Even though, Edgar Thurston has done a huge number of observations on the omens, superstitions and social behaviour of the people/s of the southern parts of the South Asian subcontinent in particular, and that of the northern parts in general, he has missed the huge content of what works behind the scenes.
However his book is of monumental standards. That cannot be denied.
There is an immensity of information about the realities of the location. My attempt in the following pages has been to take a few observations of Thurston and discuss them briefly. Many of the ideas need not be from the realm of the Occult art.
Since filmmakers have a habit of changing the physical stature and looks of individuals who they promote, I think it might be good to see a few images of how the people in this location really looked like. The looks have changed with the advent of the English rule in the subcontinent.
However not many would like to be reminded of this part of their antiquity. Ingratitude seems to be a natural part of social development in this subcontinent, same as it is in various other locations.
People who are interested in reading about a very specific example of this deed can visit this link.
People’s information on their own customs and rituals are in most cases minimal. They have been holding fast to rituals and rites, with no idea when it all started. However, through their intelligent and at times, unintelligent holding on to them, these things have been preserved over the ages.
I am making a listing of the various terms, superstitions, omens, stories etc. as in a sequential manner as per the page numbers.
This writing of mine is not a comprehensive work. However, there will be a lot of interesting items. That is for sure.
1. Panchangam: Even though Thurston mentions them as ‘Native calendars’, they are much more than that. They contain not only the omens and the local annual calendar, but a lot more including an almanac from an astrological perspective. Most of the items are based on the daily sunrise and sunset time of a particular region. As such, most of these items are not precise. For, the sunset and sunrise timing are different in different locations in the same geographical area.
2. Hindu classics: I am not sure how appropriate the word ‘Hindu’ is. The word ‘Hindu’ seems to have been superimposed on almost all items that the English colonial rulers found in the subcontinent, including the local music.
As to the term classic, what I suppose is meant, are the book writings in Sanskrit. Even though people try to trace all their routes to Sanskrit, the fact is that very few percentages of the peoples of the nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh do really belong to the Sanskrit or ‘Aaaryan’ antiquity. Many of the populations that went under the Brahmanical thraldom might not belong to this ancestry. However, much mixing of blood has taken place. However, since the northern parts of the subcontinent were under immigrant populations of Islamic faith, the blood content will reflect much of their DNA also.
As to the ancient languages of the subcontinent, in the northern parts, such languages as Prakrit, Maghadhi, Ardhamaghadhi, Pali &c.
3. Kalidasa: He has been discovered as a Sanskrit writer of extreme talent and profundity. He is generally mentioned as the ‘greatest’ of the Sanskrit writers. Where he lived and his exact location of domicile is not known. However, there is a claim that he was a court poet in one of the ancient kingdoms in the northern edges of subcontinent. As of now, his antiquity has been claimed and occupied by the new nation of India, even though from a logical understanding of his location, all the nations around the region can claim his legacy. This might include Nepal, China, Tibet, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. Populations of none of these nations, including India do know Sanskrit. In India, there are very energetic efforts to promote this language, as part of the Hindu nationalist or communal fanaticism.
4. Sakuntala: This is a famous drama by Kalidasa. The story in brief is this: Shakuntala is a daughter born to a female from the world of the celestial beings (devalokam – sphere of the divinities), through her relationship with an earthling hermit. Shakuntala was left on earth, from where another hermit came across her as an infant. She grew up in his hermitage as his foster child.
One day the king of the location comes on a hunting expedition in the forest location of this hermit. His hunting is stopped by the disciples of the hermit. On hearing the name of the hermit, the king expresses his desire to pay his obeisance to the famous sage.
He happens to see the extremely lovely Shakuntala there, tending to the plants and the animals. They fall in love and undergo what is mentioned as a gandharva vivaham. It is a sort of marriage, more or less known only to themselves.
The king hands her his royal ring and promises to take her to his palace at the earliest.
Shakuntala spent her time in passionate thoughts of her lover. At that time, another great hermit arrives to meet her foster father. Everyone in the hermitage makes haste to display their obeisance to him. Shakuntala fails to notice the presence of the hallowed visitor.
The hallowed hermit trembles in anger. He curses her with a most formidable item: Let the person, you were thinking of, forget you!
However, within minutes he is full of repentance. He gives her a code to breach the block. If the person who has forgotten her can be shown anything that he had given, he will come out of his oblivion.
The story then races on to another turning point. Shakuntala is drinking water from a river. The royal rings slips off her finger.
The story continues..... The story has elements from the ancient tales of the location.
5. “Why does my right eye throb?”
A quivering sensation in the right arm is supposed to indicate marriage with a beautiful woman; in the right eye some good luck.
Of omens, both good and bad, in Malabar, the following comprehensive list is given by Mr Logan:
William Logan was a district administrator of Malabar district of the Madras Presidency British-India. He wrote the Malabar Manual, which I think contains a huge description of Malabar features. He was a British colonial officer.
As to the good and bad omens, most of them, if true, could have a direct link to how they react with some specific codes in the human brain, speaking a specific kind of language. As such the mentioned list may not be of relevance to a person removed from that language codes. Beyond that, omens would differ as per the stature of the individuals in the social or verbal hierarchy. However, no one possibly knows the exact manner in which the codes connect, or what the codes are. Or are there individuals who possess such information?
6. A fair skinned Paraiyan, or a dark skinned Brahman, should not, in accordance with a proverb, be seen the first thing in the morning!
It is quite curious that contradictory scenes were defined as inauspicious. Paraiyans were considered as among the lowest castes in the location. And the Brahmin, the highest. There is more than a hint that the higher classes are fair in complexion and the lower classes dark. However, skin colour would be directly connected to the exposure to direct sunlight.
Actually, there is another hidden item in this. I can't go into that here.
7. there are certain objects which possess an inherent inauspicious character
The logic or the origin of the ‘understanding’ has been lost. Yet, there might be a way to enter into the codes and seek out why they are inauspicious.
8. Vishu festival, held in celebration of the New Year in Malabar
There is some confusion about the above statement. It is that Malabar is a location that was disconnected and different from Travancore. There were similarities as there are with other locations in the subcontinent. The New Year day in Malabar was on the 1st of Kanni month, while it was on the 1st of Chingam in Travancore. This was basically due to some configuration issues in the astrological systems practised in the two locations.
This might point to a large fact. There are a lot of systems, cultural facets, and even rites which all look similar and point to some common origin. Yet, there is also a feeling that can be derived that the various systems, cultural aspects and rites were followed up and continued by persons or populations who had only perfunctory connection to the original people or populations who practised all this.
All over the land, there was a social desperation to be close to the highest castes. For, it was the highest caste, the Brahmins who decide the hierarchy of who come above and who comes below. People or populations would offer the best they have to move above the tyrannical verbal definitions cast at them by lower populations. The only protection from this was a higher caste definition.
In the Travancore area, it was well-known that the Sudras or the Nairs were ready to offer their best possession to the Brahmins. That is, the Brahmins were allowed to occupy their households and have decent accommodation with their women.
Even though this looks quite awkward in these times, the fact was that in those times, it was an honour to be connected to a Brahmin thus.
This has the retrospective advantage that the Nair blood is from the locally highly-acclaimed Brahmin genetic pool. There is no reason to conclude that the females of the castes which came lower to the Nairs were spared by others. In fact, in the feudal language communication, the touch of the higher man is better than the touch of the lower man.
There is another reality mentioned by Thurston in his Castes and Tribes of Southern India. It is that, the people and populations would clandestinely jump into a higher caste when they relocated.
REV. Mateer had mentioned of lower castes like the Pulayas etc. who after converting into Christianity and improving their worldly knowledge, travelled to distant places, mentioning themselves as Nairs.
A higher caste definition gave a social protection. While a lower caste definition was quite dangerous in a far of location.
As of now, this social and administrative protection is generally only for the government employed classes of India. May this is the truth in Pakistan as well as Bangladesh.
9. Kani: The first object seen in the New Year is believed to reflect on all the general prosperity that can be experienced by that person in that year. ‘Kani’ is the pre-arranged auspicious thing that has to be looked at as the first item in the new year.
At about five o'clock in the morning of the day, someone who has got up first wakes the inmates, both male and female, of the house, and takes them blindfolded, so that they may not gaze at anything else, to the seat near the kani.
10. Attempts at dream interpretations can be seen. I remember reading the similar stuff from ‘qualified’ psychologists.
If a person has an auspicious dream, he should get up and not go to sleep again
It might not be a bad idea to give more importance to dream. As to whether they portend anything, good or bad, cannot be mentioned with any percent of certainty.
Yet, there is indeed a very powerful software mechanism at work, which creates the dreams and runs them. Many of the dreams are quite logical.
However, very few dreams can be recalled at all. In fact, it is my personal experience that on getting up, if I try to gather scenes in the dreams, they started vanishing as if I am using an eraser tool on them. Surely there is more to dreams than can be mentioned at this moment in time. Human technical knowledge is still not even in its infancy.
11. The omens are quite varied and often very specific and focused.
There are hints that foretell the arrival of guests. There are good days to dine with a friend, and bad days to do so.
Depending on what one wishes for in life, there are specific directions for facing when eating.
Betel leaves and tobacco have an ill-reputation when used in certain locations. After all they are the items laid along with the dead body in the grave.
There were people consulting omen when relocating.
I think the picture is from Castes and Tribes of Southern India
12. Korava caste males are mentioned as professional thieves. Before going on any dacoit expedition, they consult the omens. Even the sight of a dog urinating when they are on the verge of starting on their professional venture, will spoil the programme. They wouldn’t budge.
13. When going out for an examination, the worst thing one can cross on the road is a single Brahmin coming from the front. Personally speaking I have heard this thing many years ago.
I was going for a very important exam. And there comes the Single Brahmin. My face must have reflected by terrible mental agony. For he also seemed discomfited by what he had done. The exam experience was true to the omen.
However, Thurston was having more knowledge in this. As per the idea mentioned, I should have retraced by steps, waited for a few moments, and restarted!
14. If a person knocks at the door of a house in the night once, twice, or thrice, it will not be opened. If the knock is repeated a fourth time, the door will be opened without fear, for the evil spirit is said to knock only thrice
Don’t I remember something similar in George Eliot’s Adam Bede? The ill-omen of the door knock?
15. When one is going on a journey, or special errands, there are favourable and also non-favourable omen. Incidentally, a married woman, virgin, prostitute, two Brahmans &c. are favourable ones. At the same time, a widow, barking dog at the door-step, crow flying from the right to left etc. are inauspicious.
