Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 166

GURUS' CURSES
126
On the other hand, while the beneficial effects of their
blessings or their trivial presents excite so large an amount
of respect and admiration from the dull-witted public,
their maledictions, which are no less powerful, are as
The Hindus are convinced that their
greatly feared.
curses never fail to produce effect, whether justly or un-
Their books are full of fables which seem
justly incurred.
to have been invented expressly to exemplify and strengthen
The attendants of the guru, who are interested
this idea.
in making the part which their master plays appear credible,
are always recounting ridiculous stories on this subject, of
which they declare they have been eye-witnesses and in
order that the imposture may be the less easily discovered,
they always place the scene in some distant country.
Sometimes they relate that the person against whom the
curse was fulminated died suddenly whilst the guru was
that another was seized with palsy in all
still speaking
his limbs, and that the affliction will remain until the
anathema has been removed or that the guru's male-
diction caused some woman to be prematurely confined
or that a labourer saw all his cattle die suddenly at the
moment when the malediction was hurled at his head
or that one man was turned to stone and another became
in fact, they will relate a thousand similar absurdi-
a pig
ties quite seriously
If the foolish credulity of the Hindu will carry him to
these lengths, can any one be surprised if his feelings of
respect and fear for his guru are equally extravagant ?
He will take the greatest care to do nothing that might
Hindus have been reduced to such terrible
displease him.
straits as to sell their wives or their children in order to
procure the money to pay the imposts or procure the
presents that their gurus remorselessly claimed from them,
;
;
;
;
;
;
1
.
Hindus on the subject of the blessings and curses
any rate in point of extravagance, to
those which, according to Holy Scripture, were current in the time of
the ancient Patriarchs. Noah's curse on his son Ham and his blessing
on the other two, Shem and Japheth, bore fruit (Genesis ix). The
value that Esau and Jacob set on their father Isaac's blessing is well
known (Genesis xxvii) also the bitter regret of Esau when he found
Dubois.
that he had been supplanted by Jacob.
1
The
ideas of the
of their gurus are analogous, at
;