Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Seite 747

SIVA-RATRI, OR SIVA'S NIGHT
707
such an enormous quantity of birds of all kinds that he was
hardly able to carry them, and was obliged to sit down and
Dusk was coming on while he
rest at almost every step.
was still in the middle of a thick forest, and anxious not to
lose the spoil of his day's hunting or to become a prey to the
wild beasts that infested the place, he went up to a vepu or
margosa-tree, hung his game upon one of the branches, and
climbed up into the tree, intending to spend the night there.
Now that night happened to be the night of the new moon
of the month of Phalguna (March), a time of year when dew
l
falls
heavily and the nights are chilly.
The hunter, benumbed
with cold, tormented by hunger (for he had eaten nothing
duringtheday),andhalf dead with terror, passed a very miser-
able night.
At the foot of the tree was a lingam, and this
circumstance proved to be the salvation of the hunter. The
discomforts that he was enduring obliged him to change his
position frequently, and the shaking of the branches of the
vepu 1 caused some drops of dew, together with some leaves,
This fortunate
flowers, and fruit, to fall on the lingam.
accident was sufficient to win Siva's favour and to obtain
for the hunter absolution for all his sins.
For Siva, to whose
worship this night was specially consecrated, was much
gratified at the offering thus made to his adored symbol
and he ordained that he who had made it, involuntary
though his offering was, should be rewarded, and that his
long fast and attendant anxieties should be reckoned in
his favour.
The hunter regained his house the following
morning, and died a few days afterwards. Yama, King of
Hell, on hearing of his death, immediately sent his emissaries
to secure him and bring him away.
But Siva, on hearing
of this, also sent his own emissaries to oppose those of Yama
and to claim the dead man. Yama's messengers declined
to yield, and a violent quarrel ensued between them and the
emissaries of Siva.
From insults they quickly proceeded to
violence.
Siva's party, being the stronger, put the agents of
Naraka to flight, after severely punishing them. The latter,
;
shame and bitterness, went and told their story to their
master, and to excite his wrath showed him the wounds
that they had received in the combat. Yama, beside him-
self with indignation, went at once to Kailaso to make com-
in
1
It should
be the
bilva,
not the vepu.
— Ed.