16. Seeing a hare is considered a terrible thing. However, it seems to be a forgotten omen, for I have not personally heard anyone mentioning such a thing. The reason might be that all the rabbits and hares have been eaten up by mankind in the locations near to my residence.
A story from the epic story connected to Rama and Sita is alluded to in the book. Rama's is in exile in the forest with his wife Sita. She is abducted by Ravana, who is described as an asura king. He did this to seek revenge on Rama and his brother Lakshmana for having cut-off his sister's nose. He is said to have kept Sita in captivity for less than 12 months.
After a big fight, Rama retrieves Sita. They go back to their kingdom, where they are duly crowned, king and queen. However, there is loose talk among some people that Sita's claims to chastity cannot be accepted. Because she was in the possession of another man.
So Rama, being an upright king and the upholder of the Dharmaneethis (codes of social justice) is forced to abandon his wife. Lakshmana, his brother, is asked to take her to the forest. Sita does not know the agenda of this journey. Yet, on this journey, a hare gives her a hint in the form of the omen, of her tragedy that awaits her at the end of the journey.
17. An omen is seen in the behaviour of a dog, when one is on a journey. Cobras and rat‐snakes portend ill-luck when seen at the starting of a journey.
18. There is information to be taken out from sneezes. Personally speaking, I have heard that is a sign that someone is speaking about that person who sneezes. As per Thurston’s noting, ‘sneezing once is a good sign; twice, a bad sign’.
19. There is mention of Alberuni saying the people considered ‘farting’ a good omen, and ‘sneezing’ a bad omen. However, as of now, there is no trace of these kinds of beliefs. Thurston uses the term ‘crepitus ventris’ for the former.
20. A Kudumi woman in Travancore, at the menstrual period, should stand at a distance of seven feet,
It is indeed quite surprising that there is only very brief mention in regard to menstruation anywhere else in the book. For, actually a woman in her menstrual period is considered to be prohibited in various locations and from various duties as per the local social norm in at least some of the castes.
21. There is a rare delineation of the general repulsion towards human populations rampant in the subcontinent, in this noting: ......Ande or pot Kurubas, continually wore a pot suspended from their necks, into which they were compelled to spit, being so utterly unclean as to be prohibited from even spitting on the highway.
Actually this kind of repulsion is still there. It is basically connected to the feudal content in the language. However, as a social theme, in many households, the house servants are treated as despicable beings, to the extent of not allowing them to use the toilets in the house. Their wearing of good clothes is frowned upon.
As servants, they generally redesign themselves as per the lower indicant words assigned to them. These are things that are not understood in the US and other native-English nations.
To make the point clear, I will quote what I found on NYTimes today about the abusive dialogues in the US.
WHAT ‘MICROAGGRESSIONS’ SOUND LIKE
A sampling of language and behaviors called “microaggressions,” provided to Clark University students, that universities are urging students to avoid.
“Of course he’ll get tenure, even though he hasn’t published much — he’s black.”
“What are you? You are so interesting looking.”
Telling a nonwhite woman, “I would have never guessed that you were a scientist.”
When a nonwhite faculty member is mistaken for a service worker.
Showing surprise when a “feminine” woman says she is a lesbian.
“You are a credit to your race.”
LINK to this article
All this would not come anywhere near to an Indian police constable mentioning about his IPS officer: She (Aval) is capable.
The US is debating on utterly silly items. People who rush into the US from rank low-class social systems improve tremendously in the freedom accorded by an English social ambience. Yet, they have only complaints on one side. On the other side, they very frankly atrophy the native-English land and its people with the lower grade indicant words which they are in possession of. The native-English side is none the wiser.
Note the words: When a nonwhite faculty member is mistaken for a service worker
The issue of a ‘service worker’ is slowly emerging over the last thirty years in the US. That, there are jobs that are really ‘despicable’. Actually it is not jobs that are despicable. But of the definition of various jobs in feudal languages. These are discriminatory languages, which arrange everything in varying grades (stink to gold) by means of a very small code change.
In the huge ineptitude of the above cautions given to the students, what is amply clear is that it is quite one-sided. It is like two animals in close proximity. One a bull and the other a tiger dressed up as a bull. The real bull is told to be quite well-mannered and polite to the fake bull. Do not kick or gore it, for the fake bull looks quite attractive. However, the bull gets the creeps when the fake bull looks at him, and makes low growling noises when no one else is there.
A more profound caution was given by me when I was taking an English training programme, in which my children were also trainers. Since my children did not understand the local feudal languages, they did not understanding the carnivorous codes inside it. However, they could sense the unease it could create slightly. My caution was addressed to the trainees. Do not speak in your native language inside the training premises. If at all you need to speak in your native tongue, do not use the lower indicant words towards or about the trainers.
The presence of my children was like the native-English speakers in native-English nations. There is no need for any specific ‘training’ by them. Their very presence would create the English ambience, and change the communication language. However, the carnivorous languages and codes should be totally disallowed inside.
This very minute understanding the befooled ‘great’ universities of the US do not know. There is no wonder that GB and US are on the pathway to total disarray unless someone takes quite drastic remedies.
22. an unmarried Madiga (Telugu Pariah) woman, called Matangi (the name of a favourite goddess) spits upon the people assembled, and touches them with her stick. Her touch and saliva are believed to purge all uncleanliness of the body and soul, and are said to be invited by men who would ordinarily scorn to approach her.
The above is actually a very powerful example of how even those who are commonly mentioned as dirt, can be flipped upwards, with a few changes in the defining words.
23. the Pulayans (agrestic slaves) go in procession to the temple,
It is quite funny that even though there were millions of bound-to-the-soil slaves in the subcontinent, there is little mention of terrible slavery being part of India’s antiquity. Such people lived on for generations at the total downside of the social communication, held in position by the claw-like words. At the same time, in the US, where similar people simply rode up to social quality, there are only acrimonious words about the ‘slavery’ there. In India, the downtrodden are ‘respectful’ to those who crush them.
In the US, there are ‘records’ of slave-trade. In the South Asian subcontinent, there are no ‘records’. The slaves were literally treated like fowls in a chicken farm. No individual identity. They peck at each other, and are used by their slave-master social higher-ups. This went on till the advent of the English rule. English rule converted them from mere ‘fowls in the farm’ to human beings. Yet, as of now, they all parrot from their school textbooks as how the English rulers had enslaved them.
24. ...............they are considered an impure race, whose touch carries defilement with it. Such is the reason generally given by the Brahman, who refuses to receive anything directly from the hands of a Holiar, .................
............should a Brahman attempt to enter their quarters, they turn out in a body and slipper him, in former times it is said to death..........
Here it is between two low class populations. It was a sort of repudiating apartheid by anther apartheid. Something, you have your separate beaches. We will have our own beaches. We will not come into yours. And you should not come into ours.
However, in South Africa, it was a more low-class self-deprecatory attitude: We do not want to be in a beach in which our people are there. We want to be in a beach where your people are there.
25. I once received a pathetic appeal from a Eurasian woman in Malabar, imploring me to lay my hands on the head of her sick child, so that its life might be spared.
It might feel quite a funny claim. However, it must be admitted that in the feudal languages, people with higher indicant stature has a power that can diffuse. Whether it can cure diseases might be a debatable point. However, I have noticed that the touch of an experienced and socially revered doctor does have a curative effect. His words of certitude of a cure do also have some kind of effect.
As to socially higher indicant value persons, their very proximity has an effect in the codes. How much effect will depend on various other factors.
As to an Englishman, well, the pristine-English period Englishmen & women stood as towering heights. In fact, the very presence of a native-English speaking group of people living nearby would improve the social quality of the neighbourhood.
This is in many ways. The very sight of people with least of negativity in their mental and physical features, due to their thinking in a planar language is a very mentally elevating experience. The physical stature of native-English that bears no burden of the millstone-tied-to-the-neck language codes is a highly positive sight. If small children can be made to view these kinds of people since their very infancy, their physical stature can also change into a no-bent at the neck variety.
If the code-view is checked it might be possible to see why the proximity to quality social standards does diffuse. And also how lower quality social standards also diffuse.
In fact, it can be mentioned that if Continental Europe was not near England, then at least some of the nations, including Germany and France would have looked quite soiled. If England has been quite near to any kingdom of the South Asian Subcontinent, that kingdom would have looked like Europe. Skin colour is of least importance.
Actually the so-believed superiority of the white-skin is directly connected to the English native-speakers being of white skin. If they had been brown or black skin, a feeble feel of superiority would have diffused to others of those skin colours.
Yet, the English superiority is actually a very polite one. It has no chance to survive in a land populated by carnivorous (discriminatory) languages.
26. To mention the number seven in Telugu is unlucky, because the word (yedu) is the same as that for weeping. Even a treasury officer, who is an enlightened university graduate, in counting money, will say six and one.
I do not know Telugu. It would be interesting to know how the Telugu people manage this issue now. Currently a minority of them have improved much, with a minor percentage in the US IT field.
Do similar sounding words, with different meaning spur up similar codes in the software codes of reality? If so, then language of the person connects directly to the codes of reality!
Beyond that, do ‘enlightened university graduates’ know anything about the themes mentioned in this book? Beyond that, in the new nation of India, ‘enlightened university graduate’ is on an average, someone who knows mostly nothing about anything, other than the nonsense that is inside insipid textbooks. Since most of them study in their native vernaculars, there is no issue of an ‘enlightenment’ involved in university ‘study’.
27. Among all Hindu classes it is considered as an insult to the god to bathe or wash the feet on returning home from worship at a temple, and, by so doing, the punyam (good) would be lost
In the above quote, the first item is the word ‘Hindu’. It is a superimposition created presumably by outsiders to the subcontinent. Only the Brahmins and their connected castes of Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra do actually belong to the Hindus. I do not know if the word ‘Hindu’ is used in any of the ‘Hindu’ scriptures.
Non-Hindu lower castes aspire to reach into these castes as a means to improve their social stature.
Second item is about the aura that is derived by means of a proximity to a, or a touch on a, or a word connecting to a superior being or personage. It is a sensation that can be felt. To belittle a sensation as ‘just a feeling’ is to not understand the software codes that create this ‘feeling’. If the feeling is real, well then, the software codes that created it are also real.
I have experienced persons on touching something that they really yearned to touch refusing to shake-hands with another person in the immediate aftermath, just to preserve the pulsating feeling that the touch had given them.
The next item for mention is the word ‘punyam’. Even though Thurston has mentioned this word as ‘good’, it has nothing to do with mere ‘good’. It is a sort of elevated grace or aura that one comes to acquire by means of doing things which are considered as holy or good for which one could get the blessings of the gods.
