69 Entering the book- OMENS & SUPERSTITIONS OF SOUTHERN INDIA

Even though, Edgar Thurston has done a huge number of observations on the omens, superstitions and social behaviour of the people/s of the southern parts of the South Asian subcontinent in particular, and that of the northern parts in general, he has missed the huge content of what works behind the scenes.

However his book is of monumental standards. That cannot be denied.

There is an immensity of information about the realities of the location. My attempt in the following pages has been to take a few observations of Thurston and discuss them briefly. Many of the ideas need not be from the realm of the Occult art.

Since filmmakers have a habit of changing the physical stature and looks of individuals who they promote, I think it might be good to see a few images of how the people in this location really looked like. The looks have changed with the advent of the English rule in the subcontinent.

However not many would like to be reminded of this part of their antiquity. Ingratitude seems to be a natural part of social development in this subcontinent, same as it is in various other locations.

People who are interested in reading about a very specific example of this deed can visit this link:

People’s information on their own customs and rituals are in most cases minimal. They have been holding fast to rituals and rites, with no idea when it all started. However, through their intelligent and at times, unintelligent holding on to them, these things have been preserved over the ages.

I am making a listing of the various terms, superstitions, omens, stories etc. as in a sequential manner as per the page numbers.

This writing of mine is not a comprehensive work. However, there will be a lot of interesting items. That is for sure.

1. Panchangam: Even though Thurston mentions them as ‘Native calendars’, they are much more than that. They contain not only the omens and the local annual calendar, but a lot more including an almanac from an astrological perspective. Most of the items are based on the daily sunrise and sunset time of a particular region. As such, most of these items are not precise. For, the sunset and sunrise timing are different in different locations in the same geographical area.

2. Hindu classics: I am not sure how appropriate the word ‘Hindu’ is. The word ‘Hindu’ seems to have been superimposed on almost all items that the English colonial rulers found in the subcontinent, including the local music.

As to the term classic, what I suppose is meant, are the book writings in Sanskrit. Even though people try to trace all their routes to Sanskrit, the fact is that very few percentages of the peoples of the nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh do really belong to the Sanskrit or ‘Aaaryan’ antiquity. Many of the populations that went under the Brahmanical thraldom might not belong to this ancestry. However, much mixing of blood has taken place. However, since the northern parts of the subcontinent were under immigrant populations of Islamic faith, the blood content will reflect much of their DNA also.

As to the ancient languages of the subcontinent, in the northern parts, such languages as Prakrit, Maghadhi, Ardhamaghadhi, Pali &c.

3. Kalidasa: He has been discovered as a Sanskrit writer of extreme talent and profundity. He is generally mentioned as the ‘greatest’ of the Sanskrit writers. Where he lived and his exact location of domicile is not known. However, there is a claim that he was a court poet in one of the ancient kingdoms in the northern edges of subcontinent. As of now, his antiquity has been claimed and occupied by the new nation of India, even though from a logical understanding of his location, all the nations around the region can claim his legacy. This might include Nepal, China, Tibet, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. Populations of none of these nations, including India do know Sanskrit. In India, there are very energetic efforts to promote this language, as part of the Hindu nationalist or communal fanaticism.

4. Sakuntala: This is a famous drama by Kalidasa. The story in brief is this: Shakuntala is a daughter born to a female from the world of the celestial beings (devalokam – sphere of the divinities), through her relationship with an earthling hermit. Shakuntala was left on earth, from where another hermit came across her as an infant. She grew up in his hermitage as his foster child.

One day the king of the location comes on a hunting expedition in the forest location of this hermit. His hunting is stopped by the disciples of the hermit. On hearing the name of the hermit, the king expresses his desire to pay his obeisance to the famous sage.

He happens to see the extremely lovely Shakuntala there, tending to the plants and the animals. They fall in love and undergo what is mentioned as a gandharva vivaham. It is a sort of marriage, more or less known only to themselves.

The king hands her his royal ring and promises to take her to his palace at the earliest.

Shakuntala spends her time in passionate thoughts of her lover. At that time, another great hermit arrives to meet her foster father. Everyone in the hermitage makes haste to display their obeisance to him. Shakuntala fails to notice the presence of the hallowed visitor.

