1840.] 



Account of the Basava Furan. 



283 



by a troop of fairies (gandharvn) with their wives, who protest they took 

 the saint for a bear, and his disciple for an o.y. He therefore cursed 

 them to be bora as brutes. They were released from the curse by fall- 

 ing under the arrows of a worthy named Zoramaia, who continued to 

 offer seven animals daily to the image. 



This story is evidently copied from that of Cannappa the savage, men- 

 tioned in the third book. It is the only Jangam legend wherein I have 

 met with the men I ion of curses * 



This story concludes the fifth book : and the sixth describes those 

 acts of the saints which were performed to confute the assertions of the 

 Jainas. For instance ; a Jaina defies a devotee named Ecanta Ramaya, 

 and tells him that he is willing to adore Siva if the devotee will prove 

 his faith by beheading himself. This the saint declined as inconvenient, 

 replying that this step was superfluous ; as numbers of the devout had 

 cut their heads to Siva, and then recovered life. He proceeds to tell 

 various legends. 



In the first of these a saint cuts off his head, and recovers it at the 

 end of three days. Another thinks this delay must have arisen from the 

 want of faith : so he cut off his head before the god who instantly re- 

 placed it with another : and this feat was encored till the teinpie was 

 fuUofheadri. The next stories are regarding Jaina persecutions : one 

 Jangam is condemned to the flames, but fire will not burn him. He 

 then is released and destroys the Jaina images. Another is a blind man 

 who as a good deed digs a well, which the Jainas fill up. He gains his 

 sight and they go blind. 



The next is a legend of Siva and Parvati descending from heaven to 

 visit a Braminboy, who thereupon embraces the Siva creed. This fable 

 is very long but is narrated in a pleasing style of poetry. This Bramin 

 is allowed by the king to hold a public disputation with the Jainas. The 

 Jainas now by their spells invoked the god of fire to destroy him, but he 

 remained unhurt : this is interpreted as meaning that they tried to kill 

 him by burning his house. The Bramin now inflicts fever on the king, 

 and the Jainas are unable to cure him. The Bramin not only cures 



* A curse is the mainspring of all the bvaminical narrations. Throughout the Ma- 

 habharat this engine is constantly brought into pla3.- : even the present fable of Can- 

 nappa is of braminical origin : for the legend is traced to the Skanda puran. We may 

 recollect that a curse is the first moving cause of the Iliad, the Odyssey and the jEneid ; 

 as well as in the Bhaaaoat and the Cloud Messenger, But the peaceable puritanical 

 style of the Jangam books rarely admits even the mention of a curse, and this is per- 

 haps the only instance of one of their saints resoiting to that braminical weapon. 