Punyam might not have an exact English word equivalent.
28. This they refused to do, as it would bring bad luck to their shops.
Even though Thurston mentions the above in connection with certain ‘superstitions’, the fact remains that there are many things that can be mentioned as unlucky in feudal languages. The exact location of a bad luck in them may not be understood in English.
29. The manner in which the boiling food bubbles over from the cooking‐pot is eagerly watched, and accepted as an omen for good or evil.
Even though Thurston makes the whole idea look quite silly, only if one were to understand what it is that they are seeking for, would the idea become clear. The above mention is about the low caste Koravas.
I have made a very casual observation among the lower castes who had converted into Christianity in the Travancore areas, and later resettled in Malabar areas. They had improved to a very superior social class in the locality. And had mostly forgotten or hidden their ancestry. Yet, they did have remembrance of their ancestral intelligences and customs in a very feeble manner.
Once, there was a slight drizzle, which made the stones on the road move in a particular manner. I heard one of these persons make a mention of their traditional insight on rains. They were different kinds of rains, based on the way they affect the soil. On hearing a few lines, I could understand that there was some kind of social intelligence in the lines, that presumably came from some hoary past. Yet, these were intelligences that were in the earlier days, before the advent of the English rule in the subcontinent, merely considered as the insights of the semi-humans.
30. The omens being propitious, he walks over the glowing embers, ...
Thurston has taken a totally non-judgemental attitude in mentioning about the ceremony of walking through fire (burning embers) at Nidugala on the Nilgiris. A lot of omens are checked for. The walking over the fire is done only if they all point to no danger.
VIDEO
It might not be easy to replicate these things in a ‘scientific’ testing arena. For, the very aura of a test will spoil the means to check the omen.
The fact remains that these kinds of rituals are still continued very locations of the subcontinent. See these videos:
May be the only thing that must have changed from the pre-English rule time to post-English rule times would be the dressing and physical standards of the people.
People have improved. Rituals, which were once seen to be done by semi-civilised people, have as of now developed into rituals of much improved populations.
Thinking a bit more on the outwardly aspects of these rituals, it might be felt that these are rituals or activities that might be said to be some kind of personal possession of some social leadership. They would not like to budge from this position.
Beyond that there is also this aspect. The devotion and piety shown to the deity is some kind of personal positioning under the deity as His or Her duty-bound subordinate. The deity takes care of the protection of the worshiper. This theme is very much there in most of the religious and spiritual activities.
There is no mention of such things as honesty, incorruptibility, rectitude, aiming for social equality, social enhancement of others etc. anywhere in these belief systems. In fact, there is nothing that could be found in the earlier version English schooling given by the erstwhile English rulers in any of these spiritual activities. This goes for Christianity also, in its non-English versions in the subcontinent.
Yet, that need not deter anyone from observing and studying the phenomenon with a view to understand the software code location that is directly connected to these things.
31. If the bird pecks at the rice, good luck is ensured for the coming year, whilst, if perchance the bird pecks three times, the offerer of that particular bird can scarcely contain himself for joy.
Even though I do not have any personal experience with anyone offering to divine out the future via means of a bird’s actions, I am not willing to ridicule any such claims.
The question of How can a bird know anything? cannot be answered without a deep understanding of a bird’s brain software. I have myself faced the issue of people in a remote village not understanding that I was literally connecting to far-off locations using a small laptop and a feeble Internet connection, way back in the years around 2002. If anyone had mentioned anything to this effect, they would have frankly asked: How can he do anything like that with a small box-like thing?
The problem of dealing with such things as predicting using a bird, ritualistic dancing, fire-walking etc. is more connected to the quality of the people doing it. As the quality of the persons improves, naturally these things will acquire a more acceptable aura.
In the same manner, there are umpteen similar things going on the animal world also. My own feeling is that within the next 300 years at least a few of the animals will enter the human communication system. For, technology is improving at that pace.
It is like this: People in interior locations are coming out into the outer world when roads, electric current, radio, TV, automobiles, internet etc. reach them.
In the earlier centuries, it would be most unacceptable that a lower caste man would be an equal to a superior caste man. I have personally had this curious experience.
One of my parents became a senior officer in the state government. Though from a lower caste group, due to the fact that her native place was inside the location under the colonial English rule, she could get good English education. There were no caste-based blocks to anyone in places where the English rule was in force.
Around 1975, we moved to a location in Travancore. This had been an independent kingdom not under the English rule. Here only the higher castes had been posted to the senior government posts.
So when my parent was posted there, there was a feeling that she was from a higher caste. It so happened that the local higher castes would mention really bad things about the lower castes of Travancore to my parent, in the quaint belief that she was a higher caste person. The comments were generally to the effect that the lower castes were more or less repulsive beings.
Thinking more about the theme, I would like to mention this also. In my childhood, trucks and cars were quite tough to drive, with the very tough floor gears to manipulate. It was a foregone conclusion that most of the local women would never be able to drive a lorry or a car. However as of now, even trucks are quite easy to drive, with everything quite smooth and small.
In the same manner, technologies can become so efficient that gadgets which animals can handle will arrive. Whether it would be the cat or the mouse, which gains this gadgetry first might be of very significant importance.
For, when the lower castes of Travancore, many of whom lived on the edges of the forests, got converted into Christianity and gained worldly knowledge, they also acquired the information to make guns. They then moved into Malabar (another state then), and occupied the forest regions. Almost all see-able animals were slaughtered by them using the guns they could make on their own.
Coming back to the art of bird-divining, there is always the issue of livelihood, be it, black-magician, bird-diviner, allopath doctor, Homœopath, psychologist &c. The buck should stop here.
Apart from all this, there is another issue also to be mentioned. It is that these rituals are part of the social leadership. They are done over the generations by specific households or committees. It is one of the social machineries by which they maintain their social leadership, which can be made more powerful by means of corresponding indicant word codes. They would not be ready to part with any information that can lead to the erasure of their positions.
32. It is recorded by Canter Visscherf that, in the building of a house in Malabar, the carpenters open three or four cocoanuts, spilling the juice as little as possible, and put some tips of betel leaves into them.
This ritual is still in practise. Actually I have seen the use of betel leaves etc. also used for various other predictions. People trust the messages that are decoded. There might be some location that sends the messages.
33. The Nomad Bauris or Bawariyas, who commit robberies and manufacture counterfeit coin, ........... which they call devakadana or god's grain, and a tuft of peacock's feathers. They are very superstitious, and do not embark on any enterprise without first ascertaining by omens whether it will be attended with success or not.
A gang of Donga Dasaris, before starting on a thieving expedition, proceed to the jungle near their village in the early part of the night, worship their favourite goddesses, Huligavva and Ellamma, and sacrifice a sheep or fowl before them.
Even though the above lines were written by Thurston with regard to Omens and Superstitions, they also can be seen as ample evidence of the state of the subcontinent as seen by the English colonial rulers. It is quite funny that the new nations of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh are calling the English colonialists as thieves. They feel that others should necessarily be similar to them.
34. Eclipses are regarded as precursors of evil, which must, if possible, be averted. Concerning the origin thereof, according to tradition in Malabar
Most of these beliefs are there in many of the old time cultures. I do not know how all over the world, the people mention about ancient belief and rites and rituals. However, from my personal experience, when speaking to an average ‘Indian’, especially the formally ‘educated’ persons, the immediate words would be that everything is from ancient India, which was a great nation thousands of years ago. In fact, the claim is about everything. The very little fact that there was no India before the English rule is not there in any Indian textbooks. I do not know what is there in Pakistani and Bangladeshi textbooks.
The very simple fact that even in the southern parts of the subcontinent, the various locations had very little contact with each other till the advent of the English rule is not understood.
Then how come that there is a general commonality of cultures?
There is no way for me to mention anything about this. However, there is a lower caste culture everywhere, which is indeed different from the ‘Hindu’ culture of the Brahmin religion, which is also wide spread. But then, the craving to get connected to the Brahmin religion is seen in many places. In fact, even the Shamanistic deities are seen to be quite frankly mentioned as an avatar (manifestation) of one of the gods in the Hindu Trinity.
Apart from all this, there is an issue of different castes or populations from different locations in the subcontinent claiming connection to the same purana (Sanskrit epics) history. In fact, there are, very much distant from each other places, each one of which claim to be the same spot mentioned in the puranas. It might indicate the relocation of some branches of the same people across far distances.
When I mention the word ‘trinity’, there is a problem again. The word ‘Trinity’ was understood by me as something innate to the Christian religion. How and when this word was adapted into Hinduism is not known to me. Even though there are three main Gods currently mentioned as the supreme Gods in the Brahmanical religion, the concept doesn’t seem to be the same as mentioned in Christian theology.
35. On the day of the capture of Seringaptam, which, being the last day of a lunar month, was inauspicious, the astrologer repeated the unfavourable omen to Tipu Sultan, who was slain in the course of the battle. It is recorded that “to different Bramins he gave a black buffalo, a milch buffalo, a male buffalo, a black she‐goat, a jacket of coarse black cloth, a cap of the same material, ninety rupees, and an iron pot filled with oil; and, previous to the delivery of this last article, he held his head over the pot for the purpose of seeing the image of his face; a ceremony used in Hindostan to avert misfortune.
Sultan Tipu was the son of a Moroccan father, who usurped the throne of a native kingdom. He was a Muslim. The offerings he made do not seem to have averted the ill-luck foreboded by the Omens.
36. If a Brahman woman loses her tali (marriage badge), it is regarded as a bad omen for her husband. As a Deva‐dasi (dancing‐girl) can never become a widow, the beads in her tali are considered to bring good luck to those who wear them
Devadasis are females given up to the temples. The name literally means ‘the maids of the gods or devas’. Incidentally, there is some confusion about the word deva itself. There is a contention that it does not mean almighty god, but some kind of superior beings or people who live in some superior celestial spheres.
As to the Devadasis, there is a lot of hype among the modern Indian nationalists. That they were highly enlightened and trained females, who lived in the temples as the servants of the deities. If the native languages of the subcontinent it clearly understood, women who are forced to face the brunt of social communication without the protection of any barriers will not get any ‘respect’. It is more or less quite easy to understand that the men-folk who run the temples would use them for sexual activities.
Once a female is addressed a Thoo or Nee by outsider males or females, they get a powerful hold on her. The devadasi system was more or less suppressed by the English colonial officials after understanding that it is literally a terrible thing for women to endure. However, in the newer jingoist writings done by highly paid Indian academic classes, whatever the English rulers did was looting and suppression. However, the truth is that what the English rulers did was something which the gods would appreciate. Nothing about the how subcontinent really was as is being mentioned in the jingoistic textbooks.
