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Title: The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of
2)

Author: William Crooke

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POPULAR
RELIGION AND FOLK-LORE OF NORTHERN INDIA, VOL. 2 (OF 2)
***

FOLK-LORE OF NORTHERN INDIA

YAMA, GOD OF DEATH, BORNE BY HIS MESSENGERS.

THE POPULAR RELIGION
AND FOLK-LORE OF
NORTHERN INDIA

BY
W. CROOKE, B.A.
BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ILLUSTRATED
WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.

2, Whitehall Gardens, S.W.
1896

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. PAGE

The Evil Eye and the Scaring of Ghosts 1

CHAPTER II.

Tree and Serpent Worship 83

CHAPTER III.

Totemism and Fetishism 146

CHAPTER IV.

Animal-Worship 201

CHAPTER V.

The Black Art 259

CHAPTER VI.

Some Rural Festivals and Ceremonies 287

Bibliography 327

Index 333

FOLK-LORE OF NORTHERN INDIA.

CHAPTER I.

THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.
Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos.

Virgil, Eclogues, iii. 103.

Asma ’bint ’Umais relates that she said, “O Prophet! the family of Ja’ afar are affected
by the baneful influence of the Evil Eye. May I use spells for them or not?” The Prophet
said, “Yes; for if there were anything in the world which would overcome fate, it would
be the Evil Eye.”—Miskât, xxi.–i. Part II.

The belief in the baneful influence of the Evil Eye prevails widely.1 According to Pliny,2
it was one of the special superstitions of the people of India, and at the present day it
forms an important part of the popular belief. But the investigation of its principles is far
from easy. It is very closely connected with a number of kindred ideas on the subject of
diabolical influence, and few natives care to speak about it except in a furtive way. In
fact, it is far too serious a matter to be discussed lightly. Walking about villages, you will
constantly see special marks on houses, and symbols and devices of various kinds,
which are certainly intended to counteract it; but hardly any one cares directly to explain
the real motive, and if you ask the meaning of them, you will almost invariably be told
that they are purely decorative, or that they have been made with some object which
obviously conceals the real basis of the practice.

One, and perhaps the most common theory of the Evil Eye is that “when a child is born,
an invisible spirit is born with it; and unless the mother keeps one breast tied up for forty
days, while she feeds the child with the other (in which case the spirit dies of hunger),
the child grows up with the endowment of the Evil Eye, and whenever any person so
endowed looks at anything constantly, something will happen to it.”3 So, in Ireland we
are told that “the gift comes by Nature and is born with one, though it may not be called
into exercise unless circumstances arise to excite the power; then it comes to act like a
spirit of bitter and malicious envy that radiates a poisonous atmosphere, which chills and
blights everything within its reach.”4

In Bombay the “blast of the Evil Eye is supposed to be a form of spirit possession. In
Western India all witches and wizards are said to be, as a rule, evil-eyed. Of the rest,
those persons only who are born under certain circumstances are believed to be evil-
eyed. The circumstances are as follows:—Among the Hindus it is believed that when a
woman is pregnant, she begins to conceive peculiar longings from the day of conception,
or from the fifth month. They consist in eating various fruits and sweetmeats, in walking
under deep shades, or in gardens where brooks gurgle, or in putting on rich clothes or

ornaments, and in many other like things. If in the case of any woman these desires are
not gratified, the child whom she gives birth to becomes weak and voracious, and is said
to have an Evil Eye. If such a person sees a man or woman eat anything which he feels a
longing for, the eater either vomits what he or she has eaten, or falls sick. By some it is
believed that if a person come from without at the time of dinner, and enters the house
without washing his feet, the man who is eating becomes sick or vomits the food he has
eaten, or does not feel longing for food for some time, until the blast of the Evil Eye is
warded off.” Mr. Campbell explains this on the principle that “as he comes from places
where three or four roads meet, and which are spirit haunts, an evil spirit accompanies
him without entering his body, from the place of its residence by which he has passed. If
he washes his feet, the spirit goes back; but if he enters the house with spirit-laden feet,
the spirit enters the house with him, and affects any one of the persons eating.”5

The real fact seems to be that in most cases the Evil Eye is the result of covetousness.6
Thus, a man blind of an eye, no matter how well-disposed he may be, is almost certain to
envy a person blessed with a peculiarly good pair of eyes. But if the blind man’s
attention be distracted by something conspicuous in the appearance of the other, such as
lampblack on his eyelids, a mole, or a scar, the feeling of dissatisfaction, which is fatal to
the complete effect of the envious glance, is certain to arise. This theory that the glance
may be neutralized or avoided by some blot or imperfection is the basis of many of the
popular remedies or prophylactics invented with the object of averting its influence.

Hence comes the device of making an intentional blot in anything one values, so that the
glance of the Evil Eye may be deprived of its complete satisfaction. Thus, most people
put lampblack on the eyes of their children as a protection against fascination, because
black is a colour hateful to evil spirits; it has the additional advantage of protecting the
eye from the fierce heat of the Indian summer. Women when delivery approaches often
mark themselves with black to avert the demon who causes protracted labour. It is also
believed that a person whose eyelids are encircled with lampblack is incapable of casting
the Evil Eye himself; and it is considered nice in a woman to ornament herself in this
way, since because she herself, except at some crisis of her life, such as marriage or
parturition, is not liable to fascination, it shows her indisposition to covet the beauty of
others, with the inference that she has no cause to do so.

On the same principle, when a parent has lost a child by any disease which, as is usually
the case, can be attributed to fascination or other demoniacal influence, it is a common
practice to call the next baby by some opprobrious name, with the intention of so
depreciating it that it may be regarded as worthless, and so protected from the Evil Eye
of the envious. Thus a male child is called Kuriya or “Dunghill;” Kadheran or Ghasîta,
“He that has been dragged along the ground;” Dukhi or Dukhita, “The afflicted one;”
Phatingua, “Grasshopper;” Jhingura, “Cricket;” Bhîkhra or Bhîkhu, “Beggar;” Gharîb,
“Poor,” and so on. So, a girl is called Andhrî, “Blind;” Tînkauriyâ or Chhahkauriyâ, “She

that was sold for three or six cowry shells;” Dhuriyâ, “Dusty;” Machhiyâ, “Fly,” and so
on.7

All this is connected with what the Scotch call “fore-speaking,” when praise beyond
measure, praise accompanied with a sort of amazement or envy, is considered likely to
be followed by disease or accident.8 Thus Professor Rhys writes of the Isle of Man:9
“You will never get a Manxman to say that he is very well. He usually admits that he is
‘middling;’ and if by any chance he risks a stronger adjective, he hastens to qualify it by
saying ‘now’ or ‘just now,’ with an emphasis indicative of his anxiety not to say too
much. His habits of speech point back to the time when the Manx mind was dominated
by the fear of awaking malignant influences in the spirit world around him.” So, in
Ireland, to avoid being suspected of having the Evil Eye, it is necessary when looking at
a child to say, “God bless it!” and when passing a farmyard where the cows are collected
for milking to say, “The blessing of God be on you and all your labour!”10

The same customs prevail in India. Thus, if a native gentleman brings his child to visit a
European, he dislikes to hear it praised, unless the praise be accompanied with some
pious ejaculation. And it is safer to speak in a complimentary way of some conspicuous
ornament or piece of dress, which is always put on as a protective.

In connection with the question of naming, a reference may be made to some taboos
which are probably based on similar principles. A name is part of a person in the belief
of savages, and a man can be injured through his name as well as through the parings of
his nails or hair, which are carefully looked after. Thus with all Hindus two names are
given to children, one secret and used only for ceremonial purposes, and the other for
ordinary use. The witch if she learns the real name can work her evil charms through
it.11 Hence arises the use of many contractions and perversions of the real name and
many of the nicknames which are generally given to children, as well as the ordinary
terms of endearment which are constantly employed. We have this name taboo coming
out in a cycle of folk-tales, such as “Rumpelstilzchen,” “Tom Titty Tot,” and “Whuppity
Stoorie.” Here the imp or gnome has a secret name of his own, which he thinks it
impossible for any one to find out, and he himself uses it only when he thinks he is sure
to be alone.

This seems to be the most rational explanation of the curious taboo according to which a
Hindu woman will not name her husband, or if she wants to refer to him, does so in
some indirect way as the father of her child and so on. To this, however, there is one
notable exception. Thus, writing of Bombay, Mr. Campbell says:12 “At marriages,
coming of age, first pregnancy and festive days, such as the Nâgpanchamî and Mangalâ
Gaurî in August, it is usual for the woman to recite some couplet or verse in which the
husband’s name occurs. At marriages this naming is, in practice, little more than a game.
An old man or an old lady gets close to the door and refuses to allow the young women

to go until they have told their husbands’ name. At the pregnancy ceremony the same
custom is observed.” Mr. Campbell takes this to be “part of a ceremony whose object is
to drive to a distance any spirits whose influence might blight the tender life of the
unborn child. This seems natural when it is remembered that the names of men are either
the names of gods, of precious stones, or of spices, all of which have a power to scare
spirits; and as repeating the thousand names of Mahâdeva is a service in which he
greatly delights, apparently because it keeps spirits at a distance, so this repeating of the
husband’s and wife’s name seems to have the same object.” The name, in other words, is
kept secret on account of its sanctity, and the custom would be based on the same rules
of taboo which have been designed among most savages for the protection of kings and
other persons of dignity from the influence of evil spirits.

Another mode of protecting boys from demoniacal influence is based on the same idea
of the blot of imperfection. Boys of rich parents are often dressed in mean or filthy
clothes so that they may be considered unworthy of the malicious glance of some
envious neighbour or enemy.

Still another device, that of dressing up the boy during infancy as a girl, in other words a
pretended change of sex, may perhaps lead us on the track of a possible explanation of
some very curious and obscure practices in Europe. We know that legends of actual
change of sex are not unknown in Indian folk-lore. Thus, we have the very primitive
legend of Idâ or Ilâ, who was the daughter of the Manu Vaivaswata, who prayed to Mitra
and Varuna for a boy and was given a girl. But the prayers of her father to the deities
resulted in her being changed into a man, Sudyumna. Siva changed him back again into
a woman, and she, as Ilâ, became the wife of Budha. In more modern times we have the
very similar story of the daughter of the Bhadauriya Râja. He had a daughter, who was
seized by force for the seraglio of the Emperor at Delhi, but she fled to the temple of
Devî at Batesar and by the aid of the goddess was changed into a boy. By another
version of the tale he arranged with another Râja that their children should be contracted,
if one chanced to be a boy and the other a girl. Both had daughters, but the Râja
concealed the circumstance and allowed the marriage to go on as if his child was a son.
When the fraud was detected the girl tried to commit suicide in the Jumnâ, but came out
a boy, and everyone was satisfied.13

One explanation of the custom of pretended change of sex as shown in the case of the
Amazons, has been thus explained by Mr. Abercromby:14 “The great desire of women,
more especially during a period of warlike barbarism, is to bear male children. Turning
our attention to the result of flattening a girl’s breasts and letting her wear male attire, it
is obvious that a sex distinction has been obliterated, and she has become externally
assimilated to a male youth. Moreover, the object has evidently been intentional. It
would be no outrage to the reasoning powers of the Sarmatians to suppose that they
believed a woman’s chances of bearing male children were vastly enhanced by her

wearing a man’s dress, and by being in some degree conformed to the male type by
forcible compression of the breasts during maidenhood. They would argue thus: a
woman wants to bear male children, therefore she ought to be made as much like a man
as possible. A conviction of this kind is gained by a process identical with the immature
reasoning that underlies what is called sympathetic magic.”

This may possibly be one explanation of the practice among Chamârs and other low
castes in Northern India, when at marriages boys dress up as women and perform a rude
and occasionally obscene dance. Among the Modh Brâhmans of Gujarât, at marriages,
the bridegroom’s maternal uncle, whose special position is almost certainly a survival
from times when descent through the mother was the only recognized form, dresses as a
Jhanda or Pathân Faqîr, whose ghost is dangerous, in woman’s clothes from head to
waist, and in men’s clothes below, rubs his face with oil, daubs it with red powder, goes
with the bride and bridegroom to a place where two roads meet (which, as we have seen,
is a haunt of spirits), and stays there till the pair offer the goddess food.15

Now, there are numerous customs which have been grouped in Europe under the name
of the False Bride. Thus, among the Esthonians the false bride is enacted by the bride’s
brother dressed in woman’s clothes; in Polonia by a bearded man called the Wilde Brant;
in Poland, by an old woman veiled in white, and lame; again, among the Esthonians, by
an old woman with a birch-bark crown; in Brittany, where the substitutes are first a little
girl, then the mistress of the house, and lastly, the grandmother.16

The supposition may then be hazarded, that in the light of the Indian examples the object
may be that some one assumes the part of the bride in order to divert on himself from her
the envious glance of the Evil Eye. With the same object it is very common in India to
bore the noses of little boys and thus to make them resemble girls. The usual names of
Nathu or Bulâqi, the former where the ring was placed in the side of the nose and the
latter in the septum, are evidence of this.

The theory of the blot of imperfection again appears in the custom of not washing the
face of a little boy till he is six years old.17 Similarly, young men, if vigorous and stout,
consider themselves very liable to the fascination of lean people, and tie a rag round the
left arm, or a blue thread round their necks, often twisting the blue feathers of the roller
bird into the thread as an additional precaution. Nor do they care to expose their bodies
to the public gaze, but wear a light shawl of a gaudy colour, even in the warmest season
of the year. Should such a youth, if sufficiently conceited about his personal appearance,
detect a suspicious person looking at him, he will immediately pretend to limp, or
contort his face and spasmodically grasp his ankle or his elbow as if he were in pain, to
distract and divert the attention he fears.

So, all natives dread being stared at, particularly by Europeans; and you will often see a
witness cast his eyes on the ground when the magistrate looks him full in the face,
sometimes because he knows he is lying and fears the consequences, but it is often done
through fear of fascination. A European, in fact, is to the rustic a strange inscrutable
personage, gifted with many occult powers both for good and evil, and there are
numerous extraordinary legends current about him. We shall return to this in dealing
with the wonderful Momiâî story. Here it may be noted that he has control over the Jinn.
There was a place near Dera Ghâzi Khân so possessed by them that passersby were
attacked. A European officer poured a bottle of brandy on the spot and no Jinn has been
seen there ever since. A very dangerous ghost which some time ago used to infest a road
in the Rûrki Cantonment was routed in the same way by an artilleryman, who spat on
him when he came across him one dark night. The nails of a European, like those of the
Râkshasa, distil a deadly poison, and hence he is afraid to eat with his fingers, as all
reasonable people do, and prefers to use a knife and fork.

A few other examples illustrating the same principle may be given here. When a man is
copying a manuscript, he will sometimes make an intentional blot. A favourite trick is to
fold the paper back before the ink of the last line has time to dry, so as to blot and at the
same time make it appear the result of chance. We have noticed the same idea in the case
of carpet patterns. A similar irregularity is introduced in printing chintzes and like
handicrafts, and this goes a long way to explain the occasional and almost unaccountable
defects to be found in some native work. The letter from a Râja is spotted with gold leaf,
partly to divert fascination and partly to act as a scarer of demons. In fact the two
conceptions meet and overlap all through the theory of these protectives.

Another plan is to paint up some hideous figure on the posts or arch of the door. The
figure of a Churel or the caricature of a European with his gun is often delineated in this
way. Others paint a figure of Yamarâja or some of the gods or saints for the same
purpose, and the regular guardian deities, like Hanumân, Bhairon, or Bhîm Sen, often
figure on these protective frescoes. So in Italy Mania was a most frightful spirit. “Her
frightful image used to be hung over the doors to frighten away evil. This is quite
identical with the old Assyrian observance recorded by Lenormant of placing the images
of evil or dreaded deities in places to scare away the demons themselves.”18

Confectioners, when one of their vessels of milk is exposed to view, put a little charcoal
in it, as careful Scotch mothers do in the water in which they wash their babies.19 The
idea is probably connected with the use of fire as a charm. In Scotland it used to be the
practice to throw a live coal into the beer vat to avert the influence of the fairies, and a
cow’s milk was secured against them by a burning coal being passed across her back and
under her belly immediately after calving.20 In India, if a cow gives a large quantity of
milk, the owner tries to hide it, and if it chances to get sour, he attributes the loss to
fascination, or the machinations of some enemy, witch, or demon. A mother while

dressing her baby makes a black mark on its cheek, and before a man eats betel he
pinches off the corner of the leaf as a safeguard. When food is taken to the labourer in
the field, a piece of charcoal or copper coin is placed in the basket as a preservative; and
when horses while feeding throw a little grain on the ground, it is not replaced, because
the horse is believed to do this to avoid fascination. Grooms, with the same object, throw
a dirty duster over the withers of a horse while it is feeding, and they are the more
particular to do this when it is new moon or moonlight, when spirits are abroad. In the
same way, when a man purchases food in the open market, he throws a little into the fire,
and when a man is having a specially good dinner, he should select an auspicious
moment and do the same. The same idea accounts for various customs of grace-giving at
meals. Thus, when the Brâhmans at Pûna begin dinner they repeat the name of Govinda;
the Shenavis say, Har! Har! Mahâdeva, and when half finished sing verses; the Mhârs
never eat without saying Krishnarpana! or “It is dedicated to Krishna”;21 the
Muhammadan, when he begins to eat, says, Bismillah!—“In the name of God!” and
when he finishes he says, Al-hamdulillah!—“Praise be to God!” Orthodox Hindus
pretend that this offering of food at a meal is a sacrifice to Annadeva, the god of food;
but here many varied beliefs, such as fear of fascination, earth and fire worship, appear
to combine to establish these and similar practices.

We now come to consider the various articles which are believed to have the power of
scaring spirits, and counteracting demoniacal influence of various kinds.

First among these is iron. Why iron has been regarded as a scarer of demons has been
much debated. Natives of India will tell you that it is the material out of which weapons
are made, and that an armed man should fear nothing. Others say that its virtues depend
on its black colour, which, as we shall see, is obnoxious to evil spirits. Mr. Campbell22
thinks the explanation may be that in all cases of swooning and seizures iron is of great
value, either applied in the form of the cautery or used as a lancet to let blood. The real
reason is probably a very interesting survival of folk-thought. We know that in many
places the stone axe and arrow head of the Age of Stone are invested with magic
qualities, and Mr. Macritchie has gone so far as to assume that the various so-called fairy
houses and fairy hills which abound in Europe are really the abodes of a primitive pigmy
race, which survive to our days as the fairies. The belief in the fairies would thus go back
to a time anterior to the use of metals, and these supernatural beings would naturally feel
an abhorrence for iron, a new discovery and one of the greatest ever made by man. There
is good evidence in custom that the Age of Stone existed in many places up to
comparatively modern times. The Hebrews used a stone knife for circumcision, their
altars were forbidden to be hewn, and even Solomon ordered that neither hammer nor
axe nor any tool of iron should be heard while his Temple was building. The same idea
appears in many cases in India. The Magahiya Doms, who are certainly one of the most
primitive races in the country, place iron under a stringent taboo, and any Magahiya who
breaks into a house with an iron implement is not only put out of caste, but it is believed

that some day or other he will lose his eyesight. The Agariyas, the primitive iron
smelters of the Central Indian Hills, have deified iron under the form of Lohâsura, as the
Kaseras or brass-founders worship brass as Kansâsura.

This idea appears in many various forms. We have already noticed the use of iron as a
charm against hail. In the same way a sword or knife is placed in the bed of the young
mother. She is, at this crisis of her life, particularly exposed to the influence of evil
spirits, as the Scotch fairies are very fond of milk, and try to gratify their desires on
“unsained” or unchurched women.23 There is a case in the Indian Law Reports, where
the knife thus placed near the woman was used to murder her.24 Pliny advises that a
piece of iron should be placed in the nest of a sitting hen to save her eggs from the
influence of thunder. This is now done in Sicily, with the object of absorbing every noise
which might be injurious to the chickens.25 So, the Indians of Canada put out swords in
a storm to frighten off the demon of thunder.26 The common belief is that the evil spirit
is such a fool that he runs against the sharp edge of the weapon and allows himself to be
wounded.

The magic sword constantly appears in folk-lore. We have Excalibur and Balmung; in
the tales of Somadeva it confers the power of making the wearer fly through the air and
renders him invincible; the snake demon obtains from the wars of the Gods and the
Asuras the magic sword Vaiduryakanti. “Whatever man obtains that sword will become
a chief of the Siddhas and roam about unconquered; and that sword can only be obtained
by the aid of heroes.”27

While a house is being built, an iron pot, or a pot painted black, which is good enough to
scare the demon, is always kept on the works, and when it is finished the young daughter
of the owner ties to the lintel a charm, which is also used on other occasions, the
principal virtue of which consists in a small iron ring. Here is combined the virtue of the
iron and the ring, which is a sacred circle. In India iron rings are constantly worn as an
amulet against disease, as in Ireland an iron ring on the fourth finger cures rheumatism.
The mourner, during the period of ceremonial impurity, carries a knife or a piece of iron
to drive off the ghost of the dead man, and the bridegroom in the marriage procession
wears a sword as a protection; if he cannot procure a licence from a magistrate to carry a
real sword, he gets one made of lath, which is good enough to frighten the evil spirit. In
this case he fastens an iron spike to the point. On the same principle the blacksmith’s
anvil is used as a hail charm, and any one who dares to sit on it is likely to be punished
for the contempt by an attack of boils. The Romans used to drive large nails into the side
posts of the door with the same object. We have already noticed the value of iron nails
for the purpose of laying the ghost of the Churel, and such nails are in India very
commonly driven into the door-post or into the legs of the bed, with the object of
resisting evil spirits. The horse-shoe is one special form of the charm. The wild Irish, we
are told, used to hang round the necks of children the beginning of St. John’s Gospel, a

crooked nail out of a horse-shoe, or a piece of wolf-skin.28 Why the horse-shoe should
be used in this way has been much debated. Mr. Farrer thinks it may be connected with
the respect paid to the horse in folk-lore.29 The Irish say that the reason is that the horse
and ass were in the stall when Christ was born, and hence are blessed for evermore.30
The idea that its shape connects it with the Yonî and phallicism hardly deserves mention.
One thing is clear, that the element of luck largely enters into the matter; the shoe must
have been found by chance on the road. Mr. Leland says, “To find and pick up anything,
at once converts it into a fetish, or insures that all will go well with it, if we say when
taking it up, ‘I do not pick it up,’—naming the object—‘I pick up good luck, which may
never abandon me!’”31 This, combined with the general protective power of iron, is
probably a sufficient explanation of the practice. The custom is common in India. The
great gate of the mosque at Fatehpur Sîkri is covered with them, and the practice is
general at many shrines.

There is also a cycle of legends which connect iron with the philosopher’s stone and
transmutation into gold. The great Chandra Varma, who was born of the embraces of
Chandrama, the Moon god, possessed the power of converting iron into gold. Laliya, a
blacksmith of Ahmadâbâd, made an axe for a Bhîl, who returned and complained that it
would not cut. Laliya, on looking at it, found that the blade had been turned into gold.
On questioning the Bhîl, he ascertained that he had tried to sharpen it on what turned out
to be the philosopher’s stone. Laliya, by possession of the stone, acquired great wealth,
and was finally attacked by the king’s troops. At last he was obliged to throw the stone
into the Bhadar river, where it still lies, but once some iron chains were let down into the
water, and when they touched it the links were converted into gold.32

Gold and Silver Protectives.

Gold, and in a less degree silver, have a similar protective influence. The idea is
apparently based on their scarcity and value, and on their colour—yellow and white
being obnoxious to evil spirits. Hence a little bit of gold is put into the mouth of the
dying Hindu, and both gold and silver, combined with tigers’ claws and similar
protectives, are largely used as amulets. These metals are particularly effective in the
form of ornaments, many of which are images of the gods, or have some mystic
significance, or are made in imitation of some sacred leaf, flower, or animal. This is one
main cause of the recklessness with which rich natives load their children with masses of
costly jewellery, though they are well aware that the practice often leads to robbery and
murder.

Copper and Brass Protectives.

Next come copper and brass. The use of copper in the form of rings and amulet cases is
very common. Many of the vessels used in the daily service of the gods, such as the
Argha, with which the daily oblations are made, are made of this metal. So with brass
and various kinds of alloy used for bells, drinking and cooking utensils.

The common brass Lota is always carried about by a man during the period of mourning
as a preservative against the evil spirits which surround him until the ghost of the dead
man is finally laid. Copper rings are specially worn as an antidote to pimples and boils,
while those of iron are supposed to weaken the influence of the planet Sani or Saturn,
which is proverbially unlucky and malignant. His Evil Eye, in particular, brings
misfortune at intervals of twenty-four years; all offerings to him are black, and
consequently ill-omened, such as sesamum, charcoal, buffaloes, and black salt; and only
the Dakaut, the lowest class of Brâhman priest, will accept such offerings.33

Coral and Marine Products Protectives.

Next in value to these metals come coral and other marine products, which in the case of
the Hindus probably derive their virtue from being strange to an inland-dwelling people,
and as connected with the great ocean, the final home of the sainted dead. Coral is
particularly valued in the form of a necklace by those who cannot afford the costlier
metals, and its ashes are constantly used in various rustic remedies and stimulants. In
Gujarât a coral ring is used to keep off the evil influence of the sun,34 and in Bengal
mourners touch it as a form of purification. According to the old belief in England, coral
guarded off lightning, whirlwind, tempests and storms from ships and houses, and was
hung round the necks of children to assist teething and keep off the falling sickness.35 So
with shells, particularly the Sankha or conch shell, which is used for oblations and is
regarded as sacred to Vishnu. It is blown at his temples when the deity receives his daily
meal, in order to wake him and scare off vagrant spirits, who would otherwise consume
or defile the offering. This shell, in popular belief, is the bone of the demon Panchajana,
who, according to the Vishnu Purâna,36 “lived in the form of a conch shell under the
ocean. Krishna plunged into the water, killed him, took the shell, which constituted his

bones, and afterwards used it for a horn. When sounded it fills the demon hosts with
dismay, animates the gods, and annihilates unrighteousness.”

All these shells appear to derive part of their virtue from the fact that they are perforated.
The cowry shell, which is worn round the neck by children as an antidote to the Evil Eye
and diabolical influence, is supposed to have such sympathy with the wearer that it
cracks when the evil glance falls upon it, as in England coral was thought to change
colour and grow pale when its owner was sick. The cowry shell is, with the same object,
tied round the neck or pasterns of a valued horse, or on a cow or buffalo. The shell
armlet worn by Bengal women has the same protective influence.37

Precious Stones Protectives.

Precious stones possess similar value. Sir Thomas Brown would not deny that bezoar
was antidotal, but he could not bring himself to believe that “sapphire is preservative
against enchantments.” In one special combination of nine varieties, known as the
Nauratana, they are specially efficacious—the ruby sacred to the sun, the pearl to the
moon, coral to Mars, emerald to Mercury, topaz to Jupiter, diamond to Venus, sapphire
to Saturn, amethyst to Râhu, and the cat’s-eye to Ketu. In the mythology the gods
interrupted Pârvatî when she was with Mahâdeva, and nine jewels dropped from her
anklet. When he looked at them he saw his image reflected in each of them, and they
appeared in the form of the nine Kanyâs or heavenly maidens. The Naulakha or nine
lâkh necklace constantly appears in Indian folk-lore. In the story of the Princess
Aubergine we read that “inside the fish there is a bumble-bee, inside the bee a tiny box,
and inside the box is the wonderful nine lâkh necklace. Put it on and I shall die.” And in
one of Somadeva’s stories, at the marriage, Jaya gives the bride a necklace of such a
kind that, as long as it is upon a person’s neck, hunger, thirst, and death cannot harm
him.38 It is of jewels that the lamps which light fairy-land are made.

Many of the precious stones have tales and qualities of their own. Once upon a time a
holy man came and settled at Panna who had a diamond as large as a cart-wheel. The
Râja, hearing of this, tried to take it by force, but the saint hid it in the ground out of his
way. He told the Râja that the diamond wheel could not leave his dominions, and that no
one could ever find it. The Muhammadans say that all the diamonds found since, in these
famous mines, were fragments of the wheel.39 The wearing of a ring of sapphire, sacred
to Sani or Saturn, is supposed to turn out lucky or unlucky, according to circumstances.
For this reason, the wearer tries it for three days, that is, he wears it on Saturday, which
is sacred to Saturn, and keeps it on till Tuesday. During this time, if no mishap befalls
him, he continues to wear it during the period when the planet’s influence is

unfavourable; but should any mishap befall him during the three days, he gives the ring
to a Brâhman.40 The amethyst obtains its name because any one who wears it cannot be
affected by wine. The turquoise or Fîroza is a mystic stone in India. If you bathe wearing
a turquoise, the water touched by it protects the wearer from boils, and snakes will not
approach him.41 Shylock got a turquoise from Leah which he would not have given for a
wilderness of monkeys, because it changed colour with the health of the owner, and the
Turkeys, says an old writer, “doth move when there is any peril prepared to him that
weareth it.”42 So the onyx, known as the Sulaimâni, or stone of Solomon, has mystic
virtues, as, according to Burton, carbuncles and coral, beryl, pearls and rubies were
believed to drive away devils, to overcome sorrow, and to stop dreams.43

Beads Protectives.

With poorer people beads take the place of gems, and in particular the curious enamelled
bead, which probably came from China and is still found in old deserted sites, mostly of
Buddhistic origin, enjoys special repute. We have already met with the parturition bead,
and in Kolhapur there is a much-valued Arabic stone which, when any woman is in
labour, is washed and the water given to her to drink. In Scotland the amber bead cures
inflamed eyes and sprains, as in Italy looking through amber beads strengthens the
sight.44 Here the perforation confers a mystical quality. As an antidote to the Evil Eye
blue beads are specially valued, and are hung round the necks and pasterns of horses and
other valuable animals. The belief in the efficacy of beads is at the basis of the use of
rosaries, which, as used in Europe, are almost certainly of Eastern origin, imported in the
Middle Ages in imitation of those worn by Buddhistic or Hindu ascetics, who ascribe to
them manifold virtue. Such are those of the Tulasî or sacred basil, worn by Vaishnavas,
and those of the Rudrâksha, worn by Saivas.

Blood a Protective.

Blood is naturally closely connected with life. “The flesh with the life thereof, which is
the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” Hence blood comes to be a scarer of demons. In
Scott’s Lay the wizard’s book would not open till he smeared the cover with the
Borderer’s curdled gore. In Cornwall, the burning of blood from the body of a dead
animal is a very common method of appeasing the spirits of disease,45 and the blood

sacrifices so prevalent all over the world are performed with the same object. A curious
Evil Eye charm is recorded from Allahâbâd. A woman of the Chamâr or carrier caste
gave birth to a dead child. Thinking that this was due to fascination, she put a piece of
the cloth used at her confinement down a well, having previously enclosed in it two
leaves of betel, some cloves, and a piece of the castor-oil plant.46 Here we have, first, a
case of well-worship; secondly, the use of betel, cloves, and the castor-oil plant, all
scarers of evil spirits; and thirdly, an instance of the use of blood for the same purpose.
We have elsewhere noticed the special character attached to menstrual or parturition
blood. But blood itself is most effectual against demoniacal influence. There are many
cases where blood is rubbed on the body as an antidote to disease. In Bombay some
Marhâtas give warmed goat’s blood in cases of piles, and in typhus, or red discoloration
of the skin with blotches, the patient is cured by killing a cock and rubbing the sick man
with the blood. Others use the blood of the great lizard in cases of snake-bite.47 A bath of
the blood of children was once ordered for the Emperor Constantine, and because he,
moved by the tears of the parents, refused to take it, his extraordinary humanity was
rewarded by a miraculous cure.

Similarly, among the Drâvidians, the Kos drink the blood of the sacrificial bull; the
Malers cure demoniacs by giving the blood of a sacrificed buffalo; the Pahariyas, in time
of epidemics, set up a pair of posts and a cross beam, and hang on it a vessel of blood.48
So, the Jews sprinkled the door-posts and the horns of the altar with blood, and the same
customs prevail among many other peoples.

We shall meet with instances of the same rite when dealing with the blood covenant and
human sacrifice. On the same analogy many Indian tribes mark the forehead of the bride
with blood or vermilion, and red paint is smeared on the image of the village godling in
lieu of a regular sacrifice.

Incense.

Similarly, incense is largely used in religious rites, partly to please with the sweet savour
the deity which is being worshipped, and partly to drive away demons who would steal
or defile the offerings. Bad smells repel evil spirits, and this is probably why assafœtida
is given to a woman after her delivery. In Ireland, if a child be sick, they take a piece of
the cloth worn by the person supposed to have overlooked the infant and burn it near
him. If he sneezes, he expels the spirit and the spell is broken, or the cloth is burned to
ashes and given to the patient, while his forehead is rubbed with spittle. In Northern
India, if a child be sick, a little bran, pounded chillies, mustard, and sometimes the
eyelashes of the child are passed round its head and burned. If the burning mixture does

not smell very badly, which it is needless to say is hardly ever the case, it is a sign that
the child is still under the evil influence; if the odour be abominable, that the attack has
been obviated.49 Similarly, in Bengal, red mustard seeds and salt are mixed together,
waved round the head of the patient, and then thrown into the fire.50 This reminds us of
the flight of the Evil One into the remote parts of Egypt from the smell of the fish liver
burnt by Tobit, and an old writer says: “Wyse clerkes knoweth well that dragons hate
nothyng more than the stenche of breenynge bones, and therefore they gaderyd as many
as they might fynde, and brent them; and so with the stenche thereof they drove away the
dragons, and so they were brought out of greete dysease.”51

Spittle.

We have just met with an instance of the use of spittle for the scaring of the disease
demon or the Evil Eye. This is a very common form of charm for this purpose. In one of
the Italian charms the performer is directed to spit behind himself thrice and not to look
back. In another, “if your eyes pain you, you must take the saliva of a woman who has
given birth only to boys, not girls. And she must have abstained from sexual union and
stimulating food for three days. Then, if her saliva be bright and clear, anoint your eyes
with it and they will be cured.”52 At Innisboffin, in Ireland, when the old women meet a
baby out with its nurse they spit on the ground all round it to keep fairies from it. In
Wicklow they spit on a child for good luck the first day it is brought out after birth.53 In
several of the European folk-tales we find that spittle has the power of speech. The habit
of spitting on the handsell or first money taken in the morning is common. It is done
“either to render it tenacious that it may remain with them and not vanish away like a
fairy gift, or else to render it propitious and lucky, that it may draw more money to it.”54
Muhammad advised that when the demon Khanzab interrupted any one at his prayers, he
was to spit over his left shoulder three times.

In India, spittle is regarded as impure. Hence a native cleans his teeth daily with a fresh
twig of the Nîm tree, and regards the European’s use of the same tooth-brush day after
day as one of the numerous extraordinary impurities which we permit. Hence, too, the
practice of spitting when any one who is feared or detested passes by. When women see
a falling star they spit three times to scare the demon. In Bombay, spittle, especially
fasting spittle, is used to rub on wounds as a remedy. It cures inflammation of the eyes,
an idea which was familiar to the Jews. It guards children against the Evil Eye. In the
Konkan, when a person is affected by the Evil Eye, salt and mustard are waved round his
head, thrown into the fire, and he is told to spit. In Gujarât, when an orthodox Shiah
Musalmân travels with a Sunni, he spits, and among the Roman Catholics of Kanara, at

baptism the priest wets his thumb with spittle and with it touches the child’s ears and
nostrils.55

Salt.

We have seen above that salt is also used in the same way. Salt, apparently from its
power of checking decay, is regarded as possessing mystical powers. All over Europe the
spilling of salt in the direction of a person was considered ominous. “It was held to
indicate that something had already happened to one of the family, or was about to befall
the person spilling it, and also to denote the rupture of friendship.”56 The custom of
putting a plate of salt on a corpse with the object of driving off evil spirits is common in
Great Britain. We have already seen that salt is given to children after they have eaten
sweets. Many classes of Hindu ascetics bury their dead in salt. It is waved round the
head of the bride and bridegroom, and buried near the house door as a charm. In
classical antiquity it was mixed with water and sprinkled on the worshippers.

Salutation.

Another way of dispelling evil spirits is by the various forms of salutation, which
generally consist in the invocation of some deity. The Hindu says, “Râm! Râm!” when
he meets a friend, or Jay Gopâl! “Glory to Krishna!” or whoever his personal god may
be, and the same idea accounts for many of the customs connected with the reception of
guests, who, coming from abroad, may bring evil spirits with them.

The Separable Soul: Waving.

Another series of prophylactics depends on the idea of the separable soul or that spirits
are always fluttering in the air round a person’s head. Hence a long series of customs
known as Parachhan, performed at Hindu marriages in Upper India, when lights, a brass
tray, grain, and household implements like the rice pounder or grindstone are waved
round the head of the married pair as a protective. In Somadeva’s tale of Bhunandana we

find that he “performs the ceremony of averting evil spirits from all quarters by waving
the hand over the head.”57 This is perhaps one explanation of the use of flags at temples
and village shrines, though in some cases they appear to be used as a perch, on which the
deity sits when he makes his periodical visits. Hence, too, feathers have a mystic
significance, though in some cases, as in those of the peacock and jay, the colour is the
important part. Hence the waving of the fan and Chaurî over the head of the great man
and the use of the umbrella as a symbol of royalty. A woman carrying her child on her
return from a strange village, lest she should bring the influence of some foreign evil
spirit back with her, will, before entering her own homestead, pass seven little stones
seven times round the head of the baby, and throw them in different directions, so as to
pass away any evil that may have been contracted. When a sorcerer is called in to attend
a case attributed to demoniacal possession, he whisks the patient with a branch of the
Nîm, Madâr, or Camel thorn, all of which are more or less sacred trees and have
acquired a reputation as preservatives. When this is completed, the aspersion of the
afflicted one, be he man or beast, with some water from the blacksmith’s shop, in which
iron has been repeatedly plunged and has bestowed additional efficacy upon it, usually
follows.

Blacksmith, Respect for.

The respect paid to the trade of the blacksmith is a curious survival from the time of the
early handicrafts and the substitution of weapons of iron for those of stone.58 In Scotland
the same belief in the virtues of the water of the forge prevails, and in Ireland no one will
take anything by stealth from such a place.59 In St. Patrick’s Hymn we have a prayer
against “the spells of women, of smiths, and of druids.” Culann, the mystic smith,
appears in Celtic folk-lore. In all the mythologies the idea is widespread that the art of
smithing was first discovered and practised by supernatural personages. We see this
through the whole range of folk-lore, from the Cyclopes to Wayland Smith, who finally
came to be connected with the Devil of Christianity.60

Water.

We have already referred to water as a protective against the influence of evil spirits. We
see this principle in the rite of ceremonial bathing as a propitiation for sin. It also appears

in the use of water which has been blown upon by a holy man as a remedy for spirit
possession. Among many menial tribes in the North-Western Provinces with the same
object the bride is washed in the water in which the bridegroom has already taken his
wedding bath. Again, on a lucky day fixed by the Pandit the rite of Nahâwan or
ceremonial bathing is performed for the protection of the young mother and her child
two or three days after her confinement. Both of them are bathed in a decoction of the
leaves of the Nîm tree. Then a handful of the seeds of mustard and dill are waved round
the mother’s head and thrown into a vessel containing fire. When the seeds are
consumed the cup is upset, and the mother breaks it with her own foot. Next she sits
with grain in her hand, while the household brass tray is beaten to scare demons and the
midwife throws the child into the air. All this takes place in the open air in the courtyard
of the house. Here we have a series of antidotes to demoniacal possession, the purport of
which will be easily understood on principles which have been already explained.

