone, thy head can never be restored. But Kamalamitra hurried away to find Anushayiní. And he found her in the garden by the lotus pool, and told her of his brag, and said: Come instantly, and make the experiment, and vindicate the power of those wonderful eyes of thine, and my own faith in them, without delay. For I burn to convict that foolish sceptic of his folly, by ocular demonstration.
Then Anushayiní said slowly: Dear husband, thou wert angry, and therefore indiscreet, and I fear, lest by doing evil we may bring on ourselves punishment. ”

“ He was a progenitor on a magnificent scale, as he is considered to have been the father of the gods, demons, man, fish, reptiles, and all animals, by the thirteen daughters of Daksha. The eldest of the thirteen, his favourite wife, was Adití, from whom were born Indra and all the inferior gods, and particularly the twelve Ádityas, or forms of the sun, which represent him in the several months of the year. From Diti, Danu, and others of the remaining twelve, came the Daityas, Dánavas, and other demons.
115. No sacred cord is twined. ”

“ Skandha. The Devas and Astrals were brought into manifestation by Daksha, whose position in creation was next to that of Brahmâ. Therefore all stood up to receive him at the sacrifice except Brahmâ.
Śiva first appeared as Kumâra Nîla Lohita or Rudra. And all beings thereafter got the potentiality of dissolution, phenomenal change, death and decay. But in the first stage of life process, phenomenal change, decay or dissolution was not in requisition, as Monads went on in their downward journey, not by dissolution, but by evolution. ”

“ If he can spit upon a man, or touch any article belonging to him with his teeth, he is Dakhal, unless of course, in case of theft, it be the person who caught him. A woman can protect any number of persons, or even of tents. [134] If a [Pg 265] horseman ride into a tent, he and his horse are Dakhal. A stranger who has eaten with a Shammar, can give Dakheel to his enemy; for instance, I could protect an Aneyza, though there is blood between his tribe and the Shammar. According to Mijwell, any person, by previously calling out “Nuffo” (I renounce) , may reject an application for Dakheel. ”

“ I never heard the cause of the dispute—it was probably a case of cherchez la femme, for Dakhla is one of those unfortunate places where, as Byron so nearly expressed it, “man’s love is of his wife a thing apart, ’tis woman’s whole persistence.” These small-minded natives will squabble over the most trivial matters and keep the quarrel going for years. Often a tiff of the most puerile kind will become a family matter and end in a regular hereditary feud. In the Nile Valley this often leads to bloodshed. ”

“ The people of that country are constantly seeing men on the wing, who come and enter this monastery. On one occasion, when devotees of various countries came to perform their worship at it, the people of those villages said to them, “Why do you not fly? The devotees whom we have seen hereabouts all fly;” and the strangers answered, on the spur of the moment, “Our wings are not yet fully formed.”
The kingdom of Dakshina is out of the way, and perilous to traverse. There are difficulties in connexion with the roads ”

“ At length Dakianos departed with his numerous army.
The day after the King's departure they put in execution what they had projected. The eunuchs pursued them, and would have forced them to return back to the palace; but they answered them,
"We are tired of our King: he endeavours to pass for the God of the earth, and we adore Him alone who has created all that we behold."
The young men had already drawn their sabres, and in a moment they put the eunuchs out of a condition of following them. Then Jemlikha said to them, "My friends, we are ruined if we do not use all possible expedition." ”

“ An Arab who has given his protection to another, whether formally, or by an act which confers the privilege of Dakheel, is bound to protect his Dakhal under all circumstances, even to the risk of his own property and life. ”

“ Dakhla Oasis differs somewhat from Kharga in that the villages are less scattered and, so to speak, more closely packed together. Owing, too, to the better water supply it is very much more fertile. Dakhla, too, is more favourably situated than Kharga, as it nestles at the foot of a great east and west cliff, three or four hundred feet in height, that protects it to a great extent from the prevailing northerly winds. Kharga, on the other hand, runs from north to south, with the result that the tearing desert gales sweep down upon it from the north with their full force. ”

“ Dakianos, whose pride this flattered, and who had nothing more to desire of human greatness, promised him to consent to everything.
"Let your throne be placed upon the shore of the sea," pursued the old man.
What he desired was executed. And when Dakianos was placed there, "Prince," said the genie to him, "there is at the bottom of the sea a fish, the bigness of which is known only to Allah, and which every day comes to land. It remains there till noon to adore the Almighty. No person interrupts its prayers: when they are finished, it plunges again to the bottom of the sea." ”

