Volume 2

The cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia : commercial, industrial and scientific, products of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, useful arts and manufactures / by Edward Balfour.

  • Balfour, Edward, 1813-1889.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia : commercial, industrial and scientific, products of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, useful arts and manufactures / by Edward Balfour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/1140 (page 13)
    HANNAMANTU’S PILLAR. HAPTA HINDU. their Education and Letters; Hue, Chinese Empire, i. pp. 19, 95. HANNAMANTU’S PILLAR. About 50 feet west of the high road from Kurnool to Gooty, 50£ miles from Kurnool town, stands this natural pfllar of gneiss rock. There is scarcely such another in the world. Amongst a few smaller pillars of a similar kind, it towers 25 feet high, averaging G feet square. This average width is exceeded in the middle, and tapers off towards both ends; so that the top is 4 or 5 feet square, and the base about 3 feet square. It is all solid, except that the upper 4 or 5 feet is separated from the rest of the pillar by a fine horizontal crack. The most strik- ing part of it is, that it does not stand on its base fully, nor even upon half of it. A string 10 feet long will encircle the whole of the bearing points of the base, which all lie within a space about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide, in the form of a trun- cated right-angled triangle. This is a small base for a pillar weighing as much as a couple of loco- motive engines with their tenders complete. Yet even on this small base, if, as appears likely, the centre of gravity falls about the centre of the base, it will require a wind-pressure of 80 lbs. on the square foot to overturn the pillar. Years ago, some Hindu enthusiast painted a figure of the monkey god on this pillar. Recently some icono- clast has been removing the figure, by flaking off the stone in a very destructive way.—Traveller. HANNO, according to Pliny, a native of Car- thage. When that city was at the height of her prosperity, he circumnavigated the continent of Africa, sailing from Gades (Cadiz) to the extremity of the Arabian Gulf. He wrote all the details of his voyage in the Punic language. HANOMOREY, betle-box bearers of Oovah in Ceylon, a race or caste held to be more degraded than the Rodiya.—Tennant. HANS A or Hanasa. Gans, Ger. xi*, Gr. Anser Lat. Gangsa, . . . Malay. Hanza, .... Pali. Ganso, .... Port. Ansar, .... Sp. A swan, a goose. When the followers of the first crusade issued from England, France, and Flanders, they adored a goat and a goose, which they believed to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Salu, translated quails in Numbers xi. 31, are supposed to be red geese. Brahma is styled the Hansa rider, it being his vahan or vehicle. The figure on many Buddhist monuments is the Casarca rutila, or Brahmany goose. The goose is emblazoned on the national standard of Burma. IIANSI, a municipal town of Hissar district, Panjab, and headquarters of the Tahsil, lat. 29° 6' 19 N., long. 76° O' 19 E., population (1868) 13,563. Dr. Hunter says it was founded, accord- ing to tradition, by Anang Pal Tuar, king of Dehli. Colonel Yule says it was founded by Raja Pethora of Dehli. It was captured by Mahmud of Ghazni, a.d. 1035. The well within the lower fort, or fausse braye, is 120 feet deep. In the centre of the upper fort is a cistern capable of containing 184,000 gallons. It was the capital of George Thomas, who raised himself from being a sailor before the mast to be ruler of a small Indian principality.—Yule, Cathay, ii. p. 406 ; Imp. Gaz. HANSRAJ. Hind. Adiantum caudatum, A. capillus veneris, A. venustum, the pari-soosa or mu-i-pari, fairy-hair ferns, the leaves of which are deemed by the natives of India heating and febri- fuge.—Gen. Med. Top. p. 127. HANTU. Malay. A spirit, a ghost. HANUMAN, a Hindu deity. From Hanu, the cheek, Hanuman means long jaw. His figure is that of a man with a black monkey face and a long tail. Hanuman or Hanumat, in Hindu mytho- logy, is son of Pavana, the wind, by Anjana, wife of a monkey named Kesari, called also Lanka-dahi, also Yoga-chara, Marut-putra; and he has the patronymics Anili, Maruti, and the matronymic Anjaneya. His images are set up in temples, some- times alone, and sometimes in the society of the former companions of his glory, Rama and Sita. He is supplicated by Hindus on their birthdays to obtain longevity, which he is supposed to have the power to bestow. As the god of enterprise, offer- ings are made at his shrine by night. Hanuman is said to be a son of Siva. He is fabled to be the son of the wind, and is called Maruti, from Pavana being chief of the Marut, or genii of the winds. He is also called Muhabar. As the monkey- general who assisted Rama in his war with Ravana, he is regarded and worshipped as a demi- god. Both Hanumanji and Boosundi are said to have their lives protracted through the four yuga of Hindu chronology. Boosund was a crow who had more blood than he could drink in the wars of Sambhu and Nesambhu. He just quenched his thirst with blood in the wars of Rama. But in the wars of the Mahabharat he broke his beak by striking it against the hard dry earth, which had soaked in the little blood shed on the occasion. In 1868, Bala, potail of Assaye, who was five years old when Sir Arthur Wellesley fought the battle, was the pujari of the temple in which the editor put up. Bala daily walked in and poured water on the lingam (Abishegam), also on Hanu- man and on the bull (Basava); then put rice on all these, then walked around five times, then put rice on the tulsi, and the worship concluded.—Tr. Hind. ii. p. 207 ; Col. Myth. p. 59 ; Dowson. HANUMAN, the Bengal langur, Presbytes entellus of Bengal and Central India. The males live apart from the females, whom they visit at seasons. See Presbytes. HANUMAN NATAKA, a long drama on the adventures of Hanuman, by various hands, com- pleted by Damodara Misra, by request of King Bhoja, in the 10th or 11th century. HANXLEDEN and Paulinus a Sancto Barto- lomeo whose real name was Philipp Wesdin, in 1790 published the first Sanskrit grammar. HAOU ? TSING ! TSING ! The Chinese salutation on meeting, meaning literally, Are you well ? hail! hail! See Chin. HAPTA HINDU, of the Vendidad, is the modern Panjab, the Hapta Sin or Hapta Hin, or the seven rivers, called in the Vedas the Sapta Sindhava. These consist of the Sindhu or Indus, with its six eastern confluents, viz.: Vitasta or Hydaspes. Asikni or Ascesenes. Parushni or Hydraotes. Vipas or Hyphasis. Satadru or Hesydrus. Kubha or Kophen. In the journeying of the Aryan race, their fourteenth settlement was in Hapta Hindu (Pan- jab, vi. 19), the land of the seven Hinda, that is, the country between the Indus and Sutlej. In the Vedas, the country of the five rivers is also called the land of the seven rivers. The tradi- I tional Greek names also are seven. The Indus