Grain.

With this use of grain we meet with another valuable antidote. We have it in Great
Britain in the rule that “the English, when the bride comes from church, are wont to cast
wheat upon her head.”61 It survives in our custom of throwing rice over the wedded pair
when they start on the honeymoon. On the analogy of other races one object of the rite
would seem to be to keep in the soul which is likely to depart at such a crisis in life as
marriage. Thus, “in Celebes they think that a bridegroom’s soul is apt to fly away at
marriage, so coloured rice is scattered over him to induce it to stay. And, in general, at
festivals in South Celebes rice is strewed on the head of the person in whose honour the
festival is held, with the object of retaining his soul, which at such times is in especial
danger of being lured away by envious demons.”62

This rite appears widely in Indian marriage customs. Among the Mhârs of Khândesh, on
the bridegroom approaching the bride’s house, a piece of bread is waved round his head
and thrown away.63 In a Kunbi’s wedding a ball of rice is waved round the boy’s head
and thrown away, and at the lucky moment grains of rice are thrown over the couple.
Among the Telang Nhâvis of Bijaypur the chief marriage rite is that the priest throws
rice over the boy and girl. The grain acquires special efficacy if it be either parched, and
thus purified by fire, or if it be stained in some lucky or demon-scaring colour.64 Thus, in
Upper India grain parched with a special rite is thrown over the pair as they revolve
round the marriage shed, and this function is, if possible, performed by the brother of the
bride. Rice stained yellow with turmeric is very often used for this purpose. Another
device is to make a pile of rice, with a knot of turmeric and a copper coin concealed in it.

This at a particular stage of the service the bride knocks down with her foot. The Lodhis
of the Dakkhin, in the same way, put a pile of rice at the door of the boy’s house, which
he upsets with his foot. All through Northern India the exorciser shakes grain in a fan,
which is, as we shall see, a potent fetish, and by the number of grains which remain in
the interstices calculates which particular ghost is worrying the patient. On the same
principle the Orâons put rice in the mouth of the corpse, and the Koiris, when they
marry, walk round a pile of water-pots and scatter rice on the ground.65 The custom of
sprinkling grain at marriage appears in many of the folk-tales.

Urad.

We are familiar in Roman literature with the use of beans at funerals, and at the Lemuria
thrice every other night to pacify the ghosts of the dead beans were flung on the fire of
the altar to drive the spirits out of the house. The same idea appears in the Carlings or
fried peas given away and eaten on the Sunday before Palm Sunday.66 No special
sanctity appears to apply to the pea or bean in India, but they are replaced by the Urad
pulse, which is much used in rites of all kind, and especially in magic, when it is thrown
over the head of the person whom the magician wishes to bring under his control.67

Barley.

Barley, another sacred grain, is rubbed over the corpse of a Hindu and sprinkled on the
head before the cremation rite is performed. So, the Orâons throw rice on the urn as they
take it to the tomb, and sprinkle grain on the ground behind the bones to keep the spirit
from coming back.68

Sesamum.

Til or black sesamum, again, has certain qualities of the same kind. Hence it is used in
the funeral rites, and in form of Tilanjalî or a handful mixed with water is one of the

offerings to the sainted dead, and made up in the form of a cow, called Tiladhenu, it is
presented to Brâhmans.

Sheaves.

Most grains in the ear have also mystic uses. It is hung up over the house door to repel
evil spirits, and in Hoshangâbâd they tie a sheaf of corn on a pole and fasten it to the
cattle shed as a preservative.69 The combination of seven kinds of grain, known as
Satnaja, is an ingredient in numerous charms and is used in many forms of worship.

Milk.

So with the products of the sacred cow, which are, as might have been expected, most
valuable for this purpose. Hence the use of Ghilor or clarified butter in the public and
domestic ritual. Milk for the same reason is used in offerings and sprinkled on the
ground as an oblation. Cowdung, in particular, is regarded as efficacious. After the death
or birth impurity the house is carefully plastered with a mixture of cowdung and clay. No
cooking place is pure without it, and the corpse is cremated with cakes of cowdung fuel.
Even the urine of the cow is valued as a medicine and a purificant. The cow guards the
house from evil, and every rich man keeps a cow so that his glance may fall on her when
he wakes from sleep, and he regards her as the guardian of the household.

Colours.

Colours, again, are scarers of evil spirits. They particularly dread yellow, black, red, and
white. The belief in the efficacy of yellow accounts for the use of turmeric in the
domestic ritual.70 A few days before the marriage rites commence the bride and
bridegroom are anointed with a mixture of oil and turmeric known as Abtan. The bride
assumes a robe dyed in turmeric, which she wears until the wedding. The marriage letter
of invitation is coloured with turmeric, and splashes of it are made on the wall and
worshipped by the married pair. In the old times the woman who performed Satî, and

nowadays married women who die, are taken to the pyre wrapped in a shroud dyed with
turmeric. The corpse is very often smeared with turmeric before cremation, a custom
which is not peculiar to the so-called Aryan Hindus, because it prevails among the
Thârus, one of the most primitive tribes of the sub-Himâlayan forests. The same
principle probably explains the use of yellow clothes by certain classes of ascetics, and
of Chandan or sandal-wood in making caste marks and for various ceremonial purposes.

Yellow and red are the usual colours of marriage garments, and the parting of the bride’s
hair is stained with vermilion, though here the practice is probably based on the
symbolical belief in the Blood Covenant. The same idea is probably the explanation of
the flinging of red powder and water coloured with turmeric at the Holî or spring
festival.

Black, again, is feared by evil spirits, and the husbandman hangs a black pot in his field
to scare spirits and evade the Evil Eye, and young women and children have their eyelids
marked with lampblack. In the Mirzapur Baiga’s sacrifice the black fowl or the black
goat is the favourite victim, and charcoal is valued, some put into the milk as a
preservative and some buried under the threshold to guard the household from harm.

Grasses.

For the same reason various kinds of grass are considered sacred, such as the Kusa, the
Dûrva, the Darbha. Among the Prabhus of Bombay juice of the Dûrva grass is poured
into the left nostril of a woman when the pregnancy and coming of age rites are
performed, and the Kanaujiya Brâhman husband drops some of the juice down her nose
when she reaches maturity.71 The Sholapur Mângs when they come back from the grave
strew some Hariyâli grass and Nîm leaves on the place where the deceased died. The
Mûnj grass is also sacred, and a thread made of it is worn at one stage of the Brâhman’s
life. Some of these sacred grasses form an important ingredient in the Srâddha offerings
to the sacred dead, some are used in the marriage and cremation ritual, on some the
dying man is laid at the moment of dissolution. They are potent to avert the Evil Eye,
and hence the mother of Râma and Lakshmana, when she looks at them, breaks a blade
of grass.72

Tattooing.

Next come special marks made on the body. Such are the marks branded on various parts
of their bodies by many classes of ascetics, and the caste marks made in clay or ashes by
most high-class Hindus. It has been suggested that many of these marks are of totemistic
origin. That this is so among races beyond the Indian border is almost certainly the
case.73 But though tattooing, a widespread practice of the Indian people, very possibly
originated in totemism, still, as far as has hitherto been ascertained, no distinct trace
remains of a tribal tattoo, and it is safer at present to class marks of this kind in the
general category of devices to repel evil spirits. Among purely sectarial marks we have
the forehead mark of the Saivas, composed of three curved lines like a half-moon, to
which is added a round mark on the nose; it is made with the clay of the Ganges, or with
sandal-wood, or the ashes of cowdung, the ashes being supposed to represent the
disintegrating force of the deity. The mark of the Vaishnavas is in the form of the foot of
Vishnu, and consists of two lines rather oval drawn the whole length of the nose and
carried forward in straight lines across the forehead. It is generally made with the clay of
the Ganges, sometimes with the powder of sandal-wood. The Sâkta forehead mark is a
small semi-circular line between the eyebrows, with a dot in the middle.

The practice of tattooing is common both among the Aryan and Drâvidian races, but is
more general among the lower than the higher castes. Thus, the Juâng women tattoo
themselves with three strokes on the forehead just over the nose, and three on each of the
temples. They attach no meaning to the marks, have no ceremony in adopting them, and
are ignorant of the origin of the practice. The Khariya women make three parallel marks
on the forehead, the outer lines terminating at the ends in a crook, and two on each
temple. The Ho women tattoo themselves in the form of an arrow, which they regard as
their national emblem. The Birhor women tattoo their chests, arms, and ankles, but not
their faces. The Orâon women have three marks on the brow and two on each temple.
The young men burn marks on their fore-arms as part of the ordeal ceremony; girls,
when adult, or nearly so, have themselves tattooed on the arms and back. The Kisân
women have no such marks; if a female of the tribe indulges herself in the vanity of
having herself tattooed, she is at once turned adrift as having degraded herself. Here we
may have some faint indications of a tribal tattoo, but among most of the tribes which
practise the custom it has become purely protective or ornamental.74

Among the Drâvidian tribes of the North-Western Provinces tattooing generally prevails.
The Korwas and many other of these tribes get their women tattooed by a woman of the
Bâdi sub-division of Nats. They are tattooed only on the breast and arms, not on the
thighs. There are no ceremonies connected with it, nor any special pattern. Any girl gets
herself tattooed in any figure she approves for a small sum. Well-to-do women always
get it done; but if a woman is not tatooed, it is not considered unlucky. The men of the
tribe are not tattooed. The Ghasiya women tattoo themselves on the breasts, arms, thighs,
and feet. They say that when a woman dies who is not tattooed, the Great Lord
Parameswar is displeased and turns her out of heaven, or has her branded with the thorn

of the acacia. In the same way among the Chamârs, when a woman who has not been
tattooed dies, Parameswar asks her where are the marks and signs which she ought to
possess to show that she had lived in the world. If she cannot show them, she will in her
next birth be re-born as a Bhûtnî, Pretnî, or Râkshasî.

At present among low-caste women the process of tattooing is regarded as a species of
initiation, and usually marks the attainment of puberty. It thus corresponds with the rite
of ear-piercing among males. To the east of the North-West Provinces a girl is not
allowed to cook until she is tattooed with a mark representing the Sîtâ kî Rasoî or cook-
house of Sîtâ, and in Bengal high-caste people will not drink from the hands of a girl
who does not wear the Ullikhî or star-shaped tattoo mark between her eyebrows. A
Chamâr woman who is not tattooed at marriage will not, it is believed, see her father and
mother in the next world. This reminds us of the idea prevalent in Fiji, that women who
are not tattooed are liable to special punishment in the land of the dead.75 In Bombay the
custom has been provided with a Brâhmanical legend. One day Lakshmî, the wife of
Vishnu, told her husband that whenever he went out on business or to visit his devotees
she became frightened. Hearing this, Vishnu took his weapons and stamped them on her
body, saying that the marks of his weapons would save her from evil.

Hence women in Bombay tattoo themselves with the figures of the lotus, conch shell,
and discus, and from this the present custom is said to have originated.76

In Upper India the forms of the tattoo marks fall into various classes. Some are rude or
conventionalized representations of animals, plants, and flowers. The operators carry
round with them sketches of the different kinds of ornament, and the girl selects these
according to taste. The peacock, the horse, the serpent, the scorpion, tortoise, centipede,
appear constantly in various forms. Others, again, are representations of jewellery
actually worn—necklaces, bracelets, armlets, or rings. Others, again, are purely
religious, such as the trident or matted hair of Siva, the weapons of Vishnu, and the
cooking house of Sîtâ, the type of wifely virtue. Some of these marks were probably of
totemistic origin, but they have now become merely ornamentative, as was the case in
Central Asia in the time of Marco Polo, where they were regarded only as “a piece of
elegance or a sign of gentility,” and among the Thracians, as described by Herodotus.77
It may be noticed that in the time of Marco Polo people used to go from Upper India to
Zayton in China to be tattooed.78 These animal forms of tattooing are found also among
the Drâvidian tribes of the Central Provinces, where the forms used are a peacock, an
antelope, or a dagger, and the marks are made on the back of the thighs and legs. In
Bengal tattooing is used as a cure for goitre.79

We may close this long catalogue of devices intended to scare spirits, with a number of
miscellaneous examples.

It seems to be a well-established principle that evil spirits fear leather. On this is perhaps
based the idea of the shoe being a mode of repelling the Evil Eye and the influence of
demons. We find this constantly appearing in the folk-lore of the West. Thus, the
Highlanders paid particular attention to the leaving of the bridegroom’s left shoe without
buckle or latchet, to prevent the secret influences of witches on the wedding night.80 And
Hudibras tells how—

Augustus having by oversight
Put on his left shoe ’fore his right,
Had like to have been slain that day
By soldiers mutinying for pay.”

Maidens in Europe ascertain whether they will be married and who will be their future
husbands by throwing the slipper at the new year. The throwing of old shoes at an
English wedding seems on the same principle to be based on the idea of scaring the
demon of barrenness. According to Mr. Hartland,81 the gipsies of Transylvania throw old
shoes and boots on a newly married pair when they enter their tent, expressly to enhance
the fertility of the union.

In the same way in India, people who are too poor to afford another protective place on
the top of their houses a shoe heel upwards. This seems to give some additional efficacy
to the charm, because we find the same rule in force elsewhere. Thus, in Cornwall, a
slipper with the point turned up placed near the bed cures cramp.82 In Pûna, if a man
feels that he has been struck by an incantation, he at once takes hold of an upturned
shoe.83

The fear which spirits feel for leather is also illustrated by the procedure of the Drâvidian
Baiga, who flagellates people suffering from demoniacal possession with a tawse or
leathern strap. In the Dakkhin a person troubled with nightmare sleeps with a shoe under
his pillow, and an exorcist frightens evil spirits by threatening to make them drink water
from a tanner’s well. We shall see that this is one way of punishing and repelling the
power of witches. The Pûna Kunbis believe that a drink of water from a tanner’s hand
destroys the power of a witch. In the Panjâb, if a man sits on a currier’s stone, he gets
boils.84 The same principle probably accounts for much of the fear or contempt generally
felt in India regarding shoe-beating as a form of punishment. At the same time it is said
in Persia and Arabia that the dread of a flagellation with the slipper is based on the idea
that while a flogging with the regular scourge involves little discredit, a beating with
anything not originally intended for the purpose, such as a shoe or knotted cloth, is
disgraceful.

The same feeling for the power of leather possibly explains the use as a seat of various
kinds of skins, such as those of the tiger and antelope, by many kinds of ascetics, and in

the old ritual the wife with her husband sat on the hide of a bull to promote the fertility
of their union.

Garlic.

Garlic, again, from its pungency, is valued in the same way. Garlic was one of the
substances used by Danish mothers to keep evil from children.85 The Swedish
bridegroom sews in his clothes garlic, cloves, and rosemary. Garlic was an early English
cure for a fiend-struck patient.86 Juvenal said that the Egyptians had gods growing in
their gardens, in allusion to their reverence for onions or garlic. In Sanskrit garlic is
called Mlechha-kanda, “the foreigner’s root,” and its virtues for the removal of demons
are so well known that it will be often seen hung from the lintel of the house door. The
same idea may account for the very common prejudice among some castes against eating
onions.

Glass.

Glass in the form of beads, which seem to derive some of their efficacy from being
perforated, is also very useful in this way. Mirrors from time immemorial have been held
to possess the same quality. “Fascinators, like basilisks, had their own terrible glance
turned against them if they saw themselves reflected,” “Si on luy presente un miror, par
endardement reciproque, ces rayons retournent sur l’autheur d’iceux.” Philostratus
declares that if a mirror be held before a sleeping man during a hail or thunder-storm, the
storm will cease.87 Hence women in India wear mirrors in their thumb rings, and the
Jâtnî covers her sheet with little pieces of shining glass.

Pieces of horn, especially that which is said to come from the jackal, and that of the
antelope, are also efficacious. The bâzâr Banya treasures up the gaudy labels from his
cloth bales for the same purpose. Garlands of flowers possess the same quality, and so do
various fruits, such as dates, cocoanuts, betel-nuts, and plantains, which are placed in the
lap of the bride or pregnant woman to scare the evil spirits which cause barrenness, and
sugar is distributed at marriages. The bones of the camel are very useful for driving off
insects from a sugar-cane field, and buried under the threshold keep ghosts out of the
house. Pliny says that a bracelet of camel’s hair keeps off fever.88

Lastly, the demon may be trapped by physical means. “To be delivered from witches
they hang in their entries whitethorn gathered on May Day.”89 So, many of the menial
castes in the North-West Provinces keep a net and some thorns in the delivery room to
scare evil spirits.

There are certain persons who are naturally protected from the Evil Eye and demoniacal
agency, or who have control over evil spirits. Such is a man born by the foot
presentation, who can cure rheumatism and various other diseases by merely rubbing the
part affected. Men with double thumbs are considered safe against the Evil Eye, and so
is a bald man, apparently because no one thinks it worth his while to envy such people.
According to English belief, children born after midnight have power all through their
lives of seeing the spirits of the departed. In India, people who are born within the period
of the Salono festival in August are not only protected from, but possess the power of
casting, the Evil Eye. The same is the case of those who have accidentally eaten ordure
in childhood. We have already noticed the mystic power of cowdung. Dung generally is
offensive to spirits. It was believed in Europe that horsedung placed before the house or
behind the door brought good luck.90 Women who eat dung possess, as we shall see, the
power of witchcraft.

A man with only one eye is dreaded because he is naturally envious of those with good
sight, and he is proverbially a scoundrel. The giant with one eye is familiar in folk-lore,
and he is generally vicious and malignant. We have the black man of Celtic folk-lore
who has only one eye and one leg.91 In the Irish tales Crinnaur, like the Cyclopes, has
only one eye. Sindbad in his third voyage encounters a monster of the same kind.
Laplanders have a one-eyed giant Stalo, and in one of the modern versions of the
Perseus myth there are two hags who have only a single eye between them. The same
idea appears in Indian folk-lore. The planet Sukra is said to have only one eye. Such was
also the case with the monster Kabandha, who was killed by Râma, and Arâyî, the
female fiend of the Veda. The one-eyed devil appears in one of the Kashmîr tales.92

Gonds: Procedure in Cases of Fascination.

The Gonds have a special procedure in cases of deaths which they believe to have
occurred through fascination. The burning of the body is postponed till it is made to
point out the delinquent. The relations solemnly call upon the corpse to do this, and the
theory is that if there has been foul play of any kind, the body on being taken up, will
force the bearers to convey it to the house of the person by whom the spell was cast. If

this be three times repeated, the owner of the house is condemned, his property is
destroyed, and he is expelled from the neighbourhood.93

Amulets.

In ordinary cases most people find it advisable to carry an amulet of some kind as a
preservative. An amulet is primarily a portion of a dead man or animal, by which hostile
spirits are coerced or their good offices secured.94 The amulet, then, in its original sense,
is supposed to concentrate in itself the virtues and powers of the man or animal of which
it formed a part. Hence the claws of the tiger, which represent in themselves the innate
strength and bravery of the animal, are greatly esteemed for this purpose, and the
sportsman, when he shoots a tiger, has to count over the claws carefully to the coolies in
charge of the dead animal, or they will certainly misappropriate them. In the same way a
portion of the umbilical cord is placed among the clothes of the mother and infant to
avert the Evil Eye and scare the demons which are then particularly active.

Mr. Ferguson may be correct in his opinion that in India, prior to the distribution of the
remains of the Buddha at Kusinagara, we have no historical record of the worship of
relics;95 still the idea must have prevailed widely among the Hindu races, out of whom
the votaries of the new faith were recruited. With some of these relics of the Buddha,
such as his begging bowl, which was long kept in a Dagoba or Vihâra erected by King
Kanishka, then removed for a time to Benares, and finally to Kandahâr, where it is now
held in the highest respect by Musalmâns, and has accumulated round it a cycle of
legends like those connected with the Sangrail, we reach the zone of pure fetishism.

Another form of amulet is a piece of metal, stone, bone, or similar substance worn on the
person, with an invocation inscribed on it to some special god. These are very commonly
used among Muhammadans. By Hindus the “Yantras or mystic diagrams are thought to
be quite as effective in their operation as the Mantras or spells, and, of course, a
combination of the two is held to be absolutely irresistible. An enemy may be killed or
removed to some other place, or a whole army destroyed, or salvation and supreme
felicity obtained by drawing a six-sided or eight-sided diagram and writing a particular
Mantra underneath. If this be done with the blood of an animal killed sacrificially in a
Smasâna or place where corpses are burned, no power in earth or heaven can resist the
terrific potency of the charm.”96 On the same principle Hindus head their letters with the
words Srî Râmjî! “the great god, Râma,” or the figures 74, of which one not very
probable explanation is that they represent the weight in maunds of the gold ornaments
taken from the Râjput dead at the famous siege of Chithor.

The equilateral triangle is another favourite mystic sign. According to the Christian
ideas, the figure of three triangles intersected and containing five lines, is called the
pentangle of Solomon, and when it is delineated on the body of a man, it marks the five
places in which our Saviour was wounded; it was, therefore, regarded as a fuga
demonum, or a means of frightening demons.97 Similarly in Northern India, the
equilateral triangle is regarded as a mystic sign, and the little broadcloth bags hung
round the necks of children to avert the Evil Eye are made in this shape. The diamond
shape is also approved because it contains two equilateral triangles base to base.

Another form of mystic sign is the mark of the spread hand with the fingers extended.
This is made by the women of the family on the outer wall and round the door-post, and
is considered to be particularly efficacious. Mr. Campbell suggests that the custom is
based on the belief in the hand being a spirit entry.98 Natives will tell you that it is
because the number five, that of the fingers, is lucky. However this may be, the custom
is very generally prevalent. The Bloody Hand of Ulster, worn as a crest by the Baronets
of one creation, is well known.99 The Uchlas of Pûna strew sand on the spot where the
dead man breathed his last. They cover the spot with a basket, which they raise next
morning in the hope of finding the mark of a palm, which shows that the dead is pleased
and brings vigour on the family; and the Thâkurs on the fifth day after the birth of a
child dip a hand in red powder and water and make a mark on the wall of the lying-in
room, which they worship.100 At the rock-cut temple of Tilok Sendur in Hoshangâbâd,
an annual festival is held, and those who come to demand any special benefit, such as
health or children, mark their vow by staining their hand dipped in red paint against the
rock wall, fingers upward. If the prayer be heard, they revisit the place and make the
same mark, this time with the fingers downward; but whether Mahâdeva is not gracious
to his votaries, or whether it is that the sense of favours to come is not keen enough after
the prayer of the moment has been granted, the hand-stamps pointing downwards are not
a tenth in number of those pointing upwards.101 The stamping of the hand and five
fingers immersed in a solution of sandal-wood has always been regarded as a peculiarly
solemn mode of attesting an important document, and it is said that Muhammad himself
adopted this practice.102

There are numerous varieties of these protective amulets. One purpose which they serve
is the procuring of offspring. Children naturally require special protection. Thus, the
Mirzapur Korwas tie on the necks of their children roots of various jungle plants, such as
the Siyâr Singhî, which owes its name and repute to its resemblance to the so-called horn
of the jackal. In cases of disease the Kharwârs wear leaves of the Bel, a sacred tree,
cloves and flowers selected by a Brâhman. In the Konkan, in order that a child may not
suffer from the Evil Eye, a necklace of marking nuts is put round its neck.103 The Gûjars
of Hazâra hang the berries of the Batkar tree (Celtis caucasia) round the necks of men
and animals to protect them from the Evil Eye.104 The pious Musalmân inscribes on his

amulet the five verses known as Ayâtu-l-Hifz or “verses of protection,” or he makes a
magic square with the letters making up the word Hâfiz, “the protector.” Many village
Musalmâns use little stone or glass tablets for the same purpose. Some have a hocus-
pocus inscription purporting to be a verse of the Qurân in Arabic; others have the name
of Fâtima coupled with that of the famous martyrs Hasan and Husain. Another amulet of
a very elaborate character is described as containing a piece of the umbilical cord
encased in metal, a tiger’s claw, two claws of the large horned owl turned in opposite
directions, and encased in metal, a stone known as the Athrâhâ kâ mankâ, because it has
the property of turning eight colours according to the light in which it is placed
(probably a tourmaline or quartzose pebble), and a special Evil Eye destroyer in the
shape of a jasper or marble bead. These five articles are necessaries, but as an extra
precaution the amulet contained some crude gold, a whorled shell, an ancient copper
coin, some ashes from the fire of a Jogi ascetic, and the five ingredients of the sacred
incense. The owner admitted that it would have been improved had it also contained a
magic square.105 This reminds us of the necklace of amber beads hung round the neck of
Scotch children to keep off ill-luck, and the Irish scapular, a piece of cloth on which the
name of the Virgin Mary is written on one side, and I.H.S. on the other, which are
preservatives against evil spirits. In old times in England such charms were called
Characts, and one found with a criminal contained an invocation to the three holy kings,
Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar.106

One of the most valuable of these protectives is the magic circle, which appears in
various forms through the whole range of folk-lore. The idea is that no evil spirit can
cross the sacred line. Thus, in Mirzapur they make a circle of grain round the circular
pile of corn on the threshing-floor to guard it from evil. Among some castes the circle
round which the bride and bridegroom revolve at marriage is guarded by a circular line
of string hung on the necks of a number of water-pots surrounding it. We have seen how
the Baiga perambulates his village and drops a line of spirits round the boundary to repel
foreign ghosts. This accounts for the stone circles which are found both in Europe and in
India, and in Ireland are considered to be the resort of the fairies.107

We have constant references to the same custom in the folk-tales. Lakshmana, in the
Râmâyana, draws such a circle round Sîtâ when he is obliged to leave her alone. We
have many references to the circle within which the ascetic or magician sits when he is
performing his sorceries. Thus, in the story of Nischayadatta, the ascetics “quickly made
a great circle with ashes, and entering into it, they lighted a fire with fuel, and all
remained there muttering a charm to protect themselves.” In the tales of the Vetâla, we
find the mendicant under a banyan tree engaged in making a circle, and Ksantisila makes
a circle of the yellow powder of bones, the ground within which was smeared with
blood, and which had pitchers of blood placed in the direction of the cardinal points.108

The same idea appears in the magic circle used as an ordeal, or to compel payment of a
debt. Thus, we read in Marco Polo:109 “If a debtor have been several times asked by his
creditor for payment and shall have put him off day by day with promises, then if the
creditor once meet the debtor and succeed in drawing a circle round him, the latter must
not pass out of this circle until he shall have satisfied the claim, or given security for its
discharge. If he in any other case presume to pass the circle, he is punished with death,
as a transgressor against right and justice.” In Northern India this circle is known as a
Gururu or Gaurua, and a person who takes an oath stands within it, or takes from inside
an article which he claims. In one form of this ceremony the circle is made on the
ground with calf’s dung by an unmarried girl, and in the centre is placed a vessel of
water. If money is in dispute, the amount claimed is placed in the water vessel by the
defendant. The narrator tells a story to prove the efficacy of the rite:—

“My father owed a Kalwâr one rupee and the Kalwâr claimed five. The matter was
brought before the tribal council, and the Kalwâr swore to the five rupees upon the
Gaurua. Within an hour his boy, while playing behind the house, was carried off by a
wolf. He was rescued, but he was under the curse of the Gaurua, and shortly after he put
his finger into a rat hole, was bitten by a snake, and died within the hour.”110

The Ring, Bracelet, and Knotted Cord.

From the same principle arises the belief in the magic virtue of the ring, the bracelet, and
the knotted cord.

To begin with rings—we have in Plato the story of Gyges, who by means of the ring of
invisibility introduced himself to the wife of Candaules, King of Lycia, murdered the
latter and got possession of his kingdom. This is like the cloak or cap which appears so
constantly in folk-lore. In the Indian tales invisibility is generally obtained by means of a
magic ointment, to which there are many parallels in Western stories. We find also the
magic ring, which, like that of Ala-ud-dîn, when touched procures the presence and aid
of the demons. A woman’s nose-ring in India has special respect paid to it, and for a
stranger even to mention it is a breach of delicacy.111 It is the symbol of married
happiness, and is removed when the wearer becomes a widow. Among Muhammadans,
Shiah women remove their nose-rings during the Muharram as a sign of mourning.
There was an old habit in England of marrying by the rush ring, “but it was chiefly
practised by designing men, for the purpose of debauching their mistresses, who
sometimes were so infatuated as to believe that this mock ceremony was a real
marriage.”112 In the same way in India a ring of Kusa grass is put on the finger during
the most sacred rites and at marriage. The custom appears in the folk-tales. The ring

represents an imperishable bond between the giver and the receiver, and is a symbol of
the original blood covenant, which is an important element in the belief of all primitive
people.113

The idea of the magic ring constantly appears in folk-lore. Thus, we have the ring placed
in a sacred square and sprinkled with butter-milk, which immediately gives whatever the
owner demands. In one of the Kashmîr tales the merchant’s son speaks to the magic ring,
and immediately a beautiful house and a lovely woman with golden hair appeared.114 So,
in the tales of Somadeva, Sridatta places a ring on the finger of the unconscious princess
and she immediately revives; the disloyal wife here, as in the “Arabian Nights,” takes a
ring from each of her lovers as a token.115

The same idea attaches to the bracelet, which is in close connection with the soul of the
wearer. Such is the Chandanhâr or sandal-wood necklace of Chandan Râja, and Sodewa
Bâî is born with a golden necklace round her neck, concerning which her parents
consulted the astrologers. They announced, “This is no common child; the necklace of
gold about your daughter’s neck contains your daughter’s soul. Let it, therefore, be
guarded with the utmost care; for if it were taken off and worn by another person, she
would die.”116 The same idea appears in the Kashmîr tales, where Panj Phûl refuses to
give up her necklace, as “it contains the secret of her life, and was a charm to her against
all dangers, sickness and trials; deprived of it she might become sick and miserable, or
be taken away from them and die.”117 All this is based on the conception of the external
soul, to which reference has been already made. The Mâls of Bîrbhûm exchange
necklaces at marriages, and the Princess Kalingasenâ wears a bracelet and necklace of
lotus fibre to secure relief from the pains of love.118

The same idea shows itself in the use of strings and knots. In Northern India a piece of
bat’s bone is tied round the ankle as a remedy for rheumatism, and answers to the eel-
skin, which is used for the same purpose in Europe.119 In the Shetland Islands, to cure a
sprain, a thread of black wool with nine knots is tied on the injured place with a metrical
spell.120 An Italian charm says: “Take from a live hare the ankle bone, remove the hair
from his belly, from the hair make a thread, and with it tie the bone to the body of the
sufferer, and you will see a wonderful cure.”121 In Ireland a strand of black wool is tied
round the ankle, and a charm is recited to cure a sprain; a red string is tied round a
child’s neck in chincough and epilepsy.122 In Hoshangâbâd a thread is tied round the
ankle as a remedy in fever. If possible, a bit of Ashtara root should be fastened in the
knot, and before tying it an oblation of butter is burnt before it.123 Similarly, a peacock’s
feather tied on the ankle cures a wound. In the Panjâb, it is a charm against snake-bite to
smoke one of the tail feathers of the peacock in a tobacco pipe.124 The Râjput father
binds round the arm of his new-born infant a root of that species of grass known as the
Amardûb or “imperishable” Dûb, well known for its nutritive qualities and luxuriant

vegetation, in the same way as Scotch women wear round their necks blue woollen
threads or small cords till they wean their children.125 We have already noticed the
efficacy of various grasses as spirit scarers.

Lastly, the cord itself has powers in folk-lore, and we meet with the magic cord, which,
tied round the neck of the hero by a witch, makes him turn into a ram or an ape.126

The belief in the efficacy of the magic circle accounts for a variety of other customs.
Thus, in a family sacrifice among the Chakmas of Bengal, round the whole sacrificial
platform had been run, from the house mother’s distaff, a long white thread which
encircled the altar, and then carried into the house, was held at the two ends by the good
man’s wife. Among the Hâris, at marriages, the right hand little finger of the
bridegroom’s sister’s husband is pierced, and a few drops of blood allowed to fall on
threads of jute, which are rolled up in a tiny pellet. This the bridegroom holds in his
hand, while the bride attempts to snatch it from him. Her success in the attempt is
considered to be a good omen of the happiness of the marriage.127 Here we have a
survival of descent in the female line, the blood covenant, and the magic influence of the
cord all combined.

Connected with this is the belief in the forming a connection by knotting the magic
string. We have the European true love-knot, an emblem of fidelity between the pair
betrothed. So in Italy interlaced serpents and all kinds of interweaving, braiding, and
interlacing cords are valuable as protectives because they attract the eyes of witches.128
Thus, among the Kârans of Bengal, the essential part of the marriage ceremony is
believed to be the laying of the bride’s right hand in that of the bridegroom, and binding
their two hands together with a piece of string spun in a special way.129 This belief in the
mystic power of knots is common in all folk-lore.130 The clothes of the bride and
bridegroom in Upper India are knotted together as they revolve round the sacred fire. A
similar belief explains the wearing of the Janeû or sacred thread by high-caste Hindus.
The knots on it, known as Brahma-granthi, or “the knots of the Creator,” repel evil
influences, and Muhammadans on their birthdays tie knots in a cord, which is known as
the Sâlgirah or “year knot.”

Face-covering.

Another device to avoid fascination or other dangerous influence is to cover the face so
as to prevent the evil glance reaching the victim for whom it is intended. Thus, at widow
marriages in Northern India, the bride and bridegroom are covered with a sheet during
the rite, probably in order to avert the envious or malignant influence of the spirit of the

woman’s first husband. It is in secret that the bridegroom marks the parting of the bride’s
hair with vermilion. So in Bombay,131 the Chitpâwan bride in one part of the wedding
service has her head covered with a piece of broadcloth. The Ramoshis tie the ends of
the bride’s and bridegroom’s robes to a cloth which four men of the family hold over
them. The Dhors of Pûna put a face-cloth on the dead, which is a general practice all
over the world. The same belief is almost certainly at the root of much of the customs of
Pardah and the seclusion of women. It is as much through fear of fascination as modesty
that women draw their sheet across the face when they meet a stranger in the streets. We
come across the same feeling in the rule by which all doors were closed when the
princess in the “Arabian Nights” went to the bath, and when not long ago the Mikado of
Japan and other Eastern potentates took their walks abroad. We thus reach by another
route the cycle of Godiva legends.132

Omens.

Closely connected with the class of ideas which we have been discussing is the belief in
omens. This constitutes a very important branch of folk-lore both in the West and in the
East. The success of a journey or enterprise is believed in a great measure to depend on
the object which was first seen in the morning, or observed on the road at an early period
of the march. Thus, according to Theophrastus, “The superstitious man, if a weasel run
across his path, will not pursue his walk until some one else has traversed the road, or
until he has thrown three stones across it.” And Sir Thomas Brown writes: “If an hare
cross the highway, there are few above threescore years that are not perplexed thereat,
which, notwithstanding, is but an augurial terror according to that received expression,
Inauspicatum dat iter oblatus lepus. And the ground of the conceit was probably no
greater than this, that a fearful animal passing by us portended unto us something to be
feared; as upon the like consideration, the meeting of a fox presaged some future
imposture.”

Tulasi Dâs, in his Râmâyana, sums up the favourable omens:—

“On the left-hand side a blue-necked jay was picking up food, as if to announce the very
highest good fortune; on a fair field on the right were a crow and a mungoose in the sight
of all; a woman was seen with a pitcher and a child; a fox showed himself winding
about; and in front a cow was suckling its calf; a herd of deer came out on the right; a
Brâhmanî kite promised all success; also a Syâma bird perched on a tree to the left; a
man was met bearing curds, and two learned Brâhmans with books in their hands.”133

The face of a Teli or oilman, perhaps from the dirt which accompanies his business, is
about the worst which can be seen in the early morning; but, with the curious
inconsistency which crops up everywhere in phases of similar belief, that of a sweeper is
lucky. His face should be always looked at first, but on meeting a Brâhman, the glance
should start from his feet.

The Thags, like all criminal tribes of the present day, were great believers in what Dr.
Tylor calls Angang or meeting omens.134 With them, if a wolf crossed the path from
right to left it was considered a bad omen; if from right to left the import was uncertain.
The call of the wolf was considered ominous; if heard during the day, the gang had
immediately to leave the neighbourhood. The same idea attached to a crow sitting silent
on a tree, which is curiously in contradistinction to the Roman belief—Saepe sinistra
cavâ praedixit ab ilice cornix. It was also considered very unlucky if a member of the
gang had his turban knocked off by accidentally touching a branch.

The jungle tribes have a strong belief in such omens. The Korwas of Mirzapur abandon a
journey if a jackal cross the road from the left, or if a little bird, known as the Suiya or
small parrot, calls in the same direction. The Patâris and Majhwârs return if the Nîlgâê
cross the road from the right.

All natives have more or less the same feeling, and scientific treatises have been written
on the subject. Mentioning a monkey in the morning brings starvation for the rest of the
day; though looking on its face is considered lucky. Hence monkeys are commonly tied
in stables to protect horses, and an old adage says that “the evil of the stable is on the
monkey’s head.” So, in Morocco the wealthy Moors keep a wild boar in their stables, in
order that the Jinn and evil spirits may be diverted from the horses and enter into the
boar.135 For the same reason an English groom is fond of keeping a cat near his horses.

If a dog flaps its ears and shakes its head while any business is going on, disaster is sure
to follow, and people careful in such matters will stop the work if they can. The baying
of a dog indicates death and misfortune, an idea common in British folk-lore.136

The time when screech-owls cry and lean dogs howl,
And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves.

Even the little house lizard is, like his kinsfolk, the “murdering basilisks, their softest
touch as smart as lizard’s stings,” considered by the Bengâlis very unlucky, and when
they hear its twittering they postpone a journey.137

The hare is always a bad omen. He is a god among the Kalmucs, who call him Sakya
Muni, or the Buddha, and say that on earth he allowed himself to be eaten by a starving
man, for which gracious act he was raised to domineer over the moon, where they

profess to see him. There are traces of the same idea in Upper India.138 The sites of
many cities are said to have been founded where a hare crossed the path of the first
settler. The hare is detested by the agricultural and fishing population of the Hebrides,
and it is one of the ordinary disguises of the witch in European folk-lore.139

Black is, of course, unlucky, and if a man, when digging the foundations of a new house,
turns up a piece of charcoal, it is advisable to change the site.

Owls are naturally of evil omen. Even the stout-hearted Zâlim Sinh, the famous regent of
Kota, abandoned his house because an owl hooted on the roof.140 The hooting of the owl
is a sign that the bird means to leave the place, and wise people would do well to follow
his example. One kind of owl, the Raghui Chiraiya, learns people’s names, and if any
one by chance answer his call he is sure to die.

To see a Dhobi, or washerman, who is associated with foul raiment, is exceedingly
dangerous. I once had a bearer who was sadly afflicted because on tour he had to sleep
in the same tent with a Dhobi. The old man was constantly bruising his shins over the
ropes and pegs, because he was in the habit of stumbling out before dawn with his hands
pressed over his eyes to protect himself from the sight of his ill-omened companion.

