Vikram and the Vampire Part 27

[Footnote 174: Soma, the moon, I have said, is masculine in India.]

[Footnote 175: Pluto.]

[Footnote 176: Nothing astonishes Hindus so much as the apparent want of affection between the European parent and child.]

[Footnote 177: A third marriage is held improper and baneful to a Hindu woman.

Hence, before the nuptials they betroth the man to a tree, upon which the evil expends itself, and the tree dies.]

[Footnote 178: Kama]

[Footnote 179: An oath, meaning, "From such a falsehood preserve me, Ganges!"]

[Footnote 180: The Indian Neptune.]

[Footnote 181: A highly insulting form of adjuration.]

[Footnote 182: The British Islands--according to Wilford.]

[Footnote 183: Literally the science (veda) of the bow (dha.n.u.sh). This weapon, as everything amongst the Hindus, had a divine origin: it was of three kinds--the common bow, the pellet or stone bow, and the crossbow or catapult.]

[Footnote 184: It is a disputed point whether the ancient Hindus did or did not know the use of gunpowder.]

[Footnote 185: It is said to have discharged b.a.l.l.s, each 6,400 pounds in weight.]

[Footnote 186: A kind of Mercury, a G.o.d with the head and wings of a bird, who is the Vahan or vehicle of the second person of the Triad, Vishnu.]

[Footnote 187: The celebrated burning springs of Baku, near the Caspian, are so called. There are many other "fire mouths."]

[Footnote 188: The Hindu Styx.]

[Footnote 189: From Yaksha, to eat; as Rakshasas are from Raksha, to preserve.--See Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, p. 57.]

[Footnote 190: s.h.i.+va is always painted white, no one knows why. His wife Gauri has also a European complexion. Hence it is generally said that the sect popularly called "Thugs," who were wors.h.i.+ppers of these murderous G.o.ds, spared Englishmen, the latter being supposed to have some rapport with their deities.]

[Footnote 191: The Hindu shrine is mostly a small building, with two inner compartments, the vestibule and the Garbagriha, or adytum, in which stands the image.]

[Footnote 192: Meaning Kali of the cemetery (Smashana); another form of Durga.]

[Footnote 193: Not being able to find victims, this pleasant deity, to satisfy her thirst for the curious juice, cut her own throat that the blood might spout up into her mouth. She once found herself dancing on her husband, and was so shocked that in surprise she put out her tongue to a great length, and remained motionless. She is often represented in this form.]

[Footnote 194: This ashtanga, the most ceremonious of the five forms of Hindu salutation, consists of prostrating and of making the eight parts of the body--namely, the temples, nose and chin, knees and hands--touch the ground.]

[Footnote 195: "Sidhis," the personified Powers of Nature. At least, so we explain them: but people do not wors.h.i.+p abstract powers.]

[Footnote 196: The residence of Indra, king of heaven, built by Wishwa-Karma, the architect of the G.o.ds.]

[Footnote 197: In other words, to the present day, whenever a Hindu novelist, romancer, or tale writer seeks a peg upon which to suspend the texture of his story, he invariably pitches upon the glorious, pious, and immortal memory of that Eastern King Arthur, Vikramaditya, shortly called Vikram.]