The hallowed hermit trembles in anger. He curses her with a most formidable item: Let the person, you were thinking of, forget you! [NOTE: See the power of feudal content in the language].

However, within minutes he is full of repentance. He gives her a code to breach the block. If the person who has forgotten her can be shown anything that he had given, he will come out of his oblivion.

The story then races on to another turning point. Shakuntala is drinking water from a river. The royal rings slips off her finger.

The story continues..... The story has elements from the ancient tales of the location.

5. QUOTE: “Why does my right eye throb?” END OF QUOTE

QUOTE: A quivering sensation in the right arm is supposed to indicate marriage with a beautiful woman; in the right eye some good luck. END OF QUOTE

QUOTE: Of omens, both good and bad, in Malabar, the following comprehensive list is given by Mr Logan: — END OF QUOTE

William Logan was a district administrator of Malabar district of the Madras Presidency British-India. He wrote the Malabar Manual, which I think contains a huge description of Malabar features. He was a British colonial officer.

As to the good and bad omens, most of them, if true, could have a direct link to how they react with some specific codes in the human brain, speaking a specific kind of language. As such the mentioned list may not be of relevance to a person removed from that language codes. Beyond that, omens would differ as per the stature of the individuals in the social or verbal hierarchy. However, no one possibly knows the exact manner in which the codes connect, or what the codes are. Other than that, are there any individuals who possess such information as of now?

6. QUOTE: A fair skinned Paraiyan, or a dark skinned Brahman, should not, in accordance with a proverb, be seen the first thing in the morning! END OF QUOTE

It is quite curious that contradictory scenes were defined as inauspicious. Paraiyans were considered as among the lowest castes in the location. And the Brahmin, the highest. There is more than a hint that the higher classes are fair in complexion and the lower classes dark. However, skin colour would be directly connected to the exposure to direct sunlight.

Here what is observed as auspicious is what the brain accepts as logical and expected. That of the Brahmin being fair. And a Pariyan being dark.

A dark Brahmin and a fair Pariyan are contradictory to what the brain expects. It is inauspicious.

It could also point to a distressing issue of many other items. Like an unintelligent higher class man and a very intelligent lower class man. This would distress many people in a feudal language context.

In the native-feudal languages of the Subcontinent, dark is associated with negative themes, while fair complexion is a connected with desirable themes.

7. QUOTE: there are certain objects which possess an inherent inauspicious character END OF QUOTE.

The logic or the origin of the ‘understanding’ has been lost. Yet, there might be a way to enter into the codes and seek out why they are inauspicious.

8. QUOTE: Vishu festival, held in celebration of the New Year in Malabar END OF QUOTE.

There is some confusion about the above statement. It is that Malabar is a location that was disconnected and different from Travancore. There were similarities as there are with other locations in the subcontinent. The New Year day in Malabar was on the 1st of Kanni month, while it was on the 1st of Chingam in Travancore. This was basically due to some configuration issues in the astrological systems practised in the two locations.

This might point to a large fact. There are a lot of systems, cultural facets, and even rites which all look similar and point to some common origin. Yet, there is also a feeling that can be derived that the various systems, cultural aspects and rites were followed up and continued by persons or populations who had only perfunctory connection to the original people or populations who practised all this.

All over the land, there was a social desperation to be close to the highest castes. For, it was the highest caste, the Brahmins who decide the hierarchy of who come above and who comes below. People or populations would offer the best they have to move above the tyrannical verbal definitions cast at them by lower populations. The only protection from this was a higher caste definition.

In the Travancore area, it was well-known that the Sudras or the Nairs were ready to offer their best possession to the Brahmins. That is, the Brahmins were allowed to occupy their households and have decent accommodation with their women.

Even though this looks quite awkward in these times, the fact was that in those times, it was an honour to be connected to a Brahmin thus.

This has the retrospective advantage that the Nair blood is from the locally highly-acclaimed Brahmin genetic pool. There is no reason to conclude that the females of the castes which came lower to the Nairs were spared by others. In fact, in the feudal language communication, the touch of the higher man is better than the touch of the lower man.

