The Brāhmaṇa, Kasyapa, a reputed poison-healer, was ostracised for having neglected to save the life of Raja Parikṣit, having accepted a bribe from Takṣaka. (121) Again, we are told that the Brahmana Sumati was excommunicated, and later on, thrown into hell, for having initiated a Śúdra into the mysteries of हव्य and कव्य. (122)

Indian society has never tolerated misconduct on the part of a woman, and specially so, if she were a widow. Thus, we are told that a Brāhmaṇī widow, Sumitra by name, an inhabitant of Kekaya, when found guilty of misconduct, was at once extradicted from the Gotra formally ;-on that occasion we are told that the people pulled her by the hair, and overturned an earthen pot full of water. (123) Similarly, when the young widow Sarada of Anarta conceived by favour of Uma, the village elders lay their heads together, and sending for the young widow, decided to banish her after clipping her nose and shaving her head. (124)

At the very outset it has been pointed out that as an instrument of punishment, excommunication was a dangerous weapon in the hands of the society leaders, because it was liable to be misused. Ancient Indian society too, we are sorry to note, was not free from blame. Deva Sarman, a pious Brāhmaṇa of Camatkarapura in Anarta, was ostracised by his friends and relatives, for having officiated as a Brāhmaṇa on the occasion of a Śraddha ceremony performed by a Kṣattriya prince in memory of his father who had died of snake-bite. The prince, it should be noted here, was guilty of killing an Antya, but had pleased Deva Sarman highly by cleansing daily the Brāhmaṇa's W.C. (125) The Nagara Brāhmaṇas of Anarta ostracised Susila for having honoured Durvāsas who had cursed them. (126) They also ostracised Candra Sarman for having prescribed a penance to the sinner, Mani Bhadra, in return for a sixth of his property. (127) Their defence was this that Candra Sarman had not consulted three other Brahmanas, as has been laid down by Manu. (128) Again, we are told that Brahman, while celebrating a sacrifice in Anarta, rejected the services offered by

the Nagara Brāhmaṇas and engaged other Brahmanas to officiate as priests. So out of spite the latter restrained their caste-fellows from joining it on pain of ostracism. (129)

We are told that Atri, Utathya, Saunaka, Bhrgu and others degraded themselves to the rank of Śūdras by marrying Sudrāni girls. (130) Elsewhere we are informed that reputed bad characters were cut off from the society for good. Such was the case with Dṇḍa Kāra, the έūd ra robber, (13) the Śūdra Urvipsa, (132) and the Śūdra Nityodaya. (133)

This done, I will now proceed to describe the working of the institution as it obtained in the Dharmaranya society (watered by the Suvarṇā), (134) (near Sitapur). (135) Amongst other things the leaders of the society decided that" nobody should be allowed to eat or drink with the sinner cast out by the Brāhmaṇas; nor should anyone give him a daughter in marriage, and those who were guilty of breaking the rules, should be likewise cut off. None should eat with or enter into marriage relation with the sinners........." (186)

The Nagara Brāhmaṇas of Guzerat, it appears, were parti. cularly enamoured of this form of punishment, so it became necessary to found a separate colony for the ostracised persons on the banks of the Sarasvati. The pious Brāhmaṇa Candra Sarman who had been unjustly ostracised, is said to have taken the lead in this matter. (137)

So long we were speaking of, what would be now styled, the ancient “Hindu" society. But social ostracism as an instrument of punishment was not unknown to the Buddhists of India too, in the sixth century B.C.

Shortly before his Parinivvāņa, we are told, the Lord enjoined on Ananda to impose the "Brahma-daṇḍa" on the monk Canna. Ananda asked "But what sort of penalty is the Brahma-daṇḍa?" Whereupon he received the answer, "Let Canna say whatever he likes, the brethren should neither speak to him, nor exhort him, nor admonish him," This penalty resulting in declaring a person "socially dead" was afterwards inflicted with the happy result that Canna felt remorse, mended

his ways, and ere long attained the status of an Arhat. (138) Again, during the Buddha's lifetime a dissension occurred at one of the monasteries of Kausāmbī, when a Bhikkhu, through ignorance of law, committed a breach of discipline; the monks attached a magnified gravity to the offence and punished him by "Ukkhepana" or excommunication. (139) Then Aśoka also threatens to "compel such monks or nuns as were guilty of creating a schism in the church to wear white robes." (140) References to excommunication are to be had in other texts as well. (141)