It was unanimously decided, in 1905, by the Executive Committee of the Prince and Princess of Wales' reception committee, that there should be no performance by nautch girls at the entertainment to their Royal Highnesses at Madras.
37. The Devanga weavers, before settling the marriage of a girl, consult some village goddess or the tribal goddess Chaudeswari, and watch the omens. A lizard chirping on the right is good, and on the left bad.
The lizard giving the omens, sounds quite outlandish! But there was no Internet, and no other gadgetry for the people to do any checking anywhere about anything. May be the brains of other beings had some processing capacity for knowing things that were undetectable to the human mind.
If one were to think about this, if human beings are without the capacity to speak, most of their capacities would have been withheld. If they did have the capacity to use hands as we currently do, their human capacity would be very near zero. If the ability to stand straight was not there, human beings are literally animals. At this level, animals have better capacities than human beings. How, many of them communicate with each other still remains a mystery.
The truth is that most of animal capacities are not there in human beings. As to what the technology offers, well, it all started with the English colonialisms in most areas of the world, with regard to the lower classes.
I think the picture is from Castes and Tribes of Southern India
38. At a Palli (Tamil cultivator) wedding, two lamps, called kuda vilakku (pot light) and alankara vilakku (ornamental light), are placed by the side of the milk‐post. The former consists of a lighted wick in an earthenware tray placed on a pot. It is considered an unlucky omen if it goes out before the conclusion of the ceremonial.
There is something about a lamp that might be good to ponder upon. I did notice on one occasion that the light going off at a very particular moment did seem to augur a negative indication.
Another thing is that I have noticed the looking into the lamp by the Shamanistic deity to foresee the future or to see present and even the past.
39. A curious mock marriage ceremony is celebrated among Brahmans, when an individual marries a third wife. It is believed that a third marriage is very inauspicious ...
I have personally noted that as per the codes of the feudal languages of the subcontinent, the number three has certain negativity attributes when used as the number of partners and such. It literally has the ability to create at least three groups.
I am not in a position to say more about this. For, I do have only very rudimentary information on how the codes exactly work at the code view level
.
40. There is a Tamil proverb relating to the selection of a wife, to the effect that curly hair gives food, thick hair brings milk, and very stiff hair destroys a family
I have noted that there is one particular item that Thurston has missed in recording the occult and omen related observations of his. That is an occult science known as Samudrikam in the subcontinent. It is quite possible that the same system might be available in all other ancient cultures.
It is a series of signs and details found on a human body by which the person’s various dispositions can be found out.
However, when studying this item, it might be wise to understand that human nature varies as per the social and personal input that is received. For instance, people behave in a particular manner in south Indian languages. Again, the stature of the person also comes into account. For different levels of words connect to different levels of people differently.
The same human behaviour cannot be expected in a native-English person, who lives only among native-English speakers. Again, this native-English individual will be different from a native-English speaker who lives among lower stature Indians. Again, this person would be different from an English native-speaker who lives among Indians of higher stature. All of them would be different from a native-English individual who lives in England in a community of mixed people, both native-English as well as feudal languages speakers.
Well, people change as per the reactions and retorts they receive from the others. I cannot go into that here. It is a slightly long theme.
The laws of Samudrikam might change according to the language of the native social system.
41. In some places, when a woman is in labour, her relations keep on measuring out rice into a measure close to the lying‐in room, in the belief that delivery will be accelerated thereby.
It would be quite interesting to know how this practise arrived. The source is always important. For, rituals can change from what was the original theme. Or it might even be a case of a lower stature group imitating a higher stature group. Whatever it is, the original understanding of how both items are connected is not known.
All superstitions could be taken back to their origin. The origins are not in the Brahminical textbooks. That is what I understand. The Brahmanical scriptures at best would only contain the procedure of the rituals. To know the exact machinery of the rituals, one might need to go further back. Or study the items from an understanding many of the blind beliefs might have an original version or at least a logical location, which could be traced out from the supernatural software code location.
42. it would be unlucky for a newly‐married couple to visit the museum, as their offspring would be deformed as the result of the mother having gazed on the skeletons and stuffed animals.
The above is not exactly a superstition. It is a known item that when the infant is in the mother’s womb, the mother should not be stressed by anything. In fact, I am of the opinion that if music is played near to the mother, it would have a soothing effect on the child in her womb. If she does mathematics at the time, it might give the child’s mind a boost.
Well, the child is living in an environment wherein very powerful software codes are working day and night to monitor each and every event. A slight elevation of one item or a sight going down of another item in the mother’s blood or elsewhere is immediately noted down and corrective actions ordered.
Human body and life are both the creation of supernatural software codes.
43. The birth of a Korava child on a new moon night is believed to augur a notorious thieving future for the infant.
The most noteworthy item about these kinds of writings found all over the book is that, Thurston is mentioning about the lower castes from a location of great proximity. No native person, in his or her right sense would approach the lower castes, in those days. They were actually dreaded as one might dread the wild animals.
Even now, people are wary of too much proximity to lower stature populations. For, the lower populations are loaded with negativity. However, this negativity is the creation of the feudal languages, and its imposition is by the higher castes.
From this perspective, English colonial writings are of superb content.
44. I have heard of a superstitious European police officer, who would not start in search of a criminal, because he came across a cat
Two problems here. One is the term ‘European’. Thurston should have mentioned the nationality or language of the White skin. Celtic populations are different from English. And the British are different from some of the main Continental European nationalities.
The second item to be noted is that British colonial officials also did get to fear or believe in the local traditions and belief. It is actually an affect of being attuned to the local language codes. Once one gets to understand the local languages, it would be quite difficult to extricate oneself from its clutches.
45. ........... After the spirit had been thus propitiated, there was peace in the house.
Thurston here narrates an incident in which it purports that sorcery does work. He seems to take a most disinterested stand in his words.
46. "Throughout India," Mr J. D. E. Holmes writes, "but more especially in the Southern Presidency, among the native population, the value of a horse or ox principally depends on the existence and situation of certain hairmarks on the body of the animal.
The words ‘throughout India’ should have been avoided by Holmes. It has created a noisy mess in the history of the subcontinent. The word ‘India’ used in the context of the subcontinent as known from outside has given rise to a very jingoist mood that has spread all over the new nation of India. That this nation was a continuation of some ancient culture called ‘India’ or ‘Bharath’ or Vedic culture etc.
The India that was created by the English colonial rule was British-India. Actually confined to three Presidencies and a little more. It was not created by England or Great Britain, but by a few officials of the East India Company, with the absolute support of the lower classes of the subcontinent.
The next point is that the above line points to a Samudrika-like system for the animals also. I do not know much about it. However, Thurston does mention what Mr. Holmes had recorded with regard to the Omen marks on horses and cattle.
I have heard of a Eurasian police officer, who attributed the theft of five hundred rupees, his official transfer to an unhealthy district, and other strokes of bad luck, to the purchase of a horse with unlucky curls.
Eurasians, if they are from a mix of English and native blood, lived in a world of oscillating verbal codes. One was planar, while the other was feudal. Thurston, in his Castes and Tribes of Southern India have noted that they are more prone to mental imbalance statistically. This is a point that all native-English nation should note. When native-English speakers get mixed up with feudal (discriminatory) language systems, mental balance will get affected.
47. One screech forebodes death; two screeches forebode .....................
Omens are decrypted from the screeches of the owls. Certain other birds’ sounds are also believed to herald imminent happenings. Fowls, pigeons, sparrows &c. are mentioned in connection with various omens and beliefs.
A species of owl, called pullu, is a highly dreaded bird.
Should a crow come near the house, and caw in its usual rapid raucous tones, it means that calamity is impending. But, should the bird indulge in its peculiar prolonged guttural note, happiness will ensue..........
In fact, about both owls and crows, there is a number of Omens mentioned in the book. In so much, if there is anything of a fact in this, it might be quite interesting to study the code view of this aspect. People believe in such things. Whether the people are fools to believe in such things is a debatable point.
48. A number of rituals and customary actions, and also beliefs are mentioned in the book. Here it might be good to note that in the issue of death also, there are some verbal issues. In at least some of the feudal languages, the word ‘died’ has two different levels. If an animal or lower man dies, the lower grade word is used for ‘has died’ or ‘have died’. If it is a person of ordinary standards who has died, a more normal grade word is used. If it is a person who has to be extended great ‘respect’, there are higher words for that also.
So, in short, in feudal languages, even the dead face discrimination.
There is no concept of a ‘refined elite’ in feudal languages. The so-called elites in feudal languages are basically the crude suppressive upper classes who bestow rotten definitions on the lower classes. This in turn creates a terrible accumulation of negativity in the suppressed classes that it becomes quite healthy to avoid them.
49. Expertise is required to decode the chirping of lizards. Thurston mentions of such persons. Iguana (Varanus), tortoise, snakes in sexual union etc. are said to give specific indications. The presence of a rat‐snake (Zamenis inucosus) in a house is believed to bring good fortune!
50. There are many beliefs that Thurston has mentioned, which might be mere hearsay. The problem is that he did depend upon some native scholars also. The native scholars are from the upper castes. It is quite a debatable point as to how much they knew the intimate details of the lower castes who they viewed with rank disgust.
Beyond that there is also the issue of repulsion towards the lower castes. In so much so that a bit of the repulsion might also enter into the details. As Thurston himself has admitted, there were many occasions wherein he had to depend upon the writings and other records of others including the ‘Indians’.
51. I am informed by Mr A. F. Martin, that he has seen a Muduvar on the Travancore hills much pulled down by fever seize an expiring black monkey (Semnopithecus johni), and suck the blood from its jugular vein
The black monkey (locally known as the Karinggurang) suffered terribly from this reputation. When the newly converted-to-Christianity settler classes arrived in the forest lands of Malabar, and occupied it immediately with the departure of the English rule, one of the most frequently killed animals were the black monkeys.
Beyond that there was its unfortunate reputation that its meat was of medicinal value. So, in the terrible melee that followed the departure of the English rule, there was a highly profitable business in Karinggurannu rasayanam (ayurvedic essence) (black monkey rasayana).
I vaguely remember a monkey thus killed being brought to my house for the purpose of selling when I was quite young (circa 1965). I am told that it had the looks of a small human baby.
I think this picture is from Castes and Tribes of Southern India
52. It is noted by Mr F. Fawcett that the Savaras have names for numerals up to twelve only.
It is a very revealing information.