There is another reality mentioned by Thurston in his Castes and Tribes of Southern India. It is that, the people and populations would clandestinely jump into a higher caste when they relocated.

REV. Mateer had mentioned of lower castes like the Pulayas etc. who after converting into Christianity and improving their worldly knowledge, travelled to distant places, mentioning themselves as Nairs.

A higher caste definition gave a social protection. While a lower caste definition was quite dangerous in a far of location.

As of now, this social and administrative protection is generally only for the government employed classes of India. Maybe this is the truth in Pakistan as well as Bangladesh.

9. Kani: The first object seen in the New Year is believed to reflect on all the general prosperity that can be experienced by that person in that year. ‘Kani’ is the pre-arranged auspicious thing that has to be looked at as the first item in the New Year.

QUOTE: At about five o'clock in the morning of the day, someone who has got up first wakes the inmates, both male and female, of the house, and takes them blindfolded, so that they may not gaze at anything else, to the seat near the kani. END OF QUOTE

10. Attempts at dream interpretations can be seen. I remember reading the similar stuff from ‘qualified’ psychologists.

11. QUOTE: If a person has an auspicious dream, he should get up and not go to sleep again END OF QUOTE.

It might not be a bad idea to give more importance to dream. As to whether they portend anything, good or bad, cannot be mentioned with any percent of certainty.

Yet, there is indeed a very powerful software mechanism at work, which creates the dreams and runs them. Many of the dreams are quite logical.

However, very few dreams can be recalled at all. In fact, it is my personal experience that on getting up, if I try to gather scenes in the dreams, they started vanishing as if I am using an eraser tool on them. Surely there is more to dreams than can be mentioned at this moment in time. Human technical knowledge is still not even in its infancy.

12. The omens are quite varied and often very specific and focused.

There are hints that foretell the arrival of guests. There are good days to dine with a friend, and bad days to do so.

Depending on what one wishes for in life, there are specific directions for facing when eating.

Betel leaves and tobacco have an ill-reputation when used in certain locations. After all they are the items laid along with the dead body in the grave.

There were people consulting the omen when relocating.

13. Korava caste males are mentioned as professional thieves. Before going on any dacoit expedition, they consult the omens. Even the sight of a dog urinating when they are on the verge of starting on their professional venture, will spoil the programme. They wouldn’t budge.

14. When going out for an examination, the worst thing one can cross on the road is a single Brahmin coming from the front. Personally speaking I have heard this thing many years ago.

I was going for a very important exam. And there comes the Single Brahmin. My face must have reflected my terrible mental agony. For he also seemed discomfited by what he had done. The exam experience was true to the omen.

However, Thurston was having more knowledge in this. As per the idea mentioned, I should have retraced by steps, waited for a few moments, and restarted!

15. QUOTE: If a person knocks at the door of a house in the night once, twice, or thrice, it will not be opened. If the knock is repeated a fourth time, the door will be opened without fear, for the evil spirit is said to knock only thrice END OF QUOTE.

Don’t I remember something similar in George Eliot’s Adam Bede? The ill-omen of the door knock?

16. When one is going on a journey, or special errands, there are favourable and also non-favourable omen. Incidentally, a married woman, virgin, prostitute, two Brahmans &c. are favourable ones. At the same time, a widow, barking dog at the door-step, crow flying from the right to left etc. are inauspicious.

17. Seeing a hare is considered a terrible thing. However, it seems to be a forgotten omen, for I have not personally heard anyone mentioning such a thing. The reason might be that all the rabbits and hares have been eaten up by mankind in the locations near to my residence.

A story from the epic story connected to Rama and Sita is alluded to in the book. Rama's is in exile in the forest with his wife Sita. She is abducted by Ravana, who is described as an asura king. He did this to seek revenge on Rama and his brother Lakshmana for having cut-off his sister's nose. He is said to have kept Sita in captivity for less than 12 months.

After a big fight, Rama retrieves Sita. They go back to their kingdom, where they are duly crowned, king and queen. However, there is loose talk among some people that Sita's claims to chastity cannot be accepted. Because she was in the possession of another man.

