Vikram and the Vampire (1870)
gutenberg.org
gutenberg.org
Pancha means 5, I forget or don't know what vimshati means - could be that the whole number part (panchavimshati) means 25.
So the whole name of the series means 25 stories of the ghoul (vetala) - as told to king Vikramaditya, a famous king of ancient times, on whose back a ghoul somehow landed, and who then had to carry the ghoul on his back from somewhere to the cemetery 25 times.
Each time, while going there, the ghoul told him a different story ending in a puzzle or question.
Vikram was renowned as a good and fair judge.
The ghoul would tell him each time, that if he answered the question right (which involved judging the protagonists of the story, and saying who of them was right or wrong), he (the ghoul) would get off his (Vikram's) shoulders and let him go. But, if by the 25th time, Vikram still did not get the question right, the ghoul would kill him.
Entertaining stories we heard or read as kids. Often with some moral. Typical of Indian legends / folk tales.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoul
Edited for better wording / typos.
s/cemetery/burning ground
since Hindus cremate, they don't bury.
I'm well aware of that - Hindu here :), by birth anyway, and have read a lot of books about Hindu philosophies (note the double plural).
>and varies by region,
Not quite correct, only partially. I'm not an expert on the intricacies of it, but it is somewhat generally known to people that the are many branches / sects / whatever you want to call them, and they vary (or varied, originally, at least), by the main god / founding guru / philosophy for that sect or branch, not by region (although that may have even coincided in some cases, others were/are nationwide). Over time that variation may have morphed into being somewhat along regional lines, but even now, it is not fully so. You can find plenty of people of different branches of Hinduism, in the same town or city (even somewhat in villages, is my guess, though less so there). Just look at the print or online matrimonial ads, for example, of any leading Indian newspaper, and see how many ads there are for prospective brides and grooms from different Hindu sects, but from the same state or even city.
>that any blanket statement you make about it has a very high chance of being incorrect!
See above points. And anyway it was not meant as a blanket statement. We are talking about human affairs here, not algorithms, so a certain degree of looseness is generally acceptable and understood. In this context, we don't need to add (math) existential or universal quantifiers (like "there exists ..." or "for all ...") to every statement we make.
>since Hindus cremate, they don't bury.
Which seems a pretty blanket statement to me. There are other beliefs which many hindus believe are a core part of Hinduism for e.g. vegetarianism. I am not trying to create a strawman here. You will be surprised, how many regions (yes regions, not branches / sects as you put) have fish/meat as a part of their tradition.
Seems like you missed my last paragraph about human affairs vs. algorithms above.
>There are other beliefs which many hindus believe are a core part of Hinduism for e.g. vegetarianism.
Not at all likely - that Hindus believe that. Foreigners, may be. Hindus all know that there are plenty of vegetarians as well as non-vegetarians among Hindus. In fact meat-eating (including sacrifices of meat) is even mentioned in ancient scriptures like the Vedas. And it has been a practice from then down to modern times.
>You will be surprised, how many regions (yes regions, not branches / sects as you put) have fish/meat as a part of their tradition.
No, I wouldn't be surprised at all. Wrong assumption on your part. I know it very well. I am from and live in India. It's more like the other way around, and it is not even by region, in this case. It is only some percentage who are vegetarian on the grounds of religion. Plenty of Hindus eat meat/fish, in many states of India.
You may not be trying to create a strawman, but you are making unwarranted assumptions.
vimshati = 20
Right.
>vimshati = 20
Good to know.
Slipping into Burton's prose is like mounting a white elephant for a long stroll into humid, tiger-ravaged jungles.
Native folktales provide the antidote to Myth of a Thousand Faces Ur-texts. They're stochastic. Endless. Authorless. Abundant with seemingly coincidental frissons. "Pearls with a thread draw through" indeed!