Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India: Being a Revised and Enlarged Edition of "Indian Life, Religious and Social" Comprising Studies and Sketches of Interesting Peculiarities in the Beliefs, Festivals and Domestic Life of the Indian People; Also of Witchcraft and Demoniacal Possession, as Known Amongst ThemT. F. Unwin, 1908 - 336 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
amongst appeared Arya Samaj ascetic attention bazaar believe Bengal Brahman Brahmo Brahmo Samaj British Buddh Gaya Buddha Buddhist Calcutta carried caste ceremonies Christian cloth Dayanand Saraswati death doctrine English European eyes face fair Fakeerah faquir father favour feet flowers Gautama girl gods Golden Temple Guru hand head heaven Hindu Hinduism husband hymns India interest King known Lahore Lala Lala Lajpat Rai living looked Mahárája mela mendicity missionaries mother Muhammadan Mumiyai Muslim native Niyoga object occasion orthodox pandits passed performed persons possession practice present Punjab Puran pyre Ranjit Singh reformer regard religion religious Rig Veda rites round rumours rupees sacred sádhu Sahib saint Sanskrit sanyasi sati scene seated sect servants shrine Sikhism Sikhs Singh society soul spirit story Swami Dayanand Thuggee tion told tomb Vedas Vedic village widow wife woman women worship yogi young Zâhir-Pir
Popular passages
Page 91 - We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the Show...
Page 317 - WHY did you melt your waxen man, Sister Helen? To-day is the third since you began.' 'The time was long, yet the time ran. Little brother.' (O Mother, Mary Mother, Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven !) 'But if you have done your work aright, Sister Helen, You'll let me play, for you said I might.
Page 1 - The brooding East with awe beheld Her impious younger world. The Roman tempest swell'd and swell'd, And on her head was hurl'd. The East bow'd low before the blast In patient, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again.
Page 145 - they are not conceived as limited by the power of others, as superior or inferior in rank. Each god is to the mind of the suppliant as good as all the gods. He is felt at the time as a real divinity, as supreme and absolute, in spite of the necessary limitations which, to our mind, a plurality of gods must entail on every single god. All the rest disappear from the vision of the poet, and he only who is to fulfil their desires stands in full light before the eyes of the worshippers.
Page 57 - Let, therefore, no man love anything; loss of the beloved is evil. Those who love nothing, and hate nothing, have no fetters.
Page 14 - At first, all will be dark and comfortless ; but, if you persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy ; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart than it is involved in a mystic and etharial light.
Page 58 - It represented the entrance of the soul into rest, a subduing of all wishes and desires, indifference to joy and pain, to good and evil, an absorption of the soul in itself, and a freedom from the circle of existences from birth to death, and from death to a new birth.
Page 81 - Phaiakian land. William Tell, whether of Cloudland or of Altdorf, is the last reflection of the beneficent divinity of daytime and summer, constrained for a while to obey the caprice of the powers of cold and darkness, as Apollo served Laomedon, and Herakles did the bidding of Eurystheus His solar character is well preserved, even in the sequel of the Swiss legend, in which he appears no less skilful as a steersman than as an archer, and in which, after traversing, like Dagon, the tempestuous sea...
Page 5 - Some are for casting out evil spirits ; some for inspiring love or hatred, for curing diseases or bringing them on, for causing death or averting it. Some are of a contrary nature to others, and counteract their effect : the stronger overcoming the influence of the weaker. Some are potent enough, it is said, to occasion the destruction of a whole army : while there are others which the gods themselves are constrained to obey.
Page 131 - Is it possible, — I asked myself, — that this semblance of man, the idol of a personal God that I see bestriding his bull before me, and who, according to all religious accounts, walks about, eats, sleeps and drinks ; who can hold a trident in his hand, beat upon his damaru drum, and pronounce curses upon men, — is it possible that he can be the Mahadeva, the Great Deity...