53. There is mention of the use of the bones of tigers, leopards, hyænas etc. and deer antlers in medicinal preparations. Black buck’s testicles are taken as an aphrodisiac. Pig fat is smeared on the body to ward off cholera. The fat of dugong was believed to be effective in the treatment of dysentery. The fat of peacock is believed to cure stiff joints.
However, the hill Kondhs considered leopards as sacred.
There is a caste, Jogi (Telugu mendicant) who ate cats. And there also people who objected to any harm to any cats.
On one occasion, I saw a Madiga (Telugu Pariah) carrying home a bag full of kittens, which he said he was going to eat.
Thurston mentions that hyæna incisor teeth were tied round the loins of a woman in labour, to lessen the pains.
The flesh of the jackals is mentioned as a remedy for asthma. The reason why the people believed this is also given.
54. Thurston mentions Karadi panchamritham or what he defines as bear delicacy.
The belief is thus: the bears collect ripe wood-apples and store them. When a large quantity is ready, they bring honey, and petals of fragrant flowers, and heap them on the wood-apples. Then with their feet and sticks they thresh them.
What is produced is a very sweet eatable. The story goes that the Vedans (forest dwelling hunter caste) enter into the scene at this very moment, and drive the bears off. The delicacy is robbed by them, which they sell as Karadi Panchamritham.
It is quite possible that the story is just a marketing ploy of the Vedans.
Thurston does mention the ingredients of the ordinary Panchamritham.
55. The Koyis of the Godavari district are mentioned to claim descent from Bhima of the Pandava brothers, by his marriage with a wild woman of the woods. I wonder if this is a reference to Hidimbi, who was to marry Bhima in the forests.
Hidimbi brother was killed by Bhima. He is described as an asura. The asura word might not have an English equivalent. The general translation is demon. However, from an English perspective, the word demon does not mean asura. As per the Sanskrit antiquity, asuras are the opponents of the devas. Here again there is a meaning problem. The word deva is usually translated as god. However, it is doubtful if the deva word used for the opponents of the asuras were almighty gods.
At best, devas are some kind of super beings. And the asuras their opponents, even though there are incidences where they did collaborate on a mutual benefit scheme.
However, it must also be mentioned that the devas were offered prayers by the ordinary mortals. Over the ages, there do seem to be some kind of change in the hierarchy of the devas. The devas that are mentioned in the early Rig-Veda text do not really seem to figure in the Brahmanical religion’s trinity concept.
I am told that the Rig Vedic gods were Varuna, Indra, Mitra &c.
As to the Brahmanical religion of later years, the top gods are Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
So there is something more that I do seem to have missed. However, I am not an expert in any of the things that I am commenting on here.
Coming back to the Bhima story, Hidimbi forces Bhima to marry her. I will leave that story here.
Locally the asuras are generally conceptualised as dark in skin-colour, while the devas are visualised as fair in complexion. If this theme is considered from the nonsensical US social framework, the theme is utterly racist. However, racism is actually a very small item. Only in English nation does it sound so great a problem.
In feudal language nations, a mere indicant word can paste stinking dirt on a person’s attributes. The native-English nations are not even aware of this terrible content.
56. It is mentioned that those of the Brahmanical religion use panchagavyam, i.e. the five products from a cow viz. milk, curd, butter, urine and dung to remove all pollution including that caused by a voyage across the seas.
The concept of ‘pollution’ is something to do with a negativity that has entered into the innate software codes.
57. There is this mention of the beautiful blue and white tiles, which adorn the floor of the synagogue of the White Jews in Cochin. They were actually for an old King of Cochin:
a wily Jew declared that bullock's blood must have been used in the preparation of the glaze, and offered to take them off the hands of the Raja, who was only too glad to get rid of them
58. Gadabas of Vizagapatam and Malai Vellala of Coimbatore have objections to touching a horse. In the case of the former, it is a sort of professional rivalry. For, they are palanquin-bearers.
59. Jungle Kadirs worship the wild elephants. Tamed elephants are seen by them as having lost their divine element. There might be some substance in the latter part. Being tamed means being on the lower indicant word codes of the servants of the natives landlords. It is a location where even the most divine personage will lose his or her divinity.
It is very much worse than a senior Indian government official being addressed as Nee or Thoo, by the servants in some rich household.
60. Brahmani kite (Haliastur Indus, Garuda pakshi) is revered by many. But the Kondhs will kill it. As per the Brahmanical traditions, Garuda is a divinity, and a vahana (vehicle) of Lord Vishnu. Garuda feeds on snakes, and hence the serpents regard Garuda as their enemy. Garudi Vidya is a mantra against snake poison. There are two Brahmanical scriptures, viz. Garudopanishad and Garuda Purana, wherein Garuda name is in the title.
61. There is a legend in the Kavarathi Island of the Laccadives, that a Mappilla tangal (Muhammadan priest) once cursed the crows for dropping their excrement on his person, and now there is not a crow on the island.
As per my understanding, Tangals are not Islamic priests. They are considered to be the direct descendents of Prophet Muhammad. Some of them do practise a particular kind of occult art.
There is a curious issue connected to them in the local Malabari language. This issue is now in the Malayalam language also, which has displaced Malabari in Malabar. The Sunnis Muslims forbid the use of the lower indicant word Nee on them. However, in current-day times of mass compulsory education, this is an item that would be quite difficult to maintain. For, as per the current mass education policy, the teachers are the Brahmins and the students are the lower castes as per the indicant word codes.
62. there is a legend that the Kapus were once in chains, and the sparrows set them at liberty, and took the bondage on themselves.
So, some Kapu (Telugu cultivator) houses hang up food for sparrows who they revere. .
Seen from this perspective, the African blacks who reached the US as ‘slaves’ should really be offering similar things to the Whites of the confederate states. For saving them from the terrible tyrannies of their native lands and making them reach the levels of developed human populations. But then, due to the nonsensical indoctrination that they receive from insipid academic textbooks, they seem to believe that they lost their liberty in the US. What a wonderful understanding of Africa and Asia!
63. There is a mention of Jatayu. The ‘Chalk Hills’ of Salem district is belived to be the bones of Jatayu. When Sita, the consort of Rama was being kidnapped by Ravana and taken away in his flying vehicle, it was Jatayu who tried to stop him.
I think I will mention something about the Rama story. It is a story told or retold in Ramayana, which is mentioned as authored by Valmiki. My allusion would be about the verbal codes affects that can be seen in the story. I am more or less copying the text from my book: Shrouded Satanism in feudal languages:
There is the story of Rama, narrated in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana which is geographically connected to the area currently connected variously to current day north-west India, north India, Middle India, East India, Nepal, and South India, and even to Sri Lanka. Ramayana is in Sanskrit. It is said to be a great book with a lot of insights into human social and spiritual living. I have not read it, but do know a few of the stories in its vast canvas. I do not know anyone who has read it in the original.
Rama was sort of duped to marry a female who was said to be a princess, but actually was not. Looking from the spiritual point of view, what I am saying could be painful. However, seeing Rama as a person who lived in a feudal language nation, this could be a real havoc in his life. For, when he takes his wife to his household, the servants there wouldn’t treat her as a superior person.
It is a great problem. In the subcontinent, if a person from a powerful and socially superior family marries a female of lowly or doubtful family links, the most terrible danger is from the servant class of the family. The family members may or may not treat her with higher indicant words, depending on her husband’s stature. However, to make the servants associated to the family to use the higher indicant words would be quite difficult. They might do it perfunctorily. However, in the privacy of their own households, they would only mention her as an Aval (oal) or USS, instead of Avar (oar) or UNN. The husband’s social stature would get mighty affected.
Rama’s father, the king had three wives. Now, when the prospect of an un-acknowledgeable female becoming the queen becomes a real possibility, the main servant of the third wife spurs her mistress to stake her claims to crown her son as the next king, instead of Rama, who should actually become the next king, as per the codes of primogeniture.
In this incident, the power of the servant class is evident, which is not really visible otherwise. They stand as the pivot on which the higher persons rotate. They can literally change an indicant code word and tangibly swing superior persons on to any positional angle in the society. Very dangerous and diabolical power, indeed.
I understand that the Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata may indeed contain a lot of social insights. Even in the behaviour of Sita, which required a Lakshman Reka to contain itself within acceptable norms, there are great insights about the powers inside a feudal language software. I do not want to go into that here, for it may take my writing into far-off locations.
A wife who the servants do not respect and see as a social senior can bring in disaster on the familial discipline over the servants. A wife whom the servants believe is one among them can be a problem to a limited extent even in England, when the family is from the nobility. However, the issue of a powerful indicant words dwarfing the wife and through her of her husband is not there in English. It is powerfully there in feudal languages. A servant’s husband is not an avar or adheham, but a mere avan. Even though, such words may not be openly spoken, the numerical values in the codes would sink to that level, even if the husband is perfunctorily mentioned as Avar or Ayaal.
In the case of Sita, she was an adopted daughter of a King. Naturally, it is obvious that at least some of the servants of her husband’s household were not willing to concede to her the status of a Royal princess.
from Shrouded Satanism in feudal languages.
64. It is recorded by Canter Visscher that, "in the mountains and remote jungles of this country (Malabar), there is a species of snake of the shape and thickness of the stem of a tree, which can swallow men and beasts entire”
It is a very curious statement that has the feel of some superstition.
It is quite obvious that the ‘snake’ that is referred to is the python. And whether it is a ‘snake’ or a wild animal in the shape of a snake is also a debatable point. Snakes have forked tongue.
65. The Coya (Koyi) people eat snakes
Does that mean some ancestral connection to the people of Far-east?
QUOTE from NATIVE LIFE IN TRAVANCORE by REV. SAMUEL MATEER: There is also a hunter caste called Pulayars, which Mr.Baker considers to be nearly the same as the Uralis, except that their speech is Tamil. He also met with a few miserable beings calling themselves HILL Pandaram, without clothing, implements, or huts of any kind, living in holes, rocks, or trees. They bring wax, ivory, and other produce to the Arayans, and get salt from them. They dig roots, snare the ibex of the hills, and jungle fowls, eat rats and snakes, and even crocodiles found in the pools amongst the hill streams. [/quote]
The Mr. Baker mentioned in the above quote is, I think, Henry Baker, who was one of the persons instrumental in improving the lot of the lower castes in Travancore. I think he was based somewhere near to Kottayam in Travancore.
