NOTE 8.—­I have not found other mention of a condemned criminal being allowed thus to sacrifice himself; but such suicides in performance of religious vows have occurred in almost all parts of India in all ages.  Friar Jordanus, after giving a similar account to that in the text of the parade of the victim, represents him as cutting off his own head before the idol, with a peculiar two-handled knife “like those used in currying leather.”  And strange as this sounds it is undoubtedly true.  Ibn Batuta witnessed the suicidal feat at the Court of the Pagan King of Mul-Java (somewhere on the const of the Gulf of Siam), and Mr. Ward, without any knowledge of these authorities, had heard that an instrument for this purpose was formerly preserved at Kshira, a village of Bengal near Nadiya.  The thing was called Karavat; it was a crescent-shaped knife, with chains attached to it forming stirrups, so adjusted that when the fanatic placed the edge to the back of his neck and his feet in the stirrups, by giving the latter a violent jerk his head was cut off.  Padre Tieffentaller mentions a like instrument at Prag (or Allahabad).  Durgavati, a famous Queen on the Nerbada, who fell in battle with the troops of Akbar, is asserted in a family inscription to have “severed her own head with a scimitar she held in her hand.”  According to a wild legend told at Ujjain, the great king Vikramajit was in the habit of cutting off his own head daily, as an offering to Devi.  On the last performance the head failed to re-attach itself as usual; and it is now preserved, petrified, in the temple of Harsuddi at that place.

I never heard of anybody in Europe performing this extraordinary feat except Sir Jonah Barrington’s Irish mower, who made a dig at a salmon with the butt of his scythe-handle and dropt his own head in the pool! (Jord. 33; I.B. IV. 246; Ward, Madras ed. 249-250; J.A.S.B. XVII. 833; Ras Mala, II. 387.)

NOTE 9.—­Satis were very numerous in parts of S. India.  In 1815 there were one hundred in Tanjore alone. (Ritter, VI. 303; J.  Cathay, p. 80.)

NOTE 10.—­“The people in this part of the country (Southern Mysore) consider the ox as a living god, who gives them bread; and in every village there are one or two bulls to whom weekly or monthly worship is performed.” (F.  Buchanan, II. 174.) “The low-caste Hindus, called Gavi by Marco Polo, were probably the caste now called Paraiyar (by the English, Pariahs).  The people of this caste do not venture to kill the cow, but when they find the carcase of a cow which has died from disease, or any other cause, they cook and eat it.  The name Paraiyar, which means ‘Drummers,’ does not appear to be ancient."[6] (Note by the Rev. Dr. Caldwell.)

In the history of Sind called Chach Namah, the Hindus revile the Mahomedan invaders as Chandals and cow-eaters. (Elliot, I. 172, 193).  The low castes are often styled from their unrestricted diet, e.g. Halal-Khor (P. “to whom all food is lawful"), Sab-khawa (H. “omnivorous").