But the mere reverence for their calling would not have sufficed for
a permanent safeguard to the Charans from destitute and unscrupulous
robbers. They preserved it by the customs of _Chandi_ or _Traga_ and
_Dharna_. These consisted in their readiness to mutilate, starve or
kill themselves rather than give up property entrusted to their care;
and it was a general belief that their ghosts would then haunt the
persons whose ill deeds had forced them to take their own lives. It
seems likely that this belief in the power of a suicide or murdered
man to avenge himself by haunting any persons who had injured him or
been responsible for his death may have had a somewhat wide prevalence
and been partly accountable for the reprobation attaching in early
times to the murderer and the act of self-slaughter. The haunted
murderer would be impure and would bring ill-fortune on all who had
to do with him, while the injury which a suicide would inflict on his
relatives in haunting them would cause this act to be regarded as a sin
against one's family and tribe. Even the ordinary fear of the ghosts
of people who die in the natural course, and especially of those who
are killed by accident, is so strong that a large part of the funeral
rites is devoted to placating and laying the ghost of the dead man;
and in India the period of observance of mourning for the dead is
perhaps in reality that time during which the spirit of the dead man
is supposed to haunt his old abode and render the survivors of his
family impure. It was this fear of ghosts on which the Charans relied,
nor did they hesitate a moment to sacrifice their lives in defence of
any obligation they had undertaken or of property committed to their
care. When plunderers carried off any cattle belonging to the Charans,
the whole community would proceed to the spot where the robbers
resided; and in failure of having their property restored would cut off
the heads of several of their old men and women. Frequent instances
occurred of a man dressing himself in cotton-quilted cloths steeped
in oil which he set on fire at the bottom, and thus danced against
the person against whom _traga_ was performed until the miserable
creature dropped down and was burnt to ashes. On one occasion a Cutch
chieftain, attempting to escape with his wife and child from a village,
was overtaken by his enemy when about to leap a precipice; immediately
turning he cut off his wife's head with his scimitar and, flourishing
his reeking blade in the face of his pursuer, denounced against him
the curse of the _traga_ which he had so fearfully performed. [299]
In this case it was supposed that the wife's ghost would haunt the
enemy who had driven the husband to kill her.