So Rama, being an upright king and the upholder of the Dharmaneethis (codes of social justice) is forced to abandon his wife. Lakshmana, his brother, is asked to take her to the forest. Sita does not know the agenda of this journey. Yet, on this journey, a hare gives her a hint in the form of the omen, of her tragedy that awaits her at the end of the journey.

18. An omen is seen in the behaviour of a dog, when one is on a journey. Cobras and rat‐snakes portend ill-luck when seen at the starting of a journey.

19. There is information to be taken out from sneezes. Personally speaking, I have heard that this is a sign that someone is speaking about that person who sneezes. As per Thurston’s noting, ‘sneezing once is a good sign; twice, a bad sign’.

20. There is mention of Alberuni saying the people considered ‘farting’ a good omen, and ‘sneezing’ a bad omen. However, as of now, there is no trace of these kinds of beliefs. Thurston uses the term ‘crepitus ventris’ for the former.

21. QUOTE: A Kudumi woman in Travancore, at the menstrual period, should stand at a distance of seven feet, END OF QUOTE.

It is indeed quite surprising that there is only very brief mention in regard to menstruation anywhere in the book. For, actually a woman in her menstrual period is considered to be prohibited in various locations and from various duties as per the local social norm in at least some of the castes.

22. There is a rare delineation of the general repulsion towards human populations rampant in the subcontinent, in this noting: QUOTE: ......Ande or pot Kurubas, continually wore a pot suspended from their necks, into which they were compelled to spit, being so utterly unclean as to be prohibited from even spitting on the highway. END OF QUOTE

Actually this kind of repulsion is still there. It is basically connected to the feudal content in the language. However, as a social theme, in many households, the house servants are treated as despicable beings, to the extent of not allowing them to use the toilets in the house. Their wearing of good clothes is frowned upon.

As servants, they generally redesign themselves as per the lower indicant words assigned to them. These are things that are not understood in the US and other native-English nations.

To make the point clear, I will quote what I found on NYTimes today about the abusive dialogues in the US.

QUOTE:

WHAT ‘MICROAGGRESSIONS’ SOUND LIKE

A sampling of language and behaviors called “microaggressions,” provided to Clark University students, that universities are urging students to avoid.

“Of course he’ll get tenure, even though he hasn’t published much — he’s black.”

“What are you? You are so interesting looking.”

Telling a nonwhite woman, “I would have never guessed that you were a scientist.”

When a nonwhite faculty member is mistaken for a service worker.

Showing surprise when a “feminine” woman says she is a lesbian.

“You are a credit to your race.” END OF QUOTE

LINK to this article:

All this would not come anywhere near to an Indian police constable mentioning about his IPS officer: She (Aval) is capable.

The US is debating on utterly silly items. People who rush into the US from rank low-class social systems improve tremendously in the freedom accorded by an English social ambience. Yet, they have only complaints on one side. On the other side, they very frankly atrophy the native-English land and its people with the lower grade indicant words which they are in possession of. The native-English side is none the wiser.

Note the words: QUOTE: When a nonwhite faculty member is mistaken for a service worker END OF QUOTE.

The issue of a ‘service worker’ is slowly emerging over the last thirty years in the US. That, there are jobs that are really ‘despicable’. Actually it is not jobs that are despicable. But of the definition of various jobs in feudal languages. These are discriminatory languages, which arrange everything in varying grades (stink to gold) by means of a very small code change.

In the huge ineptitude of the above cautions given to the students, what is amply clear is that it is quite one-sided. It is like two animals in close proximity. One a bull and the other a tiger dressed up as a bull. The real bull is told to be quite well-mannered and polite to the fake bull. Do not kick or gore it, for the fake bull looks quite attractive. However, the bull gets the creeps when the fake bull looks at him, and makes low growling noises when no one else is there.

A more profound caution was given by me when I was taking an English training programme, in which my children were also trainers. Since my children did not understand the local feudal languages, they did not understanding the carnivorous codes inside it. However, they could sense the unease it could create slightly. My caution was addressed to the trainees. Do not speak in your native language inside the training premises. If at all you need to speak in your native tongue, do not use the lower indicant words towards or about the trainers.

