Hence arises the possibility that in the temporary absence of a man's soul his body may be occupied by some…
- Date of account
- Second edition published 1896
- Source
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2)
- Reference
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2) · selected passage 80
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
Hence arises the possibility that in the temporary absence of a man's soul his body may be occupied by some other person's spirit, or even by a malignant ghost or demon
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyHence arises the possibility that in the temporary absence of a man's soul his body may be occupied by some other person's spirit, or even by a malignant ghost or demon. In the Panchatantra there is a story of a king who lost his own soul, but afterwards recovered it. A Panjâb tale tells how a Hindu was once asleep and his soul went on its travels as usual. During its wanderings it felt thirsty and went into a pitcher of water to drink. While it was in the pitcher some one shut the lid, and it was imprisoned. His friends took the corpse to the cremation ground, but some one happened fortunately to open the pitcher just in time, and the spirit flew into its own body, which awoke on the bier. [470] In the same way, according to Apollonius, the soul of Hermotimos of Klazomenoe left his body frequently, resided in different places, uttered all sorts of predictions, and used to come back to his body, which remained in his house. At last some spiteful persons burnt his body in the absence of his soul. In another tale of Somadeva the soul of Chandraprabha abandons his own body and enters that of a hero under the influence of Mâyâ or delusion.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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