A one-eyed man is, as we have already said, very unlucky. When Jaswant Râo Holkar
lost one of his eyes, he said, “I was before bad enough; but now I shall be the Guru, or
preceptor, of rogues.”141 I once had an office clerk afflicted in this way, and his
colleagues refused to sit in the same room with him, because their accounts always went
wrong when he looked in their direction. When it was impossible to provide any other
accommodation for him, they insisted that he should cover the obnoxious organ with a
handkerchief when he had to work in their neighbourhood.

One of the last of the Anglo-Indians, who had become thoroughly orientalized, used to
insist on his valet, when he came to wake him, holding in his hand a tray containing
some milk and a gold coin, so that his first glance on waking might fall on these lucky
articles.

Numbers.

There are mystic qualities attached to numbers. Thus, when Hindus have removed the
ashes from a burning ground they write the figures 49 on the spot where the corpse was
cremated. The Pandits explain this by saying that when written in Hindi the figures
resemble the conch-shell and wheel of Vishnu, or that it is an invocation to the forty-nine

winds of heaven to come and purify the ground. It is more probably based on the idea
that the number seven, as is the case all over the world, has some mystic application. So
in the folk-tales the number three has a special application to the tests of the hero who
endures the assaults of demons or witches for three successive nights. The idea of luck in
odd numbers is universal, and the seventh son of a seventh son is gifted with powers of
healing.

Bodily Functions.

The functions of the body supply many omens. Thus, in Somadeva we read: “My right
eye throbbed frequently, as if with joy, and told me that it was none other than she.”142

“When our cheek burns, or ear tingles, we usually say some one is talking of us,” writes
Sir Thomas Brown, “a conceit of great antiquity, and ranked among superstitious
opinions by Pliny. He supposes it to have proceeded from the notion of a signifying
Genius, or Universal Mercury, that conducted sounds to their distant subjects, and taught
to hear by touch.” The number of beliefs of this class is infinite and recorded in
numerous popular handbooks.

Lucky and Unlucky Days.

So, there are days which are lucky and unlucky. A Persian couplet lays down that one
should not go east on Saturday and Monday; west on Friday and Sunday; north on
Tuesday and Wednesday; south on Thursday. Even Lord Burghley advised his son to be
cautious as regards the first Monday in April, when Cain was born and Abel slain; the
second Monday in August, when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed; the last Monday
in December, which was the birthday of Judas. Akbar laid down that the clothes which
came into his wardrobe on the first day of the month Farwardîn were unlucky.143 The
way some people get over omens of this kind is to send some article ahead of the
traveller on the unlucky day, which absorbs the ill omen, which would otherwise have
fallen upon him.

The catalogue of superstitions of this class might be almost indefinitely extended. The
principles on which most of them depend are clear enough. They rest on a sort of
sympathetic magic. Things which are good-looking, people who are healthy or

prosperous, give favourable omens, while those that are ugly, or of low caste, or
associated with menial or unpleasant duties, and so on, are ominous. Europeans in India
usually quite fail to realize the influence which such ideas exercise over the minds of the
people. Most of us have been struck by the almost unaccountable failure of natives to
attend a summons from the Courts, to keep an appointment to meet a European officer
for the inspection of a school or market. If inquiries are made it will often be found that
some idea of this kind explains the matter.

Thus, Colonel Tod describes how he had a visit from Mânik Chand. “He looked very
disconsolate and explained that he had seven times left his tent and as often turned back,
the bird of omen having each time passed him on the adverse side; but that at length he
had determined to disregard it, as having forfeited confidence he was indifferent to the
future.”144

The same idea of good or evil omen attaches to many places and persons. “Nolai was
built by Râja Nol. Its modern appellation of Barnagar has its origin in a strange, vulgar
superstition of names of ill omen, which must not be pronounced before the morning
meal. The city is called either Nolai or Barnagar, according to the hour at which the
mention becomes necessary.”145 So with the town of Jammu in Kashmîr, which is
unlucky from its association with Yama, the god of death; with Talwâra in the
Hoshyârpur District, which is connected with the sword (talwâr); with Rohtak, which
should be called Rustajgarh, and with numerous other places in Northern India. Thus, if
people want to speak of Bulandshahr in the morning they call it by the old Hindi name
of Unchgânw; Bhongânw in Mainpuri they call Pachkosa; Nânauta in Sahâranpur,
Phûtashahr; Mandwa in Fatehpur, Rotiwâla, and so on.146

So, there is hardly a village in which it is not considered ominous to name before
breakfast some one who, from his misery, rascality, or some other reason, is considered
unlucky. In Mathura there is a tank built by Râja Patni Mall.

“Should a stranger visit it in the morning and inquire of any Hindu by whom it was
constructed, he will have considerable difficulty in eliciting a straightforward answer.
The Râja, it is said, was of such a delicate constitution that he could never at any time
take more than a few morsels of the simplest food; hence arises the belief that any one
who mentions him the first thing in the morning will, like him, have to pass the day
fasting.”147 When we wonder at people suffering bondage of this kind, we must not
forget that similar beliefs prevail in our own country. “In Buckie there are certain family
names which no fisherman will pronounce. The ban lies particularly heavy on Ross.
Coull also bears it, but not to such a degree. The folks of that village talk of spitting out
the bad name.”148

A similar euphemistic form of expression is often used in regard to animals. If you are
civil and do not abuse the house rats, they will not damage your goods.149

The Mirzapur Patâris when they have to mention a monkey in the morning, call him
Hanumân, and the bear Jatari, or “he with the long hair,” or Dîmkhauiya, “he that eats
white ants.” The Pankas call the camel Lambghîncha or “long-necked.” “I asked the
Râja,” says Gen. Sleeman, “whether we were likely to fall in with any hares, making use
of the term Khargosh, or ‘ass-eared.’” “Certainly not,” said the Râja, “if you begin by
abusing them by such a name. Call them Lambkanna or ‘long-eared,’ and you will get
plenty.”

It is, of course, easy to avoid the effect of evil omens by the use of a little tact and wit, as
was the case with William the Conqueror, and there are many natives who are noted for
their cleverness in this way. Of an Eastern Sultân it is told that, leaving his palace on a
warlike expedition, his standard touched a cluster of lamps, called Surayya, because they
resembled the Pleiades. He would have turned back, but one of his officers said, “My
Lord! our standard has reached the Pleiades;” so he was relieved, advanced, and was
victorious.

Facilitating Departure of and Barring the Ghost.

We now come to consider the various means adopted to facilitate the journey of the
departing soul, and to prevent it from returning as a malignant ghost to bring trouble,
disease, or death on the survivors.

First comes the custom of placing the dying man on the ground at the moment of
dissolution. This is done partly, as we have seen, through some feeling of the sanctity of
Mother earth and that anyone resting on her bosom is safe from demoniacal agency, and
partly that the spirit may meet with no obstruction in its passage through the air. This last
idea prevails very generally. Thus, in Great Britain, death is believed to be retarded and
the dying person kept in a state of suffering by having any lock closed or any bolt shut in
the dwelling.150

The tortures which the soul undergoes in its journey to the land of the dead are vividly
pictured in some of the sacred writings.151 He is scorched by heat and pierced by wind
and cold, attacked by beasts of prey, stumbling through thorns and filth, until he at last
reaches the dread river Vaitaranî, which rolls its flood of abominations between him and
the other shore. So, when a Hindu dies, a lamp made of flour is placed in his hands to
light his ghost to the realm of Yama. Devout people believe that the spirit takes three

hundred and sixty days to accomplish the journey, so an offering of that number of
lamps is made. In order, also, to help him on his way, they feed a Brâhman every day for
a year; if the deceased was a woman, a Brâhmanî is fed. The lamps are lighted facing the
south, and this is the only occasion on which this is done, because the south is the realm
of death, and no one will sleep or have their house door opening towards that ill-omened
quarter of the sky.

With the same intention of aiding the spirit on his way, the relations howl during the
funeral rites, like the keeners at an Irish wake, in order to scare the evil spirits who
would obstruct the passage of the soul to its final rest.152

Another plan is to carry out the corpse by a special way, which is then barred up, so that
it may not be able to find its way back. The same end is attained by carrying out the
corpse feet foremost. Thus Marco Polo writes: “Sometimes their sorcerers shall tell them
that it is not good luck to carry the corpse out by the door, so they have to break a hole in
the wall, and to draw it out that way when it is taken to the burning.” It is needless to say
that the same custom prevails in Great Britain.153 The Banjâras of Khândesh reverse the
process. They move their huts after a death, and make a special entrance instead of the
ordinary door, which is supposed to be polluted by the passage of the spirit of the
dead.154 A somewhat similar custom prevails among the Maghs of Bengal. When the
friends return from the cremation ground, if it is the master of the house who has died,
the ladder leading up to the house is thrown down, and they must effect an entrance by
cutting a hole in the back wall and so creeping up.155 The theory appears to be that the
evil spirits who were on the watch for the ghost may be lurking near the route by which
the corpse was removed. We have the same idea in the European custom of saluting a
corpse which is being carried past. Grose distinctly states that the homage was really
offered to the attendant evil spirits.156 So, the Birhors of Bengal, on the sixth day after
birth, take the child out of the house by an opening made in the wall, so as to evade the
evil spirit on the watch at the door.157

The most elaborate precautions are, however, devoted to barring out the ghost and
preventing its return to its former home. The first of these consist of rules to prevent the
breach of the curiosity taboo. All through folk-lore we have instances of the danger of
looking back, as in the case of Lot’s wife. One of the maxims of Pythagoras was: “On
setting out on a journey, do not return back; for if you do the fairies will catch you.”158
In one of the Kashmîr tales the youth is warned not to look back, otherwise he would be
changed into a pillar of stone.159 In one of the Italian spells the officiant is told: “Spit
behind you thrice and look not behind you.”160 In an Indian tale the god promises to help
the Brâhman and to follow him. The Brâhman looks back and the deity becomes a
stone.161 The danger of looking back is that the person’s soul may be detained among the
ghosts of the dead. This is the reason why Hindu mourners do not look back when they

are returning from the cremation ground, and so we find that in Naxos it is a rule that
none of the women who follow the bier must look back, for if she do she will die on the
spot, or else one of her relations will die.162

Another means is to bar the return of the ghost in a physical way. Thus, when the
Aheriyas of the North-Western Provinces burn the corpse, they fling pebbles in the
direction of the pyre to prevent the spirit accompanying them. In the Himâlayas, when a
man has attended the funeral ceremonies of a relative, he takes a piece of the shroud
worn by the deceased and hangs it on some tree in the cremation ground, as an offering
to the spirits which frequent such places. On his return, he places a thorny bush on the
road wherever it is crossed by another path, and the nearest male relative of the
deceased, on seeing this, puts a stone on it, and pressing it down with his feet, prays the
spirit of the dead man not to trouble him.163 Among the Bengal Limbus, the Phedangma
attends the funeral, and delivers a brief address to the departed spirit on the general
doom of mankind and the succession of life and death, concluding with the command to
go where his fathers have gone, and not to come back to trouble the living with
dreams.164

Practically the same custom still prevails in Ireland. When a corpse is carried to the
grave, it is the rule for the bearers to stop half-way while the nearest relatives build up a
small monument of loose stones, and no hand would dare to disturb this monument
while the world lasts.165

In the case of the Dhângars and Basors, both menial tribes in the North-Western
Provinces, we come across an usage which appears to be of a very primitive type and to
be intended to secure the same object of barring the return of the ghost. After they have
buried the corpse they return to the house of the dead man, kill a hog, and after
separating the limbs, which are cooked for the funeral feast, they bury the trunk in the
courtyard of the house, making an invocation to it as the representative of the dead man,
and ordering him to rest there in peace and not worry his descendants. In the grave in
which they bury this they pile stones and thorns to keep the ghost down.

Many other mourning customs appear to be based on the same principle. Thus, the old
ritual directs that all who return from a funeral must touch the Lingam, fire, cowdung, a
grain of barley, a grain of sesame and water—“all,” as Professor De Gubernatis says,
“symbols of that fecundity which the contact with a corpse might have destroyed.”166
The real motive is doubtless to get rid of the ghost, which may have accompanied the
mourners from the cremation ground. In Borneo rice is sprinkled over them with the
same object, and the Basutos who have carried a corpse to the grave have their hands
scratched with a knife and magic stuff is rubbed into the wound to remove the ghost
which may be adhering to them.167

In Upper India, among the lower Hindu castes, when the mourners return after the
ceremony, they bathe, water being a scarer of ghosts, and at the house door they touch a
stone, cowdung, iron, fire, and water, which have been placed outside the house in
readiness when the corpse was removed. They then touch each their left ears with the
little finger of the left hand, chew leaves of the bitter Nîm tree as a sign of mourning,
and, after sitting some time in silence, disperse. Others, as the Ghasiyas, pass their feet
through the smoke of burning oil, and others merely rub their feet with oil to drive away
the ghost. The same idea of barring the return of the ghost by means of fire is found
among the Nats of Kâthiâwâr, who burn hay on the face of the corpse before cremating
it, and among the Thoris, who brand the great toe of the right foot of the deceased.168

This sitting in silence after the funeral is commonly explained merely as a mark of
sympathy for the bereaved relatives, but an analogous custom in Ireland leads to the
inference that the real reason may be to give the ghost time to depart, and not to interrupt
in any way its progress to the spirit land. On the west coast of Ireland, after the death no
wail is allowed to be raised until three hours have elapsed, because the sound of the
crying would hinder the soul from speaking to God when it stands before Him, and
would waken up the great dogs that are watching for the souls of the dead to devour
them.169

We have in these rites and in the ordinary ritual some further illustrations of the
protective influence of various articles which scare evil spirits. Thus, after the cremation
the officiating Brâhman touches fire and bathes in order to purify himself and bar the
return of the ghost; and the relative who lights the funeral pyre keeps a piece of iron with
him, and goes about with a brass drinking vessel in his hand as a preservative against
evil spirits while the period of mourning lasts. The system of protection is exactly the
same as in the case of the young mother and her child during the period of impurity
consequent on parturition. As the Hedley Kow, the North British goblin, is peculiarly
obnoxious at childbirth, so the Râkshasî of Indian folk-lore carries off the baby if the
suitable precautions to repel her are neglected.170

Another method of barring the ghost is to bury the dead face downwards. This is
common among sweepers of Upper India, whose ghosts, as seen in the probable
connection of the Chûhra and the Churel, are always malignant. The same custom
prevails among the Châran Banjâras of Khândesh. With this may be contrasted the Irish
custom of loosening the nails of the coffin before interment, in order to facilitate the
passage of the soul to heaven.171

A more elaborate ritual is that performed by the Mangars of Bengal. “One of the
maternal relatives of the deceased, usually the maternal uncle, is chosen to act as priest
for the occasion, and to conduct the ritual for the propitiation of the dead. First of all he
puts in the mouth of the corpse some silver coins and some coral, which is much prized

by the Himâlayan races. Then he lights a wick soaked in clarified butter, touches the lips
with fire, scatters some parched rice about the mouth, and, lastly, covers the face with a
cloth. Two bits of wood about three feet long are set up on either side of the grave. In the
one are cut nine steps or notches, forming a ladder for the spirit of the dead to ascend to
heaven; on the other every one present at the funeral cuts a notch to show that he has
been there. As the maternal uncle steps out of the grave, he bids a solemn farewell to the
dead and calls upon him to ascend to heaven by the ladder prepared for him. When the
earth has been filled in, the stick notched by the funeral party is taken away to a distance
and broken in two pieces, lest by its means the dead man should do the survivors a
mischief. The pole used to carry the corpse is also broken up, and the spades and ropes
are left in the grave.”172

Among other devices to bar the return of the spirit may be noted the custom after a death
in the family of preparing a resting-place for the ghost, until on the completion of the
prescribed funeral rites it is admitted to the company of the sainted dead. Thus, among
high-caste Hindus a jar of water is hung on a Pîpal tree for the refreshment of the spirit.
The lower castes practise a more elaborate ritual. When the obsequies are completed
they plant by the bank of a tank a bunch of grass, which the chief mourners daily water
until the funeral rites are over. In Bombay Mr. Campbell writes:173 “With a few
exceptions generally among almost all classes of Hindus, when the dead is carried to the
burning ground, on nearing the cemetery, a small stone is picked up and applied to the
eyes, chest, and feet of the deceased. This stone is called Jivkhâda or the spirit stone, is
considered as the representative or type of the deceased, and offerings of milk and water
are given to it for ten days.” Further he says: “On nearing the burning ground a small
stone is picked up, and with it the feet, nose, and chest of the deceased are touched
thrice. This stone is called Ashma, and is considered as a type of the deceased, and to it
funeral oblations are offered for ten days. The bier is then put down, and a ceremony
called Visrânti Srâddha is performed by the chief mourner, who comes forward and
offers two balls of rice, called Bhût or ‘spirit,’ and Khechar, or ‘roamer in the sky,’ to the
deceased. A hole is dug and the balls are buried there, and the litter is raised again on
shoulders by four persons and carried to the cemetery.”

The same idea of barring the return of the ghost accounts for the tombstone and cairn.
British evil spirits have been secured in this way. Mr. Henderson tells of a vicious spirit
which was entombed under a large stone for the space of ninety years and a day. Should
any luckless person sit on that stone, he would be unable to leave it for ever.174 In India,
when a Ho or Munda dies, a very substantial coffin is constructed and placed on faggots
of brushwood. The body, carefully washed and anointed with oil, is reverently laid in
this coffin, and all the clothes, ornaments, and agricultural implements that the deceased
was in the habit of using are placed with it, and also any money that he had with him
when he died. Then the lid of the coffin is put on and the whole is burned. The bones are
collected, taken in procession to the houses of friends, and every place where the

deceased was in the habit of visiting. They are finally buried under a large slab, and a
megalithic monument is erected to the memory of the dead. A quantity of rice is thrown
into the grave with other food.175

This custom of parading the corpse also prevails in Ireland.

“I believe it is the custom in most, if not all, small towns in the south for a body to be
carried, on its way to the graveyard, round the town by the longest way to bid its last
farewell to the place. If the body be that of a murdered man, it is, if possible, carried past
the house of the murderer. In county Wicklow, if an old church lies on the way to the
grave, the body is borne round it three times.”176

The Korkus of Hoshangâbâd have a remarkable method of laying the ghost. “Each clan
has a place in which the funeral rite of every member of that clan must be performed;
and however far the Korku may have wandered from the original centre of his tribe, he
must return there to set his father’s spirit to rest, and enable it to join its own family and
ancestral ghosts. In this spot a separate stake (munda) is set up for every one whose rites
are separately performed, and if a poor Korku performs them for several ancestors at
once, he still puts up only one stake. It stands two or two and a half feet above the
ground, planed smooth and squared at the top; on one side is carved at the top the
likeness of the sun and moon, a spider, and a wheat ear, and below it a figure
representing the principal person in whose honour it is put up, on horseback, with
weapons in his hands. If more than one person’s death is being celebrated, the rest are
carved below as subordinate figures. I could not learn that the spirits are supposed to
specially haunt this grove of stakes, or that Korkus have any dread of going near it at
night; but they are far bolder than Hindus in this respect. When the funeral rite is to be
performed, the first thing is to cut a bamboo and take out the pith, which is to represent
the bones of the deceased, unless he has been burnt, in which case the bones themselves
will have been preserved. A chicken is then sacrificed at the grave, and all that night the
mourners watch and dance, and sing and make merry.

“Next day they go out very early, and cut down some perfectly unblemished tree, either
teak or Salâi, not hollow or decayed or marked with an axe, which they cut to make the
Munda stake. It is brought home at once and fashioned by a skilful man. In the afternoon
it is carried to the place where cattle rest outside the village at noontide, and is washed
and covered with turmeric like a bridegroom, and five chickens are sacrificed to it. It is
then brought home again, and the pith representing the bones is taken outside the village
and hung to some tree for safety during the night.” (The idea, as we have elsewhere seen,
is more probably to allow the ghost an opportunity of revisiting them.)

“All the friends and relations have by this time assembled, and this evening the chief
funeral dinner is given. Next day, the whole party set out for the place where the stakes

of their clan are set up, and after digging a hole and putting two copper coins in it, and
the bones of the deceased or the pith which represents them, they put the stake in and fix
it upright. Then they offer a goat or chickens to it, which are presently eaten close by,
and in the evening the whole party returns home.”177

All this ritual, carried out by one of the most primitive Indian tribes, admirably
illustrates the principles which we have been discussing. The obvious intention of the
custom is to provide a resting-place for the spirit of the dead man, so that it may no
longer be a source of danger to the survivors.

Similar customs prevail among other aboriginal races of the Central Provinces. In some
places they burn their dead and then erect platforms, at the corners of which they place
tall, red stones. In other places a sort of low square mound is raised over the remains of
the deceased, at the corners of which are erected wooden posts, round which thread is
wound to complete the sacred circle, and a stone is set up in the centre. Here offerings
are presented, as in the jungle worship of their deities, of rice and other grains, fowls or
sheep. On one occasion after the establishment of the Bhonsla or Marhâta Government
in Gondwâna a cow was offered to the manes of a Gond; but this having come to the
notice of the authorities, the relations were publicly whipped, and all were interdicted
from doing such an act again.

To persons of more than usual reputation for sanctity offerings continue to be presented
for many years after their decease. In the District of Bhandâra rude collections of coarse
earthenware in the form of horses may be seen, which have accumulated from year to
year on the tombs of such men.178 The Pauariyas of Chota Nâgpur bury their dead,
except the bodies of their priests, which are carried on a cot into the forests covered with
leaves and branches and kept there, the reason assigned being that if laid in the village
cemetery their ghosts become very troublesome. The bodies of people who die of
contagious disease are similarly disposed of, the fact of death in this way being supposed
to be the direct act of one of the deities who govern plagues.179

In a country where immediate burial or cremation is necessary and habitual, we need not
expect to meet many examples of the customs, of which Mr. H. Spencer gives
examples,180 of placing the body on a platform or the like in order to secure its personal
comfort and conciliate the spirit. With the object of keeping a place ready for the spirit,
some tribes are careful to preserve the body. The Singpoo of the north-eastern frontier
keep the bodies of their dead chiefs for several years, and the Kûkis dry the dead at a
slow fire,181 practices which among more civilized races rise to embalming, as among
the Chinese and Egyptians. The Thârus of the sub-Himâlayan Tarâî have a custom of
placing the corpse on the village fetish mound during the night after death, and then the
mourning goes on. The practice is perhaps intended as much to prevent, by the sanctity
of the spot on which it is placed, the spirit from harming the survivors, as from any

special desire to conciliate it. Among all Hindus, of course, as far as exigencies of the
rapid disposal of the remains allow, it is habitual to treat the dead with respect; corpses
are carefully covered with red cloth, and removed reverently for burial or cremation.

There is also among some tribes the custom of disinterring corpses after temporary
burial. Thus, the Bhotiyas of the Himâlayas burn their dead only in the month of Kârttik;
those who die in the meantime are temporarily buried and disinterred when the season
for cremation arrives. The Kathkâris, a jungle tribe in Bombay, dig up the corpse some
time after burial and hold a wake over the ghastly relics. They appear to do this only in
the case of persons dying of cholera or small-pox, with some idea of appeasing the deity
of disease. In parts of Oudh the custom is said still to prevail among the lower castes
during epidemics, and it has recently attracted the attention of the sanitary officers.182

The Funeral Feast.

The funeral feast is evidently a survival of the feast when the dead kinsman was
consumed by his relatives, who wished thus to partake of the properties of the dead. By
another theory the feasting of the mourners is intended to resist the attempt of the ghost
of the dead man to enter their bodies, food being offensive to spirits.

Mutilation a Sign of Mourning.

Perhaps the only distinct survival of the ceremonial mutilation so common among
savages as a sign of mourning, is the shaving which is compulsory on all the clansmen
who shared in the death pollution. In the Odyssey, at the death of Antilochus, Peisistratus
says, “This is now the only due we pay to miserable men, to cut the hair and let the tear
fall from the cheek,” and at the burial rites of Patroklus “they heaped all the corpse with
their hair which they cut off and threw thereon.” The cutting of the hair is always a
serious matter. “Amongst the Maoris many spells were uttered at hair-cutting; one, for
example, was spoken to consecrate the obsidian knife with which the hair was cut;
another was pronounced to avert the thunder and lightning which hair-cutting was
believed to cause.”183 This ceremonial shaving is also perhaps the only survival in
Northern India of puberty initiation ceremonies. In some cases the hair cut appears to be
regarded as a sacrifice. Thus between the ages of two and five the Bhîls shave the heads

of their children. The child’s aunt takes the hair in her lap, and wrapping it in her clothes,
receives a cow, buffalo, or other present from the child’s parent.184

Respect Paid to Hair.

All over the world the hair is invested with particular sanctity as embodying the strength
of the owner, as in the Samson-Delilah story. Vishnu, according to the old story, took
two hairs, a white and a black one, and these became Balarâma and Krishna. Many
charms are worked through hair, and if a witch gets possession of it she can work evil to
the owner. An Italian charm directs, “When you enter any city, collect before the gate as
many hairs as you will which may lie on the road, saying to yourself that you do this to
remove your headache, and bind one of the hairs to your head.”185 The strength of Nisus
lay in his golden hair, and when it was pulled out he was killed by Minos. It is this
power of hair which possibly accounts for its preservation as a relic of the dead in
lockets and bracelets, or, as Mr. Hartland shows, the idea at the root of these practices is
that of sacramental communion with the dead.186

We have already come across instances of growing hair as a curse. Mr. Frazer gives
numerous examples of this custom among savage races, and in the Teutonic mythology
the avenger of Baldur will not cut his hair until he has killed his enemy.

In the folk-tales hair is a powerful deus ex machinâ, human hair for choice, but any kind
will answer the purpose. It is one of the most common incidents that the hero recognizes
the heroine by a lock of her hair which floats down the stream.187

A curious instance of mutilation regarded as a charm may be quoted from Bengal.
Should a woman give birth to several stillborn children, in succession, the popular belief
is that the same child reappears on each occasion. So, to frustrate the designs of the evil
spirit that has taken possession of the child, the nose or a portion of the ear is cut off and
the body is cast on a dunghill.

Food for the Dead.

Another means for conciliating the spirit of the dead man is to lay up food for its use.188
This is intended partly as provision for the ghost in its journey to the other world. But in

some cases it would seem that there is a different basis for the custom. As we have seen,
it is dangerous to eat the food of fairy-land, and unless food is supplied to the wandering
ghost, it may be obliged to eat the food of the lower world and hence be unable to return
to the world of men. According to the ancient Indian ritual it was recommended to put
into the hands of the dead man the reins of the animal killed in the funeral sacrifice, or in
default of an animal victim at least two cakes of rice or flour, so that he may throw them
to the dogs of Yama, which would otherwise bar his passage,189 and the same idea
constantly appears in the folk-tales where the hero takes some food with him which he
flings to the fierce beasts which prevent him from gaining the water of life or whatever
may have been the test imposed upon him. The use of pulse in the funeral rites depends
upon the same principle, and in the Greek belief the dead carried vegetables with them to
hell, either to win the right of passage or as provisions for the road.

Articles left with the Corpse.

Hence too comes the practice of burning with the corpse the articles which the dead man
was in the habit of using. They rise with the fumes of the pyre and solace him in the
world of spirits. The Kos told Colonel Dalton that the reason of this was that they were
unwilling to derive any immediate benefit by the death of a member of the family. Hence
they burn his wearing apparel and personal effects, but they do not destroy clothes and
other things which have not been worn. For this reason, old men of the tribe, in a spirit
of careful economy, avoid wearing new clothes, so that they may not be wasted at the
funeral.190

The custom of laying out food for the ghost still prevails in Ireland, where it is a very
prevalent practice during some nights after death to leave food outside the house, a
griddle cake or a dish of potatoes. If it is gone in the morning, the spirits must have taken
it, for no human being would touch the food left for the dead, as it might compel him to
join their company. On November Eve food is laid out in the same way.191

There are numerous examples of similar practices in India. The Mhârs of Khândesh,
when they remove a corpse, put in its mouth a Pân leaf with a gold bead from his wife’s
necklace. At the grave the brother or son of the dead man wets the end of his turban and
drops a little water on the lips of the corpse.192 So the Greeks used to put a coin in the
dead man’s mouth to enable him to pay his fare to Charon. In the Panjâb it is a common
practice to put in the mouth of the corpse the Pancharatana or five kinds of jewels, gold,
silver, copper, coral, and pewter. The leaves of the Tulasi or sweet basil and Ganges
water are put into the mouth of a dying man, and the former into the ears and nostrils
also. They are said to be offerings to Yama, the god of death, who on receiving them

shows mercy to the soul of the deceased. The same customs generally prevail among the
Hindus of Northern India.

Among the Buddhists of the Himâlaya, Moorcroft was present at the consecration of the
food of the dead.193 The Lâma consecrated barley and water and poured them from a
silver saucer into a brass vessel, occasionally striking two brass cymbals together,
reciting or chanting prayers, to which from time to time an inferior Lâma uttered
responses aloud, accompanied by the rest in an undertone. This was intended for the use
of the souls in hell, who would starve were it not provided. The music and singing, if we
may apply the analogy of Indian practices, are intended to scare the vagrant ghosts, who
would otherwise consume or defile the food.

The same is the case among the Drâvidian races. Thus, the Bhuiyârs of Mirzapur after
the funeral feast throw a cupful of oil and some food into the water hole in which the
ashes of the dead man are deposited. They say that he will never be hungry or want oil to
anoint himself after bathing. The Korwas, when burning a corpse, place with it the
ornaments and clothes of the deceased, and an axe, which they do not break, as is the
habit of many other savages. They say that the spirit of the dead man will want it to hack
his way through the jungles of the lower world. When the Bhuiyârs cremate a corpse
they throw near the spot an axe, if the deceased was a man, and a Khurpi or weeding
spud, if a woman. No one would dare to appropriate such things, as he would be forced
to join the ghastly company of their owners. Where the corpse is burned they leave a
platter made of leaves containing a little boiled rice, and they sprinkle on the ground all
the ordinary kinds of grain and some turmeric and salt as food for the dead in the next
world.

All these tribes and many low-caste Hindus in Northern India lay out platters of food
under the eaves of the house during the period of mourning, and they ascertain by
peculiar marks which they examine next day whether the spirit has partaken of the food
or not. Among the jungle tribes there is a rule that the food for the dead is prepared, not
by the house-mother, but by the senior daughter-in-law, and even if incapacitated by
illness from performing this duty, she is bound at least to commence the work by
cooking one or two cakes, the rest being prepared by one of the junior women of the
family.

Among the more Hinduized Majhwârs and Patâris we reach the stage where the clothes,
implements of the deceased, and some food are given to the Patâri priest, who, by
vicariously consuming them, lays up a store for the use of the dead man in the other
world. This is the principle on which food and other articles are given to the
Mahâbrâhman or ordinary Hindu funeral priest at the close of the period of mourning.

Among the Bengal tribes, the Mâl Pahariyas pour the blood of goats and fowls on their
ancestral memorial pillars that the souls may not hunger in the world of the dead. Among
the Bhûmij, at the funeral ceremony, an outsider, who is often a Laiya or priest, comes
forward to personate the deceased, by whose name he is addressed, and asked what he
wants to eat. Acting thus as the dead man’s proxy, he mentions various articles of food,
which are placed before him. After making a regular meal, he goes away, and the spirit
of the deceased is believed to go with him. So among the Kolis of the Konkan, the dead
man’s soul is brought back into one of the mourners. Among the Vârlis of Thâna, on the
twelfth day after death, a dinner is given to the nearest relations, and during the night the
spirit of the dead enters into one of the relations, who entertains the rest with the story of
some event in the dead man’s life. Among the Santâls, one of the mourners drums by the
ashes of the dead, and the spirit enters the body, when the mourner shaves, bathes, eats a
cock, and drinks some liquor.194

Among the Bengal Chakmas, a bamboo post or other portion of a dead man’s house is
burned with him, probably in order to provide him with shelter in the next world. Among
the Kâmis, before they can partake of the funeral feast, a small portion of every dish
must be placed in a leaf plate and taken out into the jungle for the spirit of the dead man,
and carefully watched until a fly or other insect settles upon it. The watcher then covers
up the plate with a slab of stone, eats his own food, and returns to tell the relatives that
the spirit has received the offering prepared for him.

The Fly as a Life Index.

The fly here represents the spirit, an idea very common in folk-lore, where an insect
often appears as the Life Index. An English lady has been known in India to stop playing
lawn-tennis because a butterfly settled in the court. In Cornwall wandering spirits take
the form of moths, ants, and weasels.195 We have the same idea in Titus Andronicus,
when Marcus, having been rebuked for killing a fly, gives as his reason,—

“It was a black, ill-favoured fly,
Like to the empress Moor; therefore I kill’d him.”

A fly is the guardian spirit of St. Michael’s well in Banff.196

Recalling the Ghost.

But while it is expedient by some or other of these devices to bar or lay the ghost, or
prevent its return by providing for its journey to, and accommodation in the next world,
some tribes have a custom of making arrangements to bring back the soul of the
deceased to the family abode, where he is worshipped as a household spirit. Some of the
Central Indian tribes catch the spirit re-embodied in a fowl or fish, some bring it home in
a pot of water or flour.197 Among the Tipperas of Bengal, when a man dies in a strange
village separated from his home by the river, they stretch a white string from bank to
bank along which the spirit is believed to return.198 This illustrates an idea common to
all folk-lore that the ghost cannot cross running water without material assistance.
Among the Hos on the evening of the cremation day certain preparations are made in
anticipation of a visit from the ghost. Some boiled rice is laid apart for it, and ashes are
sprinkled on the floor, in order that, should it come, its footsteps may be detected. On
returning they carefully scrutinize the ashes and the rice, and if there is the faintest
indication of these having been disturbed, it is attributed to the action of the spirit, and
they sit down shivering with horror and crying bitterly, as if they were by no means
pleased with the visit, though it be made at their earnest solicitation.199

Ashes.

This use of ashes as a means of identifying the ghost, constitutes in itself quite an
important chapter in folk-lore. It reminds us of the Apocryphal legend of Bel and the
Dragon. The idea probably originally arose from the respect paid to the ashes of the
house fire by primitive races, among whom the hearth and the kitchen are the home of
the household godlings.

There are numerous instances of this practice from Europe. In the Western Islands of
Scotland on Candlemas Day the mistress takes a sheaf of oats, dresses it in woman’s
apparel, and after putting it in a large basket beside which a wooden club is placed, cries
three times, “Briid is come! Briid is welcome!” Next morning they look for the
impression of Briid’s club in the ashes, which is an omen of a good harvest.200 Ash-
riddling is a custom in the northern counties. The ashes being riddled or sifted on the
hearth, if any one of the family be to die within the year, the mark of a shoe will be
impressed upon the ashes.201 In Wales they make a bonfire, and when it is extinguished
each one throws a white stone into the ashes. In the morning they search out the stones,
and if any one is found wanting, he that threw it will die within the year.202 In Manxland
the ashes are carefully swept to the open hearth and nicely flattened down by the women

before they go to bed. In the morning they look for footmarks on the hearth, and if they
find such footmarks directed to the door, it means in the course of the year a death in the
family, and if the reverse, they expect an addition to it by marriage.203 According to one
of the Italian charms, “And they were accustomed to divine sometimes with the ashes
from the sacrifices. And to this day there is a trace of it, when that which is to be divined
is written on the ashes with the finger or with the stick. Then the ashes are stirred by the
fresh breeze, and one looks for the letters which they form by being moved.”204

Amongst some Hindus, on the tenth night after the death of a person, he who fired the
funeral pyre is required to sift some ashes, near which a lamp is placed, and the whole
covered with a basket. Next morning the ashes are examined, and the ghost is supposed
to have migrated into the animal whose mark appears on the ashes.205 So, at the annual
feast of the dead, the jungle tribes of Mirzapur spread ashes on the floor, and a mark
generally like that of a chicken’s foot shows that the family ghosts have visited the
house. “On New Year’s Eve,” says Aubrey, “sift or smooth the ashes and leave it so
when you go to bed; next morning look, and if you find there the likeness of a coffin,
one will die; if a ring, one will be married.”206 In North Scotland, on the night after the
funeral, bread and water are placed in the apartment where the body lay. The dead man
was believed to return that night and partake of the food; unless this were done the
spirits could not rest in the unseen world. This probably accounts for the so-called “food
vases” and “drinking cups” found in the long barrows.207 All Hindus believe that the
ghosts of the dead return on the night of the Diwâlî or feast of lamps.

Replacing Household Vessels.

After a death all the household earthen pots are broken and replaced. It has been
suggested that this is due either to the belief that the ghost of the dead man is in some of
them, or that the custom may have some connection with the idea of providing the ghost
with utensils in the next world.208 In popular belief, however, the custom is explained by
the death pollution attaching to all the family cooking vessels, which, if of metal, are
purified with fire. The vessel is the home of the spirit: “At most Hindu funerals a water
jar is carried round the pyre, and then dashed to the ground, apparently to show that the
spirit has left its earthly home. So, the Surat Chondras set up as spirit homes large
whitewashed earthen jars laid on their sides. So, to please any spirit likely to injure a
crop, an earthen jar is set on a pole as the spirit’s house, and so at a wedding or other
ceremonies, jars, sometimes empty, sometimes filled with water, are piled as homes for
planets and other marriage gods and goddesses, that they may feel pleased and their
influence be friendly.”209

We have already met with the Kalasa or sacred jar. The same idea of the pollution of
earthen vessels prevailed among the Hebrews, when an earthen vessel remaining in a
tent in which a person died was considered impure for seven days.210

Funeral Rites in Effigy.

When a person dies at a distance from home, and it is impossible to perform the funeral
rites over the body, it is cremated in effigy. The special term for this is Kusa-putra, or
“son of the Kusa grass.” Colonel Tod gives a case of this when Râja Ummeda of Bûndi
abdicated: “An image of the prince was made, and a pyre was erected on which it was
consumed. The hair and whiskers of Ajît, his successor, were taken off and offered to the
Manes; lamentations and wailing were heard in the Queen’s apartments, and the twelve
days of mourning were held as if Ummeda had really deceased; on the expiration of
which the installation of his successor took place.”211

Ghosts Lengthening Themselves.

Ghosts, as we have already seen in the case of the Naugaza, have the power of changing
their length. In the well-known tale in the Arabian Nights the demon is shut up in a jar
under the seal of the Lord Solomon, as in one of the German tales the Devil is shut up in
a crevice in a pine tree, and the ghost of Major Weir of Edinburgh resided in his
walking-stick.212 Some of the Indian ghosts, like the Ifrît of the Arabian Nights, can
grow to the length of ten yojanas or eighty miles. In one of the Bengal tales a ghost is
identified because she can stretch out her hands several yards for a vessel.213 Some
ghosts possess the very dangerous power of entering human corpses, like the Vetâla, and
swelling to an enormous size. The Kharwârs of Mirzapur have a wild legend, which tells
how long ago an unmarried girl of the tribe died, and was being cremated. While the
relations were collecting wood for the pyre, a ghost entered the corpse, but the friends
managed to expel him. Since then great care is taken not to leave the bodies of women
unwatched. So, in the Panjâb, when a great person is cremated the bones and ashes are
carefully watched till the fourth day, to prevent a magician interfering with them. If he
has a chance, he can restore the deceased to life, and ever after retain him under his
influence. This is the origin of the custom in Great Britain of waking the dead, a practice
which “most probably originated from a silly superstition as to the danger of a corpse

being carried off by some of the agents of the invisible world, or exposed to the ominous
liberties of brute animals.”214 But in India it is considered the best course, if the corpse
cannot be immediately disposed of, to measure it carefully, and then no malignant Bhût
can occupy it. We have already met with instances of a similar idea of the mystic effect
supposed to follow on measuring or weighing grain.