The presence of my children was like the native-English speakers in native-English nations. There is no need for any specific ‘training’ by them. Their very presence would create the English ambience, and change the communication language. However, the carnivorous languages and codes should be totally disallowed inside.

This very minute understanding, the befooled ‘great’ universities of the US do not know. There is no wonder that GB and US are on the pathway to total disarray unless someone takes quite drastic remedies.

23. QUOTE: an unmarried Madiga (Telugu Pariah) woman, called Matangi (the name of a favourite goddess) spits upon the people assembled, and touches them with her stick. Her touch and saliva are believed to purge all uncleanliness of the body and soul, and are said to be invited by men who would ordinarily scorn to approach her. END OF QUOTE.

The above is actually a very powerful example of how even those who are commonly mentioned as dirt, can be flipped upwards, with a few changes in the defining words.

24. QUOTE: the Pulayans (agrestic slaves) go in procession to the temple, END OF QUOTE.

It is quite funny that even though there were millions of bound-to-the-soil slaves in the subcontinent, there is little mention of terrible slavery being part of India’s antiquity. Such people lived on for generations at the total downside of the social communication, held in position by the claw-like words. At the same time, in the US, where similar people simply rode up to social quality, there are only acrimonious words about the ‘slavery’ there. In India, the downtrodden are ‘respectful’ to those who crush them.

In the US, there are ‘records’ of slave-trade. In the South Asian subcontinent, there are no ‘records’. The slaves were literally treated like fowls in a chicken farm. No individual identity. They peck at each other, and are used by their slave-master social higher-ups. This went on till the advent of the English rule. English rule converted them from mere ‘fowls in the farm’ to human beings. Yet, as of now, they all parrot from their school textbooks as how the English rulers had enslaved them.

25. QUOTE: ...............they are considered an impure race, whose touch carries defilement with it. Such is the reason generally given by the Brahman, who refuses to receive anything directly from the hands of a Holiar, .................

............should a Brahman attempt to enter their quarters, they turn out in a body and slipper him, in former times it is said to death.......... END OF QUOTE.

Here it is between two low-class populations. It was a sort of repudiating apartheid by anther apartheid. Something like, you have your separate beaches. We will have our own beaches. We will not come into yours. And you should not come into ours.

However, in South Africa, it was a more low-class self-deprecatory attitude: We do not want to be in a beach in which our people are there. We want to be in a beach where your people are there.

26. QUOTE: I once received a pathetic appeal from a Eurasian woman in Malabar, imploring me to lay my hands on the head of her sick child, so that its life might be spared. END OF QUOTE

It might feel quite a funny claim. However, it must be admitted that in the feudal languages, people with higher indicant stature has a power that can diffuse. Whether it can cure diseases might be a debatable point. However, I have noticed that the touch of an experienced and socially revered doctor does have a curative effect. His words of certitude of a cure do also have some kind of effect.

As to socially higher indicant value persons, their very proximity has an effect in the codes. How much effect will depend on various other factors.

As to an Englishman, well, the pristine-English period Englishmen & women stood as towering heights. In fact, the very presence of a native-English speaking group of people living nearby would improve the social quality of the neighbourhood.

This is in many ways. The very sight of people with least of negativity in their mental and physical features, due to their thinking in a planar language is a very mentally elevating experience. The physical stature of native-English that bears no burden of the millstone-tied-to-the-neck language codes is a highly positive sight. If small children can be made to view these kinds of people since their very infancy, their physical stature can also change into a no-bent at the neck variety.

If the code-view is checked it might be possible to see why the proximity to quality social standards does diffuse. And also how lower quality social standards also diffuse.

In fact, it can be mentioned that if Continental Europe was not near England, then at least some of the nations, including Germany and France would have looked quite soiled. If England has been quite near to any kingdom of the South Asian Subcontinent, that kingdom would have looked like Europe. Skin colour is of least importance.

Actually the so-believed superiority of the white-skin is directly connected to the English native-speakers being of white skin. If they had been brown or black skin, a feeble feel of superiority would have diffused to others of those skin colours.

Yet, the English superiority is actually a very polite one. It has no chance to survive in a land populated by carnivorous (discriminatory) languages.

