1893.] S. C. Mitra — Some Beliefs in a Being or Animal. 109 



auirnal will either cry out or sink at the exact spot where the corpse 

 lies. In Norway, the people searching for the body take a cock with 

 them in the boat and row with it hither and thither. It is believed by 

 them that the cock will crow when the boat reaches the spot where 

 the body of the drowned man lies. In a similar manner, the Javanese 

 throw a living sheep into the water, when the corpse of a drowned man 

 has sunk. They believe that the spot where the sheep sinks is the 

 place where the dead body is sure to be found. 



On Some Beliefs in a Being or Animal which is supposed to Guard Hidden 

 Treasure. — By Sarat Chandra Mitra, M.A., B.L., Pleader, Judge's 

 Court, Ghupra. 



Among some races of men there still lingers the belief that treasure, 

 either kept concealed by men, or lying embowelled in the recesses of 

 mines underneath the earth, are guarded by some mythical beings or 

 animals. This belief seems to have been prevalent among the ancient 

 Persians, for allusions to it are to be found in some of the classical works 

 of their literature. Sometimes artificial means were resorted to by 

 other races of people, as for instance the Bengalis, of killing a human 

 male child and appointing his manes to be the guardian of the treasure 

 which was made over to his charge and was hidden under the earth. 

 This is a relic of the belief still prevalent among primitive men like the 

 savage races of Africa, that the manes of the wives, slaves and horses 

 killed at the funeral of a deceased chieftain, would accompany him in 

 the next world, and that the hunting implements and other articles used 

 by the deceased in his life-time, if buried with his corpse, would be of 

 service to him in the life beyond the grave. In olden times in Bengal, 

 " When the good old rule, the simple plan, 

 That he should take who has the power 

 And he should keep who can," 

 was the order of the day, the people of Bengal resorted to the expedient 

 of concealing their surplus treasure underneath the ground and ap- 

 pointing a, Takh (^3), to keep watch and ward over it. The word 

 Takh (j(*3) is a corruption of the Sanskrit word *ra (Yaksha) — a 

 name applied to a class of beings who were supposed to people the 

 upper regions, and allusions to whom are frequently to be met with in 

 Sanskrit literature. 



The ceremony of appointing a Takh (*ra), may be described thus : 

 A male child was kidnapped without his parents knowing of it. The 

 child was then bathed and clad in a new dhoti. Garlands of flowers 

 were put round his neck. He was then worshipped. Then an excava- 



