Z. that unless Z. performs a certain act A. will kill one of A.’s own children, under such circumstances
that the killing would be believed to render Z. an object of the divine displeasure. A. has committed
the offence described in this section.”—Indian Penal Code, 508, in Chap. XXII., Criminal Intimidation,
Insult, and Annoyance.
1875.—“If you have a legal claim against a man of a certain rank and you are
desirous of compelling him to discharge it, the Senchus Mor tells you ‘to fast upon him.’—The institution
is unquestionably identical with one widely diffused throughout the East, which is called by the Hindoos
‘sitting dharna.’ It consists in sitting at the debtor’s door and starving yourself till he pays. From the
English point of view the practice has always been considered barbarous and immoral, and the Indian
Penal Code expressly forbids it. It suggests, however, the question—what would follow if the debtor
simply allowed the creditor to starve? Undoubtedly the Hindoo supposes that some supernatural penalty
would follow; indeed, he generally gives definiteness to it by retaining a Brahmin to starve himself vicariously,
and no Hindoo doubts what would come of causing a Brahmin’s death.”—Maine, Hist. of Early Institutions,
40. See also 297–304.
1885.—“One of the most curious practices in India is that still followed in the native
states by a Brahman creditor to compel payment of his debt, and called in Hindi dharná, and in Sanskrit
acharita, ‘customary proceeding,’ or Práyopaveçana, ‘sitting down to die by hunger. This procedure
has long since been identified with the practice of ‘fasting upon’ (troscud for) a debtor to God or man,
which is so frequently mentioned in the Irish so-called Brehon Laws…. In a MS. in the Bodleian…there is
a Middle-Irish legend which tells how St. Patrick ‘fasted upon’ Loegaire, the unbelieving over - king of
Ireland. Loegaire’s pious queen declares that she will not eat anything while Patrick is fasting. Her son
Enna seeks for food. ‘It is not fitting for thee,’ says his mother, ‘to eat food while Patrick is fasting upon
you.’…It would seem from this story that in Ireland the wife and children of the debtor, and, a fortiori, the
debtor himself, had to fast so long as the creditor fasted.”—Letter from Mr. Whitley Stokes, in Academy,
Sept. 12th.
A striking story is told in Forbes’s Ras Mala (ii. 393 seq.; [ed. 1878, p. 657]) of a farther
proceeding following upon an unsuccessful dharna, put in practice
by a company of Charans, or bards, in Kathiawar, to enforce payment of a debt by a chief of
Jaila to one of their number. After fasting three days in vain, they proceeded from dharna to the further rite of traga (q.v.). Some hacked their own
arms; others decapitated three old women of their party, and hung th
eir heads up as a garland at the
gate. Certain of the women cut off their own breasts. The bards also pierced the throats of four of the
older men with spikes, and took two young girls and dashed their brains out against the town-gate. Finally
the Charan creditor soaked his quilted clothes in oil, and set fire to himself. As he burned to death he cried out, ‘I am now dying, but I will become a headless ghost (Kavis) in the Palace, and will take the
chief’s life, and cut off his posterity!’
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