Note 67 — Chapter V · WORSHIP OF THE MALEVOLENT DEAD.
Reading edition
There are numerous other versions of the Headless Horseman story in Northern India. In a fight at Khândesh the Gâoli prince engaged in personal conflict with the saint Sayyid Saadat Pîr, and struck off his head. The headless body continued to fight, and the Hindu army fled in panic. The trunk then snatched up the head and led the victorious troops to a neighbouring hill, where the earth opened and swallowed it.67 So, in Oudh, Malik Ambar, the companion of Sâlâr Masaud, was, it is said, killed with his master at Bahrâich, but wandering back from Bijnor, a headless trunk on horseback, he at length reached the place where his tomb now stands, when the earth opened and received him and his horse.68