The belief in the power of penance, which was supposed to confer on the person practising it not merely personal sanctity, but even great supernatural powers, was very generally entertained among the Hindoos, and is often alluded to here ; as is also transmigration, or the birth of the soul after death in a new body, human or brute. Sufferings or misfortunes are attributed to sins committed in a former existence, and in more than one story two persons are supposed to recollect having many years before lived together as husband and wife.
Much use also is made of the agency of supernatural beings ; for besides numerous gods, the Hindoos believe, or at least believed, in the existence of innumerable beings, in some degree immortal, but liable to be killed even by men, swarming in the air, generally
