Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 639

OTHER SEVERE PENANCES
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jaws thus maimed, and remain several days in this slate,
taking only liquid nourishment, or some clear broth poured
into the mouth.
I have seen whole companies of them,
men and women, condemned by their self-inflicted torture
to enforced silence, going on a pilgrimage to some temple
where this form of penance is especially recommended.
There are others, again, who pierce their nostrils or the
skin of their throats in the same way.
I could not help shuddering one day at seeing one of
these imbeciles with his lips pierced by two long nails,
which crossed each other so that the point of one reached
I
to the right eye and the point of the other to the left.
saw him thus disfigured at the gate of a temple consecrated
The blood was still
to the cruel goddess Mari-amma.
trickling down his chin
yet the pain he must have been
;
enduring did not prevent him from dancing and performing
every kind of buffoonery before a crowd of spectators,
who showed their admiration by giving him abundant
alms.
There are a great many ordinary forms of penance,
which elsewhere would appear more than sufficiently
but devout Hindus do not rest satisfied with
painful
these
they try unceasingly to invent new methods of
;
;
example,
a fanatic self-torturer
off, executes it coolly
with his own hands, puts the amputated portion in an
open cocoanut shell, and offers it on his knees to the
self-torture. Thus,
makes a vow to cut half his tongue
for
divinity.
Then, again, there are others who, apparently having
nothing better to do, bind themselves to go on a pilgrimage
to some distant shrine by measuring their length along the
ground throughout the whole distance. Beginning at their
very doors, pilgrims of this description stretch themselves
on the ground, rise again, advance two steps, again lie
down, again rise, and continue thus till they reach their
destination.
Considering the length of their journeys and
the fatigue of such exercise, it is easy to imagine that the
pilgrims do not go far off the route to sleep at the end of
the day. Persons have been seen attempting to measure
their length in this way along the entire road which runs
between the sacred town of Benares and the temple of