Legends of the Murree Hills.
The last number of the Calcutta Review contains an interesting article, by Lieutenant R.C. Temple, from which we make the following extracts: –
The Sadr Bazar was built under the English in 1850-3, that is, about 30 years ago. The following short story about it was told me by a very respectable old gentleman, one Sukha Confectioner, now Chaudhri of the Corn Market, who evidently believed in it.
A Story of the Murree Sadr Bazar.
My name is Sukha, and I am a confectioner by trade, and now I am Chaudhri of the Corn Market in the Murree Sadr Bazar. What I now relate I saw with my own eyes, and any number of people at Murree will bear out my story.
About 24 years ago, when Mr (George) Battye was Magistrate, and the Sadr Bazar was only 6 years old, a wonderful thing happened. A dreadful supernatural Being began to haunt the bazar. Some people said it was a demon, some a jinn, some a dead shopkeeper, while others said it was a carpenter who had recently died.
The Being always came in the winter, especially on snowy nights, and used to go into any shop he chose and take every thing out of it, and the curious part of it was that he used to arrange the goods on the road outside as if he were going to set up shop on his own account. He was never bothered by heavy weights, and constantly lifted out bags of grain weighing from 2 1/2 cwts, to 4 cwts, and placed them in the road. He never did any harm to the goods nor did he even mix them, but placed them out exactly as they were arranged in the shop.
The only things he stole were ghi and butter, and these he used to eat. He did this for 3 years whenever the snow fell, and, though the shopkeepers had had enough of it, they could never even see him.
But one year during the festival of lohri, in the month of Poh [December/January], just before the month of Magh [January/February] began, and after the midnight fires had been lighted and the people were going home, Tara Singh, a shopkeeper and I sat talking together in front of my shop till about 2 in the morning. The fires had been lighted just in front of my shop, so we could see pretty well. Tara Singh is still alive, but has left this place and keeps a shop in Rawal Pindi.
While we were smoking and talking we saw the Being go in to my shop and put his head right into a vessel of ghi, where it got stuck. So he began struggling and making a noise. I thought at first it was a thief, and called to the neighbours for help, and several of them came running up with torches. And then we saw that in the ghi pot was stuck the Being and that, it had four legs. So we got three tent ropes and tied it up to a wooden post in the shop, and I broke open the ghi-pot with a big stick and then let loose the Being’s head. We did not see the face, but it had long ears like a donkey. As soon as it was free of the pot, it jerked itself loose from the post and went off, ropes and all. When it got outside it began looking about at the people collected round it as if dazed.
We sent a man at once to call Mardan ‘Ali, the Kotwal, who had a fancy for keeping leopards and bears and other wild animals, but before he came up, the Being gave a jump and went off. When Mardan ‘Ali arrived and heard all about it: he was much astonished. But from that day to this the Being never came again into the bazar or to the Murree Hills. It had marks on its body like a leopard, and was about the size of one.
The chances are that it really was a leopard. They are still to be found in the neighbourhood in cold weather, and were doubtless plentiful in the early days of the station. The word used by the narrator for “Being” is very interesting and noteworthy. It was shae. Now shae or sae in the hill districts of the Punjab, means a supernatural being, a demon or ghost. In tracing it, the dictionaries give no help, nor do they even quote it. The Lodiana Panjabi Dictionary has “se, a contribution levied by bards, faqirs and Bramans.” And also “sewader, a bard, faqir or Brahman, who levies contributions on individuals , and ceases not to worry them till payment is made.” These words I am told have their origin from the idea that the faqir or Brahman can call up the shae at will to annoy those who will not give, and on the other hand, can remove the shae which afflicts those who are charitable. The only derivation I can suggest for the word is the Sanskrit sava a corpse, dead body, from the root sav, si or svi.
Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 19th October 1882.