Kindly Ghosts.

Most of the ghosts whom we have been as yet considering are malignant. There are,
however, others which are friendly. Such are the German Elves, the Robin Goodfellow,
Puck, Brownie and the Cauld Lad of Hilton of England, the Glashan of the Isle of Man,
the Phouka or Leprehaun of Ireland. Such, in one of his many forms, is the
Brahmadaitya, or ghost of a Brâhman who has died unmarried. In Bengal he is believed
to be more neat and less mischievous than other ghosts; the Bhûts carry him in a
palanquin, he wears wooden sandals, lives in a Banyan or Bel tree, and Sankhachûrnî is
his mistress. He appears to be about the only respectable bachelor ghost. In one of the
folk-tales a ghostly reaper of this class assists his human friend, and can cut as much of
the crop in a minute as an ordinary person can in a day.215 So, the Manx Brownie is
called the Fenodyree, and he is described as a hairy, clumsy fellow who would thresh a
whole barnful of corn in a single night for the people to whom he felt well disposed.216
This Brahmadaitya is the leader of the other ghosts in virtue of his respectable origin; he
lives in a tree, and, unlike other varieties of Bhûts, does not eat all kinds of food, but
only such as are considered ceremonially pure. He never, like common Bhûts, frightens
men, but is harmless and quiet, never plaguing benighted travellers, nor entering into the
bodies of living men or women, but if his dignity be insulted, or any one trespass on his
domains, he wrings their necks.

Tree Ghosts.

Hence in regard to trees great caution is required. A Hindu will never climb one of the
varieties of fig, the Ficus Cordifolia, except through dire necessity, and if a Brâhman is
forced to ascend the Bel tree or Aegle Marmelos for the purpose of obtaining the sacred
trefoil so largely used in Saiva worship, he only does so after offering prayers to the

gods in general, and to the Brahmadaitya in particular who may have taken up his abode
in this special tree.

These tree ghosts are, it is needless to say, very numerous. Hence most local shrines are
constructed under trees, and in one particular tree, the Bîra, the jungle tribes of Mirzapur
locate Bâgheswar, the tiger godling, one of their most dreaded deities. In the Konkan,
according to Mr. Campbell,217 the medium or Bhagat who becomes possessed is called
Jhâd, or “tree,” apparently because he is a favourite dwelling-place for spirits. In the
Dakkhin it is believed that the spirit of the pregnant woman or Churel lives in a tree, and
the Abors and Padams of East Bengal believe that spirits in trees kidnap children.218
Many of these tree spirits appear in the folk-tales. Thus, Devadatta worships a tree which
one day suddenly clave in two and a nymph appeared who introduced him inside the
tree, where was a heavenly palace of jewels, in which, reclining on a couch, appeared
Vidyatprabhâ, the maiden daughter of the king of the Yakshas; in another story the
mendicant hears inside a tree the Yaksha joking with his wife.219 So Daphne is turned
into a tree to avoid the pursuit of her lover.

The Brahmaparusha.

But there is another variety of Brâhman ghost who is much dreaded. This is the
Brahmaparusha or Brahma Râkshasa. In one of the folk-tales he appears black as soot,
with hair yellow as the lightning, looking like a thunder-cloud. He had made himself a
wreath of entrails; he wore a sacrificial cord of hair; he was gnawing the flesh of a man’s
head and drinking blood out of a skull. In another story these Brahma Râkshasas have
formidable tusks, flaming hair, and insatiable hunger. They wander about the forests
catching animals and eating them.220 Mr. Campbell tells a Marhâta legend of a master
who became a Brahmaparusha in order to teach grammar to a pupil. He haunted a house
at Benares, and the pupil went to take lessons from him. He promised to teach him the
whole science in a year on condition that he never left the house. One day the boy went
out and learned that the house was haunted, and that he was being taught by a ghost. The
boy returned and was ordered by the preceptor to take his bones to Gaya, and perform
the necessary ceremonies for the emancipation of his soul. This he did, and the uneasy
spirit of the learned man was laid.221 We have already encountered similar angry
Brâhman ghosts, such as Harshu Pânrê and Mahenî.

The Jâk and Jâknî.

The really friendly agricultural sprites are the pair known in some places as the Jâk and
Jâknî, and in others as Chordeva and Chordevî, the “thief godlings.” With the Jâk we
come on another of these curious survivals from the early mythology in a sadly degraded
form. As Varuna, the god of the firmament, has been reduced in these later days to
Barun, a petty weather godling, so the Jâk is the modern representative of the Yaksha,
who in better times was the attendant of Kuvera, the god of wealth, in which duty he was
assisted by the Guhyaka. The character of the Yaksha is not very certain. He was called
Punya-janas, “the good people,” but he sometimes appears as an imp of evil. In the folk-
tales, it must be admitted, the Yakshas have an equivocal reputation. In one story the
female, or Yakshinî, bewilders travellers at night, makes horns grow on their foreheads,
and finally devours them; in another the Yakshas have, like the Churel, feet turned the
wrong way and squinting eyes; in a third they separate the hero from the heroine because
he failed to make due offerings to them on his wedding day. On the other hand, in a
fourth tale the Yakshinî is described as possessed of heavenly beauty; she appears again
when a sacrifice is made in a cemetery to get her into the hero’s power, as a heavenly
maiden beautifully adorned, seated in a chariot of gold surrounded by lovely girls; and
lastly, a Brâhman meets some Buddhist ascetics, performs the Uposhana vow, and would
have become a god, had it not been that a wicked man compelled him by force to take
food in the evening, and so he was re-born as a Guhyaka.222

In the modern folk-lore of Kashmîr, the Yaksha has turned into the Yech or Yach, a
humorous, though powerful, sprite in the shape of a civet cat of a dark colour, with a
white cap on his head. This small high cap is one of the marks of the Irish fairies, and the
Incubones of Italy wear caps, “the symbols of their hidden, secret natures.” The feet of
the Yech are so small as to be almost invisible, and it squeaks in a feline way. It can
assume any shape, and if its white cap can be secured, it becomes the servant of the
possessor, and the white cap makes him invisible.223

In the Vishnu Purâna we read that Vishnu created the Yakshas as beings emaciate with
hunger, of hideous aspect, and with big beards, and that from their habit of crying for
food they were so named.224 By the Buddhists they were regarded as benignant spirits.
One of them acts as sort of chorus in the Meghadûta or “Cloud Messenger” of Kâlidâsa.
Yet we read of the Yaka Alawaka, who, according to the Buddhist legend, used to live in
a Banyan tree, and slay any one who approached it; while in Ceylon they are represented
as demons whom Buddha destroyed.225 In later Hinduism they are generally of fair
repute, and one of them was appointed by Indra to be the attendant of the Jaina Saint
Mahâvîra. It is curious that in Gujarât the term Yaksha is applied to Musalmâns, and in
Cutch to a much older race of northern conquerors.226

At any rate the modern Jâk and Jâknî, Chordeva and Chordevî, are eminently respectable
and kindly sprites. They are, in fact, an obvious survival of the pair of corn spirits which
inhabit the standing crop.227 The Jâk is compelled to live apart from the Jâknî in
neighbouring villages, but he is an uxorious husband, and robs his own village to supply
the wants of his consort. So, if you see a comparatively barren village, which is next to
one more productive, you may be sure that the Jâk lives in the former and the Jâknî in
the latter. The same is the character of the Chor or Chordeva and the Chornî or Chordevî
of the jungle tribes of Mirzapur.

Ghosts which Protect Cattle.

In the Hills there are various benevolent ghosts or godlings who protect cattle. Sâin, the
spirit of an old ascetic, helps the Bhotiyas to recover lost cattle, and Siddhua and
Buddhua, the ghosts of two harmless goatherds, are invoked when a goat falls ill.228 In
the same class is Nagardeo of Garhwâl, who is represented in nearly every village by a
three-pronged pike or Trisûla on a platform. When cows and buffaloes are first milked,
the milk is offered to him. It is perhaps possible that from some blameless godling of the
cow-pen, such as Nagardeo, the cultus of Pasupatinâtha, “the lord of animals,” an epithet
of Siva or Rudra, who has a stately shrine at Hardwâr, where his lingam is wreathed with
cobras, was derived. Another Hill godling of the same class is Chaumu or Baudhân, who
has a shrine in every village, which the people at the risk of offending him are supposed
to keep clean and holy. Lamps are lighted, sweetmeats and the fruits of the earth are
offered to him. When a calf dies the milk of the mother is considered unholy till the
twelfth day, when some is offered to the deity. He also recovers lost animals, if duly
propitiated, but if neglected, he brings disease on the herd.229

Another cattle godling in the Hills is Kaluva or Kalbisht, who lived on earth some two
hundred years ago. His enemies persuaded his brother-in-law to kill him. After his death
he became a benevolent spirit, and the only people he injured were the enemies who
compassed his death. His name is now a charm against wild beasts, and people who are
oppressed resort to his shrine for justice. Except in name he seems to have nothing to say
to Kâlu Kahâr, who was born of a Kahâr girl, who by magical charms compelled King
Solomon to marry her. His fetish is a stick covered with peacock’s feathers to which
offerings of food are made. He has more than a quarter of a million worshippers,
according to the last census, in the Meerut Division.

Bugaboos.

We close this long list of ghostly personages with those who are merely bugaboos to
frighten children. Such are Hawwa, probably a corruption through the Prâkrit of the
Sanskrit Bhûta, and Humma or Humu, who is said to be the ghost of the Emperor
Humayûn, who died by an untimely death. Akin perhaps to him are the Humanas of
Kumaun, who take the form of men, but cannot act as ordinary persons.230

These sprites are to the Bengâli matron what Old Scratch and Red Nose and Bloody
Bones are to English mothers,231 and when a Bengâli baby is particularly naughty its
mother threatens to send for Warren Hastings. Akin to these is Ghoghar, who represents
Ghuggu or the hooting of the owl.232 Nekî Bîbî, “the good lady;” Mâno or the cat;
Bhâkur; Bhokaswa; and Dokarkaswa, “the old man with the bag,” who carries off
naughty children, who is the Mr. Miacca of the English nursery.233

SACRED FIG TREE AND SHRINES.

1 For some of the literature of the Evil Eye see Tylor, “Early History,” 134; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern
Counties,” 187 sq.; Westropp, “Primitive Symbolism,” 58 sqq.; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 8.

2 “Natural History,” vii. 2.
3 Ibbetson, “Panjâb Ethnography,” 117.
4 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 24.

5 Campbell, “Notes,” 207.
6 On this see valuable notes by W. Cockburn in “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 14.
7 For many lists of such names see Temple, “Proper Names of Panjâbis,” 22 sqq.; “Indian Antiquary,” viii. 321 sq.;
x. 321 sq.; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i.26, 51; iii. 9.

8 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 35.
9 “Folk-lore,” iii. 85.
10 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 20.
11 “Folk-lore,” i. 273; Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 242; Lubbock, “Origin of Civilization,” 243; Farrer,
“Primitive Manners,” 119 sq.

12 “Notes,” 400.
13 Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” vii. 6.
14 “Folk-lore,” ii. 179.
15 “Bombay Gazetteer,” v. 45 sq.
16 “Folk-lore,” iv. 147.
17 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 42.

18 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 53.
19 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 7.

20 Brand, “Observations,” 753.
21 Campbell, “Notes,” 184.
22 “Notes,” 34.
23 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 5, 60, 62.
24 Reg. vs. Lalla, “Nizâmat Adâlat Reports,” 22nd September, 1853.
25 Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” ii. 281.
26 “Folk-lore,” i. 154.
27 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 386, 575; ii. 64.

28 Brand, “Observations,” 339.
29 “Primitive Manners,” 293.
30 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 181.
31 “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 264.
32 “Bombay Gazetteer,” v. 123; and for another instance, see Jarrett, “Aîn-i-Akbari,” ii. 197.
33 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales,” 108 sqq.; Wilson, “Indian Caste,” ii. 174.
34 Campbell, “Notes,” 69.

35 Brand, “Observations,” 344, 733.
36 v. 21.
37 For further examples see Campbell, “Notes,” 126 sqq.

38 Temple, “Wideawake Stories,” 83; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i.478.
39 Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” vii. 50.
40 Campbell, “Notes,” 119.
41 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 53.
42 Brand, “Observations,” 733.
43 “Anatomy of Melancholy,” 434.
44 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 146; Leland. “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 267.
45 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 213.

46 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 67.
47 Campbell, “Notes,” 49 sq.
48 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 115, 270, 272.
49 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 51.
50 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 209.
51 Brand, “Observations,” 166.
52 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 260, 279; Hartland, “Legend of Perseus,” ii. 258 sqq.
53 “Folk-lore,” iv. 358, 361.

54 Brand, loc. cit., 724.
55 Campbell, “Notes,” 131; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 439.

56 Brand, loc. cit., 668.
57 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 198.
58 Schrader, “Prehistoric Antiquities,” 163 sqq.
59 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 45; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 205.
60 “Folk-lore,” ii. 292; Rhys, “Lectures,” 446, 553; Campbell, “Popular Tales,” Introduction, lxx.; ii. 98; Hartland,
“Legend of Perseus,” i. 37.
61 Brand, “Observations,” 355.
62 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 125.
63 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 117.
64 Campbell, “Notes,” 95.
65 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 261, 321.

66 Brand, “Observations,” 58.

67 Hartland, “Legend of Perseus,” ii. 289.
68 Dalton, loc. cit., 261.
69 “Settlement Report,” 274.
70 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 29.
71 Campbell, “Notes,” 92.
72 Growse, “Râmâyana,” 99.

73 Frazer, “Totemism,” 26 sq.
74 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 157, 161, 191, 219, 251.

75 Bholanâth Chandra, “Travels of a Hindu,” i. 326; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 27, 99; Farrer, “Primitive
Manners,” 125.
76 Campbell, “Notes,” p. 134.

77 Yule, “Marco Polo,” ii. 69,99; Herodotus, v. 6; and for the Dacians, Pliny, “Natural History,” vii. 10; xxii. 2.
78 Loc. cit., ii. 218.

79 Hislop, “Papers,” ii., note; Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 292.
80 Brand, “Observations,” 399. For the Indian versions of Cinderella and her shoe, see “North Indian Notes and
Queries,” iii. 102, 121.

81 “Legend of Perseus,” i. 171.
82 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 409.

83 Campbell, “Notes,” 105.
84 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 86.
85 Brand, “Observations,” 335.
86 Campbell, “Notes,” 91, quoting Chambers, “Book of Days,” 720.
87 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 93.
88 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iv. 132; Campbell, “Notes,” 284.

89 Brand, “Observations,” 121.
90 Brand, “Observations,” 598.

91 Rhys, “Lectures.” 348; Miss Cox, “Cinderella,” 489; Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 429; Hartland, “Legend of
Perseus,” i. 12.
92 Knowles, “Folk-lore of Kashmîr,” 333.

93 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 283.
94 Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 254, note, 301.

95 “History of Indian Architecture,” 57 sqq.; Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” ii. 87; xvi. 8 sqq.
96 Monier-Williams, “Brâhmanism and Hinduism,” 203.
97 Aubrey, “Remaines,” 57.

98 “Notes,” 177.
99 Westropp, “Primitive Symbolism,” 58 sqq., 61 sqq.

100 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xviii. 473, 426.
101 “Settlement Report,” 59 sqq.
102 Tod, “Annals,” i. 383, note, 411, note.
103 Campbell, “Notes.” 251.
104 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 44.
105 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 186.

106 “Folk-lore,” ii. 75; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 110; Brand, “Observations,” 754.
107 Lady Wilde, loc. cit., 79.

108 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 337; ii. 233, 358.
109 ii. 279.
110 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 61.
111 Tod, “Annals,” i. 457; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 169.
112 Brand, “Observations,” 359.
113 Trumbull, “Blood Covenant,” 65; Lubbock, “Origin of Civilization,” 25; Tylor, “Early History,” 128 sq.; Jones,
“Finger-ring Lore,” 91 sqq.
114 Knowles, “Folk-tales,” 23.
115 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 61; ii. 80; Lane, “Arabian Nights,” i. 9.
116 Miss Frere, “Old Deccan Days,” 230, 236.
117 Knowles, “Folk-tales,” 467.

118 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 49; Tawney, loc. cit., i. 300.
119 Henderson, “Folk-lore of Northern Counties,” 155; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 145.

120 “Notes and Queries,” i. ser. iv. 500.
121 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 259.
122 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 195, 197, 199.
123 “Settlement Report,” 278, 286.
124 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 15.
125 Tod, “Annals,” i. 415; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 20.

126 Knowles, “Folk-tales of Kashmîr,” 71; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 340.

127 Risley, “Tribes and Castes.” i. 173, 315.
128 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 168.
129 Risley, loc. cit., i. 425.
130 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 576, quoting Lenormant, “Chaldean Magic and Sorcery,” 141; Ralston, “Songs
of the Russian People,” 288.

131 Campbell, “Notes,” 60.
132 Harland, “Science of Fairy Tales,” 79 sqq.
133 Growse, 146.
134 “Primitive Culture,” i. 120.
135 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” ii. 151.
136 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 48; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 146 sqq.

137 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Govinda Sâmanta,” i. 12.
138 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 66. It has been suggested that the idea arose from the Sanskrit word sasin,
meaning “hare-marked” or “the moon”; but this seems rather putting the cart before the horse. Conway,
“Demonology,” i. 125; Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” ii. 8; Aubrey, “Remaines,” 20, 109.

139 “Bombay Gazetteer,” vi. 126; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 128; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 179.
140 Tod, “Annals,” ii. 577 sq.
141 Malcolm, “Central India,” i. 253, note.
142 Tawney, loc cit., ii. 128.
143 Blochmann, “Aîn-i-Akbari,” i. 91.
144 “Annals,” i. 694.

145 Malcolm, “Central India,” i. 12, note.
146 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 137, 207; ii. 28; iii. 18; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 15, 87, 137.

147 Growse, “Mathura,” 128.
148 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 200 sq.
149 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 15.
150 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 379; “Contemporary Review,” xlviii. 108; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East
Scotland,” 206.

151 Monier-Williams, “Brâhmanism and Hinduism,” 293.
152 Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 153.
153 Gregor, loc. cit., 206; Conway, “Demonology,” i. 53; Farrer, “Primitive Manners,” 23.
154 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 107; Campbell, “Notes,” 394.

155 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 34.
156 Brand, “Observations,” 450.
157 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 219.
158 “Folk-lore,” i. 155.
159 Knowles, “Folk-tales,” 401.

160 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 260.
161 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 10; iii. 90.
162 “Folk-lore,” iv. 257.
163 “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 832; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 126; Wilson, “Essays,” ii. 292; Spencer,
“Principles of Sociology,” i. 147.

164 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 19.
165 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 83.
166 “Zoological Mythology,” i. 49.
167 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 154.
168 “Bombay Gazetteer,” viii. 159.
169 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 83.
170 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 14, 271; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 305, 546; Tylor,
“Primitive Culture,” ii. 194 sq; “Contemporary Review,” xlviii. 113; Grierson, “Behâr Peasant Life,” 388; “Folk-lore,”
ii. 26, 294.
171 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 109; “Illustrations of the History and Practices of the Thags,” 9.

172 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 75.
173 “Notes,” 214, 473.
174 “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 264.
175 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 202 sq.
176 “Folk-lore,” iv. 360.
177 “Settlement Report,” 263 sq.
178 Hislop, “Papers,” 19.
179 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 274.

180 “Principles of Sociology,” i. 161.
181 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 12; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 33 sq.
182 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 7; iii. 17; Campbell, “Notes,” 495.
183 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 196.

184 “Bombay Gazetteer,” iii. 220.

185 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 281.
186 “Legend of Perseus,” ii. 320.
187 Temple, “Wide-awake Tales,” 414; “Legends of the Panjâb,” i. Introduction xix.; “Folk-lore,” ii. 236; Miss Cox,
“Cinderella,” 504; Clouston, “Popular Tales,” i. 341; Campbell, “Santâl Folk-tales,” 16; Grimm, “Household Tales,”
ii. 382.
188 Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 157, 206; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 482; Lubbock, “Origin of
Civilization,” 37; Farrer, “Primitive Manners,” 21 sq.

189 Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” i. 49.
190 “Descriptive Ethnology,” 205.
191 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 118, 140.
192 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 118; “Folk-lore,” iv. 245.
193 “Travels in the Himâlaya,” i. 342.
194 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 126, 174, 395; ii. 71; “Bombay Gazetteer,” xiii. 187; Dalton, “Descriptive
Ethnology,” 218.
195 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 82.
196 Brand, “Observations,” 519.
197 Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 152.
198 Risley, loc. cit., ii. 326.
199 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 204 sq.
200 Dyer, “Popular Customs,” 57.

201 Ibid., 199.
202 Ibid., 398.
203 “Folk-lore,” ii. 310.
204 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 345.
205 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 35.
206 “Remaines,” 95; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 57.
207 Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 213.
208 Frazer, “Contemporary Review,” xlviii. 117; Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 195.

209 Campbell, “Notes,” 334.
210 Numbers xix. 15.
211 “Annals,” ii. 542.
212 Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 402; Clouston, “Popular Tales,” i. 380.

213 Lane, “Arabian Nights,” i. 71; Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales,” 198, 274.
214 Brand, “Observations,” 435.
215 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales of Bengal,” 198, 206; “Govinda Sâmanta,” i. 135; “North Indian Notes and Queries,”
iii. 199.

216 “Folk-lore,” ii. 286.
217 “Notes,” 165.
218 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 25.
219 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 229; ii. 116; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 476; ii. 148, 215.
220 Tawney, loc. cit., ii. 338, 511.
221 “Notes,” 146 sq.

222 Tawney, loc. cit., i. 337, 204; ii. 427, 83.
223 Temple, “Wide-awake Stories,” 317; “Indian Antiquary,” xi. 260 sq.; Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 163.

224 As if from Jaksh, “to eat;” a more probable derivation is Yaksh, “to move,” “to worship.”
225 Spencer Hardy, “Manual of Buddhism,” 269; Conway, “Demonology,” i. 151 sq.
226 “Bombay Gazetteer,” v. 133, 236.
227 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” ii. 17.
228 “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” iii. 117.
229 Ibid., ii. 833; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 56.

230 Ganga Datt, “Folk-lore,” 71.
231 Aubrey, “Remaines,” 59; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 263.

232 Ghoghar in Bombay takes the form of a native seaman or Lascar, “Bombay Gazetteer,” iv. 343.
233 Jacobs, “English Fairy Tales.”

CHAPTER II.

TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.
Sylvarum numina, Fauni
Et satyri fratres.

Ovid, Metamorp. iii. 163.

Αὐτὰρ ἐπ’ αὐτῷ
Κυάνεος ἐλέλικτο δράκων, κεφαλαὶ δὲ οἱ ἢσαν
Τρεῖς ἁμφιστρεφέες, ἑνὸς αὐχένος ἐκπεφυυῖαι.

Iliad, xi. 38–40.

The worship of trees and serpents may be conveniently considered together; not that
there is much connection between these two classes of belief, but because this course has
been followed in Mr. Ferguson’s elaborate monograph on the subject.

The worship of trees appears to be based on many converging lines of thought, which it
is not easy to disentangle. Mr. H. Spencer1 classes it as an aberrant species of ancestor
worship: “A species somewhat more disguised externally, but having the same internal
nature; and though it develops in three different directions, still these have all one
common origin. First, the toxic excitements produced by certain plants are attributed to
the agency of spirits or demons; secondly, tribes that have come out of places
characterized by particular trees or plants, unawares change the legend of emergence
from them into the legend of descent from them; thirdly, the naming of individuals after
plants becomes a source of confusion.”

According to Dr. Tylor,2 again, the worship depends upon man’s animistic theory of
nature: “Whether such a tree is looked on as inhabited by its own proper life and soul, or
as possessed like a fetish by some other spirit which has entered it or used it for a body,
is often hard to determine. The tree may be the spirits’ perch or shelter (as we have seen
in the case of the Churel or Râkshasa), or the sacred grove is assumed to be the spirits’
resort.”

Mr. Frazer has given a very careful analysis of this branch of popular religion.3 He
shows that to the savage in general the world is animate and trees are no exception to the
rule; he thinks they have souls like his own and treats them accordingly; they are
supposed to feel injuries done to them; the souls of the dead sometimes animate them;
the tree is regarded sometimes as the body, sometimes as the home of the tree spirit;
trees and tree spirits give rain and sunshine; they cause the crops to grow; the tree spirit
makes the herds to multiply and blesses women with offspring; the tree spirit is often

conceived and represented as detached from the tree and even as embodied in living men
and women.

The basis of the cultus may then perhaps be stated as follows: There is first the tree
which is regarded as embodying or representing the spirit which influences the fertility
of crops and human beings. Hence the respect paid to memorial trees, where the people
assemble, as at the village Pîpal, which is valued for its shade and beauty and its long
connection with the social life of the community. This would naturally be regarded as the
abode of some god and forms the village shrine, a convenient centre for the religious
worship of the local deities, where they reside and accept the worship and offerings of
their votaries.

It may, again, be the last survival of the primitive forest, where the dispossessed spirits
of the jungle find their final and only resting-place. Such secluded groves form the only
and perhaps the earliest shrine of many primitive races.

Again, an allegorical meaning would naturally be attached to various trees. It is invested
with a mystic power owing to the mysterious waving of its leaves and branches, the
result of supernatural agency; and this would account for the weird sounds of the forest
at night.

Many trees are evergreen, and thus enjoy eternal life. Every tree is a sort of emblem of
life, reproducing itself in some uncanny fashion with each recurring spring.

It has some mystic connection with the three worlds—

Quantum vertice ad auras
Aetherias tantum radice in Tartara tendit.

Like Yggdrassil, it connects the world of man with the world of gods, and men may, like
Jack of the Beanstalk, climb by its aid to heaven. In this connection it may be noted that
many Indian tribes bury their dead in trees. The Khasiyas of East Bengal lay the body in
the hollow trunk of a tree. The Nâgas dispose of their dead in the same way, or hang
them in coffins to the branches. The Mâriya Gonds tie the corpse to a tree and burn it.
The Malers lay the corpse of a priest, whose ghost often gives trouble, under a tree and
cover it with leaves.4 Similar customs prevail among primitive races in many parts of the
world.

The tree embodies in itself many utilities necessary to human life, and many qualities
which menace its existence. Its wood is the source of fire, itself a fetish. Its fruits, juices,
flowers or bark are sources of food or possess intoxicating or poisonous attributes, which
are naturally connected with demoniacal influences. Trees often develop into curious or
uncanny forms, which compel fear or adoration. Thus according to the old ritual5 trees

which have been struck by lightning, or knocked down by inundation, or which have
fallen in the direction of the south, or which grew on a burning ground or consecrated
site, or at the confluence of large rivers, or by the roadside; those which have withered
tops, or an entanglement of heavy creepers upon them, or are the receptacles of many
honey-combs or birds’ nests, are reckoned unfit for the fabrication of bedsteads, as they
are inauspicious and sure to bring disease and death. The step from such beliefs to the
worship of any curious and remarkable tree is easy.

Hence the belief that the planting of a grove is a work of religious merit, which is so
strongly felt by Hindus, and the idea that the grove has special religious associations,
shown by the marriage of its trees to the well, and other rites of the same kind. In the
Konkan it is very generally believed that barrenness is caused by uneasy spirits which
wander about, and that if a home be made for the spirit by planting trees, it will go and
reside there and the curse of barrenness will be removed.6

Though this branch of the subject has been pushed to quite an unreasonable length in
some recent books,7 there may be some association of tree worship with the phallic
cultus, such as is found in the Asherah or “groves” of the Hebrews, the European
Maypole, and so on. This has been suggested as an explanation of the honour paid by the
Gypsy race in Germany to the fir tree, the birch and the hawthorn, and of the veneration
of the Welsh Gypsies to the fasciated vegetable growth known to them as the Broado
Koro.8 In the same way an attempt has been made to connect the Bel tree with the Saiva
worship of the Lingam and the lotus with the Yonî. But this part of the subject has been
involved in so much crude speculation that any analogies of this kind, however
tempting, must be accepted with the utmost caution.

Further than this, it may be reasonably suspected that this cultus rests to some extent on
a basis of totemism. Some of the evidence in support of this view will be discussed
elsewhere, but it is, on the analogy of the various modes in which the Brâhmanical
pantheon has been recruited, not improbable that trees and plants, like the Tulasî and the
Pîpal, may have been originally tribal totems imported into Brâhmanism from some
aboriginal or other foreign source.

On the whole it is tolerably certain that there is more in tree worship than can be
accounted for either by Mr. Ferguson’s theory that the worship sprang from a perception
of the utility or beauty of trees, or by Mr. Spencer’s theory of nicknames. It is sufficient
to say that both fail to account for the worship of insignificant and comparatively useless
shrubs, weeds, or grasses.

Tree worship holds an important part in the popular ritual and folk-lore. This is shown
by the prejudice against cutting trees. The jungle tribes are very averse to cutting certain
trees, particularly those which are regarded as sacred. If a Kharwâr, except at the time of

the annual feast, cuts his tribal tree, the Karama, he loses wealth and life, and none of
these tribes will cut the large Sâl trees which are fixed by the Baiga as the abode of the
forest godling. This feeling prevails very strongly among the Maghs of Bengal. Nothing
but positive orders and the presence of Europeans would induce them to trespass on
many hill-tops, which they regarded as occupied by the tree demons. With the
Europeans, however, they would advance fearlessly, and did not hesitate to fell trees, the
blame of such sacrilege being always laid on the strangers. On felling any large tree, one
of the party was always prepared with a green sprig, which he ran and placed in the
centre of the stump when the tree fell, as a propitiation to the spirit which had been
displaced so roughly, pleading at the same time the orders of the strangers for the work.
In clearing one spot an orderly had to take the dâh or cleaver and fell the first tree
himself before a Magh would make a stroke, and was considered to bear all the odium of
the work with the disturbed spirits till the arrival of the Europeans relieved him of the
burden.9

In folk-lore we have many magic trees. We have the Kalpataru or Kalpadruma, also
known as Kalpavriksha, or Manoratha dayaka, the tree which grows in Swarga or the
paradise of Indra and grants all desires. There is, again, the Pârijâta, which was produced
at the churning of the ocean, and appropriated by Indra, from whom it was recovered by
Krishna. The tree in the Meghadûta bears clothes, trinkets, and wine, which is like the
Juniper tree of the German tale, which grants a woman a son. Many such trees appear in
the Indian folk-tales. The King Jimutaketu had a tree in his house which came down
from his ancestors, and was known as “the giver of desires”; the generous Induprabha
craved a boon from Indra, and became a wishing tree in his own city; and the faithful
minister of Yasaketu sees a wave rise out of the sea and then a wishing tree appears,
“adorned with boughs glittering with gold, embellished with sprays of coral, bearing
lovely fruits and flowers of jewels. And he beheld on its trunk a maiden, alluring on
account of her wonderful beauty, reclining on a gem-bestudded couch.”10 So, in the story
of Devadatta, the tree is cloven and a heavenly nymph appears. We have trees which,
like those in the Odyssey, bear fruit and flowers at the same time, and in the garden of
the Asura maiden “the trees were ever producing flowers and fruits, for all seasons were
present there at the same time.”11

We have many trees, again, which are produced in miraculous ways. In one of the
modern tales the tiger collects the bones of his friend, the cow, and from her ashes spring
two bamboos, which when cut give blood, and are found to be two boys of exquisite
grace and beauty.12 So in Grimm’s tale of “One Eye, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes,” the
tree grows from the buried entrails of the goat. In another of Somadeva’s stories the
heroine drops a tear on the Jambu flower and a fruit grew, within which a maiden was
produced.13 The incident of the tree which grows on the mother’s grave and protects her
helpless children is the common property of folk-lore. Again, we have the heavenly fruit

which was given by the grateful monkey, and freed him who ate it from old age and
disease, like the tree in Aelian which makes an old man become younger and younger
until he reaches the antenatal stage of non-existence.14

We have many instances of trees which talk. The mango tree shows the hero how the
magic bird is to be cut out of it; the heroine is blessed and aided by the plantain tree,
cotton tree, and sweet basil; she is rewarded by a plum and fig tree for services rendered
to them.15 In one of the Kashmîr tales the tree informs the hero of the safety of his wife.
So, in Grimm’s tale of the “Lucky Spinner,” the tree speaks when the man is about to cut
it down.16

In one of the stories, as a link between tree and serpent worship, the great palace of the
snake king is situated under a solitary Asoka tree in the Vindhyan forest. In the same
collection we meet continually instances of tree worship. The Brâhman Somadatta
worships a great Asvattha, or fig tree, by walking round it so as to keep it on his right,
bowing and making an oblation; Mrigankadatta takes refuge in a tree sacred to Ganesa;
and Naravâhanadatta comes to a sandal tree surrounded with a platform made of
precious jewels, up which he climbs by means of ladders and adores it.17

We have a long series of legends by which certain famous trees are supposed to have
been produced from the tooth twig of some saint. The famous hawthorn of Glastonbury
was supposed to be sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, who having fixed it in
the ground on Christmas Day, it took root immediately, put forth leaves, and the next day
was covered with milk-white blossoms.18 Traditions of the Dantadhâvana or tooth-brush
tree of Buddha still exist at Gonda; another at Ludhiâna is attributed to Abdul Qâdir
Jilâni; there is a Buddha tree at Saketa, and the great Banyan tree at Broach was
similarly produced by Kabîr. So, the Santâls believe that good men turn into fruit-trees.19

Next come the numerous sacred groves scattered all over the country. These, as we have
seen, are very often regarded as a survival from the primeval jungle, where the forest
spirits have taken refuge. The idea is common both to the Aryan as well as to the
Drâvidian races, from the latter of whom it was possibly derived.

Thus, among the jungle races we find that there are many groves, known as Sarna, in
which the Cheros and Kharwârs offer triennial sacrifices of a buffalo or other animal.
The Kisâns have sacred groves, called Sâ. The Mundâri Kols keep “a fragment of the
original forest, the trees in which have been for ages carefully protected, left when the
clearance was first made, lest the sylvan gods of the place, disgusted at the wholesale
felling of the trees which protected them, should abandon the locality. Even now if a tree
is destroyed in the sacred grove, the gods evince their displeasure by withholding
seasonable rain.” This idea of the influence of cutting trees on weather has been
illustrated by Mr. Frazer from the usages of other races.20 So, among the Khândhs, “that

timber may never be wanting, in case of accidents from fire or from enemies, a
considerable grove, generally of Sâl, is uniformly dedicated by every village to the forest
god, whose favour is ever and anon sought by the sacrifice of birds, hogs, and sheep,
with the usual accompaniments of rice and an addled egg. The consecrated grove is
religiously preserved, the trees being occasionally pruned, but not a twig cut for use
without the formal consent of the village and the formal propitiation of the god.”21
Among the Kols, in these groves the tutelary deities of the village are supposed to
sojourn when attending to the wants of their votaries.22 In the Central Provinces the
Badiyas worship the manes of their ancestors in a grove of Sâj trees.23 In Berâr the wood
of the Pathrot forests is believed to be dedicated to a neighbouring temple, and no one
will cut or buy it; and in other places in the same province the sacred groves are so
carefully preserved, that during the annual festivals held in them it is the custom to
collect and burn solemnly all dead and fallen branches and trees.24

Among the higher races the same feelings attach to the holy groves of Mathura, each of
which has appropriated one of the legends of the Krishna myth. Thus, there is a
particularly sacred grove at Bhadanwâra, and it is believed that any one violating the
sanctity of the place by telling a lie within its precincts will be stricken with leprosy. In
another at Hasanpur Bara the trees are under the protection of the curse of a Faqîr, and in
many places people object to having toddy collected from the palm trees, because it
necessitates cutting their necks.25 In the Northern Hills the Sâl and bamboos at Barmdeo
are never cut, as they are sacred to the local Devî.26 In Kulu, “near the village were a
number of cypresses, much decayed, and many quite dead. Some of my people had
begun to strip off their dry branches for fuel, when one of the conductors of our caravan
came to me in great agitation, and implored me to command them to desist. The trees, he
said, were sacred to the deities of the elements, who would be sure to revenge any injury
done to them by visiting the neighbourhood with heavy and untimely snow.”27

In a village in Lucknow, noticeable among the trees is a “single mango tree, of fine
growth and comely shape. It is the survivor of some old grove, which the owner, through
straitened circumstances, has reluctantly cut down. He called it Jâk, or Sakhiya, the
witness of the place where the old grove stood.”28 Jâk is, as we have seen, the Corn
spirit. The preservation of these little patches of the primeval jungle, with a view to
conciliate the sylvan spirits of the place, is exactly analogous to what is known in
Scotland as the “Gudeman’s Croft,” “Cloutie’s Croft,” or “Gudeman’s Field.” Often in
Northern India little patches are left uncultivated in the corners of fields as a refuge for
the spirits, as in North Scotland many farmers leave a corner of the field untilled, and
say it is for the “Aul Man,” or the Devil.29

Some trees are, again, considered to be mystically connected with the fortunes of people
and places. Thus, the Chilbil tree at Gonda, which, like others which have already been

mentioned, sprouted from the tooth-twig of a saint, was supposed to be mysteriously
connected with the fate of the last of the Gonda Râjas. His kingdom was to last until the
day a monkey sat on the tree, and this, it is said, happened on the morning when the
Mutiny broke out which ended in the ruin of the dynasty.30 In the same way the moving
wood of Dunsinane was fateful to the fortunes of Macbeth.

We have already referred to some of the regular tree sprites, like the Churel, Râkshasa,
and Bansaptî Mâ. They are, like Kliddo, the North British sprite, small and delicate at
first, but rapidly shooting into the clouds, while everything it overshadows is thrown into
confusion.31

How sprites come to inhabit trees is well shown in an instance given from Bombay by
Mr. Campbell. “In the Dakkhin, when a man is worried by a spirit, he gives it a tree to
live in. The patient, or one of his relations, goes to a seer and brings the seer to his
house, frankincense is burnt, and the sick man’s spirit comes into the seer’s body. The
people ask the spirit in the seer why the man is sick. He says, ‘The ghost of the man you
killed has come back, and is troubling you.’ Then they say, ‘What is to be done?’ The
spirit says, ‘Put him in a place in his or in your land.’ The people say, ‘How can we put
him?’ The spirit says, ‘Take a cock, five cocoanuts, rice, and red lead, and fill a bamboo
basket with them next Sunday evening, and by waving the basket round the head of the
patient, take the ghost out of the patient.’ When Sunday afternoon comes they call the
exorcist. If the ghost has not haunted the sick man for a week, it is held that the man was
worried by that ghost, who is now content with the proposed arrangement. If the patient
is still sick, it is held that it cannot be that ghost, but it must be another ghost, perhaps a
god who troubles him.