As of now, it is doubtful anyone really cares for persons like him, in the nonsensical rhetoric that the British colonial rule was looting. In fact, Travancore was never a part of the British rule, and still the people there are fooled by school textbooks as to claim that their place was ‘looted’ by the English. The very commemoration of the ‘Indian Independence’ day there is an act of foolishness. Actually Travancore lost its independence when the Indian prime minister intimidated the kingdom of immediate military attack if the kingdom did not surrender its sovereignty to India.
As to the eating of snakes theme, I remember one person telling me of an incident that happened in a location near to Nadapuram in Malabar, some 40 years back. A carpenter was working in the house of a settler class man in the forest-filled hills. Suddenly a rat-snake appeared. The settler man and his wife starting running after it, as if to kill it. The carpenter simply said, ‘Oh, let it go. It is only a non-poisonous rat snake’.
Immediately the settler man said, ‘Oh, this is for our afternoon food.’
The carpenter retorted, ‘Who will eat a snake?’
The settler man replied: ‘Then what did you eat yesterday?’
I am told that the carpenter went into uncontrollable hysteria and terror that he had to be hospitalised for weeks.
66. Mr Gopal Panikkar that, ''people believe in the existence inside the earth of a precious stone called manikkakkallu.
The theme of nagamanickam being in the possession of tribal people, who I was told did not know its monetary value, is a theme that has been mentioned in earlier times. However as of now, with the tribal people literally being plucked out from their forest areas, as intense tree-felling has developed after the end of the English rule, into the open, these kind of stories are on the wane. The forest dwellers, many of them, have ended up as the domestic servants of the others in the nation. It is a tragic situation, for which a nation run on feudal languages has no solution for.
The nagamanickam is believed to be processed out by nagams, or the divine serpents.
67. In Malabar, it is believed that snakes wed mortal girls, and fall in love with women.
I did once hear a story that snakes do like to watch women bathe. I do not remember the exact source of this. I have not heard it mentioned again.
However, I have had certain observations that animals do like to have a sexual relationship with human beings, especially women. I feel that many of the human sexual emotions including that of deviated sexual desires are there in at least a few individuals among the animals.
68. When it is applied to the punctures made by the snake's poison fangs, it is said to stick fast and extract the poison, falling off of itself as soon as it is saturated.
The above reference is about the Vishakallu or the venom-stone. I have heard of it. It is reputed to be in the hands of the traditional Vesharis (traditional snake-bite curing professionals). Even though nowadays not many people do have trust in them, during their period of good reputation, they were reputed to have saved many persons from snakebite deaths.
A specimen was submitted to Faraday, who expressed his belief that it was a piece of charred bone, which had been filled with blood, and then charred again
That is the physical examination result of the item. Who knows what a supernatural software test would reveal? The physical examination is similar to giving a CD or DVD or hard-disk to a blacksmith of yore in the subcontinent.
The following note on a reputed cure for snake poisoning, used by the Oddes (navvies), was communicated to me by Mr Gustav Haller.
It is quite curious that a very detailed description of a cure using Vishakallu is mentioned in the book. Mr. Gustav Haller mentions that he was a personal witness of the procedure!
If at all this Vishakkallu does work, an evaluation by modern doctors might not be of any use. For, the technology that the doctors understand might not be the technology on which the Vishakkallu might work.
However, I have no opinion either way.
I think the picture is from Castes and Tribes of Southern India
69. The Madgole zamindars claim to be descended from the rulers of Matsya Desa.
I am not alluding to the line above directly. However, what I would like to mention is this: any people or population that comes from anywhere in the world. They then learn the local feudal vernaculars of the subcontinent. They will slowly change in physical looks corresponding to the social level attached to the level they are assigned in the language. Within a few generations, they will have very little anthropological features that connect them to the nation of their origin.
The reverse might be seen in people from the subcontinent, who went to England or the US some forty or fifty years back. If they come back to their native land, they would look quite outlandish.
70. The low caste man being in every respect inferior to the Brahman, the matter or subtle substance proceeding from his eye, and mixing with the objects seen by him, must of necessity be inferior and bad.
Even though the above quote is with regard to explaining why the higher castes do not like them being viewed while eating, by the lower castes, the idea is very much in tune to what I had mentioned about the effect of lower indicant codes. When a person is defined in lower grade indicant words, there is indeed a terrific amount of negativity gathering into his innate codes. Even the place he sit is felt to have lost its positive numerical values. What happens might be visible in the code-view.
The quote is with regard to a lower caste man. However, in modern times, it can be with regard to any person who has been made to go beneath the lower grade persons in the indicant word code definitions.
It is true that the vision of a lower stature person has a great power of negativity. I have observed it and experienced it personally. However, as of now, it is not connected with any caste.
Thurston mentions the concept of ‘a transmissible personality’ as propounded by Mr E. S. Hartland. Yet, the code-level view of the concept might not be understood by either of them.
Here I would like to take one complete descriptive text from my first book on feudal languages: MARCH of the EVIL EMPIRES: English versus the feudal languages. This comes in the last pages of that book.
QUOTE from MARCH of the EVIL EMPIRES:
If this is possible for the brain, then in combination with the indicant value indicators that feudal language programmed brains can evaluate, the human brain does have a very imposing capacity to influence human society. However, I will very frankly admit that I myself am not clear in what it is that I want to convey.
Yet, I may try to give an inkling of it, through some illustrative stories. One of my acquaintances was a publisher in Delhi, India. He had to regularly go to the Central Secretariat (Central government Ministry office) to meet the Ministers and their private staff, in regard to the business of designing out government propaganda advertising. His sales staff would already have done the spadework.
There was a period of time, when he was under severe financial strains. He sold his expensive car. However he arranged for a chauffeur-driven rental car, with private car registration. This arrangement was on a 24 hour-monthly basis, and involved a lot of expense. Why he wanted this car was for his impromptu business trips to various places, including the Central Secretariat.
I once asked him why he couldn’t engage a taxi, when he wanted to go the Central Secretariat, and other places. He then replied that actually for the purpose of going he can very well, even engage an auto-rickshaw (three-wheeler taxi vehicle), for the same purpose. It would be very, very cheap indeed. But then, the mental aura that comes with an arrival in a chauffeur-driven private car would not be there.
He said, ‘If I arrive in such a vehicle, even the very pillar in the Secretariat would know it. When I enter the Minister’s office, the exuberance that I bring in will be felt by everyone. I then would get the appropriate positive response. At the same time, if I come in a taxi car or an auto-rickshaw, or if I had been accompanied by a lower class companion, even the security guards in the building would discern the negativity, even if they don’t actually see my vehicle or my companion’.
Likewise, one may carry the aura of one’s base class-level, wherever one goes, even if one does not convey the same verbally. A little part of this affect may be due to the body language. Whatever the reason, the indicant word level is conveyed. In fact, in a feudal language world, there is an almost invisible and also spontaneous transmission of one’s indicant word level. The cumulative effect of this would be an overwhelming social force on any individual.
71. On one occasion, when I was in camp at Coimbatore, the Oddes (navvies) being afraid of my evil eye, refused to fire a new kiln of bricks for the new no club chambers
I do not really understand what the presumed evil eye of an English man was. However, it is true that the presence of an Englishman or his seeing of the events would create major changes in the mood of everyone. In fact, his very presence, way of interaction, connecting across social levels without any qualms about various social strictures &c. can create terrible changes in the social discipline and can even lead to inefficiency.
In fact, I can very categorically say that it was the close interaction of the French soldiery with the English soldiers in the New World during the belligerence led by the miscreant G Washington, that rapidly led to the beheading of the French king.
I have even heard from a former Indian soldier, his rank antipathy for his officers, which arose in him after seeing the English soldiers at close proximity, when his battalion was in Africa on a UN peace-keeping effort.
72. So, when His Excellency drove through Walajapet last July, the bazaar people did not show their best cloths, fearing ill‐luck would follow, but also because they thought he would introduce their trade in carpets, etc., into the Central Jail, Vellore, and so ruin them.
There is real pathos in the above statement. I am not speaking about the bazaar people. They are quite intelligent to foresee how the events would take place, if they are a bit careless. I am speaking of England and colonial Englishmen. The English colonialism was busy disseminating all their technical skills, information and also English language, without a bit of caution that once these things come into the hands of competing economic and social bosses in other places, they would takeover and aim for the ruin of England!
Even in Travancore, which was not under British-India, London Missionary Society was quite busy intimating the best industrial ideas to the lower castes there. See: Native Life in Travancore
73. In Malabar, a mantram, which is said to be effective against the potency of the evil eye, runs as follows: — "Salutation to thee, O God! Even as the moon wanes in its brightness at the sight of the sun, even as..........
Thurston is attempting the impossible. He is trying to recreate a Mantram in English by mere translation. It is an impossible venture. The verbal power in the mantram would be connected to the code-view of the original words. Moreover the twists, turns, curls, spiralling and the piercing tone of the words, and its soothing, rhythmic cadence would all act in ways which are not mentionable in English.
It is true that even seeming gibberish animal sounds can have powerful codes or meanings that cannot be understood or detected by human beings. It is the same with feudal languages. And also about Mantram chanting.
Trying to understand them at the physical view level might be dangerous for native-English speakers. For it might mean transforming themselves into the native-speakers of the language. It can create a scar on the innate stature of a native-Englishman or woman.
74. In Malabar, fear of the evil eye is very general. At the corner of the upper storey of almost every Nayar house near a road or path is suspended some object, often a doll‐like hideous creature, on which the eye of the passers‐by may rest
There is some mighty trick code in effecting an unconscious shift in the focus of the eye. After all, the persons who are viewing the house are speakers of a communication software in which mere words can create huge shift in the design view.
75. ...........a prickly branch of cactus, or what not, to catch the evil eye of passers‐by, and divert their attention from the important work in hand."
Persons, who have lived so many years and never known about the existence of feudal languages, must not act too intelligent and pronounce judgemental comment on these things. For, judging without information is a nonsensical arrogance.
76. Mr S. Appadorai Iyer: "It is not the eye alone that commits the mischief, but also the mind and tongue. ..
This is a statement that comes quite close to understanding that there is a huge interconnected machinery in the background, in which the eyes, mind and tongue work in close collaboration to each other. Even beyond it is the fact that all of them would work in the wider expanse of the software application of the codes of reality.
Without knowing anything about all this, people including the ‘learned’ medical and mental science professional make ‘profound’ statements!
77. It is waved in front of the sick person, taken to a place where three roads or paths meet, and left there.
I have noticed that there is something special about the number 3 in some of the feudal languages. Apart from that, the meeting place of three roads also has some specific code/s that does intervene in the reality view in some manner.