Conclusion

At a time when rank riot and dead disorder prevailed outside one's immediate surroundings, when insecurity of life and property was the watchword of the day, when every stranger was an enemy, it cannot be denied that the institution, though dead and gone now, worked wonders in maintaining discipline and the healthy tone of the society; for the punishment of excommunication was on all hands regarded as being "medicinal" in character. It is dead now because the world we live in has outgrown its utility. Rising above the narrow bounds of sectarianism and the clash of communalism, man now-a-days looks upon as the wide world as his own home. This is because the railway, the steamer, the automobile and the telegraph wire have all combined to make the world shorter for him. Thus brought face to face with the wide world he has changed his old-world ideas, widened his sympathies, and condescends now to think in terms of Universalism. Thus with the change of ideas, he has abandoned many of the institutions that held sway in ancient times, and social ostracism or excommunication is one of them.

VII-The Originals and Parallels of Stories in Mr. Bompas' Folklore of the Santal Parganas

By Kalipada Mitra, M.A., B.L.

Most of the stories in Mr. Bompas' Folklore of the Santal Parganas in the first part have been acknowledged by the author to contain many incidents appearing in stories collected in other parts of India. Many of them have again been derived from Buddhistic and Sanskritic sources. A good number also, I believe, owe their existence to the folklore of the Bengalis with whom the Santals have come into contact. As I read them my memory of many a nursery tale heard in infancy comes back to me like the reminiscence of the mysterious scent of flowers smelled long ago, so long ago indeed that there is only a dim yet a quaint and persisent consciousness about it.

Let me take some interesting stories from the Folklore and trace them to their original sources. The treatment, however, is not exhaustive.

In the story entitled Karmu and Dharmu (No. V. pp. 32ff.) we see that when Dharmu goes with his wife to the Ganges to propitiate Karam Gosain, he met on the way a fig tree with fruits full of grubs, a mango tree, a cow, a buffalo, a horse, an elephant, some money under the banyan tree and four other women who were all suffering, and who bade them ask Karam Gosain why they were so troubled and how they would be relieved. Similarly in story (No. LXXIII); The Seven Brothers and the Bonga Girl, the boy setting off to the sea is requested by three old women and an alligator to ask the Bohmae birds how their troubles should cease. In the Gamani-Canda Jātaka (No. 257) "uncle" Caṇḍa is commissioned, as he was proceeding

to the royal court, by the head man of a village, a light-o-love, a young woman, a snake in an anthill, a deer, a serpent king and a number of ascetics, to ask the king why they suffered from their peculiar troubles and he agreed to do so. The king explained everything. In the Tibetan version of the tale (Schiefner and Ralston's Tibetan Tales, "Adarśamukha” pp. 32ff.) Danḍin, as he was being taken to the king for judgment, was commissioned by a crow to ask the king the reason why it remained upon that tree with dry leaves and took no delight in other green trees; the gazelles why they could not take delight elsewhere, the snake why it crept out of the hole with ease but crept back with pain; a young wife why she hankered after her father-in-law's house while she was in her father's, and after her father's while in her father-in-law's house, and a snake and ichneumon which always quarrelledall which he undertook to execute. Similarly in a story in the Indian Antiquary (Vol. LIII. pp. 271, 272) the Meaning of Dharmam we see that the boy, when going to the Sannyasi to ascertain the meaning of Dharmam, is asked by a raja, a nāga (snake) and a mango tree to find out for them why the bandh of the raja's lake did not stand firm, why the naga did not die, and none ate the fruit of the mango tree. This is of course done.

The story of the Changed Calf (No. XII) is briefly this: Cowherd Sona bought a bull calf. As night overtook him he came to a village and put up with an oilman. The latter advised him to put it in the stable along with his own bullock. But he coveted it. At midnight he got up, moistened some oilcake, plastered it over the calf and claimed that the bullock bore the calf. Sona called the villagers to decide the case. They came and said: "Why should the bullock lick any but its own calf ?" and gave their verdict in favour of their villager the oilman. Not satisfied with the decision Sona appealed to a jackal and a night jar. The worthy judges were dozing. The night jar said that it dreamed that one egg was sitting upon another without the mother bird's intervention in the hatching