The first of the attendants of this formidable avenger of his mother's
wrongs is named Bhoota Sanni Yakseya, Demon of Madness. The whole
demonolatry and devil-dancing of that island are so insane that one is
not surprised that this Bhoota had but little special development. It
is amid clear senses we might naturally look for full horror of
madness, and there indeed do we find it. One of the most horrible
forms of the disease-demon was the personification of madness among
the Greeks, as Mania. [194] In the Hercules Furens of Euripides,
where Madness, 'the unwedded daughter of black Night,' and sprung of
'the blood of Coelus,' is evoked from Tartarus for the express purpose
of imbreeding in Hercules 'child-slaying disturbances of reason,'
there is a suggestion of the hereditary nature of insanity. Obedient
to the vindictive order of Juno, 'in her chariot hath gone forth the
marble-visaged, all-mournful Madness, the Gorgon of Night, and with
the hissing of hundred heads of snakes, she gives the goad to her
chariot, on mischief bent.' We may plainly see that the religion
which embodied such a form was itself ending in madness. Already
ancient were the words mantikê (prophecy) and manikê (madness) when
Plato cited their identity to prove one kind of madness the special
gift of Heaven: [195] the notion lingers in Dryden's line, 'Great
wits to madness sure are near allied;' and survive in regions where
deference is paid to lunatics and idiots. Other diseases preserve in
their names indications of similar association: e.g., Nympholepsy,
St. Vitus's Dance, St. Anthony's Fire. Wesley attributes still epilepsy
to 'possession.' This was in pursuance of ancient beliefs. Typhus, a
name anciently given to every malady accompanied with stupor (typhos),
seemed the breath of feverish Typhon. Max Müller connects the word
quinsy with Sanskrit amh, 'to throttle,' and Ahi the throttling
serpent, its medium being angina; and this again is kynanchê,
dog-throttling, the Greek for quinsy. [196]
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