78. The sudden illness of children is often attributed to the evil eye.
I have my own observations that there is something true in the above lines. However, the actual affect of the negative numerical value infliction cannot be mentioned by me. Illness is just one. It can be many other things also.
79. It is said that "you will cause mortal offence to a Hindu lady, should you remark of her child ‘What a nice baby you have or 'How baby has grown since I saw him last.'
Even though things are not as simple as Thurston mentions, there is indeed some problem with such praise that might evoke jealousy of envy in others.
I remember an experience of my own. It was the closing day celebration of a study course, in which the students (male & female) came from varying levels of background and English proficiency. I made a fabulous extempore speech, with each line loaded with synonyms and rhyming words.
After that there was a Housie competition. I was the first to get the first line correct. After some time, I was the first to get the second line correct. Then again after some more time, I was the first to get the third line correct. In fact, everything I got correct.
If I looked in the eyes of many other ‘class-mates’, I could see the look of quite distressed envy.
That evening it seemed that I was being heaped with ‘luck’. Chocolates were the prizes, which were eaten by others in a gesture of appreciating my ‘luck’.
But within hours or days, ill-luck came my way from every direction. It was as if all my luck had been poured out on that day. Ill-luck continued for a long time.
However, I have over the years understood that all these luck and ill-luck basically is small items in a big software program. In that, nothing actually deviates from the predestined path of life.
I cannot say that this is the experience and intelligence everyone would get from their own lives.
It might be mentioned again that the encoding of envy in a feudal language system would be quite different from that in planar languages like English. In the former, any luck or success can make powerful shifts in the location of many others in the design view.
In fact, the eyeing of any event by feudal (discriminatory) language speakers has to be understood in a manner different from anything understood in English. It is a different world. Emotions are different.
80. At a royal marriage in Travancore, in 1906, a bevy of Nayar maidens, quaintly dressed, walked in front of the Rani's palanquin. They were intended as Drishti Pariharam, to ward off the evil eye.
Drishti Pariharam, literally can mean the ‘solution’ for the ‘seeing’. Yes, in feudal languages, who sees us, who thinks about us, about whom we think, who comments about us, who interacts with us, who competes with us, who mentions a connection with us, who gets up in a pose of servitude to us all are connected to a very complex web of interlocked codes. This is due to the presence of indicant codes. It splits all simple link codes into a multitude. This is turn make the whole social relationship links into a very gigantic web of links.
A tiny change in a numerical value in one link literally heaves the whole web of strings in a very complex manner. For, the shift in the numerical value stature of any one entity in the web can rearrange the stature of every person, relative to each other person. Some persons may simply shift from below another person to above that person, when somewhere else there is a change in some numerical value.
I will give a very simple example.
One man is working as an assistant (Name: A) in a small-time shop. Though of around forty years, he is not given much respect (low indicant words). He keeps to himself as much as possible. However, he has a close associate who is also a lower job man (Name: B). He is also in the lower indicant word levels.
That is people in his work area use the no-respect words for YOU, HE, HIM, HIS, YOUR, YOURS &c. about him and to him.
One afternoon all of the employees are sitting together. Mr. A is not there. Mr. B is there.
Suddenly on TV there is an announcement. That a young man from the locality has passed the highest grade IAS exam in flying colours. It is specifically mentioned that this young person is the son of Mr. A.
His son had been working somewhere else and had studied for the exam and passed it, due to his own diligence. IAS exam is the entrance gateway to the highest ranking administrative service position in India.
The information is something that has happened at least a couple of thousand kilometres away. Usually no one will cares for this kind of news much. However, inside the room there is a rapid shift in the indicant words. Mr. A’s son is going to come as a very senior officer in the State government.
In the local feudal language, Mr. A will have a very powerful position above his son, in the verbal codes. As this information sinks in, the employees in the room will understand the terrific change that has happened in the verbal codes. All words of addressing and referring have to change to fit into the scheme of the new information.
However, it would not end at that point. A new information also will sink. That Mr. B is very intimately connected to Mr. A. This simple connection will enhance Mr. B’s indicant words also. For, he is also now in another plain.
From there the link codes of Mr. B also will start changing in various locations. In many places, he will literally do a flipping by which he will be on top of various others who had earlier been on top of him.
This very necessary change is machined by the indicant word codes.
END OF ILLUSTRATION
In a human society, there are very many people. There are tens of thousands of links. When this upheaval affects every link, there will be spontaneous and rapid change in everyone in the links.
I gave the above illustration to show how a complex web of relationship can literally wobble and rearrange itself when there is a shift in the indicant word arrangement in one location.
There is a social fright everywhere. Even the queens and kings are terribly wary of some misfortune hitting them, and they being reduced to the levels of ordinary people.
In the subcontinent, this terror has induced a continuous haste to tumble down others. For, it is a very common understanding that the others are always making haste to tumble down the man on this side.
This terror literally ended after the English East India Company came to become the paramount power in the subcontinent. Every kingdom sought their protection and there was peace.
See this quote from Travancore State Manual, written by a native historian:
QUOTE 1: “It is the power of the British sword,” as has been well observed, “which secures to the people of India the great blessings of peace and order which were unknown through many weary centuries of turmoil, bloodshed and pillage before the advent of the Briton in India” [/quote] (Travancore State Manual)
QUOTE 2: ..............collecting their own taxes, building their own forts, levying and drilling their own troops of war, their chief recreation consisting in the plundering of innocent ryots all over the country or molesting their neighbouring Poligars. The same story was repeated throughout all the States under the Great Moghul. In fact never before in the history of India has there been one dominion for the whole of the Indian continent from the Himalayas to the Cape, guided by one policy, owing allegiance to one sovereign power and animated by one feeling of patriotism to a common country, as has been seen since the consolidation of the British power in India a hundred years ago. [/quote] (Travancore State Manual)
81. There is this peculiarity about a Nayadi's curse, that it always has the opposite effect. Hence, when he is asked to curse one who has given him alms, he complies by invoking misery and evil upon him.
I think the picture is from: Tribes and Castes of Southern India
It would be quite interesting to check the particular software codes that enable a total reversal in affect. In fact, many years ago when I was experimenting with Adobe Acrobat, inside a form field, there was a location for pushing up an image inside the field box. However, it was found that when we push up the image, it would come down. It was obviously some code anomaly that had gone unnoticed at the time that version of Adobe Acrobat was released. In later versions, this coding error was seen rectified. That is when we push up the image, it goes up. Not down.
All these things are in the software codes that design the real view. The going up and the going down. Both gravity as well as levitation.
82. During one of my tours, a gang of Yerukalas absolutely refused to sit on a chair, and I had perforce to measure their heads while they squatted on the ground.
It seems a most curious observation. Maybe Thurston did not understand. However, that also is not really possible. For, he would be aware of the hierarchy strictures in the local society. Very few people were allowed sit on a chair or to sleep on a cot. These two mentioned freedoms are only for the higher classes.
Even now, most people in India would not dare to sit in front of a government official. When I say ‘most people’, the reader should bear in mind that there are around 70% or so people in India, who are under varying levels of poverty and lowliness. In all fashionable talk about India, their experiences do not count.
83. When a Tamil Paraiyan dies, an impression of the dead man's palm is sometimes taken in cow‐dung, and stuck on the wall.
It is quite curious as to how Thurston gets to know of these things. Actually, the very lower castes’ issues are not taken up for any kind of discussion in the local social system, unless it is for some kind of political gain.
Recently, that is around the year 2016, I heard this story from a higher caste young man. There was a Pulaya (very low caste) man and his wife in a nearby location. He had a son. Around their house, was the house of a slightly lower caste carpenter, who was also a known communist party small-time leader in the area.
The Pulaya man lived in a hut with no ground area around it. The next door carpenter had a huge property.
Pulayas are among the totally low castes. Among them those who converted into Christianity from Travancore (independent kingdom) during the times of the English evangelism went upward in the social system as they become big time landowners of forest land. However, the Pulayas of Malabar did not get this opportunity as Missionary work was not allowed inside British-India. Even East India Company rule did not allow it.
The Pulaya man in this story, lived in a small hut. My informant mentioned that his wife was not mentally capable. I could understand the statement. If the highest government official in India is addressed and referred to in the lower indicant words, he or she will become equally mentally unfit.
The Pulaya man died. My informant got this news. The corpse was lying there untended. Something had to be done. The wife was unable to communicate with the next door communist man, unless she was willing to bear the terrible lower indicant word usages.
My informant went to the next door communist man. He had a big property. The Pulaya man had lived in a very small piece of land, in which his hut occupied more or less the whole plot. So the request was made to this man to allow the dead body to be cremated in his huge land property.
The request was point-blank refused. There was no question of a Pulaya man’s dead body being cremated in his land. It would remain as a black spot forever. At the same time, if the request was to bury the dead body of a socially high stature man, then it would be thing of which one could be proud of.
Now, this is the reality of India. There is repulsion towards various people. These same people, who cannot bear each other, when they reach a native-English nation, cannot bear any corridor being kept to keep them out of any avenue. For, they have a very powerful word for claiming damages. That word is ‘racism.
English ‘racism’ is utter nonsense. It does not keep anyone from coming near. Everyone wants to experience English ‘racism’. It is the most ennobling experience on earth. That is the truth.
Coming back to the dead body issue, people are encoded in terrific and terrible verbal codes, the power of which cannot be understood in English. If these codes work on an Englishman, he will also dry up.
LINK TO SCURRY
84. The evil tongue is a frequent cause of failure. It consists in talking evil of others or harping on probable misfortunes.
There is a climate of speaking ill in the subcontinent. It is basically connected to the feudal indicant words. If the referring is in the higher indicant word codes, people would not speak ill.
However, in most cases this assigning of a higher indicant word code is a very big burden. In most cases, even if a higher indicant word is used for addressing (YOU, YOUR, YOURS), if the person is not powerful enough, the words for HE, HIS, HIM, SHE, HER, HERS will go into the lower indicant words in private conversation.
At this location, all mentions are generally towards the lower grading. Ill-speech is rampant. People would seek out bad themes about the person and mention it. It is a very enjoyable experience to feel the power of using lower indicant words on persons who act superior.
Even if one is nice to others, this will happen. If the person seems to be from a more refined social stratum, then the tendency to speak ill becomes more manifest and a social necessity. This is when that person has no personal punitive powers. However, if the person has punitive powers, then people consistently use the higher indicant words. Fear is the key to acquiring higher indicant words.
These are items totally from a very eerie social location that is never known to the native-English. For these kinds of satanic codes are not there in English.