27. QUOTE: To mention the number seven in Telugu is unlucky, because the word (yedu) is the same as that for weeping. Even a treasury officer, who is an enlightened university graduate, in counting money, will say six and one. END OF QUOTE

I do not know Telugu. It would be interesting to know how the Telugu people manage this issue now. Currently a minority of them have improved much, with a minor percentage in the US IT field.

Do similar sounding words, with different meaning spur up similar codes in the software codes of reality? If so, then the language of the person connects directly to the codes of reality!

Beyond that, do ‘enlightened university graduates’ know anything about the themes mentioned in this book? Beyond that, in the new nation of India, ‘enlightened university graduate’ is on an average, someone who knows mostly nothing about anything, other than the nonsense that is inside insipid textbooks. Since most of them study in their native vernaculars, there is no issue of an ‘enlightenment’ involved in university ‘study’.

28. QUOTE: Among all Hindu classes it is considered as an insult to the god to bathe or wash the feet on returning home from worship at a temple, and, by so doing, the punyam (good) would be lost END OF QOUTE

In the above quote, the first item is the word ‘Hindu’. It is a superimposition created presumably by outsiders to the subcontinent. Only the Brahmins and their connected castes of Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra do actually belong to the Hindus. I do not know if the word ‘Hindu’ is used in any of the ‘Hindu’ scriptures.

Non-Hindu lower castes aspire to reach into these castes as a means to improve their social stature.

Second item is about the aura that is derived by means of a proximity to a, or a touch on a, or a word connecting to a superior being or personage. It is a sensation that can be felt. To belittle a sensation as ‘just a feeling’ is to not understand the software codes that create this ‘feeling’. If the feeling is real, well then, the software codes that created it are also real.

I have experienced persons on touching something that they really yearned to touch refusing to shake-hands with another person in the immediate aftermath, just to preserve the pulsating feeling that the touch had given them.

The next item for mention is the word ‘punyam’. Even though Thurston has mentioned this word as ‘good’, it has nothing to do with mere ‘good’. It is a sort of elevated grace or aura that one comes to acquire by means of doing things which are considered as holy or good for which one could get the blessings of the gods.

Punyam might not have an exact English word equivalent.

29. QUOTE: This they refused to do, as it would bring bad luck to their shops. END OF QUOTE

Even though Thurston mentions the above in connection with certain ‘superstitions’, the fact remains that there are many things that can be mentioned as unlucky in feudal languages. The exact location of a bad luck in them may not be understood in English.

30. QUOTE: The manner in which the boiling food bubbles over from the cooking‐pot is eagerly watched, and accepted as an omen for good or evil. END OF QUOTE

Even though Thurston makes the whole idea look quite silly, only if one were to understand what it is that they are seeking for, would the idea become clear. The above mention is about the low caste Koravas.

I have made a very casual observation among the lower castes who had converted into Christianity in the Travancore areas, and later resettled in Malabar areas. They had improved to a very superior social class in the locality. And had mostly forgotten or hidden their ancestry. Yet, they did have remembrance of their ancestral intelligences and customs in a very feeble manner.

Once, there was a slight drizzle, which made the stones on the road move in a particular manner. I heard one of these persons make a mention of their traditional insight on rains. They were different kinds of rains, based on the way they affect the soil. On hearing a few lines, I could understand that there was some kind of social intelligence in the lines, that presumably came from some hoary past. Yet, these were intelligences that were in the earlier days, before the advent of the English rule in the subcontinent, merely considered as the insights of the semi-humans.

31. QUOTE: The omens being propitious, he walks over the glowing embers, ... END OF QUOTE.

Thurston has taken a totally non-judgemental attitude in mentioning about the ceremony of walking through fire (burning embers) at Nidugala on the Nilgiris. A lot of omens are checked for. The walking over the fire is done only if they all point to no danger.

It might not be easy to replicate these things in a ‘scientific’ testing arena. For, the very aura of a test will spoil the means to check the omen.

The fact remains that these kinds of rituals are still continued many locations of the subcontinent. Do a Search on YouTube for: Theyyam fire dance

Maybe the only thing that must have changed from the pre-English rule time to post-English rule times would be the dressing and physical standards of the people.

