Note 51 — CHAPTER 26

[Platts (Hindustāni Dict., s.v.) gives chāndni, ‘moonlight’; chāndni mār-jāna, ‘to be moonstruck, paralysed by a stroke of the moon’; chāndni karan, ‘the practice of Brāhmans and others wounding themselves in order to extort the payment of a debt.’ Here the threat is fear of the ghost of the man who took his life. Sir G. Grierson notes that in Gujarāti and Marāthi chāndi karan means ‘to reduce to white ashes,’ hence ‘to ruin or destroy completely.’ Here chāndi, usually meaning ‘silver,’ means ‘anything white,’ and hence ‘white ashes.’ This, he suggests, seems to be a more probable explanation than ‘moonstruck.’]