“The seer is again called, and his familiar spirit comes into him. They set the sick man
opposite him, and the seer throws rice on the sick man, and the ghost comes into the
patient’s body and begins to speak. The seer asks him, ‘Are you going or not?’ The ghost
replies, ‘I will go if you give me a cock, a fowl, a cocoanut, red lead, and rice.’ They
then bring the articles and show them to the spirit. The spirit sees the articles, and says,
‘Where is the cocoanut?’ or, ‘Where is the rice?’ They add what he says, and ask, ‘Is it
right?’ ‘Yes, it is right,’ replies the spirit. ‘If we drive you out of Bâpu, will you come
out?’ ask the people. ‘I will come out,’ replies the ghost. The people then say, ‘Will you
never come back?’ ‘I will never return,’ replies the ghost. ‘If you ever return,’ says the
seer’s spirit, ‘I will put you in a tanner’s well, sink you, and ruin you.’ ‘I will,’ says the
spirit, ‘never come back, if you take these things to the Pîpal tree in my field. You must
never hurt the Pîpal. If you hurt the Pîpal, I will come and worry you.’

“Then the friends of the patient make the cooked rice in a ball, and work a little hollow
in the top of the ball. They sprinkle the ball with red powder, and in the hollow put a
piece of a plantain leaf, and on the leaf put oil, and a wick, which they light. Then the

Gâdi, or flesh-eating priest, brings the goat in front of the sick man, sprinkles the goat’s
head with red powder and flowers, and says to the spirit, ‘This is for you; take it.’ He
then passes three fowls three times from the head to the foot of the sick man, and then
from the head lowers all the other articles. The Gâdi, or Mhâr, and some friends of the
patient start for the place named by the spirit. When the party leave, the sick man is
taken into the house and set close to the threshold. They put water on his eyes, and
filling a pot with water, throw it outside where the articles were, and inside and outside
scatter cowdung ashes, saying, ‘If you come in you will have the curse of Râma and
Lakshmana.’ When the Gâdi and the party reach their destination, the Gâdi tells the party
to bring a stone the size of a cocoanut. When the stone is brought, the Gâdi washes it and
puts it to the root of the tree and sets about it small stones. On the tree and on the middle
stone he puts red lead, red powder, and frankincense. The people then tell the spirit to
stay there, and promise to give him a cocoanut every year if he does them no harm. They
then kill the goat and the fowls, and, letting the blood fall in front of the stone, offer the
heart and liver to the spirit, and then return home.”32

From ceremonies like these, in which a malignant spirit is entombed in a tree and its
surrounding stones, the transition to the general belief in tree sprites is easy. The use of
the various articles to scare spirits will be understood from what has been already said on
that subject.

The Karam Tree.

Passing on to trees which are considered specially sacred, we find a good example in the
Karam (Neuclea parvifolia), which is revered by the Kharwârs, Mânjhis, and some of
the other allied Drâvidian races of the Vindhyan and Kaimûr ranges.

In Shâhâbâd, their great festival is the worship of the sacred tree. “Commenced early in
the bright portion of the month Bhâdon (August—September), it continues for fifteen
days. It marks the gladness with which people wind up their agricultural operations all
over the world. The festivities begin with a fast during the day. In the evening the young
men of the village only proceed in a gay circle to the forest. A leafy branch of the Karam
is selected, cut, and daubed with red lead and butter. Brought in due state, it is planted in
the yard in front of the house, and is decorated with wreaths of wild flowers, such as
autumn yields to the Hill men with a bountiful hand. The homely ritual of the Kharwâr
then follows, and is finished with the offering of corn and molasses. The worship over,
the head of the village community serves the men with a suitable feast. But the great
rejoicing of the season is reserved for a later hour. After dinner the men and women

appear in their gala dress, and range themselves in two opposite rows. The Mândar, or
national drum of the aborigines, is then struck, and the dance commences with a
movement forward, until the men and women draw close. Once face to face, a gradual
movement towards the right is commenced, and the men and women advance in a slow
but merry circle, which takes about an hour to describe.

“Under the influence of the example of the Hindus, the practice of a national dance in
which women take a prominent part is already on the decline. When indulged in, it is
done with an amount of privacy, closed to the public, but open to the members of the
race only. It is difficult, however, to explain why the Karam tree should be so greatly
adored by the Kharwârs. It is an insignificant tree, with small leaves, which hardly
affords shelter or shade, and possesses no title to be considered superior to others in its
native forest. Nor in the religious belief of the Kharwârs have we been able to trace any
classic tale connected with the growth of the Karam grove, similar to that of the peaceful
olive of old, or aromatic laurel. One important, though the last incident of the Karam
worship is the appearance of the demon to the Kharwâr village men. Generally at the
conclusion of the dance the demon takes possession of a Kharwâr, who commences to
talk, tremble, and jump, and ultimately climbs up the branch of the Karam and begins to
eat the leaves. Consultation about the fortunes of the year then takes place, and when the
demon has foretold them the festivities are concluded.”33

This account omits two important points which enable us to explain the meaning of the
rite. The first is that when the festivities are over the branch of the Karam tree is taken
and thrown into a stream or tank. This can hardly, on the analogy of similar practices to
which reference has been already made, be anything but a charm to produce seasonable
rain. Another is that sprigs of barley grown in a special way, as at the Upper India
festival of the Jayî, which will be discussed later on, are offered to the tree. This must be
an invocation to the deity of the tree to prosper the growth of the autumn rice, which is
just at this time being planted out.

I have seen the Karama danced by the Mânjhis, a Drâvidian tribe in Mirzapur, closely
allied to the Kharwârs. The people there seem to affect no secrecy about it, and are quite
ready to come and dance before Europeans for a small gratuity. The men expect to
receive a little native liquor between the acts, but the ladies of the ballet will accept only
a light supper of coarse sugar. The troupe consists of about a dozen men and the same
number of women. The sexes stand in rows opposite to each other, the women clinging
together, each with her arms clasped round her neighbour’s waist. One man carrying the
sacred Mândar drum, beats it and leads the ballet, hopping about in a curious way on one
leg alternately. The two lines advance and retreat, the women bowing low all the time,
with their heads bending towards the ground, and joining occasionally in the refrain.
Most of the songs are apparently modern, bearing on the adventures of Râma,
Lakshmana, and Sîtâ; some are love songs, many of which are, as might have been

expected, rude and indecent. The whole scene is a curious picture of genuine aboriginal
life. At the regular autumn festival the ceremony degenerates into regular saturnalia, and
is, if common rumour be trusted, accompanied by an absolute abandonment of decency
and self-respect which culminates in the most unrestrained debauchery.

The modern explanation of the dance is embodied in a folk-tale which turns on the
verbal confusion between Karam, the name of the tree, and the Sanskrit Karma, meaning
“good works.” It is, of course, comparatively modern, and quite useless as a means for
ascertaining the real basis of the custom, which is probably a means of propitiating the
tree god to grant favourable weather.

The Fig Tree.

Among the sacred trees the various varieties of the fig hold a conspicuous place. Many
ideas have probably united in securing reverence for them. Thus the Banyan with its
numerous stems may fitly be regarded as the home of gods or spirits. Others are valued
as a source of food, or because they possess juices valued as drink or medicine.

Such is the Umbar, the Udambara of the Sanskrit writers, which is known as Kshîra
Vriksha or “milk tree,” and Hemadugha or “golden juiced,” the Ficus glomerata of
botanists, from the succulent roots of which water can be found in times of drought. The
juice has, in popular belief, many valuable properties. A decoction of it is useful for bile,
melancholy, and fainting; it prevents abortion and increases the mother’s milk.34
According to the old ritual, of its wood is made the seat of the father god Vivasvat,
which is specially worshipped at the close of the Soma sacrifice; the throne on which
Soma is placed is made of it, and so is the staff given by the Adhvaryu to the sacrificer at
the initiation rite, and the staff of the Vaisya student.

So with the Pîpal (Ficus religiosa), which is connected with old temples, as it forces its
roots into the crumbling masonry, grows to a great age, and, like the poplar, moves its
leaves at the slightest breath of wind. The English tradition about the aspen is that since
its wood was used to make the Cross it ever trembles with shame. The Pippala or
Asvattha is said by some to be the abode of Brahma, and is sometimes invested with the
sacred thread by the regular Upanâyana rite. Others say that in it abide Brahma, Vishnu,
and Siva, but specially Vishnu in his incarnation as Krishna. Others, again, connect it
with Bâsdeo or Vasudeva, the father of Krishna.

The Vata or Nyagrodha (Ficus Indica) was, according to the ancient ritual, possessed of
many virtues, and the king was directed to drink its juice instead of that of the Soma.35

The famous Allahâbâd fig tree is mentioned in the Râmâyana and in the Uttara Râma
Charitra. Râma, Sîtâ and Lakshmana are said to have rested beneath its branches.
Another legend tells how the Rishi Mârkandeya had the presumption to ask Nârâyana to
show him a specimen of his delusive power. The god in answer to his prayer drowned
the whole world in a sudden flood, and only the Akshaya Vata or imperishable Banyan
tree raised its head above the waters, with a little child seated on its topmost bough, that
put out its head and saved the terrified saint just as he was on the point of drowning. The
Buddhist pilgrim, Hwen Thsang, says that in his time before the principal room of the
temple there was a tree with wide-spreading branches, which was said to be the dwelling
of a man-eating demon. The tree was surrounded with human bones, the remains of
pilgrims who had offered themselves at the temple, a custom which had been observed
from time immemorial. General Cunningham identifies this tree with the Akshaya Vata,
which is still an object of worship. The well-known Banyan tree of Ceylon is said to be
descended from it.36

It was under the Bodhi tree at Gaya that the Buddha obtained enlightenment. The great
sacred Banyan tree of the Himâlaya is said to have reached from Badarinâth to Nand
Prayâg, a distance of eighty miles.37 In Bombay women worship the Banyan tree on the
fifteenth of the month of Jeth in honour of Savitrî, the pious wife of Satyavan, who when
her husband was cutting a Banyan tree was struck by the axe and killed. Yama appeared
and claimed her husband, but at last he was overcome by the devotion of Savitrî and
restored her husband to her.38

Of the Gûlar (Ficus glomerata) it is believed that on the night of the Divâlî the gods
assemble to pluck its flowers; hence no one has ever seen the tree in blossom. It is
unlucky to grow a Gûlar tree near the house, as it causes the death of sons in the family.

High-caste Hindu women worship the Pîpal tree in the form of Vasudeva on the
Amâvasya or fifteenth day of the month, when it falls on Monday. They pour water at its
roots, smear the trunk with red lead and ground sandalwood, and walk round it one
hundred and eight times in the course of the sun, putting at each circuit a copper coin, a
sweetmeat, or a Brâhmanical cord at the root, all of which are the perquisite of beggars.
An old woman then recites the tale of the Râja Nikunjali and his queen Satyavratî, who
won her husband by her devotion to the sacred tree. Hence devotion to it is supposed to
promote wedded happiness.

In Râjputâna the Pîpal and Banyan are worshipped by women on the 29th day of
Baisâkh (April–May) to preserve them from widowhood.39 The Pîpal is invoked at the
rite of investiture with the sacred thread at marriages and at the foundation-laying of
houses. Vows are made under its shade for the boon of male offspring, and pious women
veil their faces when they pass it. Many, as they revolve round it, twist a string of soft
cotton round the trunk. The vessel of water for the comfort of the departing soul on its

way to the land of the dead is hung from its branches, and beneath it are placed the rough
stones which form the shrine of the village godling. Its wood is used in parts of the
Aranî, or sacred fire-drill, and for the spoons with which butter is poured on the holy
fire. When its branches are attacked by the lac insect, a branch on which they have
settled is taken to the Ganges at Allahâbâd and consigned to the Ganges. This, it is
believed, saves the tree from further injury.

The tree should be touched only on Sunday, when Lakshmî, the goddess of wealth,
abides in it; on every other day of the week, poverty and misfortune take up their
quarters in it. The son of a deceased parent should pour three hundred and sixty brass
vessels of water round its root to ensure the repose of the dead man. Hindus on Sunday
after bathing pour a vessel of water at its root and walk round it four times. Milk and
sugar are sometimes mixed with the water to intensify the charm. When the new moon
falls on Monday, pious Hindus walk one hundred and eight times round it and wind
cotton threads about the trunk. In rich Hindu families small silver models of the tree
answer the same purpose. When a statement is made on oath, the witness takes one of
the leaves in his hand and invokes the gods above him to crush him, as he crushes the
leaf, if he is guilty of falsehood.

Though Sir Monier-Williams gives currency to it, it may be suspected that the story of
the Banyas who objected to Pîpal trees being planted in their bâzâr, as they could not
carry on their roguery under the shade of the holy tree, has been invented for the
delectation of the confiding European tourist. As a matter of fact you will often see
merchants plant the tree in the immediate neighbourhood of their shops. It is needless to
say that this regard for the Pîpal extends through Africa, New Zealand, Australia,
Sumatra, and Java.40

The Sâl.

The Sâl or Sâkhu is also a holy tree. It is held in much respect by the jungle races, who
consider it the abode of spirits and erect their shrines under its shade. The Bâgdis and
Bauris of Bengal are married in an arbour made of the branches of the Sâl (Shorea
robusta) after they have been first married to a Mahua tree (Bassia latifolia). Patches of
this tree are often reserved as fragments of the primitive jungle, of which it must have
constituted an important part.

The Shîsham.

The Shîsham or Sîson, the Sinsapa of the Sanskrit writers, is in the tales of Somadeva
the haunt of the Vetâla.41

The Jand.

In the Panjâb the Jand tree (Prosopis spicigera) is very generally reverenced, more
especially in those parts where it forms a chief feature in the larger flora of the great arid
grazing tracts. It is commonly selected to mark the abode or shelter the shrine of some
deity. It is to it that, as a rule, rags are dedicated as offerings, and it is employed in the
marriage ceremonies of many tribes. Most Khatris and Brâhmans perform rites to it,
especially at festivals connected with domestic occurrences. A custom prevails in some
families of never putting home-made clothes upon the children, but of begging them
from friends. This is, as we have already seen, done with the view of avoiding the Evil
Eye. The ceremony of putting on these clothes is usually performed when the child is
three years of age. It is taken to the Jand tree, from which a bough is cut with a sickle
and planted at the root of the tree as a propitiation of the indwelling spirit. The Swâstika
symbol is made before it with the rice, flour, and sugar brought as an offering to the tree.
Nine threads from the Mauli, or string used by women to tie up their back hair, are then
taken out and cut into lengths, one of which is tied round the tree with the knot
characteristic of Siva or Krishna, and another round a piece of dried molasses, which is
placed on the Swâstika. Mantras or spells are repeated and the sugar and rice are
distributed among the women and children; for no male adult, except the officiating
Brâhman, attends the ceremony. The Brâhman then dresses the child in the new clothes,
on which he impresses the mark of his hand in saffron, and girds the child’s loins with a
hair string, on which is tied the bag or purse containing the Brâhman’s fee. The hair
string has in front a triangular piece of red silk, which, as we have already noticed, is one
of the most familiar forms of amulet intended to repel the influence of evil spirits.
Similarly at marriages, they perform the ceremony of cutting off and burning a small
branch of the tree, and offerings are made to it by the relations of persons suffering from
small-pox.42

The Aonla.

The Aonla (Emblica officinalis) is another sacred tree. It is considered propitious and
chaste, and is worshipped in the month of Kârttik (December) by Brâhmans being fed
under it, hair strings (mauli) being tied round it, and seven circumambulations made in
the course of the sun. The eleventh of the month Phâlgun (February) is sacred to it, and
on this occasion libations are poured at the foot of the tree, a string of red or yellow
colour is bound round the trunk, prayers are offered to it for the fruitfulness of women,
animals, and crops, and the ceremony concludes with a reverential inclination to the
sacred tree.43

The Mahua.

The Mahua (Bassia latifolia), which so admirably combines beauty with utility, and is
one of the main sources whence the jungle tribes derive their food and intoxicants, is
held in the highest respect by the people of the Central Indian Highlands. It is the
marriage tree of the Kurmis, Lohârs, Mahilis, Mundas, and Santâls of Bengal. Many of
the Drâvidian races, such as the Bhuiyas, adore it, and a branch is placed in the hands of
the bride and bridegroom during the marriage ceremony. They also revolve round a
bough of the tree planted in the ground by the Baiga or aboriginal priest. Some of the
semi-Hinduized Bengal Gonds have the remarkable custom of tying the corpses of adult
males by a cord to the Mahua tree, in an upright position, previous to burial. It is also the
rule with them that all adult males go to the forest and clear a space round an Âsan tree
(Terminalia alata tormentosa), where they make an altar and present offerings to the
tribal godling, Bara Deo, after which they have a general picnic.44

The Cotton Tree.

The Salmali or Semal (Bombax heptaphyllum) is likewise sacred, an idea perhaps
derived from its weird appearance and the value of its fibre, which was largely used by
the primitive races of the jungle. It gave its name to one of the seven Dvîpas or great
divisions of the known continent, and to a special hell, in which the wicked are tortured
with the Kûta Salmali, or thorny rod of this tree. In the folk-tales a hollow cotton tree is
the refuge of the heroine.45 The posts of the marriage pavilion and stake round which the
bride and bridegroom revolve are very commonly made of its wood among the Kols and
allied Drâvidian tribes, as are also the parrot totem emblems used at marriages by the

Kharwârs and many menial castes. The Bânsphors, a branch of the great Dom race in the
North-Western Provinces, fix up a branch of the Gûlar and Semal in the marriage shed.
“Among the wild tribes it is considered the favourite seat of gods still more terrible than
those of the Pîpal, because their superintendence is confined to the neighbourhood, and
having their attention less occupied, they can venture to make a more minute scrutiny
into the conduct of the people immediately around them. The Pîpal is occupied by one or
two of the Hindus triad, the gods of creation, preservation, and destruction, who have the
affairs of the universe to look after, but the cotton and other trees are occupied by some
minor deities, who are vested with a local superintendence over the affairs of a district,
or perhaps of a single village.”46

The Nîm.

The Nimba or Nîm (Azidirachta Indica) is sacred in connection with the worship of the
godlings of disease, who are supposed to reside in it. In particular it is occupied by Sîtalâ
and her six sisters. Hence during the season when epidemics prevail, from the seventh
day of the waning moon of Chait to the same date in Asârh, that is during the hot
weather, women bathe, dress themselves in fresh clothes, and offer rice, sandal-wood,
flowers, and sometimes a burnt offering with incense at the root of the tree.

The Nîm tree is also connected with snake worship, as its leaves repel snakes. In this it
resembles the Yggdrassil of Europe, the roots of which were half destroyed by the
serpents which nestled among them. The leaves and wood of the ash tree, the modern
successor of the mystic tree of Teutonic mythology, are still regarded throughout all
Northern Europe as a powerful protective from all manner of snakes and evil worms.47
In Cornwall no kind of snake is ever found near the ashen tree, and a branch of it will
prevent a snake from coming near a person.48 Nîm leaves are, it may be noted, useless as
a snake scarer unless they are fresh.49

The leaves are also used throughout Northern India as a means of avoiding the death
pollution, or rather as a mode of driving off the spirit which accompanies the mourners
from the cremation ground. Hence after the funeral they chew the leaves and some water
is sprinkled over them with a branch of the tree. “So great is the power of the Nîm over
spirits and spirit disease, that in Bombay, when a woman is delivered of a child, Nîm
leaves and cow’s urine are, as a rule, kept at the entrance of the lying-in room, in order
that the child and its mother may not be affected by an evil spirit, and on their New
Year’s Day it is considered essential for every Hindu to worship the Nîm tree and to eat
its leaves mixed with pepper and sugar, that he may not suffer from any sickness or
disease during the year. In practice very few worship the tree, but its leaves are generally

eaten by most of them. Among the Chitpâwan Brâhmans, a pot filled with cow’s urine is
set at the door of the lying-in room with a Nîm branch in it, and anyone coming in must
dip the branch in the urine and with it sprinkle his feet. Among Govardhan Brâhmans of
Pûna, when a child is born, Nîm leaves are hung at the front and back doors of the house.
In Ahmadnagar, when a person is bitten by a snake, he is taken to Bhairoba’s temple,
crushed Nîm leaves mixed with chillies are given him to eat, and Nîm leaves waved
round his head. Among the Nâmdeo Shimpis of Ahmadnagar each of the mourners
carries from the pyre a twig of the Nîm tree, and the Kanphatas of Cutch get the cartilage
of their ears slit, and in the slit a Nîm stick is stuck, the wound being cured by a dressing
of Nîm oil.”50

We have already found this tree connected with Sun worship, as in the case of the
Nimbârak Vaishnavas, as well as with that of Sîtalâ, the goddess of small-pox. Among
the wilder tribes it is also revered. The Jogis, a criminal tribe in Madras, reverence it and
brand their dogs with a representation of the tree.51 The Banjâras, or wandering carriers,
use a branch of the tree as a test of continence. The jealous husband throws it on the
ground and says, “If thou be a true woman, lift that Nîm branch.” The Doms, or vagrant
sweepers of the Eastern District of the North-Western Provinces, hold the Nîm tree
sacred to Kâlî or Sîtalâ, and the Kurmis dedicate it to Kâlî Bhavânî, and worship this tree
and the Pîpal under which the image of Devî is placed.52

The Cocoanut.

The cocoanut is considered one of the most sacred fruits, and is called Srîphala, or the
fruit of Srî, the goddess of prosperity. It is the symbol of fertility, and all through Upper
India is kept on shrines and presented by the priests to women who desire children. One
of the main causes of the respect paid to it seems to be its resemblance to a human head,
and hence it is often used as a type of an actual human sacrifice. It is also revered for its
uses as food and a source of intoxicating liquor. But it is not a native of Northern India,
and is naturally more revered in its home along the western coast. In Gujarât and Kanara
it represents the house spirit, and is worshipped as a family god. The Konkan Kunbis put
up and worship a cocoanut for each of their relations who dies, and before beginning to
cut the rice, break a cocoanut and distribute it among the reapers. The Prabhus, at every
place where three roads meet, wave a cocoanut round the face of the bridegroom, and
break it into pieces to repel evil influences. The Musalmâns of the Dakkhin cut a
cocoanut and lime into pieces and throw them over the head of the bridegroom to scare
evil spirits. Among some classes of ascetics the skull is broken at the time of cremation
with a cocoanut in order to allow the ghost to escape. In Western India, at the close of

the rains, cocoanuts are thrown in to pacify the sea. Its place as a substitute for a human
sacrifice in Northern India seems to have been taken by the pumpkin, which is used in
much the same way.

The Mimosa.

The Khair, or Mimosa (Acacia catechu) seems to owe most of the estimation in which it
is held to its use in producing the sacred fire. It forms, on account of its hardness, the
base of the Aranî or sacred fire-drill, and in it the wedge of the softer Pîpal wood works
and fire is produced by friction. The Yûpa or sacrificial post to which the victim was tied
for the sacrifice was often made of this wood. In the great horse sacrifice of the
Râmâyana, twenty-one of these posts were erected, six made of Vilva (Agle marmelos),
six of Khadira or Acacia, six of Palâsa (Butea frondosa), one of Udumbara (Ficus
glomerata), Sleshmataka (Cordia myxa), and one of Devadru, the Deodâr pine tree.

Of the Khair tree Bishop Heber thus writes in his Journal:53 “As I returned home I
passed a fine tree of the Mimosa, with leaves at a little distance so much resembling
those of the mountain ash, that I was for a moment deceived, and asked if it did not bear
fruit. He answered, ‘No; but it was a very noble tree, being called the “Imperial tree,” for
its excellent qualities.’ That it slept all night, and was alive all day, withdrawing its
leaves if any one attempted to touch them. Above all, however, it was useful as a
preservative against magic; a sprig worn in the turban, or suspended over the bed, was a
perfect security against all spells, Evil Eye, etc., insomuch that the most formidable
wizard would not, if he could help it, approach its shade. One indeed, they said, who was
very renowned for his power (like Lorrinite of Kehama) of killing plants and drying up
their sap with a look, had come to this very tree and gazed upon it intently; ‘but,’ said the
old man, who told me this with an air of triumph, ‘look as he might, he could do the tree
no harm,’ a fact of which I made no question. I was amused and surprised to find the
superstition, which in England and Scotland attaches to the rowan tree, here applied to a
tree of nearly similar form.”

This superstition regarding the rowan tree and the elder is familiar in European folk-lore.
In Ireland the roots of the elder and those of an apple tree which bears red apples, boiled
together and drunk fasting, expel evil spirits. In connection with this idea that the
mimosa sleeps at night, pious Hindus prefer not to eat betel leaves after sunset, as
catechu forms part of the ingredients with which they are prepared.

The Plantain.

The plantain is also sacred, probably on account of the value of its fruit. The leaves are
hung on the marriage booth, and a branch is placed near the pole or sacred fire round
which the bride and bridegroom revolve. In Madras, when premature delivery takes
place, the child is laid on a plantain leaf smeared with oil, the leaf is changed daily, and
the baby is thus treated for the period which is less than the normal time of delivery. In
Bengal, in consecrating an image of Durgâ, a plantain tree is brought in and bathed. It is
clothed as a woman with Bel apples representing the breasts; nine sorts of leaves
smeared with red paint are hung round the breast and it is worshipped.54 The leaves are
also used as a remedy for wounds and ulcers, a practice which prevailed in the time of
Shakespeare. In “Romeo and Juliet” Benvolio says:—

“Take thou some new infection to thine eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.”

To which Romeo answers:—

“Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.”
“For what, I pray thee?”
“For your broken skin.”

In the folk-tales the deserted wife sweeps the ground round a plantain tree and it gives
her a blessing.55

The Pomegranate.

So with the pomegranate, which among the Pârsis of Bombay is held in high respect. Its
twigs were used to make the sacred broom, its seeds, in order to scare evil spirits, were
thrown over the child when it was girt with the sacred thread, and its juice was squeezed
into the mouth of the dying.56 In its fruit Anâr Shâhzâdî, the Princess Pomegranate,
commonly lies hidden. But it is in Upper India considered unlucky to have such a tree in
the house, as it is envious and cannot bear that any one should be lovelier than itself.57

The Tamarind.

The Orâons of Bengal revere the tamarind and bury their dead under its shade.58 One
special rite among the Drâvidian races is the Imlî ghontnâ or “the grinding of the
tamarind,” when the mother of the bridegroom grinds on the family curry stone some
pods of the tamarind. The tree was a special favourite with the early Musalmân
conquerors, and the finest specimens of it will be found in their cemeteries and near their
original settlements.

The Siras.

In the Panjâb the leaves of the Siras (Acacia sirisa) are a powerful charm. In many
villages in Upper India they will be seen hung up on the rope crossing the village cattle
path, when epidemics prevail among men or animals.59 In this case the effect of the
charm is enhanced by adding to them a tile covered with some hocus-pocus formula,
written by a Faqîr, and rude models of a pair of wooden sandals, a mud rake, a plough-
share and other agricultural implements which are considered effectual to scare the
demon which brings the plague.

The Mango.

The Mango is used in much the same way. It is, as we shall see, used in making the
aspersion at rural ceremonies. The leaves are hung up at marriages in garlands on the
house door, and on the shed in which the rite is performed, and after the wedding is over
these are carefully consigned to running water by the bride and bridegroom. It is also
used as a charm. Before you see a flower on a mango tree shut your eyes and make some
one lead you to a tree in flower. Rub the flowers into your hands, and you thus acquire
the power of curing scorpion stings by moving your hand over the place. But this power
lasts only for one year, and must be renewed when the season of flowers again returns.

The Tulasî.

The Tulasî or holy basil (Ocymum sanctum) is closely connected with the worship of
Vishnu. At the last census over eleven hundred persons in the North-Western Provinces
recorded themselves as worshippers of the plant. It is known in Sanskrit as Haripriya, or
“the beloved of Vishnu,” and Bhûtaghni, or “destroyer of demons.” It seems to owe the
favour with which it is regarded to its aromatic and healing properties. Vishnu, so runs
the legend, was fascinated with the beauty of Vrindâ, the wife of Jâlandhara, to redeem
him from whose enthralment, the gods applied to Lakshmî, Gaurî, and Swadhâ. Each
gave them seed to sow where Vishnu was enchanted. The seeds given by the deities
sprang up as the Dhâtrî or Emblica Myrobalan, the Mâlatî or jasmine, and the Tulasî, or
basil, and appearing in female form they attracted the admiration of the deity and saved
him from the wiles of Vrindâ.60

Another legend comes from Bombay.61 Tulasî was daughter of the Râja Dharmadhwaja,
and by her devotions gained the favour of Vishnu, but she married the demon
Sankhachûda, who by the virtue of his wife overcame the gods. They appealed to
Vishnu, but he could not help them, as the demon was his votary. At last it was resolved
that he should personate her husband and gain her love. When Tulasî was aware of the
deception she was about to curse him, but he pacified her by promising to marry her and
make her name immortal. He added that those women who married an image of him to
the Tulasî on the eleventh day of the month Kârttik would prosper.

The Tulasî is also connected with Sîtâ and Rukminî, and the prayer to her is: “I adore
that Tulasî, in whose roots are all the places of pilgrimage, in whose centre are all the
deities, and in whose upper branches are all the Vedas.” The plant is specially
worshipped by women after bathing, and more particularly at the full moon of Kârttik, if
the bathing be in the Ganges. The chief ceremony is, however, the marriage of the infant
Krishna to the plant, which is carried out by pious people, often at a considerable cost, in
accordance with the standard ritual.

The Palâsa.

The Palâsa or Dhâk is sacred, partly on account of its use in producing the sacred fire,
and partly because its orange blossoms are used to dye the coloured dust and water
thrown about at the Holî festival. It is supposed to be in some way connected with the
Soma, and by one account was produced from the feather of the falcon imbued with the
Soma. Its trifoliate leaves represent the trident, or the three great gods, Brahma, Vishnu,
and Siva, or birth, life, and death. The leaves are used to form the platters employed at
various feasts and religious rites; the wood in the Yûpa, or sacrificial pole, and in the
funeral pyre.

In one respect it resembles the rowan, which is also a sacred tree, but why this is so has
been much debated. “Possibly the inaccessible rocks on which the tree is not
unfrequently found to grow and the conspicuous colour of its berries may have counted
for something, but this falls decidedly short of a solution of the question. One kind of
answer that would meet the case, provided it be countenanced by facts, may be briefly
indicated, namely, that the berries of the rowan were used in some early period in the
brewing of an intoxicating drink, or better still, of the first intoxicating drink known to
the Teuto-Aryan Celts.”62 The connection between the Palâsa and the Soma perhaps
indicates that this may have been the case. It was again a Vedic custom to drive the cows
from their calves by striking them with a rod of a Palâsa tree. In Yorkshire it used to be
the custom for “farmers to have whip-stocks of rowan tree wood, and it was held that
thus supplied, they were safe against having their draught fixed, or their horses made
restive by a witch. If ever a draught came to a standstill, then the nearest witchwood tree
was resorted to, and a stick cut to flog the horses on with, to the discomfiture of the
malevolent witch who had caused the stoppage.” In some parts of Scotland the milkmaid
carries a switch of the magical rowan to expel the demon which sometimes enters the
cow; and in Germany, striking the cow with this magical wand is believed to render her
fertile.63

The Bel.

The Bel (Aegle marmelos) is specially dedicated to Siva, because it has three leaflets in
the leaf, and because of its medicinal value. Siva is called Bilvadanda, “he with a staff of
the Bel wood,” and its leaves are used in his service. Its leaves laid on the Lingam cool
and refresh the heated deity. The wood is one of those used for the sacrificial post. Its
fruit is called Srîphala, because it is supposed to have been produced from the milk of
the goddess Srî.

The Bamboo.

The bamboo is sacred on account of its manifold uses and because among the jungle
races fire is produced by the friction of two strips of bamboo. Besides this it contains a
sort of manna, known as Bânslochan or Tabashîr, which is in high repute as a medicine.
The flowering of the bamboo is generally regarded as a sure sign of famine. The bamboo
often appears in the folk-tales. Thus in one of the tales of Somadeva,64 “they asked
Sumeru about the origin of the bow, and he said: ‘Here is a great and glorious wood of
bamboo canes; whatever bamboos are cut from it and thrown into this lake, become
great and wonderful bows; and those bows have been acquired by several of the gods,
and by Asuras and Gandharvas and distinguished Vidyadhâras.’” In one of the Santâl
tales,65 the bamboo grows from the grave of the murdered girl, and remonstrates when
the Jogi goes to cut it, but out of a piece he finally makes a flute of wondrous sweetness.
Among the jungle races the bamboo often is used to make the poles of the marriage
shed, while the central post is made of the wood of the holy Siddh tree, the Hardwickia
binata.

In Gujarât,66 the Turis, to keep off evil spirits, lay two slips of bamboo in the lying-in
room. The Prabhus of Pûna at their marriages put bamboo baskets on the heads of the
bride, bridegroom, and guests. The Mhârs and Mângs make the married pair stand in
bamboo baskets. The Muâsis of Bengal make the wedded pair revolve round a bamboo
post. The Birhors worship Darha in the form of a split bamboo; the Kachâris and Gâros
worship a bamboo planted in the ground; the Râjmahâl hill-man worships three bamboos
with streamers, as Chaunda Gusâîn.67 The use of the bamboo decorated with a streamer
as a perch for the deity is common at all low-caste shrines in Northern India.

The Sandal.

The Sandal, again, in the form of powder or paste is very largely used in all Hindu rites,
and in making the marks characteristic of sect or caste. “In Bombay, every evening, the
Pârsis burn sandal chips in their houses, as the smell of sandal is supposed to drive away
evil spirits, and the Pûna Ghadsis or musicians say that they are sprung from sandal
wood, because it is one of their tribal guardians.68”

The Birch.

The Bhûrja, a species of birch, is also sacred. It, too, is supposed to drive away evil
spirits. Its bark, now called Bhojpatra, is used for writing charms, and for other mystic
purposes. When a corpse is burnt by low-caste people, when a person dies at the hands
of an executioner, when he dies on a bed, or when he is drowned and his body cannot be
found, a rite known as Palâsvidhi is performed. An effigy of the deceased is made, in
which twigs of the Palâsa tree represent the bones, a cocoanut or Bel fruit the head,
pearls or cowry shells the eyes, and a piece of birch bark or the skin of a deer the cuticle.
It is then filled up with Urad pulse instead of flesh and blood, and a presiding priest
recites a spell to bring life into the image, which is symbolized by putting a lighted lamp
close to the head. When the light goes out, life is believed to be extinct and the funeral
rites are performed in the regular way, the only exception being that the period of
impurity lasts for three, instead of ten days.

Other Sacred Trees.

The number of these trees and plants which scare evil spirits or are invested with other
mystic qualities is infinite. We may close the catalogue with the Babûl or Kîkar (Acacia
Arabica), which when cut pours out a reddish juice. One of these trees, when the
Musalmâns tried to cut it near a shrine at Lahore, is said to have poured out drops of
blood as a warning. But on the whole it is an unlucky tree, and the resort of evil spirits.
If you throw water for thirteen days successively on a Babûl tree, you will get the evil
spirits which inhabit it into your power. They tell of a man who did this near Sahâranpur,
who when taken to his cremation, no sooner was the light set to his pyre than he got up
and walked home, and is alive to this day. His neighbours naturally look on his
proceedings with a certain degree of suspicion. The ghost of a man burnt with this wood
will not rest quietly, and any one who rests on a bed made of it is afflicted with evil
dreams. An old servant of mine once solemnly remonstrated against the use of such a
bed by his master. Such a bed, he remarked, should be only used for a clergyman guest,
who by virtue of his profession is naturally protected against such uncanny visitations.

Tree Marriages.

We now come to discuss the curious custom of marriages to trees. This prevails widely
throughout Northern India. Thus, in some parts of Kângra, if a betrothed but as yet
unmarried girl can succeed in performing the marriage ceremony with the object of her
choice round a fire made in the jungle with certain wild plants, her betrothal is annulled,
and this informal marriage is recognized.69 In the Panjâb a Hindu cannot be legally
married a third time. So, if he wishes to take a third wife, he is married to a Babûl tree
(Acacia Arabica), or to the Akh plant (Asclepia gigantea), first, so that the wife he
subsequently marries is counted as his fourth, and the evil consequences of marrying a
third time are thus avoided.70 In Bengal, writes Dr. Buchanan,71 “Premature marriage is
considered so necessary to Hindu ideas of prosperity, that even the unfortunate children
who are brought up for prostitution are married with all due ceremony to a plantain tree,
before the age when they would be defiled by remaining single.” In the North-Western
Provinces, among some of the higher classes of Brâhmans, if a man happens to lose one
or two wives and is anxious to marry a third, the ceremony of his third marriage is first
gone through with an Akh plant. The family priest takes the intending bridegroom to the
fields where there are Akh plants and repeats the marriage formula. This is known as
Arka Vivâh, or Akh marriage, and it is believed that the plant itself dies soon after being
married. In Oudh, it is very unlucky to marry a couple if the ruling stars of the youth
form a more powerful combination than those of the female. The way to get out of the
difficulty is to marry the girl first to a Pîpal tree. In the Panjâb, rich people who have no
children marry a Brâhman to a Tulasî plant. The pseudo-father of the bride treats the
Brâhman ever afterwards as his son-in-law, which, it is needless to say, is a very good
thing for the Brâhman.72 If the birth of a child does not follow this ceremony, they have
good reason for apprehending that a messenger from Yama, the god of death, will harass
them on their way to the spirit world.