“ Being highly pleased at this, the gods endowed the backbone with life, and the son went to his father Jāmbuvadu, who failed to recognise him, and refused to admit him. He was told that he must live as a beggar attached to the Mādigas, and was called Dakkala because he was brought to life from a vertebral column (dakka) .
The Dakkalas wander from place to place. They may not enter Mādiga houses, outside which meals are given to them by males only, as females are not allowed to serve them. Mādiga women may not tread on the footsteps of the Dakkalas. ”

“ By-and-by, no doubt, the Brindisi mail, speeding in connection with the Khartoum express, will make the run in seven or eight days. From England to Port Said is now but a matter of four days by the new Peninsular and Oriental service. It took me six days from Cairo to reach Dakhala. The officials prefer to know the place as "Atbara Camp." There is no absolute rule for the bestowal of proper names, or at least no practice one need care about in the Soudan, so I prefer to dub the locality by its native title of Dakhala, or Dakhelha. ”

“ Ghafil is another and a worse edition of Dakher, having, over and above his brother’s vices of countenance, a most abominable squint. His face looks always like a thunder-cloud, and the smiles on it, (for he smiles sometimes, showing a wonderful set of white teeth from ear to ear) are like the smiles of a wild beast. ”

“ Then the Yaksha her husband said to her; “What have you seen?” Then she told the following invented story; “When you struck me with the garland, I saw a black man come, with a noose in his hand, with flaming eyes, tall, with upstanding hair, terrible, darkening the whole horizon with his shadow. The ruffian took me to the abode of Yama, but his officers there turned him back, and made him let me go.” When the Yakshiṇí said this, the Yaksha laughed, and said to her, “O dear! women cannot be free from deception in any thing that they do. Who ever died from being struck with flowers? ”

“ A true Arab will defend his "dakhiel" with his life. The law of "dakhal" is, however, only in full force among those tribes who are, by their strength or geographical position, independent of the Turkish government. Among tribes in which the law is maintained, a man who proved false to his dakhiel would be disgraced for life! ”

“ Along the line of the Bazaar ranged another thousand men, armed only with krises, under the command of the heir of the late Dakoon, and with these were a hundred and fifty mounted hillsmen, watchful and deliberate. These were also under the command of a kinsman of Pango Dooni.
It was at this very point that the danger lay, for the nephew of the Dakoon, Gis-yo-Bahim, was a weak but treacherous man, ill-fitted to rule; a coward, yet ambitious; distrusted by the people, yet the heir to the throne. ”

“ When a portion of the tribe, settled on Bayou Lafourche, had murdered Mr. Saint-Cosme, a Naktche missionary descending the Mississippi river in 1703, they were attacked by the colonists and their Indian allies. The war ended with a speedy submission of the savages. They called the Naktche Indians their brothers, and their myths related that their "Great Spirit" created them in the country of that people, and gave them laws, women and tobacco. The Cha'hta tribes, who attempted to deprive them of their native land, made continual forays upon them during the eighteenth century. ”

“ The name is of Shetimasha origin, I have reasons to assume. Náksh in that language means one that is in a hurry, one running, náksh así, [26] abbrev. náksh warrior; and the earliest French explorers may have heard that name from the Shetimasha Indians settled on the Mississippi, where Bayou Lafourche, also called the river of the Shetimasha, branches off from it. Should the name belong to the Chicasa trade language, we might think of the Cha'hta adverb: naksika aside, away from, referring to the site of the Naktche villages at some distance from the great "water-road," the Mississippi river. ”

“ To the poor and needy they never turned a deaf ear, and whenever an opportunity presented itself they were always ready with their handsome entertainments in honour of the Lieutenant-Governors or any other great people who visited Dacca. We wish them long life and prosperity. But we must reluctantly put an end to the record of those many pleasant days which we spent in Dacca, nearly twenty years ago, with this imperfect acknowledgment of how much was due to the kindness of our Hindoo and Mahomedan friends there. ”

“ The tribe, of which he had been a member, was called Dizzela, inhabiting a district named Dahanja, three days journey beyond the Nile, in a country bearing the general appellation of Damitchequa. He mentioned, that his countrymen entertain a very imperfect notion of God, whom they call Mussa-guzza. The only species of adoration they offer up to the deity, is during a great holiday, called kemoos, when the whole people assemble to sacrifice a cow, which is not killed in the usual way, by having its throat cut, but by being stabbed in a thousand places. ”