85. I have seen eggs, milk, and plantains offered in the evening, after the lamp has been lit, at these shrines, to invoke the serpent's aid on particular occasions. Such is the veneration in which these shrines are held that Cherumars (agrestic serfs) and other low caste aborigines, who are believed to pollute by their very approach, are absolutely interdicted from getting within the precincts.
Thurston is speaking about serpent-worship in the households. It is locally known as Nagaraadhana or Sarparaadhana. Sarpam is the local word equivalent for serpent. I find the similarity in the names quite interesting.
Households would have sarpakkavu or serpent shrines (serpent groves).
Those who did this worship must have derived some benefits. Otherwise, it would be quite illogical to believe that such a spiritual theme would survive for centuries. As to what happened after the advent of the English rule was that in most places, this worship literally went dry. Many of the higher caste households removed all traces of these things.
As to whether anything went bad for them, well, the fact is that they have lost their temporal stature in the social system. They have come down to the levels of being equal or lesser to their deemed lower castes. Whether this experience is due to their negligence towards serpent worship might remain a moot point till one learns to approach the supernatural codes of reality.
Speaking about the stature of the serpents, it was believed that the proximity of lower castes would be unbearable to these deemed divinities. It is said that they would run off, if such persons approached.
I find it interesting that this behaviour pattern is quite similar to how the higher castes actually behaved when the lower castes were given statutory rights to come inside locations where once only the higher castes roamed.
And it is also interesting that this behaviour is similar to what is known as ‘White flight’ in England. Well, the fact is that what promotes all these urges are the same or similar software codes.
Eerie communication codes can really terrify people, even if it is not spoken.
86. There is a famous Brahmin household known as Pampu Mekat Illam. This is a household traditionally connected to serpent worship. It is said that there is a Kedavilakk (never-dying lamp) in this household. It literally means that the lamp is kept lit always. The oil used in this lamp is mentioned as having the powers to cure skin-troubles which can be traced to Sarpakopam (wrathful curse of the serpents).
87. The women, from whom devils have to be cast out, bathe and take their seats on the western side, each with a flower‐pod of the areca palm. The Pulluvan, with his wife or daughter, begins his shrill musical tunes (on serpents), vocal and instrumental alternately. As they sing, the young female members appear to be influenced by the modulation of the tunes and the smell of the perfumes. They gradually move their heads in a circle, which soon quickens, and the long locks of hair are soon let loose
I think the picture is from Castes and Tribes of Southern India
Above quote is about Pamban Thullal (serpant dance). Actually the benefits that these kinds of rituals gave cannot be disregarded as utter useless. For, these things can easily compete with the modern psychological and psychiatric practises. At least, the Pulluvans have some definite idea as to who they are appealing to. It is doubtful if the mental science professionals have any grounds of authority about what they are professing. Lobotomy, Electric-shock treatment, use of drugs whose exact manner of curing or treating is not known etc. are at best some kind of fashionable livelihood.
88. if the pot‐drum has been polluted by the touch of a menstruating female
Menstruating females are seen as polluting agents. Why it is so is not known to me. However, their entry into temples during this period has been mentioned as forbidden.
In some households, menstruating females are not allowed to cook in the kitchen. Even though this seems quite outrageous, in effect, it is a nice time of relaxation for the female.
89. Hindus of all castes, high and low, make vows and offerings to the gods, with the object of securing their good‐will or appeasing their anger
Thurston has noted that the lower castes make pious offering to minor stature deities in the form of fowls, sheep, goats or buffaloes. These minor deities allow animal sacrifice.
At the same time, the higher castes keep out of these things. They give their offering to higher stature deities as Venkateswara of Tirupati, Subramanya of Palni, Viraraghava of Tiruvallur and Tirunarayana of Melkote. I do not know if these deities are from the Brahmanical spiritual antiquity. What are offered in these places are various kinds of vows.
What might be interesting to seek out is possibility that what the lower castes were worshipping were some kind of Shamanistic deities which came along with them from elsewhere. However, when their social stature went down, these deities also were given a slight distance by the Hindu worshipers (i.e. Brahmins, and the other associated Aaryan castes).
Even though the lower castes naturally would have an infatuation with the higher caste deities, due to the issue of distance lending enchantment, it is noted by Thurston that when they have serious illnesses, the Hindus had no qualms in seeking the help of the Shamanistic deities.
I think the picture is from Castes and Tribes of Southern India
90. Writing in 1872, Mr Breeks remarked that ''about Ootacamund, a few Todas have latterly begun to imitate the religious practices of their native neighbours
It is an interesting observation. That, religious practises do spread by means of diffusion. Whenever the same kind of people comes into social leadership, they form the social system as per their language designs. Along with that spiritual believes also spread.
Wherever the English rule was in place, the social system slowly changed into an egalitarian one as per the designs of the English language.
91. He subsequently had many sons, one of whom he named Dasan, and placed entirely at the service of the god. Dasan forfeited all claim to his father's estate, and his descendants are therefore all beggars.
There might be many examples of people taking a pledge to their deity that not only themselves, but their descendents would also do it. I do have a gut feeling that this vow is connected to the hierarchal codes in the feudal languages. In these languages, children are the regimented subordinates of the elders. The elder can be either the fathers, or the mother, or even the maternal uncle. It depends on the family system of the person.
92. Some devotees pierce a skewer (silver pins) through the cheeks. I have seen such people in my childhood. Some poke a sphere into some body parts. All these are done as part of some penance or vow. It would be good to have a very realistic study of what induces them to do this, and what is the benefit they derive. Simply decrying all this as ‘superstitions’ will not give any information. The basic question would be as to how this kind of seemingly terrifying penances came into practise.
93. Curiously enough, the priest of this Paraiya shrine is himself a Brahman.
In many ways, this points to the conceding of their own inferiority by the lower castes to the social superiors. Also might point to the ways, in which Brahmanical religion slowly diffused into the Shamanistic worship. It is quite possible that the Brahmanical religion (Hinduism) maintained its purity at various locations.
It may be noted that the lower castes were not one group. They were mutually competing groups, to achieve a social stature above their nearest castes. In fact, Thurston himself has noted in his Castes and Tribes of Southern India, that the at-the-very-bottom castes would fight for supremacy among themselves. This was a location where the Brahmanical castes never interfered. In fact, their minor postures of mutual superiority might provide entertainment to the higher castes.
I think the picture is from Castes and Tribes of Southern India
94. Odiyan: There is a very curious description of the Odiyan phenomenon in this book. I think it is part of the Malabar areas’ social terrors. I do not know if this phenomenon has been there in other places of the southern parts of the South Asian subcontinent. In fact, there is no mention of it in this book with regard to other locations in the Madras Presidency and also in Travancore kingdom areas.
In the Malabar areas, Odiyan phenomenon was a terror was mentioned till around the 1960s. The belief was that the lower castes of Paniyas and Pulayas would use black magic powers to change their form into certain specific animals like cat, dog, bull &c. In that form, they would approach the household of the higher castes, which were actually beyond the bounds of the lower castes.
They would use these powers to have sexual relationship with higher caste women.
However, the most terrible part of this belief was about the way they would acquire the powers of black magic.
What was required was pillathylam (foetal essence). The Odiyan’s assistant would first prospect for a pregnant woman of about six or seven month’s foetal growth. They have to get her in their hands. The time of this is midnight hours. They would go through certain ritualistic fasting beforehand. A Yantram would be drawn on the ground and the auspicious versus inauspicious signs are noted. If everything is okay, they approach the woman’s house.
The black magician would hold in his hand a coconut containing a black magic potion called Gurusi, and go around the house in circumambulation. Various mantra lines would be chanted along with this.
QUOTE from the book: By the potency of his cult, the woman is made to come out. Even if the door of the room in which she might sleep be under lock and key, she would knock her head against it until she found her way out. END of QUOTE from the book.
The black magician would lead the woman to a secluded. He then tells her to lie down on the ground. Rest of the details of how the foetus is extracted and how it is used would make sordid detailing. The details can be found in OMENS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF SOUTHERN INDIA.
Picture from NATIVE LIFE in TRAVANCORE
Many people did believe in these cabalistic powers which the Paraya and Pulaya lower castes were reputed to have. There was real terror of this wizardry, that the higher castes would at times, if they suspected anyone of these lower castes of practising the same, attack their feeble hamlets. They would maim them or even burn down their huts.
That was only one side of the issue. The other side was actually there was belief that these kinds of occult powers can be achieved by the practise of these hidden arts. There were cases of extracting the foetus etc. The English colonial administration had to deal with both sides of the issue. On one hand, the protection of the totally enfeebled lower caste settlements was one responsibility. The other suppressing those who were inclined to practise these terrible arts.
From a perfunctory perspective, one might say that the lower castes were suppressed. However, in their unsuppressed state, they were quite capable of all human deeds, good and bad.
There is this quite interesting mention about the Parayas in the Travancore kingdom, made by REV. Mateer in his NATIVE LIFE IN TRAVANCORE.
A curious custom also existed, which is said to have added to the number of the enslaved. The various castes met at fighting grounds at Pallam, Ochira, &c.; and at this season it was supposed that low-caste men were at liberty to seize high-caste women if they could manage it, and to retain them. Perhaps this practice took its origin in some kind of faction fights.
A certain woman at Mundakayam, with fair Syrian features, is said to have been carried off thus. Hence arose a popular error that during the months of Kumbha and Meena (February and March), if a Pulayan meets a Sudra woman alone he may seize her, unless she is accompanied by a Shanar boy.
This time of year was called Pula pidi kalam, Gundert says that this time of terror was in “the month Karkadam (15th July to 15th August), during which high caste women may lose caste if a slave happen to throw a stone at them after sunset.”
The Pariahs in North Travancore formerly kidnapped females of high caste, whom they were said to treat afterwards in a brutal manner. Their custom was to turn robbers in the month of February, just after the ingathering of the harvest, when they were free from field work, and at the same time excited by demon worship, dancing, and drink.
They broke into the houses of Brahmans and Nayars, carrying away their children and property, in excuse for which they pretended motives of revenge rather than interest, urging a tradition that they were once a division of the Brahmans, but entrapped into a breach of caste rules by their enemies making them eat beef.
These crimes were once committed almost with impunity in some parts, but have now disappeared.
Barbosa, writing about A.D. 1516, refers to this strange custom as practised by the polcas (Pulayars). “These low people during certain months of the year try as hard as they can to touch some of the Nayr women, as best they may be able to manage it, and secretly by night, to do them harm.