In Bombay, among the Kudva Kunbis of Gujarât, when there are certain difficulties in
the marriage of a girl, she is married to a mango or some other fruit tree. Mr. Campbell73
accounts for this on the principle that a spirit fears trees, especially fruit trees. Among
another branch of the same tribe, when a girl is marriageable and a bridegroom cannot
be found, the practice is to substitute a bunch of flowers, and the marriage ceremony
proceeds. Next day, by which time the flowers have begun to fade, they are thrown into a
well, and the bride of yesterday is considered a widow. As a widow can marry at any
time without social discredit, the parents find a husband for her at their leisure.74

So in Bengal, the Rautiyas before the wedding go through the form of marriage to a
mango tree.75 Among the Mundâri Kols, “the bride and bridegroom are well anointed
with turmeric, and wedded, not to each other, but the bride to a Mahua tree, and the
groom to a mango, or both to mango trees. They are made to touch the tree with red lead,
and then to clasp it, and they are tied to it.”76 Among the Kurmîs, the bridegroom on the
wedding morning is first married to a mango tree. He embraces the tree, is for a time tied
to it in a peculiar manner with a thread, and he daubs it with red lead. Then the thread is
removed from the tree, and is used to attach some of the leaves to the bridegroom’s
wrist. The bride is similarly wedded to a Mahua tree.77

Similarly in the Himâlayas, if anyone desires to marry a third time, whether his other
wives are alive or not, he is married to the Akh plant. He builds an altar near the plant, or
brings a branch home and plants it near the altar. The regular marriage ceremony is then
performed, and a thread is wound ten times round the plant with the recitation of
appropriate verses. Four days the plant remains where it was fixed, and on the fifth day
the celebrant is entitled to commence the marriage ceremony with his third wife.
Similarly, a person is married to an earthen jar, when from some conjunction of the
planets the omens are unfavourable, or when, from some bodily or mental defect, no one
will marry the boy or girl. The usual ceremonies are gone through, and the neck of the
boy or girl is connected by a string with the neck of the vessel, and water is sprinkled
over them with a brush made of five leaves.78

In Nepâl every Newâr girl is, while a child, married to a Bel fruit, which, after the
ceremony, is thrown into some sacred river. When she arrives at puberty a husband is
selected for her, but should the marriage prove unpleasant, she can divorce herself by the
simple process of placing a betel-nut under her husband’s pillow, and walking off.
Widows are allowed to re-marry; in fact, a Newâr woman is never a widow, as the Bel
fruit to which she first married is supposed to be always in existence.79

Before considering a possible explanation of this group of customs, we may note other
instances of pseudo-marriages. We have, in the first place, instances of the marriage of
girls to a god. “In the Gurgâon District, in the Rewâri Tahsîl, at the village of Bâs Doda,
a fair is held on the 26th of Chait and the two following days. I was told that formerly
girls of the Dhînwar class used to be married to the god at these festivals, and that they
always died soon afterwards, but that of late years the practice has been discontinued.”80

Again, we have some traces of the allied custom of compulsory religious prostitution. It
is said that Santâl girls are required to submit to compulsory prostitution once in their
lives at Telkûpi Ghât. “It is said that the custom originally arose from the killing of a girl
by her parents for incontinence; since when, girls have been permitted to do as they
please, and what was once permissive has become compulsory.”81 There is no reference
to this in Colonel Dalton’s account of the Santâls, and Mr. Beglar’s authority is not quite

satisfactory. But on the analogy of similar rites in Babylon, as described by Herodotus, it
is very likely that such a custom once prevailed. There is some evidence that similar
customs once prevailed at the temple of Jaggannâth and other Indian shrines.

We have, again, folk-tale references to the same custom in a tradition of the
Vallabhachârya sect of the daughter of a banker, who, by her devotion to him, won the
love of the god Krishna in the form of an image. Finally the deity revealed himself, and
she went with him to Brindaban and remained with her divine husband till he carried her
off to the heaven of Vishnu. This, however, is hardly perhaps more than an example of
the mystic union of the god with his worshippers, which forms such a large part of the
Vaishnava hagiology, and is familiar in the tales of Krishna and the Gopîs.

There is, again, among children in the neighbourhood of Sahâranpur, a game which may
be a survival of some more primitive rite. At the Tîj festival, which occurs in the rainy
season, girls dressed in their best go to a tank near the city. After dropping offerings into
the water in honour of Khwâja Khizr, they divide into two parties, each of which selects
a leader, one of whom is known as the bride and the other a bridegroom. The latter is
decorated with a paper crown decked with tinsel. The clothes of the pair are knotted
together, and they are made to walk round a Tulasî plant or a Pîpal tree on the banks of
the tank, in a mock form of the marriage ritual. Meanwhile each party chaffs the other,
saying, “Your bride (or bridegroom) is one-eyed.” They return home with merriment of
this kind, and when they come to the house the knot tied in the garments of the pair is
unloosed.

We have, again, instances of the marriages of, or to animals. In parts of the Panjâb, if a
man have lost two or three wives in succession, he gets a woman to catch a bird and
adopt it as her daughter. He then marries the bird, and immediately pays over the bride-
gift to the woman that adopted his bird-bride, which he divorces. After this he can get
himself married to another woman, and she will probably live.82

So, there have been many instances of Râjas marrying animals with the customary rites.
Some years ago, one of the Gâekwârs of Baroda spent a large sum in marrying some
favourite pigeons, and a Râja of Nadiya spent a lâkh of rupees in marrying two monkeys.

Lastly, there are numerous survivals of what can hardly be anything else but tree
marriage. Among the Bâwariyas, a vagrant tribe in Sirsa, the bride and bridegroom go
outside the village to a Jand tree, which, as we have seen already, is regarded as sacred,
move round it seven times, and then cut off a branch with an axe.83 In a Bhîl marriage,
the pair walk round the Salyâra tree, which is placed in the marriage booth, twelve
times.84 We have a similar custom among most of the menial tribes. The Kols make the
marriage booth of nine bamboo poles, with a bamboo or a branch of the Siddh tree as the
central post. As the bridegroom smears the parting of the bride’s hair with red lead, he

makes a daub of the same substance on the tree. Much the same custom prevails among
all the inferior castes. The worship of trees at marriage prevails in Madras, where some
Râjas worship at their marriages the fire and the Vahni tree, a twig of which is used as an
arrow at the hunting feast at the Navarâtri or Dasahra.85

On the whole, it seems probable that this custom of pseudo-marriages may be based on
various principles. The popular explanation of the custom is, as we have seen, that it is
intended to avoid the curse of widowhood, the tree-husband being always alive; the
woman, even if her husband die, can never be a widow, nor can the parents be liable to
the contempt which, according to popular Hindu belief, awaits those who keep a girl
who has reached maturity unmarried. But when we find the same custom prevailing
among races who habitually permit pre-nuptial infidelity, and among whom every
marriageable widow is either subjected to the levirate or made over to a stranger, it
seems obvious that this cannot be the original explanation of the practice.

Again, according to Mr. Frazer, who has collected numerous examples of the custom, “it
is difficult to separate from totemism the custom observed by totem clans in Bengal of
marrying the bride and bridegroom to trees before they are married to each other.”86

DEVÎ AND THE COBRA.

But the idea that, as we have seen in one of the cases of tree marriages, the tree itself is
supposed to die soon after the ceremony, seems to point to the fact that the marriage may
be intended to divert to the tree some evil influence, which would otherwise attach to the
wedded pair. We have an instance of a somewhat analogous practice from Bombay.
“Among the Konkan Kunbis, when a woman is in labour and cannot get a speedy
delivery, some gold ornament from her hair is taken to a Rûî plant (the Dhâk—
Callotropis gigantea of Northern India), and after digging at its roots, one of the roots is
taken out, and the ornament is buried in its stead. The root is then brought home and put
in the hair of the woman in labour. It is supposed that by this means the woman gets

speedy delivery. As soon as she is delivered of a child, the root is taken from her hair and
brought back to the Rûî plant, and after digging at its root the ornament is taken out and
the root placed in its former place.”87 The idea seems to be that the evil influence
hindering parturition is thus transferred to the plant. And this may be one explanation of
the practice where, as we have seen, a man is married to a bird, or so on, when his
former wives have died. The bird acts as the scape-animal, and carries the disease spirit
away with it.

Lastly, we have seen instances in which the wedded pair are made to clasp the tree or are
tied to it in some special way. There are numerous cases in which women, in order to
procure offspring, clasp an idol, like that of Hanumân and one of the other guardian
deities. The clasping of the tree at marriage may possibly be a sort of sympathetic magic
to bring on the pair the fertility and power of reproduction, of which vegetable life is the
well-known symbol. We have the same principle of the wedding of the grove to its well,
and every Hindu who goes to the expense of making a tank, does not drink of its waters
until he has married the tank to a plantain or some other tree growing on its banks.

Tree and Serpent Worship.

In the story of the king and his son, told in the Baitâl Pachîsi, the king supplicates the
sacred tree to give him a son. The request is granted, and the king then implores the tree
to make his people happy; the result was that poor wretches, hitherto living in the
woods, came forth and concerted measures to seize his kingdom. Rather than shed
blood, the old king, his queen, and his son retired to a lofty mountain. There the son
finds something white lying under a mimosa tree. On inquiry he learnt that it is a heap of
serpents’ bones left there by Garuda, who comes daily to feed on serpents. On hearing
this, the king goes towards a temple, but is arrested by the cry of a woman, who says:
“My son to-day will be eaten by Garuda.” She and her people were, in fact, serpents in
human shape. The king was moved to pity, and as in the famous legend of Buddha and
the tigress, he offered to expose himself to Garuda in the room of her son. This is
discovered; Garuda releases the king, and at his request re-animates the serpents to
whom the bones belong.88

Here we have an example of the combination of tree and serpent worship, and it would
be easy to adduce more instances, as has been done by Mr. Ferguson and other writers of
his school. But in dealing with this phase of belief much caution is required. As Dr. Tylor
observes: “Serpent-worship unfortunately fell years ago into the hands of speculative
writers, who mixed it up with occult philosophies, Druidical mysteries, and that

portentous nonsense called the Arkite symbolism, till now sober students hear the very
name of ophiolatry with a shiver.”89

It is almost needless to say that snake-worship prevails largely in Northern India. The
last census showed in the North-Western Provinces over twenty-five thousand Nâga
worshippers; one hundred and twenty-three persons recorded themselves as votaries of
Gûga, the snake god. There are also a certain number who worship Sânp Deotâ, or the
snake godling, and Ahîran, another deity of the same class, who is worshipped in
Sultânpur by daily offerings of red lead, water, and rice. Sokha, said to be the ghost of a
Brâhman killed by a snake, has nearly fourteen thousand worshippers. In the Panjâb,
again, there are over thirty-five thousand special votaries of the snake godlings, of which
the great majority worship Gûga.

That the cultus of the snake has been derived from aboriginal beliefs appears tolerably
certain. The Hindus of Vedic times looked on the serpent with fear and dislike. It was
impersonated as Ahi or Vritra, the snake demon which brings darkness and drives away
the kindly rain. The regular snake-worship, as we now find it, was obviously of a later
date.

It does not appear difficult to disentangle the ideas on which snake-worship is based. To
begin with, the snake is dreaded and revered on account of the mysterious fear which is
associated with it, its stealthy habits, its sinuous motion, the cold fixity of its gaze, the
protrusion of its forked tongue, the suddenness and deadliness of its attacks. It would be
particularly dreaded by women, whose habits of walking barefoot in fields in the early
dawn, and groping in dark corners of their huts, render them specially exposed to its
malice. The chief basis of the cultus would then be fear, as in the case of the tiger and
other beasts of prey.

It would soon be discovered that there were various harmless snakes which would, as
house-hunters, come to be identified with the ancestral ghosts as the protectors of houses
and goods. The power of controlling and taming the more venomous snakes would then
be discovered, and the snake-charmer would come to be regarded as the wisest of
mankind, as a wizard, and finally as a priest. We have thus three aspects under which the
snake is worshipped by many savage races—as a dreaded enemy, as the protector of
home and treasure, as the accompaniment and attribute of wisdom. The village temple
would be often in early times a storehouse of treasure, and the snake, respected as its
guardian, would finally, as in Kashmîr, be installed there as a god.

Next, we have the early connection between the serpent and the powers of nature, the
cloud and the rain, as appears in the familiar Vedic legend of Indra and the Dragon Ahi,
and Seshanâga, the great world serpent, which appears in so many of the primitive
mythologies.

The serpent would again receive respect as the emblem of life; his shape would, as in
many forms of primitive ornament, be associated with the ring, as a symbol of eternity;
he is excessively long-lived, and periodically renews his life.

He has, further, as in the Saiva cultus, become associated with phallicism, and with the
sexual powers, as in the Adam legend. “The serpent round the neck of Siva denotes the
endless cycle of recurring years, and a second necklace of skulls about his person, with
numerous other serpents, symbolizes the eternal revolution of ages and the successive
dissolution and regeneration of the races of mankind.”90

Lastly, the cultus may have a totemistic basis. As Strabo describes the Ophiogeneis or
serpent races of Phrygia actually retaining physical affinity with the snakes to whom
they were to be believed to be allied, the Cheros of the eastern districts of the North-
Western Provinces and the Bais Râjputs of Oudh profess to be descended from the Great
Serpent. Gautama Buddha himself is said to have been of serpent lineage.

SIVA AND THE COBRA.

But the great serpent race was that of the Nâgas, to whom much ill-considered argument
and crude speculation have been devoted. According to one theory they were Skythic
emigrants from Central Asia, but whether antecedent or subsequent to the so-called
Aryan inroad is disputed. They seem to have been accustomed to use the serpent as a
national symbol, and hence became identified with the snake. Some of the myths seem
to imply that they suffered persecution at the hands of the Brâhmans, such as the tale of
the burning of the Khândava forest, the opening scenes of the Mahâbhârata, and the
exploits of the youthful Krishna. They are, again, associated with Buddhism on
monuments like those of Ajanta, and another theory would make them out to be the
Dasyus, or aboriginal races of Upper India, who were the first to adopt Buddhism and
were exterminated in the Brâhmanical revival. Little, in fact, is known of them, save that
they may have been early worshippers of the snake, may have embraced Buddhism, and
may have introduced the worship into India from some northern home.91 But Mr.
Ferguson’s theory that snake-worship was of purely Turanian origin is, to say the least,
very doubtful, and his belief that Saivism is antagonistic to snake-worship, and that
Vaishnavism, which he regards as a modification of Buddhism, encourages it, is opposed
by the numerous examples of the connection of the serpent with the Lingam.

Seshanâga.

Below the seven Pâtâlas, according to the Vishnu Purâna, is Vishnu incarnated as
Seshanâga, and known by the name Ananta, or “Endless.” He has a thousand heads
adorned with the mystical Swâstika, and in each head a jewel to give light. He is
accompanied by Varunî, the goddess of wine (who has nowadays been replaced by
Madain, who is venerated by Chamârs in Oudh), supports the world on his head, holds in
one hand a pestle and in the other a plough, which, as we shall see later on, connects him
with agriculture.

Snake Shrines.

In various places snakes are provided with special shrines. Thus, in Garhwâl, Seshanâga
is honoured at Pandukeswar; Bhekal Nâg at Ratgâon; Sangal Nâg at Talor; Bânpa Nâg at
Margâon, and many others of the same kind.92 In fact, all along the Himâlaya the
worship extensively prevails. Kailang Nâg is the chief Himâlayan godling, and as the

Vedic Ahi controls the clouds, so he gives fine weather. A victim is killed, and one of his
disciples, after drinking the blood, gets into a state of afflatus. Finally, he gasps out that
the sacrifice is accepted, and falls down in a state of exhaustion. The old shrine to the
serpent deity at Kângra, known as Baghsu Nâg, has been converted into a Saiva temple
under the name of Baghsunâtha, another instance of the adoption of strange deities into
orthodox Hinduism.

“The Nâg is specially the guardian of cattle and water-springs. According to the legend,
the valleys of Kashmîr and Nepâl were in some remote period the abode of Nâgas. The
milk of a cow is usually presented to a Nâg, and goats and sheep are usually sacrificed to
him, as to other godlings. So far as I am aware, the only place in the Himâlaya where the
living snake is worshipped is at the foot of the Rotung pass.”93 The Nepâl serpent king is
Karkotaka, who dwelt in the lake Nâgavâsa, and Siva in the form of Karkotaka Nâga has
a temple at Barha Kotra in the Bânda District.

In one of the Nepâl temples is a representation of a Nâg Kanyâ, a serpent maiden or
mermaid, sitting on a tortoise.94 This serpent maiden constantly appears in Indian folk-
lore. Such is Vijayâvatî, daughter of Gandamâlin, one of the snake kings, who is of
surpassing loveliness, rescues and marries the hero. She is represented by the Melusina
of European folk-lore, and one of her kindred survived to our own day, to appear as Elsie
Venner in one of the finest novels of this generation.95

Curious as it may appear, all the Kashmîr temples were originally surrounded by
artificial tanks, constructed in order to propitiate the Nâgas. Ancient stones covered with
figures of snakes are occasionally to be seen worked up into the walls of modern
buildings. Abul Fazl says that in his time there were nearly seven hundred figures of
snake gods existing in Kashmîr. The snake, it is needless to say, is a common emblem in
temples all over the country. An ancient temple at Bilâspur in the Central Provinces has,
as its only image, that of the cobra.96

Snake-worship appears constantly in history and legend. There is a passage in Plutarch
from which it appears to have been the custom to sacrifice an old woman (previously
condemned to death for some crime) to the serpent gods by burying her alive on the
banks of the Indus. Ktesias also mentions the worship of snakes, and in the Buddhist
legends snakes are often referred to as the guardian deities of towns.97

In the folk-tales, Naravâhanadatta worships snakes in a grove sacred to them, and
Bhîmabhatta goes to the temple of the chief of the snakes, which he finds full of long
wreaths of flowers in form like serpents, and a great lake sacred to Vâsuki, studded with
red lotuses, which seemed like clouds of smoke from the fume of snake poison.98

A curious legend tells how Kadrû and Vinatâ were the two wives of the patriarch
Kasyapa, the former being the mother of the serpent race, and the other of the birds. A
discussion arose between them regarding the colour of the tails of the horses of the sun,
Vinatâ insisting that they were white and Kadrû that they were black. It was agreed that
whichever of the two was proved to be wrong should serve the other. So Kadrû contrived
to fasten one of her black snakes on to the back of one of the horses, and Vinatâ,
thinking this was the real tail, accepted defeat; so the snakes rule the birds for ever.

Nahusha, according to one version of his legend, aspired to the love of the queen of
India when her husband concealed himself because he had killed a Brâhman. A thousand
Rishis bore the litter of the presumptuous sinner through the air, and when in his pride he
touched Agastya Muni with his foot, the offended sage cursed him, and he became a
serpent. Finally he was pardoned by the intercession of Yudhisthira, threw off his serpent
form, and was raised to the heaven of the gods.

Near Jait, in the Mathura District, is a tank with the broken statue of a hooded serpent in
it. Once upon a time a Râja married a princess from a distant land, and wished to bring
her home with him. She refused to come until he announced his lineage. Her husband
told her that she would regret her curiosity, but she persisted. At last he took her to the
river and warned her again, but in vain. Then he told her not to be alarmed at anything
she saw, adding that if she did so, she would lose him. Saying this, he began to descend
slowly into the water, all the time trying to dissuade her, till the water rose to his neck.
Then, after a last attempt to induce her to abandon her curiosity, he dived and reappeared
in the form of a Nâga, and raising his head over the water, he said, “This is my lineage. I
am a Nâgavansi.” His wife could not suppress an exclamation of grief, on which the
Nâga was turned into stone, where he lies to this day. Here we have another instance of
the consequences of the violation of the curiosity taboo.99

The town of Nigohan in the Lucknow District is said to have been founded by Raja
Nâhuk of the Chandravansi line of kings. Near it is a large tank, in which the legend says
that the Râja, transformed into a snake for the sin of killing a Brâhman, was compelled
to live. Here at length the Pândava brothers, in their wanderings after their battle with the
Kauravas, came, and as they went to draw water, the serpent put to each of them five
questions touching the vanity of human wishes and the advantages of absorption from
the world. Four out of the five brethren failed to answer and were dragged under the
water, but the riddle was solved by the fifth. The spell was thus loosed, and the Râja’s
deliverer had come. The Pându put his ring round the body of the serpent, and he was
restored to human form. In his gratitude he performed a great sacrifice, and to this day
the cultivators digging small wells in the centre of the tank in the dry season, come
across the burnt barley, rice, and betel-nuts used in the sacrifices.100

The old Buddhist traveller thus describes the serpent deity in the temple at Sankisa in the
Farrukhâbâd District—“A white-eared dragon is the patron of this body of the priests. It
is he who causes fertilizing and seasonable showers of rain to fall within their country,
and preserves it from plagues and calamity, and so causes the priesthood to dwell in
security. The priests, in gratitude for these favours, have erected a dragon chapel, and
within it placed a seat for his accommodation; and, moreover, they make special
contributions in the shape of religious offerings to provide the dragon with food.
Towards the end of each season of rest, the dragon incontinently assumes the form of a
little serpent, both of whose ears are white. The body of priests, recognizing him, place
in the midst for his use a copper vessel full of cream. The serpent then proceeds to come
down from the highest part of the alcove, all the while moving, as though he would pay
his respects to all those around him. He then suddenly disappears. He makes his
appearance once every year.”101

According to Gen. Cunningham, the only spot which can be identified with any certainty
at Sankisa is the tank of the Nâga, which still exists to the south-east of the ruins. The
name of the Nâga is Kârewar, which appears to mean “the black one,” and that of the
tank Kandaiya Tâl. Milk is still offered to him on every day of May, the Nâgpanchamî
festival in August, and at any other time when rain is wanted.102

There are many instances of this control of the Nâga over the weather. Thus, in Nepâl,
when Râja Gunkamdeva committed incest, the gods in their wrath withheld the rain.
Finally the Râja managed to catch the great Nâga Karkotaka, and the other Nâgas came
and worshipped him and gave him each a likeness of himself drawn with his own blood,
and declared that whenever there was a drought hereafter, plentiful rain would fall as
soon as these pictures were worshipped.

So, Gorakhnâtha confined the nine Nâgas, and there was a drought until
Matsyendranâtha appeared and released them, on which the clouds gave rain.103

The plan of propitiating the Nâga with an offering of milk is found also in the case of the
Durham legend of the Lambton worm and the dragon of Deerhurst in Gloucestershire.104

The sacred dragons of this kind are innumerable. The Buddhist cave at Pabhosa in the
Allahâbâd District was the home of a monster of this class, who was subdued by
Buddha.105 That in the dragon tank at Râmagrâma used to assume the form of a
Brâhman.106 Dr. Buchanan tells of another at Bhâgalpur. “They showed me a hole in a
rock opening into a hollow space close by the path leading up to their village. They said
that this hole was the abode of a very large serpent, which they considered a kind of god.
In cold weather they never saw it, but in the hot season it was constantly observed lying
in the hollow before its den. The people pass by it without apprehension, thinking it

understands their language, and would on no account injure one of them, should even a
child or a drunken person fall on it.”107

But all such snakes are not friendly. In the Hitopadesa, the faithful mungoose takes the
place in the legend of Bethgelert of the hound and kills the deadly snake. Some reference
to this famous folk-tale will be made in another connection. Aghâsura, “the evil demon,”
the king of the serpents, tried to devour the divine infant Krishna. When he and his
foster-father Nanda were asleep together, a huge boa-constrictor laid hold of Nanda by
the toe, and would speedily have devoured him, but Krishna, hearing his cries, ran to his
side and lightly set his foot on the monster’s head. At the very touch the serpent was
transformed, and assumed the figure of a lovely youth; “for years ago a Ganymede of
Heaven’s Court, by name Sudarsana, in pride of beauty and exalted birth, had vexed the
holy sage Angiras when in deep contemplation, by dancing backwards and forwards
before him, and by his curses had been metamorphosed into a snake, in that vile shape to
expiate his offence, until the advent of Krishna.”108 We have already spoken of another
famous Mathura snake, the Nâga of Jait, whose tail is supposed to reach underground to
Brindaban, seven miles away.109 The curious dragon cave at Kausambhi at Allahâbâd
was one of the last notable discoveries of the Archæological Survey.110

The Snake Gods.

Besides the sacred Nâgas there are the regular snake gods. The serpent deity of Benares
is Nâgîswar, who is represented by a serpent twining round the chief idol, and like his
kindred rules the weather. The Nâg Kuân, or dragon well, is one of the oldest shrines in
the city.111 Târâ is the snake goddess of the Kols, and the Khândhs call her Târâ Penu,
the heavenly “star snake.” Vâsuki, the “abider,” now known as Bâsuk Nâg, has many
shrines, and in all of them, as at Dâraganj, near Allahâbâd, described by Sir Monier-
Williams,112 the priest in charge is always a man of low caste, a fact pointing to the non-
Aryan character of the worship. He forms one of the triad of the snake gods which rule
the snakes of earth and hell, his fellows being Sesha and Takshaka, “he who cuts off.”
Vâsuki often appears in the folk-tales. We find him resisting Garuda, the destroyer of his
subjects. His brother’s son Kirtisena is, according to one legend, a Brâhman, and weds a
mortal maiden by the Gandharva form; his eldest brother Vasunemi presents a
benevolent Savara with a magic lute; Vâsuki himself marries the princess Yasodharâ,
and their son is Priyadarsana. Vâsuki has a thousand ears. Once he served the gods by
becoming the rope which the mount Mandara was whirled round, and the sea was
churned and produced Srî or Lakshmî, goddess of wealth.113 The foot of the celebrated
iron pillar at Delhi was driven so deep in order that it might rest on the head of Vâsuki. A

Brâhman told the king that this would secure the stability of his kingdom. The Râja
doubted this, and had the pillar dug up, when its base was found wet with the blood of
the serpent king. Owing to the incredulity of the Râja it could never again be firmly
fixed, and his want of faith led to the ultimate downfall of his dynasty. The same tale has
reached the Himâlaya, and is told of the foundation of Almora.114

The Sinhas.

Next come the Sinhas, or snake godlings of the Panjâb and the western parts of the
North-Western Provinces. “They are males, and though they cause fever they are not
very malevolent, often taking away pain. They have got great power over milch cattle,
and the milk of the eleventh day after calving is sacred to them, and libations of milk (as
in the case of the Sankisa dragon) are always acceptable. They are generally
distinguished by some colour, the most commonly worshipped being Kâlî, ‘the black
one,’ Hari, ‘green,’ Bhûra, ‘grey,’ Sinh. But the diviner will often declare a fever to be
caused by some Sinh no one has ever heard of before, but to whom a shrine must be
built. And so they multiply in a most perplexing manner. Dead men also have a way of
becoming snakes—a fact which is revealed in a dream, when again a shrine must be
built. If a peasant sees a snake he will salute it, and if it bite him, he or his heirs, as the
case may be, will build a shrine on the spot to prevent the recurrence of such an
occurrence. They are the servants of Vâsuki Nâga, King of Pâtâla, or Tartarus, and their
worship is certainly connected with that of the Pitris or ancestors, though it is difficult to
see exactly in what the connection lies.”115

Connection of Snakes with Ancestor-worship.

The connection is thus explained by Mr. Spencer: “The other self of the dead relative is
supposed to come back occasionally to the old house; how else is it possible of the
survivors sleeping there to see him in their dreams? Here are creatures which commonly,
unlike wild animals, come into houses; come in, too, secretly at night. The implication is
clear. That snakes which specially do this are the returned dead, is inferred by people in
Asia, Africa, and America; the haunting of houses being the common trait of the kind of
snakes reverenced and worshipped.”116 The benevolent household snake, which in the
folk-tales assists the hero and protects the family of which he is the guardian, thus

represents the soul of some deceased ancestor which has taken up its residence there.
That the dead do appear as snakes is familiar in European folk-lore. Thus, for instance,
the pious Æneas saw his father Anchises in the snake which crept from his tomb. We
have already come across the same idea in the case of the Satî. It was an old European
idea that this household snake, if not conciliated, and when dead buried under the
threshold, a sacred place, prevented conception.117

Deified Snake Heroes.

We have already mentioned the regular snake godling Gûga. With him are often
worshipped his father Jaur or Jewar Sinh, and Arjan and Sarjan, his twin half-
brothers.118

Pîpa, the Brâhman, is another deity of the same class in Râjputâna. He was in the habit
of giving milk to a serpent whose retreat was on the banks of the Sampu, or Snake Lake.
The serpent used in return to present him daily with two pieces of gold. Being obliged to
go away on business, he gave instructions to his son to continue the offering; but the
youth, deeming it a good opportunity of becoming master of the treasure, took a stick
with him, and when the serpent came forth for his expected food, he struck him
violently. But the snake managed to retreat into his hole. On his return, the young
Brâhman related his adventures to his mother. She was horrified at the account, and
forthwith made arrangements for sending her son away out of danger. But in the
morning when she went to call him she found to her horror that her son was dead, and a
huge snake lay coiled up beside his body. Pîpa on his return was inconsolable, but,
stifling his thoughts of revenge, he propitiated the monster with copious libations of
milk. The serpent was appeased, and revealed to Pîpa the treasures which he guarded,
commanding him to erect a monument which should transmit the knowledge of the
event to future ages. Hence Pîpa has become a sort of snake godling, and the town of
Pîpar and the Sampu Lake still by their names commemorate the legend.119

This famous tale, which was originally founded on a story in the Panchatantra, has come
into European folk-lore through the Gesta Romanorum, and forms an excellent example
of a genuine Indian folk-tale which has been naturalized in Western lands.120 The
incident of the animals which produce gold is common both in European and Indian
folk-lore. Even Marabhuti in the tale of Somadeva is able to spit gold, and every one
knows Grimm’s pretty tale of the “Three little men in the wood,” in which a piece of
gold drops from the mouth of the good girl every time she speaks.

Snake Treasure Guardians.

Snakes throughout folk-lore are the guardians of treasure.121 The griffins of Scythia
guarded the treasures coveted by the Arimaspians; the dragon watched the golden apples
of the Hesperides; in the Nibelungenlied the dragon Fafnir keeps guard over a vast
treasure of gold, which Sigurd seizes after he has killed the monster. It is a common
Indian belief that when a very rich man dies without an heir, he cannot take away his
thoughts from his treasure, and returns to guard it in the form of a monstrous serpent.
But after a time he becomes tired of this serpent life, and either in a dream, or assuming
the human voice, he asks the persons living near the treasure to take it and offer him one
of their dearest relatives in return. When some avaricious person complies with the
serpent’s wishes, he gets possession of the wealth, and the serpent then enters into some
other state of existence. Instances of treasure speaking are not uncommon. Some time
ago two old ladies, whose houses were divided by a wall, formally applied to me to have
the wall excavated in the presence of respectable witnesses, because a treasure-guarding
snake was often heard speaking from inside the wall, and begging some one to take over
the wealth which was in his charge.

Snake charmers are supposed to have the power of recognizing these serpent treasure
guardians, follow them stealthily to their holes, and ask them to point out the deposit.
This they will do in consideration of the offering of a drop of blood from the little finger
of a first-born son,122 an obvious survival of human sacrifice, which is constantly found
connected with the serpent cultus.

Various suggestions have been made to account for the idea of snakes guarding treasure.
By one theory there is some connection between the snake and primitive metallurgy; by
another, that the snake may have been the totem of the early jewellers; by a third, that
the jewelled head of the snake is at the bottom of the matter.123 But it seems more
probable that the idea is based on the conception of the snake as a haunter of houses and
temples, and the divine protector of the inmates and their wealth.

Indian folk-lore is full of such stories. In the Dakkhin tale, Seventee Bâî gets possession
of the enormous diamond which the cobra used to take about in his mouth; and in the
Bengal story Faqîr Chand obtains the serpent’s crest-jewel.124 The same idea appears in
the Arabian Nights. Mr. Forbes tells rather a ghastly tale on this subject. He personally
investigated a mysterious chamber supposed to contain treasure. Viewed from above it
was a gloomy dungeon of great depth. He desired his men to enter it, but they positively
refused, alleging that “wherever money was concealed, there existed one of the Genii in

the mortal form of a snake to guard it.” He at last prevailed on them to descend by means
of ropes. They had not been at the bottom many seconds, when they called out
vehemently that they were encircled by a large snake. Finally he observed something
like billets of wood, or rather more resembling a ship’s cable coiled up in a dark hole.
Then he saw the monster raise his head over an immense length of body, coiled in
volumes on the ground. A large snake was subsequently destroyed by fire, but no
treasure was found, “the owner having doubtless already removed it.”125

Powers of Snakes in Folk-lore.

Manifold are the powers of snakes in folk-lore. He can strike people dead with his look
from a distance, like the “death-darting eye of cockatrice” in “Romeo and Juliet.” He has
the power of spitting fire from his mouth, which destroys his enemies and consumes
forests. His saliva is venomous, and there are many stories of snakes spitting venom into
food. In one of the versions of Bethgelert, the prince, but for his guardian bird, would
have drunk as water the venom of the black snakes which drips from a tree. In the
legends of Râja Rasâlu, Gûga, and Newal Dâî, the snake has power to kill and restore to
life; it has the faculty of metamorphosis and flying through the air. In one of the Kashmîr
tales, the Brâhman, wishing to get rid of his wife, gives her a snake in a bag; but when
she opens it, it turns into a beautiful little boy.126 We have, again, the world-wide story
of the snake rescued by the traveller, which rewards the service rendered to him by
biting his benefactor. When Indra carried off the nectar, the snakes licked the bed of
Kusa grass on which the vessel lay. The sharp edges of the grass cut them as they licked,
so they have had double tongues ever since.127 Every Indian rustic believes in the
Domunha or snake with a mouth at both ends, which is, as might have been expected,
most virulent. There are snake women, like Lamia or Vasudeva, the mystic serpent, who
go about at night, and by day resume their hateful form. The humanity of the serpent
race comes out clearly in the legend of Safîdon, which attributes the leprosy still found
in the Panjâb to the sacrilegious acts of Vâsuki, the king of the serpents.128

Modern Snake-worship.

Some instances may be given of the form assumed by the worship of the snake in
modern times.

The great snake festival is the Nâgpanchamî, or “Dragon’s fifth,” held on the fifth day of
the month of Bhâdon. In the Hills it is called the Rikhî or Birurî Panchamî. Rikheswara
has now become a title of Siva as lord of the Nâgas, a form in which he is represented as
surrounded by serpents and crowned with the chaplet of hooded snakes. On the day of
the feast the people paint figures of serpents and birds on the walls of their houses, and
seven days before the festival they steep a mixture of wheat, gram, and pulse in water.
On the morning of the feast they take a wisp of grass, tie it up in the form of a snake, dip
it in the water in which the gram has been steeped, and offer it with money and
sweetmeats to the serpents.129

In Udaypur on this day they strew particular plants about the thresholds of houses to
prevent the entrance of venomous reptiles, and in Nepâl the day is observed as the
anniversary of a great struggle between a famous Nâga and Garuda, the foe of the
serpent race.130 In the eastern districts of the North-West Provinces on this day milk and
dried rice are poured into a snake’s hole; while doing this they call out “Snake! snake!”
The feeding of snakes on this holiday is done in much the same way in Bombay.131 After
the Diwâlî in Kângra, a festival is held to bid good-bye to the snakes, at which an image
of the Nâga made of cowdung is worshipped. If a snake be seen after this it is called
“ungrateful,” and immediately killed.132

In the North-Western Provinces the usual custom is for the head of the family to bathe
on the morning of the feast, to paint on the wall of his sleeping-room two rude
representations of serpents, and to make offerings to Brâhmans. On this day people pray
to what Dr. Buchanan calls “the chief eight dragons of the pit,”133 girls throw some
playthings into the water, and labourers take a holiday and worship the tools of their
craft.

In Behâr during the month of Sâwan (August) crowds of women calling themselves
Nâgin, or “wives of the snake,” go about begging for two and a half days, during which
period they neither sleep under a roof nor eat salt. Half the proceeds of the begging are
given to Brâhmans, and the other half invested in salt and sweetmeats, which are eaten
by all the people of the village.134

In Garhwâl, the ground is freely smeared with cowdung and mud, and figures of five,
seven, or nine serpents are rudely drawn with sandal-wood powder or tumeric; rice,
beans, or peas are parched; lamps are lighted and waved before them; incense is burnt
and food and fruit offered. These observances take place both morning and evening, and
the night is spent in listening to stories in praises of the Nâga.135

In parts of the North-Western Provinces, with the usual Nâgpanchamî, is performed what
is known as the Guruî festival. On that day offerings are made by women to the Dragon
godling Nâg Deotâ. Girls let dolls float in the water of some convenient river or tank,

and the village lads beat the dolls with long switches specially cut for the purpose. The
legend of this rite is thus told. When Râja Janamejâya held the Sarpa Sattra or snake rite
in order to destroy Takshaka, the king of the serpents, all the snakes were captured by
spells and killed. But Takshaka escaped and was found to have taken refuge with Indra,
on whose throne he seated himself in the shape of a mosquito. Indra was ordered to
produce the fugitive, and begged the life of Takshaka, which was granted on condition
that he was banished from the land. So the snake king took the shape of a Brâhman lad
and retired to the Caucasus. There he settled and married, but he foolishly told the story
to his wife, and she being unable to keep the secret, it finally reached the ears of
Janamejâya, who sentenced him to death. Takshaka then retorted by ordering
Janamejâya to cause everyone in his dominions to kill his wife as a revenge for his own
wife’s treachery. Janamejâya was unwilling to issue such a cruel order, so he consulted
the Brâhmans. Finally, it was proclaimed that on the Nâgpanchamî, every woman, to
prove her devotion to her husband, should make a doll and offer it up as a vicarious
sacrifice for herself. It would seem that the rite is the survival of some rite of human
sacrifice in connection with snake-worship.

The Agarwâla Banyas, who say that they are descended from Râja Vâsuki, have a
special rite in honour of Astika Muni, who is said to have been the instructor of Vâsuki.
They bathe and make marks representing the snake on the walls of the house, which they
worship, feed Brâhmans, and do the Ârtî or lamp rite. Each woman takes home with her
some of the sesamum offered to the snake, which they sprinkle with the recitation of a
spell in their houses as a means of driving away venomous snakes.

Cure of Snake-bite.

In Hoshangâbâd there were once two brothers, Râjawa and Soral; the ghost of the former
cures snake-bite, and that of the latter cattle murrain. The moment a man is bitten, he
must tie a string or a strip of his dress and fasten it round his neck, crying, “Mercy! O
God Râjawa!” To call on Ghori Bâdshâh, the Delhi Emperor, who conquered the
country, or Râmjî Dâs Bâba will do as well. At the same time he makes a vow to give so
much to the god if he recovers. When he gets home they use various tests to ascertain if
the poison is in him still. They take him in and out over the threshold, and light a lamp
before him, acts which are supposed to have the effect of developing latent poison. They
then give him salt and leaves of the bitter Nîm tree. If he can take them he is safe. These
are all, as we have already seen, scarers of evil spirits, in this case the snake demon. If he
cannot take them, the whole village goes out and cries to Râjawa Deo until he recovers.
No one (Sir C. A. Elliott’s informant told him) had been ever known to die of a snake-
bite after this treatment. But the god has no power over the dreaded Biscobra, which

takes its name from the Hindi Bishkhâpra, Sanskrit Vishakharpara, or “poison-headed,”
which is said to be so deadly that its very breath is venomous, one of the numerous
popular delusions out of which it is hopeless to argue the rustic. The bitten man must not
untie the string round his neck till the day when he goes to offer what he vows, which
should be, at latest, on the next Dasahra; but if he attempts to cheat the god by offering
ever so little less than he promised, he will die on the spot in agonies.136

All through Upper India the stock remedy for snake-bite is the exorcism of the Ojha or
sorcerer, a performance known as Jhâr Phûnk, consisting of a series of passes, massage,
and incantations, which are supposed to disperse the venom. Many, too, have faith in the
so-called “Snake stone,” which seems to be usually a piece of bone soaked in blood and
repeatedly baked. This is supposed to have absorbent properties and to draw the venom
out of the wound. It probably works by faith, and is as effective as the Achates or Agate
of which Pliny writes: “People are persuaded that it availeth much against the venomous
spiders and scorpions, which property I could very well believe to be in the Sicilian
Agate, for that so soon as serpents come within the air and breath of the said province of
Sicily, as venomous as they be otherwise, they die thereupon.”137

The Snake in Folk-lore.