People have improved. Rituals, which were once seen to be done by semi-civilised people, have as of now developed into rituals of much improved populations.

Thinking a bit more on the outwardly aspects of these rituals, it might be felt that these are rituals or activities are some kind of personal possessions of some social leaderships. They would not like to budge from this position.

Beyond that there is also this aspect. The devotion and piety shown to the deity is some kind of personal positioning under the deity as His or Her duty-bound subordinate. The deity takes care of the protection of the worshiper. This theme is very much there in most of the religious and spiritual activities.

There is no mention of such things as honesty, incorruptibility, rectitude, aiming for social equality, social enhancement of others etc. anywhere in these belief systems. In fact, there is nothing that could be found in the earlier version English schooling given by the erstwhile English rulers in any of these spiritual activities. This goes for Christianity also, in its non-English versions in the subcontinent.

Yet, that need not deter anyone from observing and studying the phenomenon with a view to understand the software code location that is directly connected to these things.

32. QUOTE: If the bird pecks at the rice, good luck is ensured for the coming year, whilst, if perchance the bird pecks three times, the offerer of that particular bird can scarcely contain himself for joy. END OF QUOTE.

Even though I do not have any personal experience with anyone offering to divine out the future via means of a bird’s actions, I am not willing to ridicule any such claims.

The question of How can a bird know anything? cannot be answered without a deep understanding of a bird’s brain software. I have myself faced the issue of people in a remote village not understanding that I was literally connecting to far-off locations using a small laptop and a feeble Internet connection, way back in the years around 2002. If anyone had mentioned anything to this effect, they would have frankly asked: How can he do anything like that with a small box-like thing?

The problem of dealing with such things as predicting using a bird, ritualistic dancing, fire-walking etc. is more connected to the quality of the people doing it. As the quality of the persons improves, naturally these things will acquire a more acceptable aura.

In the same manner, there are umpteen similar things going on the animal world also. My own feeling is that within the next 300 years at least a few of the animals will enter the human communication system. For, technology is improving at that pace.

It is like this: People in interior locations are coming out into the outer world when roads, electric current, radio, TV, automobiles, internet etc. reach them.

In the earlier centuries, it would be most unacceptable that a lower caste man would be an equal to a superior caste man. I have personally had this curious experience.

One of my parents became a senior officer in the state government. Though from a lower caste group, due to the fact that her native place was inside the location under the colonial English rule, she could get good English education. There were no caste-based blocks to anyone in places where the English rule was in force.

Around 1975, we moved to a location in Travancore. This had been an independent kingdom not under the English rule. Here only the higher castes had been posted to the senior government posts.

So when my parent was posted there, there was a feeling that she was from a higher caste. It so happened that the local higher castes would mention really bad things about the lower castes of Travancore to my parent, in the quaint belief that she was a higher caste person. The comments were generally to the effect that the lower castes were more or less repulsive beings.

Thinking more about the theme, I would like to mention this also. In my childhood, trucks and cars were quite tough to drive, with the very tough floor gears to manipulate. It was a foregone conclusion that most of the local women would never be able to drive a lorry or a car. However as of now, even trucks are quite easy to drive, with everything quite smooth and small.

In the same manner, technologies can become so efficient that gadgets which animals can handle will arrive. Whether it would be the cat or the mouse, which gains this gadgetry first might be of very significant importance.

For, when the lower castes of Travancore, many of whom lived on the edges of the forests, got converted into Christianity and gained worldly knowledge, they also acquired the information to make guns. They then moved into Malabar (another state then), and occupied the forest regions. Almost all see-able animals were slaughtered by them using the guns they could make on their own.

Coming back to the art of bird-divining, there is always the issue of livelihood, be it, black-magician, bird-diviner, allopath doctor, Homœopath, psychologist &c. The buck should stop here.

Apart from all this, there is another issue also to be mentioned. It is that these rituals are part of the social leadership. They are done over the generations by specific households or committees. It is one of the social machineries by which they maintain their social leadership, which can be made more powerful by means of corresponding indicant word codes. They would not be ready to part with any information that can lead to the erasure of their positions.