Seeva was once in danger even of annihilation: "In passing from the town of Silgut to Deonhully, says Colonel Wilks, I became accidentally informed of a sect, peculiar, as I since understand, to the north-eastern parts of Mysoor, the women of which universally undergo the amputation of the first joints of the third and fourth fingers of their right hands. On my arrival at Deonhully, after ascertaining that the request would not give offence, I desired to see some of these women; and, the same afternoon, seven of them attended at my tent. The sect is a sub-division of the _Murresoo Wokul_,[1] and belongs to the fourth great class of the Hindoos, viz. the Souder. Every woman of the sect, previously to piercing the ears of her eldest daughter, preparatory to her being betrothed in marriage, must necessarily undergo this mutilation, which is performed by the blacksmith of the village, for a regulated fee, by a surgical process sufficiently rude. The finger to be amputated is placed on a block; the blacksmith places a chisel over the articulation of the {169} joint, and chops it off at a single blow. If the girl to be betrothed is motherless, and the mother of the boy have not before been subject to the operation, it is incumbent on her to perform the sacrifice. After satisfying myself with regard to the facts of the case, I enquired into the origin of so strange a practice, and one of the women related, with great fluency, the following traditionary tale, which has since been repeated to me, with no material deviation, by several others of the sect: A Rachas (or giant) named _Vrica_, and in after times _Busm-aasoor_, or the giant of the ashes, had, by a course of austere devotion to _Mahadeo_ (Seeva) obtained from him the promise of whatever boon he should ask. The Rachas accordingly demanded, that every person on whose head he should place his right hand, might instantly be reduced to ashes; and Mahadeo conferred the boon, without suspicion of the purpose for which it was designed. The Rachas no sooner found himself possessed of this formidable power, than he attempted to use it for the destruction of his benefactor. Mahadeo fled, the Rachas pursued, and followed the fugitive so closely as to chace him into a duck grove; where Mahadeo, changing his form and bulk, concealed himself in the centre of a fruit, then called _tunda pundoo_, but since named _linga_ {170} _tunda_, from the resemblance which its kernel thenceforward assumed to the _ling_, the appropriate emblem of Mahadeo.