The references to the snake in folk-lore and popular belief are so numerous that only a
few examples can be given. The Dhâman (Ptyas mucosus), a quite harmless snake, is
said in Bombay to give a fatal bite on Sundays, and to kill cattle by crawling under them,
or putting its tail up their nostrils. Its shadow is also considered malignant. It is believed
to suck the milk of cattle, and that if a buffalo is looked on by it, it immediately dies. Of
the Ghonas snake it is believed that it bites only at night, and at whatever hour of the
night the victim is bitten, he dies just before daybreak.138

About these snake stones some curious tales are told. By one account, when a goat kills
a snake, it eats it and then ruminates, after which it spits out a bead, which, when applied
to a snake-bite, absorbs the poison and swells. If it be put into milk, and squeezed, the
poison drips out of it like blood, and the bitten person is cured. If it be not put in milk it
will burst in pieces. By another account, in the pouch-like appendages of the older
Adjutant birds (Leptoptilos Argala) the fang of a snake is sometimes found. This, if
rubbed over the place where a poisonous snake has bitten a man, is supposed to prevent
the venom spreading to the vital parts of the body. Others say that it is found within the
head of the Adjutant, and that it is only necessary to rub it to the bitten place and put it
into milk, when it becomes black through the venom. What was known as the Ovum
Anguinum of the Britons is said to have been a bead which assists children to cut their

teeth and cures the chincough and the ague. Mr. Campbell139 says he once possessed one
of these “snake’s eggs,” which was a blue and white glass bead and supposed to be a
charm used by the women of the prehistoric races.

A very common incident in the folk-tales is that the heroine is beset by snakes which
come out of her nose or mouth at night and kill her newly-wedded husband, as the evil
spirit kills the husband of Sara in the marriage chamber, until the hero lies awake and
succeeds in destroying them.

Another power snakes possess is that of identifying the rightful heirs of kingdoms, and,
as in the case of Drona, who found the Ahîr Adirâja sleeping in the shade of the hood of
a cobra, announce that he is born to rule.140 So in the mythology the Nâga king
Machalinda spreads his hood over the Buddha to protect him from the rain and flies.141
Many of these Nâgas indeed are friendly, as in the case of the Banjâra, who, in order to
avoid octroi duty, declared his valuable goods to be Glauber salts, and Glauber salts they
became until they were restored to their original condition by the intercession of the
kindly Nâga of the Gundwa tank.142 In one of Somadeva’s tales the friendly snake clings
round the Râja till he promises to release the Bodhisattwa out of prison.

Snakes and Euphemism.

Snakes should, of course, be addressed euphemistically as “Maternal uncle,” or “Rope,”
and if a snake bites you, you should never mention its name, but say, “A rope has
touched me.” The Mirzapur Kharwârs tell of a man who once came on a Nâgin laying
her eggs. When she saw him she fell at his feet and asked him to throw the eggs in a
water-hole. So he took up the eggs on a bamboo sieve and went with her to the brink.
The Nâgin plunged in and said, “Do not be afraid! Come on!” He followed her, the
waters dried up, and he came to the palace of the Nâg, who entertained him royally, and
offered to give him anything he wished. The boor asked only for a pan, pot, and spoon,
which the Nâga gave him, and he came home to find his relations doing the death
ceremonies in his honour, believing he had been carried off by a tiger. He said nothing of
his adventures till the day of his death, when he told the story. So the Nâga in other tales
of the same class blesses and rewards the lucky man who has delivered the young snake
from his persecutors who caught him while in the upper air. So in the Arabian Nights,
the relations of Jullanar of the sea show their gratitude to the king who is kind to her on
earth.

On the basis of the same idea which has been already referred to in the case of the
Churel, it is believed that if the shadow of a pregnant woman fall on a snake it becomes

blind.143

The Snake Jewel.

The snake, like the “toad ugly and venomous,” wears on his head the Mani or precious
jewel, which is a stock subject in Indian folk-tales. Thus, in one of Somadeva’s stories,
“when Nala heard this, he looked round, and beheld a snake coiled up near the fire,
having his head encircled with the rays of the jewels of his crest.”144 It is sometimes
metamorphosed into a beautiful youth; it equals the treasure of seven kings; it can be
hidden or secured only by cowdung or horsedung being thrown over it; and if it is
acquired the serpent dies. It lights the hero on his way to the palace under the sea where
is the silver jewelled tree; or it is possessed by the sleeping beauty, who cannot return to
her home beneath the waters, and loses the hero until it is recovered. Its presence acts as
an amulet against evil, and secures the attainment of every wish. It protects the owner
from drowning, the waters parting on each side of him, and allowing him to pass over
rivers dry-shod.145

The Rainbow and the Snake.

So the rainbow is connected with the snake, being the fume of a gigantic serpent blown
up from underground. In Persia it was called the “celestial serpent.” We have already
seen that the Milky Way is regarded as the path of the Nâgas in the sky. It is possibly
under the influence of the association of the snake, a treasure guardian, that the English
children run to find where the rainbow meets the earth, and expect to find a crock of
gold buried at its base.146

The Household Snake.

The belief in the influence of the guardian domestic or national snake is universal. When
the Persians invaded Athens the people would not leave the city till they learned that the
guardian snake had refused its food and abandoned the citadel. A snake at Lanuvium and

at Epirus resided in a grove and was waited on by a virgin priestess, who entered naked
and fed it once a year, when by its acceptance or refusal of the offering, the prospects of
the harvest were ascertained. The Teutons and Celts had also their sacred guardian
snake.

IMAGE OF THE HOUSEHOLD SNAKE.

In the Panjâb Hills, every householder keeps an image of the Nâga or harmless snake, as
contrasted with the Sânp, which is venomous. This snake is put in charge of the
householder’s homestead, and is held responsible that no cobra or dangerous serpent
enters it. It is supposed to have the power of driving all cobras out of the place. Should
rain drive the house snake out of his hole, he is worshipped. No image of a cobra or

other venomous snake is ever made for purposes of worship. Ant-hills are believed to be
the homes of snakes, and there the people offer sugar, rice, and millet for forty days.147
These correspond to the benevolent domestic snakes, of whom Aubrey says that “the
Bramens have them in great veneration; they keep their corne. I think it is Tavernier
mentions it.”148

They are, in fact, as we have already seen, the representatives of the benevolent ancestral
ghosts. Hence the deep-rooted prejudice against killing the snake, which is both guardian
and god. “If,” says Mr. Lang,149 “the serpent were the deity of an earlier race, we could
understand the prejudice against killing it, as shown in the Apollo legend.” The evidence
accumulated in this chapter will perhaps go some way to settle this question, as far as
India is concerned.

1 “Principles of Sociology,” i. 359.
2 “Primitive Culture,” ii. 221, 89.
3 “Golden Bough,” i. 39.
4 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 56, 40, 43, 283; Hislop, “Papers,” 10.

5 “Brihatsanhita,” Rajendra Lâla Mitra, “Indo-Aryans,” i. 245.
6 Campbell, “Notes,” 225.
7 Forlong, “Rivers of Life;” Westropp, “Primitive Symbolism.”
8 Groome, “Encyclopædia Britannica,” s.v. “Gypsies.”

9 “Calcutta Review,” xxvi. 512.
10 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 174; ii. 181, 592, 286.
11 Ibid., ii. 270.
12 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 123; Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 429.

13 Ibid., ii. 142.
14 Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 596.

15 Temple, “Wide-awake Stories,” 413.
16 Knowles, “Folk-tales,” 184; Grimm, loc. cit., ii. 428.

17 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 153; ii. 387, 460.
18 Dyer, “Popular Customs,” 467.

19 Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 304; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 4, 37; “Bombay Gazetteer,” ii. 355.
20 “Golden Bough,” i. 61.

21 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 112.
22 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 129, 132, 141, 186, 188.

23 Hislop, “Papers,” 20.

24 “Berâr Gazetteer,” 29, 31.
25 Growse, “Mathura,” 70, 76 sqq., 83, 420, 470, 458.

26 “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” iii. 47.
27 Moorcroft, “Travels,” i. 211.

28 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 16.
29 Conway, “Demonology,” i. 315 sq.; Farrer, “Primitive Manners,” 309; Sir W. Scott, “Letters on Demonology,”
79; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 116, 179; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 278.

30 “Oudh Gazetteer,” i. 566; Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 304. See instances collected by Hartland, “Legend
of Perseus,” ii. 35 sqq.
31 Henderson, loc. cit., 273.

32 Campbell, “Notes,” 221 sq.
33 “Calcutta Review,” lxix. 364 sq.

34 Campbell, “Notes,” 237.
35 Haug, “Aitareya Brâhmanam,” ii. 486 sq.

36 Cunningham, “Bhilsa Topes,” 24; “Archæological Reports,” i. 5 sq.; Ferguson, “Eastern Architecture,” 69;
Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 127.
37 “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 783.

38 Campbell, “Notes,” 238.
39 Tod, “Annals,” i. 611.

40 See instances collected by Wake, “Serpent Worship,” 18.
41 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 293.

42 Ibbetson, “Panjâb Ethnography,” 118; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 55; O’Brien, “Multâni Glossary,” 82.
43 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 74; Elliot, “Supplementary Glossary,” 26.

44 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 148, 281, 283; Rousselet, “India and its Native Princes,” 369 sq.
45 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 162.

46 Sleeman, “Rambles and Recollections,” ii. 18; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 225.
47 “Quarterly Review,” cxiv. 226; “Folk-lore,” iii. 88.

48 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 420.
49 Temple, “Legends of the Panjâb,” i. 473.

50 Campbell, “Notes,” 234.
51 Mullaly, “Notes on Madras Criminal Tribes,” 20.

52 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 38.

53 i. 287.
54 Ward, “Hindus,” ii. 13, quoted by Campbell, “Notes,” 229.
55 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales,” 280.
56 Campbell, loc. cit., 229.

57 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 207.
58 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 189.
59 “Sirsa Settlement Report,” 154.
60 Wilson, “Works,” iii. 68.

61 Campbell, “Notes,” 248.
62 Rhys, “Lectures,” 359.
63 Kelly, “Curiosities,” 159; Conway, “Demonology,” i. 126; Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” i. 225; Dyer,
“Popular Customs,” 274; Brand, “Observations,” 616.
64 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 439.

65 Campbell, “Santâl Folk-tales,” 54.
66 Campbell, “Notes,” 239.
67 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 109, 220, 234.
68 Campbell, loc. cit., 232.
69 Ibbetson, “Panjâb Ethnography,” 119.
70 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 42; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 27.

71 “Eastern India,” iii. 555.
72 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 151 sq.
73 “Notes,” 461.
74 “Bombay Gazetteer,” vii. 61.
75 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 201.
76 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 194.
77 Ibid., 319.
78 Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 912.

79 Wright, “History of Nepâl,” 33.
80 “Settlement Report,” 38.
81 “Archæological Reports,” x. 177.
82 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 15.

83 “Settlement Report,” 167.
84 “Bombay Gazetteer,” iii. 221.
85 Oppert, “Original Inhabitants,” 73.

86 “Totemism,” 33 sqq.
87 Campbell, “Notes,” 250.

88 Manning, “Ancient India,” ii. 330 sq.; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 185.
89 “Primitive Culture,” ii. 239.
90 Monier-Williams, “Brâhmanism and Hinduism,” 319 sqq.
91 Wheeler, “History of India,” i. 148; “Gazetteer Central Provinces,” lxiii.; lxxii.; Campbell, “Notes,” 269;
Ferguson, “Tree and Serpent Worship,” Appendix D; Elliot, “Supplementary Glossary,” s.v. “Gaur Taga”; Tod,
“Annals,” i. 38; Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 280 sqq., 297; Temple, “Legends of the Panjâb,” i. 414 sq.
92 Bhekal Nâg is perhaps the Sanskrit bheka, “frog.” It has been suggested that the gypsy Beng or Devil is
connected with Bheka, and thus allied to serpent-worship (Groome, “Encyclopædia Britannica,” Art. “Gypsies”). Sir
G. Cox (“Introduction,” 87, note) makes out Bheki, or “the squatting frog,” to be an old name for the sun. For the
Himâlayan snake shrines see Atkinson, loc. cit., ii. 374 sq.
93 Oldham, “Contemporary Review,” April, 1885.
94 Oldfield, “Sketches,” ii. 204; Wright, “History,” 85.
95 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 173, 544.
96 “Calcutta Review,” li. 304 sq.; liv. 25 sq.; Ferguson, “Eastern Architecture,” 289; “Central Provinces Gazetteer,”
86.
97 Tawney, loc. cit. i. 577.
98 Ibid., i. 312; ii. 225.
99 “Archæological Reports,” vii. 4.

100 “Settlement Report,” 121.
101 Beal, “Travels of Fah Hian,” 67 sq.

102 “Archæological Reports,” i. 274.
103 Wright, “History of Nepâl,” 85, 141.
104 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 289; “Gloucestershire Folk-lore,” 23.
105 Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 144.
106 Beal, loc. cit., 90.
107 “Eastern India,” ii. 149.
108 Growse, “Mathura,” 55, 58.
109 Ibid., 71.

110 “Reports,” xxi. 2, “Academy,” 23rd April, 1887.

111 Sherring, “Sacred City,” 75, 87 sqq.; Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 211. For weather snakes see Tawney,
“Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 438.
112 “Brâhmanism and Hinduism,” 323.

113 Tawney, loc. cit., i. 32, 55, 538; ii. 568.
114 Gangadatta, “Folk-lore of Kumaun,” Introduction, vii.

115 Ibbetson, “Panjâb Ethnography,” 114; “Legends of the Panjâb,” i. 426.
116 “Principles of Sociology,” i. 345; Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” ii. 407 sq.; Wake, “Serpent-worship,”
105; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 240.

117 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 132.
118 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 2.

119 Tod, “Annals,” i. 777 sqq.
120 Clouston, “Popular Tales,” i. 127; Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 405; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 454;
Jacobs, “English Fairy Tales,” 207, 251.

121 Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” ii. 407; Clouston, loc. cit., i. 126.
122 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 91.

123 Conway, “Demonology,” i. 353 sq.
124 Miss Frere, “Old Deccan Tales,” 33; Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales,” 19.
125 “Oriental Memoirs,” ii. 19, 385.
126 Knowles, “Folk-tales,” 492.
127 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 182.
128 Tawney, loc. cit., ii. 99; Temple, “Legends of the Panjâb,” i. Introduction, xv.; “Wideawake Stories,” 193, 331.

129 Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 851.
130 Tod, “Annals,” i. 614; Wright, “History,” 37.

131 Rousselet, “India and its Native Princes,” 28.
132 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 75.
133 “Eastern India,” ii. 481.
134 Grierson, “Bihâr Peasant Life,” 405; “Maithili Chrestomathy,” 23 sqq., where examples of the songs are given;
“Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 38.

135 Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 836.
136 “Settlement Report,” 120 sq.
137 “Natural History,” xxxvii. 10.
138 “Gazetteer,” xi. 36.

139 “Popular Tales,” ii. 385.
140 Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 28.
141 Hardy, “Manual of Buddhism,” 146.

142 “Oudh Gazetteer,” i. 597.
143 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 15.

144 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 564; ii. 315.
145 Temple, “Wideawake Stories,” 304, 424; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 15, 76.
146 Sleeman, “Rambles,” i. 42; Conway, “Demonology,” i. 354.
147 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 92, 59.
148 “Remaines,” 39. He perhaps refers to Tavernier, “Travels,” Ball’s Edition), i. 42; ii. 249.
149 “Custom and Myth,” ii. 197.

CHAPTER III.

TOTEMISM AND FETISHISM.
Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum,
Cum faber incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum,
Maluit esse deum.

Horace, Sat. I. viii. 1–3.

“A totem is a class of material objects, which a savage regards with superstitious respect,
believing that there exists between them and every member of the class an intimate and
altogether special relation.”1 As distinguished from a fetish, a totem is never an isolated
individual, but always a class of objects, generally a class of animals or plants, rarely a
class of inanimate objects, very rarely a class of artificial objects.

Origin of Totemism.

As regards the origin of totemism great diversity of opinion exists. Mr. Herbert Spencer
considers that “it arose from a misinterpretation of nicknames; savages first took their
names from natural objects, and then confusing these objects with their ancestors of the
same name, paid the same respect to the material totem as they were in the habit of
doing to their own ancestors.”2 The objection to this is, as Mr. Frazer shows, that it
attributes to verbal misunderstandings far more influence than, in spite of the
comparative mythologists, they ever seem to have exercised.

Sir J. Lubbock derives the idea from the practice of naming persons and families after
animals, but “in dropping the intermediate links of ancestor-worship and verbal
misunderstanding, he has stripped the theory of all that lent it even an air of
plausibility.”3

Recent inquiries in the course of the Ethnographical Survey of Bengal and the North-
Western Provinces enable us perhaps to approach to a solution of the problem.

To begin with, at a certain stage of culture the idea of the connection between men and
animals is exceedingly vivid, and reacts powerfully on current beliefs. The animal or
plant is supposed to have a soul or spirit, like that of a human being, and this soul or
spirit is capable of transfer to the man or animal and vice versâ. This feeling comes out
strongly in popular folk-lore, much of which is made up of instances of metamorphosis

such as these. The witch or sorcerer is always changing into a tiger, a monkey, or a fish;
the princess is always appearing out of the aubergine or pomegranate.

We have, again, the familiar theory to which reference has already been made, that the
demon or magician has an external soul, which he keeps occasionally in the Life Index,
which is often a bird, a tree, and an animal. If this life index can be seized and destroyed,
the life of the monster is lost with it.

These principles, which are thoroughly congenial to the beliefs of all primitive races,
naturally suggest a much closer union between man and other forms of animal or
vegetable life than people of a higher stage of development either accept or admit. With
people, then, at this stage of culture, the theory that the ancestor of the clan may have
been a bear or a tortoise would present no features of improbability.

This theory accounts, as Mr. Frazer shows, for many of the obscure rites of initiation
which prevail among most savage tribes and in a modified form among the Brâhmanized
Hindus. The basis of such rites is probably to extract the soul of the youth and
temporarily transfer it to the totem, from which in turn fresh life is infused into him.

Lastly, the result of the Indian evidence is that it is only in connection with the rules of
exogamy that totemism at the present day displays any considerable degree of vitality.
The real basis of exogamy in Northern India seems to be the totem sept, which, however,
flourishes at the present day only among the Drâvidian tribes and those allied to them.
But it would, it is almost certain, be incorrect to say that while totemism is at present
most active among the Drâvidians, in connection with marriage, it was peculiar to them.
It is more reasonable to infer that it continues to flourish among these races, because of
their isolation from Brâhmanical influence. As among the inferior races of the Gangetic
valley, the primitive family customs connected with marriage, birth, and death have
undergone a process of denudation from their connection with the more advanced Hindu
races which surround them, so to a large degree in Northern India, the totemistic sept
names have been gradually shed off, and replaced by an eponymous, local, or territorial
nomenclature. In short, under the pressure of higher culture, the kindred of the swan,
turtle, or parrot have preferred to call themselves Kanaujiya or “men of Kanauj,”
Sarwariya or “residents of the land beyond the Sarju river,” and Raghuvansa or
Bhriguvansa, “descendants of the sages Raghu or Bhrigu.”

We find, then, among such races, as might have been expected, that at the present day
the totemistic sept system exists only in obscure and not easily recognizable forms. Folk
etymology has also exercised considerable influence, and a sept ashamed of its
totemistic title readily adopts some title of the eponymous type, or a local cognomen
sounding something like the name of the primitive totem. It is perhaps too much to
expect that a careful exploration of the sept titles or tribal customs of Northern India will

lead to extensive discoveries of the primitive totemistic organization. The process of
trituration which has affected the caste nomenclature for such a lengthened period, and
the obscuration of primitive belief by association with more cultured tribes, have been so
continuous as to leave only a few fragments and isolated survivals; but it is by a course
of such inquiry that the totemistic basis of the existing caste system can alone be
reached.

I have considered this question in the light of the most recent evidence in another place,4
and it is needless to repeat the results which were there arrived at.

For the purpose of such an investigation it is convenient to have some sort of working
classification of the tests of, and the forms in which, totemism usually appears. These
have been laid down by the late Professor Robertson-Smith as follows:—

(a) The existence of stocks named after plants, animals, or similar totems.

(b) The prevalence of a conception that the members of the stock are of the blood of the
eponym, or are sprung from a plant, etc., of the species chosen as the totem.

(c) The ascription of a sacred character to the totem.

Stocks Named from Animals, Plants, etc.

First as to the stocks named from animals, plants, etc. There are two divisions of the
Pûra Brâhmans of the Dakkhin, known as Bakriyâr and Chheriyâr, founded on the names
of the male and female goat. In Upper India, the Kâchhis or market gardeners, and the
Kachhwâha sept of Râjputs allege that they take their names from the Kachchhapa or
tortoise, as the Kurmis refer their name to the Kûrma or turtle. The Ahban Râjputs and
the Ahiwâsis of Mathura connect their names with Ahi, the dragon. The Kalhans Râjputs
derive their name from the Kâlahans or black goose. Among Brâhmans and other high
castes, Bhâradvaja, “the lark, the bringer of food,” has given its name to many sections.
Mr. Risley thinks that the fact of there being a Kasyapa division of Kumhârs or potters,
who venerate the tortoise, points to the name being a corruption of Kachchhapa, the
tortoise, in which case their name would have the same origin as that of the Kâchhis
already mentioned.

Many people, again, claim kindred with the sun and moon. Such are the Natchez of
North America and the Incas of Peru.5 There are many children of the sun and moon in
Arabia,6 and gypsies of the east of Europe have a legend that they are descended from

the sun and moon; the sun having debauched his moon sister, was condemned to wander
for ever, in consequence of which their descendants can never rest.7 So in India, the
Sûrajbansi and Chandrabansi Râjputs are said to take their names from Sûraj, the sun,
and Chandra, the moon, respectively.

According to Captain J. Montgomerie,8 round Kashmîr, and among the aboriginal tribes
of the Himâlayan slopes, men are usually named after animals, as the Bakhtiyâris, one of
the nomad tribes of Persia, name their children usually not after the Prophet, but after
wild animals, such as the wolf, tiger, and the like, adding some descriptive epithet. In the
same way a tribe of Lodi Pathâns in the Panjâb are known as Nâhar or “wolf.” This is
said to be due to their rapacity, and may be as likely a nickname as a survival of
totemism.9

Totem Names among the Drâvidians.

The evidence of this point is, as has been already said, much more distinct among the
Drâvidians than among the more Hinduized races. Details of such names among the
Agariyas, Nats, Baiswârs, and Ghasiyas have been given in detail elsewhere.10 Thus, to
take the Dhângars, a caste in Mirzapur, allied to the Orâons of Bengal, we find that they
have eight exogamous septs, all or most of which are of totemistic origin. Thus, Ilha is
said to mean a kind of fish, which members of this sept do not eat; Kujur is a kind of
jungle herb which this sept does not use; Tirik is probably the Tirki or bull sept of the
Orâons. In Chota Nâgpur, members of this sept do not touch any cattle after their eyes
are open. It illustrates the uncertainty of these usages that in other places they say that
the word Tirki means “young mice,” which they are prohibited from using.11 Again, the
Mirzapur sept of the Dhângars, known as Lakara, is apparently identical with that called
Lakrar among the Bengal Orâons, who must not eat tiger’s flesh as they are named after
the tiger; in Mirzapur they derive their name from the Lakar Bagha, or hyæna, which
they will not hunt or kill. The Bara sept is apparently the same as the Barar of the
Orâons, who will not eat the leaves of the Bar tree or Ficus Indica. In Mirzapur they will
not cut this tree. The Ekka sept in Mirzapur say that this name means “leopard,” an
animal which they will not kill, but in Chota Nâgpur the same word is said to mean
“tortoise” and to be a totemistic sept of the Orâons. So, the Mirzapur Dhângars have a
Tiga sept, which they say takes its name from a jungle root which is prohibited to them;
but the Orâons of Bhâgalpur have a Tig sept, which, according to them, means
“monkey.” The last of the Mirzapur septs is the Khâha, which, like the Khakkar sept of
the Orâons, means “crow,” and neither will eat the bird. Similar instances might be

almost indefinitely repeated from usages of the allied tribes in Mirzapur and the
adjoining Bengal Districts.

The Panjâb Snake Tribe.

In the Panjâb there is a special snake tribe. They observe every Monday and Thursday in
the snake’s honour, cooking rice and milk, setting a portion aside for the snake, and
never eating or making butter on those days. If they find a dead snake, they put clothes
upon it, and give it a regular funeral. They will not kill a snake, and say that its bite is
harmless to them. The snake, they say, changes its form every hundred years, and then
becomes a man or a bull.12 So, in Senegambia, “a python is expected to visit every child
of the Python clan within eight days after birth; and the Psylli, a snake clan of ancient
Africa, used to expose their infants to snakes in the belief that the snakes would not
harm true-born children of the clan.”13 So, in Northern India the Bais Râjputs are
children of the snake, and supposed to be safe from its bite, and Nâga Râja is the tribal
godling of the Bâjgis. There is a well-known legend of a queen of India, who is said to
have sent to Alexander, among other costly presents, a girl, who, having been fed with
serpents from her infancy, partook of their venomous nature. The well-known tale of
Elsie Venner has been already referred to in the same connection.

Totemism in Proper Names.

The subject of Indian proper names has not yet received the attention it deserves. The
only attempt to investigate the subject, so far, is that of Major Temple.14 In his copious
lists there is ample evidence that names are freely adopted from those of animals, plants,
etc. Thus we have Bagha, “Tiger”; Bheriya, “Wolf”; Billa, “Cat”; Chûha, “Rat,” and so
on from animals; Bagla, “Heron”; Tota, “Parrot,” and so on from birds; Ajgar, “Python”;
Mendak, “Frog”; Kachhua, “Tortoise;”; Bhaunra, “Bumble Bee”; Ghun, “Weevil”;
Dîmak, “White Ant,” etc. From plants come Bûta, “Tree”; Harabansa, “Green Bamboo”
(or more probably Hari-vansa, “the genealogy of Hari” or Vishnu); Nîma, “Nîm tree”;
Pîpal, “Pîpal tree”; Gulâba, “Rose”; Imliya, “Tamarind”; Sewa, “Apple”; Ilâcha,
“Cardamum”; Mirchi, “Pepper”; Bhutta, “Maize.”

The evidence of nomenclature must, of course, be received with caution. The essence of
totemism is a confessed belief in animal descent, a name declaring that descent and some

sacredness attached to the animal or other fancied ancestor. Many of these names may be
nicknames, or titles of opprobrium selected, as we have already shown, to baffle the Evil
Eye or the influence of demons. Besides, as has been pointed out, it does not necessarily
follow because an Englishman lives in “Acacia Villa” or “Laburnum Cottage,” and calls
his daughter “Rose” or “Violet,” that he is in the totemistic stage. At the same time, it is
quite possible that further inquiry will discover undoubted instances of totemism in the
nomenclature of Northern India, as is the case with other races in a similar stage of
culture.

Descent from the Totem.

We next come to Professor Robertson-Smith’s second test, the belief in descent from the
totem. This branch of the subject has been very fully illustrated by Mr. Frazer.15 As in
old times in Georgiana, according to Marco Polo, all the king’s sons were born with an
eagle on the right shoulder marking their royal origin,16 so Chandragupta, king of Ujjain,
was the son of a scorpion. “His mother accidentally imbibed the scorpion’s emission, by
means of which she conceived.”17 The Jaitwas of Râjputâna trace their descent from the
monkey god Hanumân, and confirm it by alleging that the spine of their princes is
elongated like a tail. In the Râmâyana, one of the wives of King Sâgara gives birth to a
son who continues the race; the other wife produces an Ikshvâku, a gourd or cane
containing sixty thousand sons. The famous Chandragupta was miraculously preserved
by the founder of his race, the bull Chando.18 The wolf is in the same way traditionally
connected with the settlement of the Janwâr Râjputs in Oudh, and they believe that the
animal never preys on their children. Every native believes that children are reared in the
dens of wolves, and there is a certain amount of respectable evidence in support of the
belief.19

Similar examples are numerous among the Drâvidian tribes. The Cheros of the Vindhyan
plateau claim descent from the Nâga or dragon. The Râja and chief members of the
Chota Nâgpur family wear turbans so arranged as to make the head-dress resemble a
serpent coiled round the skull, with its head projecting over the wearer’s brow. The seal
of the Mahârâja and the arms of his family show as a crest a cobra with a human face
under its expanded hood, surrounded with all the insignia of royalty. The Santâl legend
ascribes the origin of the tribe to the wild goose, and similar stories are told by the
family of the Râja of Sinhbhûm, the Hos, the Malers, and the Kûrs.20

Special Respect Paid to the Totem.

Next come instances of special respect paid to the totem. Some idea of the kind may be
partly the origin of the worship of the cow and the serpent. Dr. Ball describes how some
Khândhs refused to carry the skin of a leopard because it was their totem.21 The
Kadanballis of Kanara will not eat the Sâmbhar stag, the Bargaballis the Barga deer, and
the Kuntiballis the woodcock. The Vaydas of Cutch worship the monkey god whom they
consider to be their ancestor, and to please him in their marriage ceremony, the
bridegroom goes to the bride’s house dressed up as a monkey and there leaps about in
monkey fashion.22 It is possibly from regard to the totem that the Parihâr Râjputs of
Râjputâna will not eat the wild boar, but they have now invented a legend that one of
their princes went into a river while pursuing a boar and was cured of a loathsome
disease.23 There is a Celtic legend in which a child is turned into a pig, and Gessa is laid
on Diarmid not to kill a pig, as it has the same span of life as himself.24

The Bengal Bâwariyas take the heron as their emblem, and must not eat it.25 The Orissa
Kumhârs abstain from eating, and even worship the Sâl fish, because the rings on its
scales resemble the wheel which is the symbol of their craft.26 The peacock is a totem of
the Jâts and of the Khândhs, as the Yizidis worship the Tâous, a half mythical peacock,
which has been connected with the Phœnix which Herodotus saw in Egypt.27 The
Parhaiyas have a tradition that their tribe used to hold sheep and deer sacred, and used
the dung of these animals instead of cowdung to plaster their floors. So the Kariyas do
not eat the flesh of sheep, and may not even use a woollen rug. The same prohibition of
meats appears to be a survival of totemism in Arabia.28

The Devak.

One of the best illustrations of this form of totemism is that of the Devak or family
guardian gods of Berâr and Bombay. Before concluding an alliance, the Kunbi and other
Berâr tribes look to the Devak, which literally means the deity worshipped at marriage
ceremonies; the fact being that certain families hold in honour particular trees and plants,
and at the marriage ceremony branches of these trees are set up in the house. It is said
that a betrothal, in every other respect irreproachable, will be broken off if the two

houses are discovered to pay honour to the same tree, in other words if they worship the
same family totem and hence must belong to one and the same endogamous group.29

The same custom prevails in Bombay. “The usual Devaks are some animals, like the
elephant, stag, deer, or cock, or some tree, as the Jambul, Ber, Mango, or Banyan. The
Devak is the ancestor or the head of the house, and so families which have the same
guardian do not intermarry. If the Devak be an animal, its flesh is not eaten; but if it be a
fruit tree, the use of the fruit generally is not forbidden, though some families abstain
from eating the fruit of the tree which forms their Devak or badge.”30 Mr. Campbell
gives numerous examples of these family totems, such as wheat bread, a shell, an
earthen pot, an axe, a Banyan tree, an elephant. Oil-makers have as their totem an iron
bar, or an oil-mill; scent-makers use five piles, each of five earthen pots, with a lighted
lamp in the middle. The Bangars’ Devak is a conch-shell, that of the Pardesi Râjputs an
earthen pot filled with wheat, and so on. Many of these are probably tribal or
occupational fetishes, of which instances will be given in another place.

The Vâhanas and Avatâras.

Some have professed to find indications of totemism in the Vâhanas and Avatâras, the
“Vehicles” and the “Incarnations” of the mythology; but this is far from certain. It has
been suggested that these may represent tribal deities imported into Hinduism. Brahma
rides on the Hansa or goose; Vishnu on Garuda, half eagle and half man, which is the
crest of the Chandravansi Râjputs; Siva on his bull Nandi; Yama on a buffalo; Kârttikeya
on a peacock; Kâmadeva on the marine monster Makara, or on a parrot; Agni on a ram;
Varuna on a fish. Ganesa is accompanied by his rat, whence his name Akhuratha, “rat-
borne.” This an ingenious comparative mythologist makes out to represent “the pagan
Sun god crushing under his feet the mouse of night.”31 Vâyu rides on an antelope, Sani
or Saturn on a vulture, and Durgâ on a tiger.

The same is the case with the Avatâras or incarnations of the deities. Vishnu appears in
the form of Vârâha, the boar; Kurma, the tortoise; Matsya, the fish; Nara Sinha, the man-
lion; Kalki, the white horse. Rudra and Indra are also represented in the form of the boar.

The Boar as a Totem.

How the boar came to be associated with Vishnu has been much disputed. One and not a
very plausible explanation which has been suggested is that it is because the boar is a
destroyer of snakes.32 We know that in Râjputâna there was a regular spring festival at
which the boar was killed because he was regarded as the special enemy of Gaurî, the
Râjput tribal goddess.33

The comparative mythologists account for the spring boar festival by connecting it with
the ceremonial eating of the boar’s head at Christmas in Europe, as a symbol of the
gloomy monster of winter, killed at the winter solstice, after which the days get longer
and brighter.34 Mr. Frazer explains it by the killing of the Corn Spirit in the form of the
boar.35

But it is, perhaps, simpler to believe with Sir A. Lyall36 that “when the Brâhmans
convert a tribe of pig-worshipping aborigines, they tell their proselytes that the pig was
an Avatâr of Vishnu. The Mînas in one part of Râjputâna used to worship the pig. When
they took a turn towards Islâm they changed their pig into a saint called Father Adam,
and worshipped him as such.” Mr. Frazer has pointed out that the “customs of the
Egyptians touching the pig are to be explained as based upon an opinion of the extreme
sanctity rather than of the extreme uncleanness of the animal; or rather to put it more
correctly, they imply that the animal was looked on not simply as a filthy and a
disgusting creature, but as a being endowed with high supernatural powers, and that as
such it was regarded with that primitive sentiment of religious awe and fear in which the
feelings of reverence are almost equally blended.”

There are indications of the same belief in India. Thus, in Baghera “the boar is a sacred
animal, and the natives there say that if any man were to kill a wild boar in the
neighbourhood, he would be sure to die immediately afterwards, while no such fatal
result would follow if the same man killed a boar anywhere else.”37 In the same way the
Prabhus of Bombay eat wild pork once a year as a religious duty. The Vaddars of the
Dakkhin say that they are not troubled with ghosts, because the pork they eat and hang in
their houses scares ghosts. We know that among the Drâvidian races and many of the
menial tribes of Hindustân the pig is the favourite offering to the local godlings and to
the deities of disease. Swine’s teeth are often worn by Hindu ascetics, and among the
Kolarian races the women are forbidden to eat the flesh. In Northern India the chief
place where the worship of Vishnu in his Vârâha or boar incarnation is localized is at
Soron on the banks of the Bûrhî Gangâ, or old Ganges, in the Etah District. The name of
the place has been derived from Sukarakshetra, “the place of the good deed,” because
here Vishnu slew the demon Hiranyakesu. It is certainly Sukarakshetra, “the plain of the
hog.”38

Garuda, another of these vehicles, is the wonder-working bird common to many
mythologies—the Rukh of the Arabian Nights, the Eorosh of the Zend, the Simurgh of

the Persians, the Anka of the Arabs, the Kargas of the Turks, the Kirni of the Japanese,
the Dragon of China, the Norka of Russia, the Phœnix of classical fable, the Griffin of
chivalry and of Temple Bar.

From totemism we get a clue to many curious usages, especially in the matter of food.
From this idea probably arose the unclean beasts of the Hebrew ritual. Many Hindu
tribes will not eat the onion or the turnip. Brâhmans and Bachgoti Râjputs object to
potatoes. The Râjputs place a special value on the wood of the Nîm tree; one clan alone,
the Raikwârs, are forbidden to use it as a tooth-stick. Some Kolarian tribes, as we have
already seen, refuse to use the flesh or wool of the sheep. The Murmu, or Santâls of the
blue bull sept, will not eat the flesh of that animal. The system of the Orâons is more
elaborate still, for no sub-tribe can eat the plant or animal after which it is named. So, the
Bansetti Binjhiyas, who take their name from the bamboo, do not touch the tree at a
wedding; the Harbans Chamârs, who are said to be in some way connected with a bone
(hadda), cannot wear bones in any shape; the Rikhiâsan Chiks do not eat beef or pork;
the Sanuâni Dhenuârs cannot wear gold; the Dhanuâr Khariyas cannot eat rice gruel.
Numerous instances of this kind are given by Mr. Risley.39 The transition from such
observances and restrictions to the elaborate food regulations of the modern castes is not
difficult.

Fetishism Defined.

Fetishism is “the straightforward, objective admiration of visible substances fancied to
possess some mysterious influence or faculty.... The original downright adoration of
queer-looking objects is modified by passing into the higher order of imaginative
superstition. First, the stone is the abode of some spirit, its curious shape or position
betraying possession. Next, the strange form or aspect argues some design or handiwork
of supernatural beings, or is the vestige of their presence upon earth, and one step further
leads us to the regions of mythology and heroic legend.”40 The unusual appearance of
the object is thus supposed to imply an indwelling ghost, without which deviation from
the ordinary type would be inexplicable. Hence fetishism depends on animism and the
ghost theory, to which in order of time it must have succeeded.

Fetishism Illustrated in Afghânistân.

The process by which the worship of such a fetish grows is well illustrated by a case
from Afghânistân. “It is sufficient for an Afghân devotee to see a small heap of stones, a
few rags, or some ruined tomb, something, in short, upon which a tale can be invented,
to imagine at once that some saint is buried there. The idea conceived, he throws some
more stones upon the heap and sticks up a pole or flag; those who come after follow the
leader; more stones and more rags are added; at last its dimensions are so considerable
that it becomes the vogue; a Mullah is always at hand with a legend which he makes or
had revealed to him in a dream; all the village believe it: a few pilgrims come; crowds
follow; miracles are wrought, and the game goes on, much to the satisfaction of the holy
speculator, who drives a good trade by it, till some other Mullah more cunning than
himself starts a saint of more recent date and greater miraculous powers, when the traffic
changes hands.”41

The same process is daily going on before our eyes in Northern India, and it would be
difficult to suggest anything curious or abnormal which the Hindu villager will not adopt
as fetish.

The Lorik Legend.

The legend of Lorik is very popular among the Ahîr tribe, and has been localized in the
Mirzapur District in a curious way which admirably illustrates the principles which we
have been discussing. The story is related at wearisome length, but the main features of
it, according to the Shâhâbâd version, are as follows: Siudhar, an Ahîr, marries
Chandanî, and is cursed by Pârvatî with the loss of all passion. Chandanî forms an
attachment for her neighbour Lorik and elopes with him. The husband pursues, fails to
induce her to return, fights Lorik and is beaten. The pair go and meet Mahapatiya, a
Dusâdh, the chief of the gamblers. He and Lorik play until the latter loses everything,
including the girl. She urges that her jewels did not form part of the stake, and induces
them to gamble again. She stands opposite Mahapatiya and distracts his attention by
giving him a glance of her pretty ankles. Finally Lorik wins everything back. The girl
then tells Lorik how she has been insulted, and Lorik with his mighty sword cuts off the
gambler’s head, when it and the body are turned into stone.

