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.