Lorik had been betrothed to a girl named Satmanâin, who was not of age and had not
joined her husband. Lorik had an adopted brother named Semru. Lorik and Chandanî,
after killing the gambler, went on to Hardoi, near Mongir, where Lorik defeated a Râja
and conquered his country. Lorik was finally seized and put into a dungeon, whence he
was released by the aid of the goddess Durgâ.

He again conquered the Râja, recovered Chandanî, had a son born to him, and gained
considerable wealth. So they determined to return to their native land.

Meanwhile Semru, Lorik’s brother by adoption, had been killed by the Kols and all his
cattle and property were plundered. Lorik’s real wife, Satmanâin, had grown into a
handsome woman, but still remained in her father’s house. Lorik was anxious to test her
fidelity; so when she came to sell milk in his camp, not knowing her husband, he
stretched a loin cloth across the entrance. All the other women stepped over it, but the
delicacy of Satmanâin was so excessive that she would not put her foot across it. Lorik
was pleased, and filling her basket with jewels, covered them with rice. When she
returned, her sister saw the jewellery and charged her with obtaining them as the price of
her dishonour. She indignantly denied the accusation, and her nephew, Semru’s son,
prepared to fight Lorik to avenge the dishonour of his aunt. Next day the matter was
cleared up to the satisfaction of all parties.

Lorik then reigned with justice, and incurred the displeasure of Indra, who sought to
destroy him. So the goddess Durgâ took the form of his mistress Chandanî and tempted
him. He succumbed to her wiles, and she struck him so that his face turned completely
round. Overcome by grief and shame, he went to Benares, and there he and his friends
were turned into stone and sleep the sleep of magic at Manikarnika Ghât.

The Mirzapur Version.

The Mirzapur version is interesting from its association with fetishism. As you descend
the Mârkundi Pass into the valley of the Son, you observe a large isolated boulder split
into two parts, with a narrow fissure between them. Further on in the bed of the Son is a
curious water-worn rock, which, to the eye of faith, suggests a rude resemblance to a
headless elephant. On this foundation has been localized the legend of Lorik, which
takes us back to the time when the Aryan and the aboriginal Dasyu contended for
mastery in the wild borderland. There was once, so the tale runs, a barbarian king who
reigned at the fort of Agori, the frontier fortress on the Son. Among his dependents was a
cowherd maiden, named Manjanî, who was loved by her clansman Lorik. He, with his
brother Sânwar, came to claim her as his bride. The Râja insisted on enforcing the Jus
primae noctis. The heroic brethren, in order to escape this infamy, carried off the
maiden. The Râja pursued on his famous wild elephant, which Lorik decapitated with a
single blow.

When they reached in their flight the Mârkundi Pass, the wise Manjanî advised Lorik to
use her father’s sword, which, with admirable forethought, she had brought with her. He

preferred his own weapon, but she warned him to test both. His own sword broke to
pieces against the huge boulder of the Pass, but Manjanî’s weapon clave it in twain. So
Lorik and his brother, with the aid of the magic brand, defeated the infidel hosts with
enormous slaughter, and carried off the maiden in triumph.

If you doubt the story, there are the cloven boulder and the petrified elephant to witness
to its truth, and both are worshipped to this day in the name of Lorik and his bride with
offerings of milk and grain.

This tale embodies a number of incidents which constantly appear in the folk-tales. We
have the gambling match in the Mahâbhârata and in the tale of Nala and Damayantî, as
well as in the Celtic legend of the young king of Easaidh Ruadh.42 The magic sword and
the various fidelity tests appear both in the folk-tales of the East and West.

Of living creatures turned into stone we have many instances in connection with the
Pândava legend, as in Cornwall, the granite rocks known as the “Merry Maidens” and
the “Pipers” are a party who broke the Sabbath, were struck by lightning, and turned into
stone.43

Jirâyâ Bhavânî.

Of a similar type is Jirâyâ Bhavânî, who is worshipped at Jungail, south of the Son. In
her place of worship, a cave on the hillside, the only representative of the goddess is an
ancient rust-eaten coat of mail. This gives her name, which is a corruption of the Persian
Zirah, meaning a coat of armour. Close by is a little stream, known as the Suaraiya, the
meaning of which is, of course, assumed to be “Hog river,” from the Hindi Sûar, a pig.
Here we have all the elements of a myth. In one of the early fights between Hindu and
Musalmân, a wounded hero of Islâm came staggering to the bank of the stream, and was
about to drink, when he heard that its name was connected with what is an abomination
to the true believer. So he preferred to die of thirst, and no one sees any incongruity in
the fact that the armour of a martyr of the faith has become a form of the Hindu goddess.
The shrine is now on its promotion, and Jirâyâ Bhavânî will be provided with a Sanskrit
etymology and develop before long into a genuine manifestation of Kâlî.

Village Fetish Stones.

It is hardly necessary to say that, as Sir J. Lubbock has shown, the worship of fetish
stones prevails in all parts of the world.44 There is hardly a village in Northern India
without a fetish of this kind, which is very often not appropriated to any special deity,
but represents the Grâmadevatâ or Gânw-devî, or Deohâr, the collective local divine
cabinet which has the affairs of the community under its charge.

Why spirits should live in stones has been debated. Mr. Campbell perhaps presses the
matter too far when he suggests that stones were by early man found to contain fire, and
that heated stones being found useful in disease, cooking, and the like may have
strengthened the idea. “The earliest theory was perhaps that as the life of the millet was
in the millet seed and the life of the Mango tree was in the Mango stone, a human spirit
could live in a rock or a pebble. The belief that the soul, or part of the soul of a man,
lives in his bones, seems closely connected with the belief in the stone as a spirit house.
Probably it was an early belief that the bones should be kept, so that if the spirit comes
back and worries the survivors he may have a place to go to.”45

It is quite possible that the worship of stocks and stones may not in all places be based
on exactly the same train of ideas. To the ruder races, the more curious or eccentric the
form of the stone is, the more likely it is to be the work and possibly the abode of a
spirit, and in a stoneless land, like the Gangetic plain, any stone is a wonder, and likely
to be revered. The conception of the worshipper will always vary in regard to it. To the
savage it will be the actual home or the occasional resting-place of the spirit; to the
idolater of more advanced ideas it will be little more than a symbol, which reminds him
of the deity without shape or form whom he is bound to worship.

Other fetish stones, again, by their form prove that they are the work of another or a
higher race. Thus, on the village fetish mounds we often find the carved relics of some
Buddhistic shrine, or the prehistoric stone implements, which were the work of a
forgotten people.

Lastly, many stones lend themselves directly to the needs of the phallic cultus.

One form of stone is regarded with special reverence, those that have holes or
perforations. Among these may be mentioned the Sâlagrâma, a sort of ammonite found
in the Gandak river, which has perforations, said to be the work of the Vajrakîta insect
and hence sacred to Vishnu. The story goes that the divine Nârâyana once wandered
through the world in the form of the Vajrakîta or golden bee. The gods, attracted by his
beauty, also took the form of bees, and whirled about him in such numbers that Vishnu,
afraid of the consequences, assumed the form of a rock and stopped the moving of
Garuda and the gods. On this Garuda, followed by all the gods, made each a separate
dwelling in the rock for the conversion of the infidels. So the Cornish Milpreve, or adder
stone which is a preservative against vipers, is a ball of coralline limestone, the sections

in the coral being thought to be entangled young snakes.46 In Italy, pieces of stalagmite
full of cavities are valued as amulets.

The respect for these perforated stones rests, again, on the well-known principle that
looking through a stone which has a hole bored through it improves the sight.

All over the world it is a recognized theory that creeping through the orifice in a
perforated stone or under an arching stone or tree is a valuable remedy in cases of
disease. Mr. Lane describes how women in Cairo walk under the stone on which the
decapitated bodies of criminals are washed, in the hope of curing ophthalmia or
procuring offspring. The woman must do this in silence, and with the left foot
foremost.47 In Cornwall, Mr. Hunt writes: “In various parts of the country there are,
amongst the granitic masses, rocks which have fallen across each other, leaving small
openings, or there are holes, low and narrow, extending under a pile of rocks. In nearly
every case of this kind, we find it is popularly stated that any one suffering from
rheumatism or lumbago would be cured if he crawled through the opening. In some
cases nine times are insisted on to make the charm complete.”48 So, walking under a
bramble which has formed a second root in the earth is a cure for rheumatism, and
strumous children were passed nine times through a cleft ash tree, against the sun. The
tree was then bound up, and if the bark grew the child was cured, if the tree died the
death of the child was sure to follow.49

In the same way at many shrines it is part of the worship to creep through a narrow
orifice from one side to the other. At Kankhal, worshippers at the temple of Daksha
creep through a sort of tunnel from one side to the other. The same is the rule at the
temple at Kabraiya in the Hamîrpur District, and at many other places of the same
kind.50

The same principle probably accounts for the respect paid to the grindstone. Part of the
earliest form of the marriage ritual consisted in the bride standing on the family
grindstone. At the present day she puts her foot upon it and knocks down little piles of
heaped grain. It is waved over the heads of the pair to scare evil spirits. In Bombay it is
said that sitting on a grindstone shortens life, and the Kunbis of Kolâba place a
grindstone in the lying-in room, and on it set a rice flour image of a woman, which is
worshipped as the goddess, and the baby is laid before it. Such a stone readily passes
into a fetish, as at Ahmadnagar, where there is a stone with two holes, which any two
fingers of any person’s hand can fill, and the mosque where it stands is, in consequence,
much respected.51

Much, however, of the worship of stones appears to be the result of the respect paid to
the tombstone or cairn, which, as we have already said, keeps down the ghost of the dead
man, and is often a place in which his spirit chooses to reside.

These rude stones are very often smeared with ruddle or red ochre. We have here a
survival of the blood sacrifice of a human being or animal which was once universal.52
Such sacrifices rest on the principle that it is necessary to supply attendants to the dead
or to the tribal gods in the other world; and the commutation of human sacrifices, first
into those of animals, and then into a mere scarlet stain on the fetish stone, is a
constantly recurring fact in the history of custom.53 It may be worth while to discuss this
transition from the Indian evidence.

Human Sacrifice among the Indo-Aryans.

That human sacrifice prevailed among the early Aryans in India is generally admitted.
The whole question has been treated in detail by that eminent Hindu scholar, Rajendra
Lâla Mitra. He arrives at the conclusion that, looking to the history of the ancient
civilization and the ritual of the Hindus, there is nothing to justify the belief that the
Hindus were incapable of sacrificing human victims to their gods; that the Sunasepha
hymns of the Rig Veda Sanhita most probably refer to a human sacrifice; that the
Aitareya Brâhmana refers to an actual and not to a typical human sacrifice; that the
Parushamedha originally required the actual sacrifice of men; that the Taitareya
Brâhmana enjoys the killing of a man at the horse sacrifice; that the Satapatha Brâhmana
sanctions human sacrifice in some cases, but makes the Parushamedha emblematic; that
the Purânas recognize human sacrifices to Chandikâ, but prohibit the Parushamedha rite;
that the Tantras enjoin human sacrifices to Chandikâ, and require that when human
victims are not available, an effigy of a human being should be sacrificed to her.54

Human Sacrifice in the Folk-tales.

There is ample evidence from the folk-tales of the existence of human sacrifice in early
times. We have in the tales of Somadeva constant reference to human sacrifices made in
honour of Chandikâ or Châmundâ. We find one Muravara, a Turushka or Indo-Scythian,
who proposes to make a human sacrifice in memory of his dead father; we have
expiatory sacrifices to Chandikâ to save the life of a king. In one of the Panjâb tales a
ship will not leave port till a human victim is offered. In one of the modern tales we have
an account of a man and his family who sacrifice themselves before the god Jyoti Bara,
“the great diviner,” who is worshipped by the Sânsya gypsies.55

The folk-tales also disclose ample evidence of cannibalism. The Magian cannibals of the
Book of Sindibad used to eat human flesh raw, and the same tale is told by Herodotus of
the Massagetae, the Padaei of India, whom Col. Dalton identifies with the Birhors of
Chota Nâgpur, and of the Essedones near Lake Moeotis.56 It is needless to say that
Indian folk-tales abound with references to the same practices. We have cannibal
Râkshasas in abundance, and in one of Somadeva’s stories Devaswâmin, the Brâhman,
looks out and finds his “wife’s mouth stained with blood, for she had devoured his
servant and left nothing of him but the bones.” And in the tale of Asokadatta we have a
woman who climbs on a stake and cuts slices of the flesh of an impaled criminal, which
she eats.57 In the Mahâbhârata we find the legend of Kalmashapada, who, while hunting,
meets Saktri, son of Vasishtha, and strikes him with his whip. The incensed sage cursed
him to become a cannibal. This curse was heard by Viswamitra, the rival of Vasishtha,
and he so contrived that the body of the king became possessed by a man-eating
Râkshasa. Kalmashapada devoured Saktri and the hundred sons of Vasishtha, who
finally restored him to his original state. In a tale recently collected among the Drâvidian
Mânjhis, a girl accidentally cuts her finger and some of the blood falls upon the greens,
whereupon her brothers, finding that it flavoured the mess, killed and devoured her.58

Human Sacrifice in Modern Times.

Up to quite modern times the same was the case, and there is some evidence to show that
the custom has not quite ceased.

Until the beginning of the present century, the custom of offering a first-born child to the
Ganges was common. Akin to this is the Gangâ Jâtra, or murder of sick relatives on the
banks of the sacred river, of which a case occurred quite recently at Calcutta. At Katwa,
near Calcutta, a leper was burnt alive in 1812; he threw himself into a pit ten cubits deep
which was filled with burning coals. He tried to escape, but his mother and sister thrust
him in again and he was burnt. They believed that by so doing he would gain a pure
body in the next birth.59 Of this religious suicide in Central India, Sir J. Malcolm wrote:
“Self-sacrifice of men is less common than it used to be, and the men who do it are
generally of low tribes. One of their chief motives is that they will be born Râjas at their
next incarnation. Women who have been long barren, vow their first child, if one be
given to them, to Omkâr Mandhâta. The first knowledge imparted to the infant is this
vow, and the impression is so implanted in his mind, that years before his death he seems
like a man haunted by his destiny. There is a tradition that anyone saved after the leap
over the cliff near the shrine must be made Râja of the place; but to make this

impossible, poison is mixed with the last victuals given to the devoted man, who is
compelled to carry out his purpose.”60

The modern instances of human sacrifice among the Khândhs of Bengal and the Mers of
Râjputâna are sufficiently notorious. It also prevailed among some of the Drâvidian
tribes up to quite recent times. The Kharwârs, since adopting Hinduism, performed
human sacrifices to Kâlî in the form of Chandî. Some of our people who fell into their
hands during the Mutiny were so dealt with. The same was the case with the Bhuiyas,
Khândhs, and Mundas. Some of the Gonds of Sarguja used to offer human sacrifice to
Burha Deo, and still go through a form of doing so.61 There is a recent instance quoted
among the Tiyars, a class of boatmen in Benares; one Tonurâm sacrificed four men in the
hope of recovering the treasures of seven Râjas; another man was killed to propitiate a
Râkshasa who guarded a treasure supposed to be concealed in a house where the deed
was committed.62 About 1881 a village headman sacrificed a human being to Kâlî in the
Sambalpur District, and a similar charge was made against the chief of Bastar not many
years ago.

Of the Karhâda Brâhmans of Bombay, Sir J. Malcolm writes:63 “The tribe of Brâhmans
called Karhâda had formerly a horrid custom of annually sacrificing to their deities a
young Brâhman. The Saktî is supposed to delight in human blood, and is represented
with fiery eyes and covered with red flowers. This goddess holds in one hand a sword
and in the other a battle-axe. The prayers of her votaries are directed to her during the
first nine days of the Dasahra feast, and on the evening of the tenth a grand repast is
prepared, to which the whole family is invited. An intoxicating drug is contrived to be
mixed with the food of the intended victim, who is often a stranger whom the master of
the house has for several months treated with the greatest kindness and attention, and
sometimes, to lull suspicion, given him his daughter in marriage. As soon as the
poisonous and intoxicating drug operates, the master of the house unattended takes the
devoted person into the temple, leads him three times round the idol, and on his
prostrating himself before it, takes this opportunity of cutting his throat. He collects with
the greatest care the blood in a small bowl, which he first applies to the lips of the
ferocious goddess, and then sprinkles it over her body; and a hole having been dug at the
feet of the idol for the corpse, he deposits it with great care to prevent discovery. After
this the Karhâda Brâhman returns to his family, and spends the night in mirth and
revelry, convinced that by the bloodthirsty act he has propitiated the goddess for twelve
years. On the morning of the following day the corpse is taken from the hole in which it
had been thrown, and the idol deposited till next Dasahra, when a similar sacrifice is
made.”

There seems reason to suspect that even in the present day such sacrifices are
occasionally performed at remote shrines of Kâlî or Durgâ Devî. Within the last few
years a significant case of the kind occurred at Benares. There are numerous instances

from Nepâl.64 At Jaypur, near Vizagapatam, the Râja is said, at his installation in 1861,
to have sacrificed a girl to Durgâ.65 A recent case of such sacrifice with the object of
recovering hidden treasure occurred in Berâr; a second connected with witchcraft at
Muzaffarnagar.66 At Chanda and Lanji in the Province of Nâgpur there are shrines to
Kâlî at which human sacrifices to the goddess have been offered almost within the
memory of this generation.

Besides the religious form of human sacrifice in honour of one of these bloodthirsty
deities, there are forms of the rite which depend on the mystic power attributed to human
flesh and blood in various charms and black magic.

In connection with human flesh a curious story is told of a man who went to bathe in the
Ganges, and met one of the abominable Faqîrs known as Augars or Aghorpanthis, who
carry about with them fragments of a human corpse. He saw the Faqîr cut off and eat a
piece of the flesh of a corpse, and he then offered him a piece, saying that if he ate it he
would become enormously rich. He refused the ghastly food, and the Faqîr then threw a
piece at him which stuck to his head, forming a permanent lump.67 In one of the tales of
Somadeva the witches are seen flying about in the air, and say, “These are the magic
powers of witches’ spells, and are due to the eating of human flesh.” In another the hero
exchanges an anklet with a woman for some human flesh.68

The same mysterious power is attributed to human blood. The blood of the Jinn has, it is
hardly necessary to say, special powers of its own. Thus, in one of the Kashmîr stories
the angel says: “This is a most powerful Jinn. Should a drop of his blood fall to the
ground while life is in him, another Jinn will be quickly formed therefrom, and spring up
and slay you.”69 Bathing in human blood has been regarded as a powerful remedy for
disease. The Emperor Constantine was ordered a bath of children’s blood, but moved by
the prayers of the parents, he forbore to apply the remedy and was rewarded by a
miraculous recovery. In one of the European folk-tales a woman desirous of offspring is
directed to take a horn and cup herself, draw out a clot of blood, place it in a pot, lute it
down and only uncover it in the ninth month, when a child would be found in the pot. In
the German folk-tales, bathing in the blood of innocent maidens is a cure for leprosy.70

The same beliefs largely prevail in India. In 1870, a Musalmân butcher losing his child
was told by a Hindu conjuror that if he washed his wife in the blood of a boy, his next
infant would be healthy. To ensure this result a child was murdered. A similar case
occurred in Muzaffarnagar, where a child was killed and the blood drunk by a barren
woman.71 In one of the tales of Somadeva the pregnant queen asks her husband to
gratify her longing by filling a tank with blood for her to bathe in. He was a righteous
man, and in order to gratify her craving he had a tank filled with the juice of lac and
other extracts, so that it seemed to be full of blood. In another tale the ascetic tells the
woman that if she killed her young son and offered him to the divinity, another son

would certainly be born to her. Quite recently at Muzaffarnagar a childless Jât woman
was told that she would attain her desire if she bathed in water mixed with the blood of a
Brâhman child. A Hindu coolie at Mauritius bathed in and drank the blood of a girl,
thinking that thereby he would be gifted with supernatural powers. It would be easy to
add largely to the number of instances of similar beliefs.72

Survivals of Human Sacrifice.

There are, in addition, numerous customs which appear to be survivals of human
sacrifice, or of the blood covenant, which also prevailed in Arabia.73 Among the lower
castes in Northern India the parting of the bride’s hair is marked with red, a survival of
the original blood covenant, by which she was introduced into the sept of her husband.
We see that this is the case from the rites of the more savage tribes. Among the Kewats
of Bengal, a tiny scratch is made on the little finger of the bridegroom’s right hand and
of the bride’s left, and the drops of blood drawn from these are mixed with the food.
Each then eats the food with which the other’s blood has been mixed. Among the Santâls
blood is drawn in the same way from the little finger of the bride and bridegroom, and
with it marks are made on both above the clavicle.74

Human Sacrifice and Buildings.

One standing difficulty at each decennial census has been the rumour which spreads in
remote tracts that Government is making the enumeration with a view of collecting
victims to be sacrificed at some bridge or other building, or that a toll of pretty girls is to
be taken to reward the soldiery after some war. Thus, about a fort in Madras it had long
been a tradition that when it was first built a girl had been built into the wall to render it
impregnable.75 It is said that a Râja was once building a bridge over the river Jargo at
Chunâr, and when it fell down several times he was advised to sacrifice a Brâhman girl
to the local deity. She has now become the Marî or ghost of the place, and is regularly
worshipped in time of trouble.76 In Kumaun the same belief prevails, and kidnappers,
known as Dokhutiya, or two-legged beasts of prey, are said to go about capturing boys
for this purpose. In Kâthiâwâr, if a castle was being built and the tower would not stand,
or if a pond had been dug and would not hold water, a human victim was offered.77 The
rumour that a victim was required spread quite recently in connection with the Hughli

Bridge at Calcutta and the Benares water-works. The Narmadâ, it was believed, would
never allow herself to be bridged until she carried away part of the superstructure, and
caused the loss of lives as a sacrifice. At Ahmadâbâd, by the advice of a Brâhman, a
childless Vânya was induced to dig a tank to appease the goddess Sîtalâ. The water
refused to enter it without the sacrifice of a man. As soon as the victim’s blood fell on
the ground, the tank filled and the goddess came down from heaven and rescued the
victim.78 In building the fort of Sikandarpur in Baliya, a Brâhman and a Dusâdh girl
were both immolated.79 The Vadala lake in Bombay refused to hold water till the local
spirit was appeased by the sacrifice of the daughter of the village headman. When the
Shorkot fort was being built one side repeatedly fell down. A Faqîr advised the Râja to
put a first-born son under the rampart. This was done and the wall stood. The child’s
mother went to Mecca, and returned with an army of Muhammadans; but they could not
take the fort. Then a Faqîr transformed himself into a cock and flew on the roof of the
palace, where he set up a loud crow. The Râja was frightened and abandoned the place.
As he was leaving it, he shouted, “Shame on thee, O Fort! to remain standing!” and the
walls at once fell down.80

Modifications of Human Sacrifice.

There are also many instances of the transition from human sacrifices to those of a
milder form. Thus, when Ahmadâbâd was building, Mânik Bâwa, a saint, every day
made a cushion, and every night picked it to pieces. As he did so the day’s work fell
down. The Sultân refrained from sacrificing him, but got him into a small jar and kept
him there till the work was over.81 The Villâlis of Pûna on the fifteenth day after a death
shape two bricks like human beings, dress them, and lay them on a wooden stool. They
weep by them all night, and next day, taking them to the burning ground, cremate them.
Among the Telugu Brâhmans of Pûna, if a man dies at an unlucky time, wheaten figures
of men are made and burnt with the corpse. The Konkani Marâthas of Kanara on the
feast of Raulnâth get a man to cut his hand with a knife and let three drops of blood fall
on the ground.82 Formerly in Hoshangâbâd, men used to swing themselves from a pole,
as in the famous Bengal Charakh Pûjâ. In our territories this is now uncommon, as the
village headmen being afraid of responsibility for an accident, generally, instead of a
man, fasten up a white pumpkin, which they swing about.83

At the installation of a Bhuiya Râja, a man comes forward whom the Râja touches on the
neck, as if about to cut off his head. The victim disappears for three days; then he
presents himself before the Râja, as if miraculously restored to life. Similarly, the Gonds,
instead of a human sacrifice, now make an image of straw, which they find answers the

purpose. The Bhuiyas of Keunjhar used to offer the head of their prime minister to
Thakurânî Mâî. She is now transformed into the Hindu Durgâ and accepts a sacrifice of
goats and sheep.84 In Nepâl, after the Sithi Jâtra feast, the people divide into two parties
and have a match at stone-throwing; formerly this used to be a serious matter, and any
one who was knocked down and fell into the hands of the other side was sacrificed to the
goddess Kankeswarî. The actual killing of the victim, as in the case of sacrifices to the
goddess Bachhlâ Devî, has now been discontinued under the influence of British
officers.85 We shall meet later on in another connection other instances of mock fights of
the same kind.

Momiâî.

In connection with human sacrifice may be mentioned the curious superstition about
Momiâî or mummy.

The virtues of human fat as a magical ointment appear all through folk-lore. Othello,
referring to the handkerchief which he had given to Desdemona, says,—

“It was dyed in the mummy which the skilful
Conserved of maidens’ hearts.”

Writing of witches Reginald Scot says: “The devil teacheth them to make ointment of
the bowels and members of children, whereby they ride in the air and accomplish all
their desires. After burial they steal them out of their graves and seethe them in a
cauldron till the flesh be made potable, of which they make an ointment by which they
ride in the air.” In Macbeth the first witch speaks of—

“Grease that sweaten
From the murderer’s gibbet.”

Indian witches are believed to use the same mystic preparation to enable them to fly
through the air, as their European sisters are supposed to use the fat of a toad.86 Human
fat is believed to be specially efficacious for this purpose. In one of Somadeva’s stories
the Brâhman searches for treasure with a candle made of human fat in his hand.87 One of
the Mongol Generals, Marco Polo tells us, was accused of boiling down human beings
and using their fat to grease his mangonels; and Carpini says that when the Tartars cast
Greek fire into a town they used to shoot human fat with it, in order to cause the fire to
burn more quickly.88 So, in Europe a candle of human fat is said to have been used by
robbers with the Hand of Glory to prevent the inmates waking, and on the Scotch border

the torch used in the mystic ceremony of “saining” was made from the fat of a
slaughtered enemy.89

In India, the popular idea about Momiâî is that a boy, the fatter and blacker the better, is
caught, a small hole is bored in the top of his head, and he is hung up by the heels over a
slow fire. The juice or essence of his body is in this way distilled into seven drops of the
potent medicine known as Momiâî.

This substance possesses healing properties of a supernatural kind. Sword cuts, spear
thrusts, wounds from arrows and other weapons of warfare are instantly cured by its use,
and he who possesses it is practically invulnerable. In Kumaun, this substance is known
as Nârâyan Tel or Râm Tel, the “oil of Vishnu or Râma.”

It is further believed that a European gentleman, known as the Momiâî-wâla Sâhib, has a
contract from Government of the right of enticing away suitable boys for this purpose.
He makes them smell a stick or wand, which obliges them to follow him, and he then
packs them off to some hill station where he carries on this nefarious manufacture.

As an instance of this belief, “A very black servant of a friend of mine states that he had
a very narrow escape from this Sâhib at the Nauchandi fair at Meerut, where
Government allows him to walk about for one day and make as many suitable victims as
he can by means of his stick. The Sâhib had just put his hand in his pocket and taken out
the stick, which was dry and shrivelled and about a span long, when the servant with
great presence of mind held out his hands and said, ‘Bas! Bas!’ ‘Enough! enough!’ Thus
intimidated, the Sâhib went away into the crowd. In connection with Momiâî, a lady here
narrowly escaped a very uncanny reputation. Some of her servants gave out that she
possessed a Momiâî stick, for which she had paid a hundred rupees. On hearing this an
inquiry was made which brought out that the lady had missed a pod of vanilla about
seven inches long, of a very special quality, that she kept rolled up in a piece of paper
among some of her trinkets. The ayah who mislaid it was scolded for her carelessness,
and told that it was worth more than she thought. She promptly put two and two
together. The shrivelled appearance which is supposed to be peculiar to mysterious
sticks, such as snake charmers produce, the fuss made about it, and the value attached to
it convinced her that her mistress owned a Momiâî stick.”90

These mystic sticks appear constantly in folk-lore. We have the caduceus of Hermes, the
rod of Moses, the staff of Elisha, the wand of Circe, or of Gwydion or Skirni. In one of
Somadeva’s tales the Kapâlika ascetic has a magic stick which dances. In one of the
Kashmîr tales the magic wand placed under the feet of the prince makes him insensible,
when laid under his head he revives. Many people in England still believe in the divining
rod which points out concealed springs underground.91

Every native boy, particularly those who are black and fat, believes himself a possible
victim to the wiles of the dreaded Momiâî Sâhib, who frequents hill stations because he
is thus enabled to carry on his villainous practices with comparative impunity and less
danger of detection. Even to whisper the word Momiâî is enough to make the crowd of
urchins who dog the steps of a district officer when he is on his rounds through a town,
disperse in dismay. Surgeons are naturally exposed to the suspicion of being engaged in
this awful business, and some years ago most of the coolies deserted one of the hill
stations, because an enthusiastic anatomist set up a private dissecting-room of his own.
Freemasons, who are looked on by the general native public as a kind of sorcerers or
magicians, are also not free from this suspicion. That such ideas should prevail among
the rural population of India is not to be wondered at, when in our own modern England
it is very commonly believed that luminous paint is made out of human fat.92

The Dânapurwâla Sâhib.

Another of these dreaded Sâhibs is the Dânapurwâla Sâhib, or gentleman from Dinapur.
Why this personage should be connected with Dinapur, a respectable British
cantonment, no one can make out. At any rate, it is generally believed that he has a
contract from Government for procuring heads for some of the museums, and he too has
a magic stick with which he entices unfortunate travellers on dark nights and chops off
their heads with a pair of shears. The influence of these magic wands by smelling may
perhaps be associated with the fact that the nose is a spirit entry, as we have seen in the
case of sneezing.

Fetish Stones.

To return after this digression to fetish stones. Of this phase of belief we have well-
known instances in the coronation stone in Westminster Abbey, which is associated with
the dream of Jacob, and the Hajuru’l Aswad of Mecca, which Sir R. Burton believed to
be an aërolite. No one will bring a stone from the Sacred Hill at Govardhan near
Mathura, because it is supposed to be endowed with life. The Yâdavas, who are
connected with the same part of the country, had a stone fetish, described in the Vishnu
Purâna, which brought rain and plenty. There are numerous legends connected with
many of these fetish stones, such as that in the temple of Daksha at Kankhal and

Gorakhnâtha in Kheri,93 which are said to owe the fissures in them to the blow of the
battle-axe or sword of one of the iconoclast Muhammadan Emperors. Of Gorakhnâtha it
is said that Aurangzeb attempted to drag up the great Lingam, and failed to do so even
with the aid of elephants. When he came to investigate the cause of his failure, tongues
of flame burst from the bottom of the pillar.

The stalactites in the Behâr Hills are regarded as the images of the gods.94 The pestle
and mortar in which a noted Darvesh of Oudh used to grind his drugs are now
worshipped, and a leading family in the Lucknow District keep before their family
residence a large square stone which they reverence. They say that their ancestors
brought it from Delhi, and that it is the symbol of their title to the estates, which were
granted to them by one of the Emperors. He enjoined them to take it as the foundation of
their settlement, and since that time each new Râja on his accession presents flowers,
sweetmeats, and money to it.95

A great rock in the river above Badarinâth, the famous shrine in the Hills, is worshipped
as Brahm Kapâl or the skull of Brahma, and Nandâ Devî, the mountain goddess of the
Himâlaya, is worshipped in the form of two great stones glittering with mica, and
reflecting the rays of the sun.96 At Amosi in the Lucknow District they worship at
marriages and birth of boys the door-post of the house of an old Râjput leader, named
Binâik, who is honoured with the title of Bâba or “father.”97 At Deodhûra in the Hills the
grey granite boulders near the crest of the ridge are said to have been thrown there in
sport by the Pândavas. Close to the temple of Devî at the same place are two large
boulders, the uppermost of which is called Ransila, or “the stone of battle,” and is cleft
through the centre by a deep, fresh-looking fissure, at right angles to which is a similar
rift in the lower rock. A small boulder on the top is said to have been the weapon with
which Bhîmsen produced these fissures, and the print of his five fingers is still to be seen
upon it. Ransila itself is marked with the lines for playing the gambling game of Pachîsi,
which, though it led to their misfortunes, the Pândavas even in their exile could not
abandon. There are many places where the marks of the hoofs of the horse of Bhîmsen
are shown.98 “One spot on the margin of Lake Regillus was regarded during many ages
with superstitious awe. A mark, resembling in shape a horse’s hoof, was discernible in
the volcanic rock; and this mark was believed to have been made by one of the celestial
chargers.”99

Fetishes among the Santâls.

The Santâls, like all uncivilized races, have a whole army of fetishes. A round piece of
wood, nearly a foot in length, the top of which is painted red, is called Banhî, or “the
protector of the jungle.” Another stands for Laghû, the goddess of the earth, who is
sometimes represented by a mountain. An oblong piece of wood, painted red, stands for
Mahâmâî, “the great Mother,” Devî’s daughter; a small piece of white stone daubed with
red is Burhiyâ Mâî, or “the old Mother,” her granddaughter; an arrow-head stands for
Dûdhâ Mâî, “the milk Mother,” the daughter of Burhiyâ; a trident painted red represents
the monkey god Hanumân, who executes all the orders of Devî. “Sets of these symbols
are placed, one on the east and one on the west of their huts to protect them from evil
spirits, snakes, tigers, and all sorts of misfortune.”100

Very similar to this is the worship of Bîrnâth, the fetish of the Mirzapur Ahîrs. His
platform, which is made of clay, usually contains one, three, or five rude wooden
images, each about three feet high, with a rough representation of a human face
sculptured on the top. He was, it is said, an Ahîr who was killed by a tiger, and he is now
worshipped by them in times of trouble. His special function is to protect the cattle from
beasts of prey. The worshipper bathes, plasters his platform with fresh clay, and laying
his offering on it, says: “Bîrnâth! Keep our cattle safe and you will get more.” The same
form of worship prevails all along the Central Indian Hills. “In the south of the Bhandâra
District the traveller frequently meets with squared pieces of wood, each with a rude
figure carved in front, set up close to each other. These represent Bangarâm, Bangarâ
Bâî, or Devî, who is said to have one sister and five brothers, the sister being styled Kâlî,
and four out of the five brothers being known as Gantarâm, Champarâm, Nâikarâm, and
Potlinga. They are all deemed to possess the power of sending disease and death upon
men, and under these or other names seem to be generally feared in the region east of
Nâgpur. Bhîmsen, again, is generally adored under the form of one or two pieces of
wood standing three or four feet in length above the ground, like those set up in
connection with Bangarâm’s worship.”101

Fetish Stones which Cure Disease.

Many of these stones have the power of curing disease, and the water with which they
have been bathed is considered a useful medicine. This is the case with a number of
sacred Mahâdeva Lingams all over the country. A common proverb speaks of the old
woman who is ready enough to eat the Prasâd or offering to the god, but hesitates to
drink the water in which his feet have been washed. In Western India no orthodox
Brâhman will eat his food till he has thrice sipped the water in which his Sâlagrâma
stone has been washed.102 We have already noticed the fetish bowl, the washings of

which are administered by midwives to secure easy parturition. So, in Western lands the
stones fetched by Merlin had the power of healing if washed in water and the patient
bathed in it.103 Stone celts are, in Cornwall, supposed to impart a healing effect to water
in which they have been soaked.104 In Java a decoction of the lichen which grows on
fetish stones is used as a remedy for disease.105 In the Isle of Lewis cattle disease is
attributed to the bites of serpents, and the suffering animals are made to drink water into
which charm stones are put; in the Highlands large crystals of a somewhat oval shape
were kept by the priests to work charms with, and water poured thereon was given to
cattle as a preventative of disease.106

Fetish Stones the Abode of Spirits.

The virtue of all these fetish stones rests in their embodying the spirits of gods or deified
men. As we have shown, this is a common principle of popular belief. In one of Miss
Stokes’s Indian tales, “The man who went to seek his fate,” the fate is found in stones,
some standing up and some lying down. The man beats the stone which embodies his
fate because he is miserably poor. Mr. H. Spencer thinks that the idea of persons being
turned into stones may have arisen from instances of actual petrifaction of trees and the
like; but this is not very probable, and it is much simpler to believe with Dr. Tylor that it
depends on the principles of animism.107

Family Fetishes.

Some fetishes, like the Bombay Devaks, are special to particular families. Such is the
case with the Thârus, a non-Aryan tribe in the sub-Himâlayan Tarâî. Each member of the
tribe constructs a hollow mound in front of his door, and thereon erects a stake of Palâsa
wood (Butea frondosa), which is regarded as the family fetish and periodically
worshipped.

Tool Fetishes.

Next comes the worship of the tool fetish, which, according to Sir A. Lyall, is “the
earliest phase or type of the tendency which later on leads those of one guild or walk in
life to support and cultivate one god, who is elected in lieu of the individual trade
fetishes melted down to preside over their craft or trade interests.”108

A good example of this is the pickaxe fetish of the Thags.

When Kâlî refused to help them in the burial of their victims she gave them one of her
teeth for a pickaxe, and the hem of her lower garment for a noose. Hence the pickaxe
was venerated by the Thags. Its fabrication was superintended with the utmost care, and
it was consecrated with many ceremonies. A lucky day was selected, and a smith was
appointed to forge it with the most profound secrecy. The door was closed against all
intruders; the leader never left the forge while the manufacture was going on; and the
smith was allowed to do no other work until this was completed. Next came the
consecration. This was done on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Friday, and care was
taken that the shadow of no living thing fell upon the axe. The consecrator sat with his
face to the west, and received the implement in a brass dish. It was then washed in water
which was allowed to fall into a pit made for the purpose. Then further ablutions
followed, the first in sugar and water, the second in sour milk, and the third in spirits.
The axe was then marked from the head to the point with seven spots of red lead, and
replaced on the brass dish with a cocoanut, some cloves, white sandalwood, and other
articles.

A fire was next made of cowdung and the wood of the Mango and Ber tree. All the
articles deposited on the brass plate, with the exception of the cocoanut, were thrown
into the fire, and when the flame rose the Thag priest passed the pickaxe with both hands
seven times through the fire. The cocoanut was then stripped of its husk and placed on
the ground. The officiant, holding the axe by the point, asked: “Shall I strike?” The
bystanders assented, and he then broke the cocoanut with the blunt end of the weapon,
exclaiming, “All hail, Devî! Great Mother of us all!” The spectators responded, “All
hail, Devî, and prosper the Thags.” If the cocoanut was not broken at one blow, all the
labour was lost; the goddess was considered unpropitious, and the entire ceremony had
to be repeated. The broken shell and kernel of the cocoanut were then thrown into the
fire, the pickaxe wrapt in white cloth was placed on the ground towards the west, and all
present prostrated themselves before it.109

Here we have another example of magic in its sympathetic form, the use of sundry spirit
scarers, which have been already discussed, and the cocoanut representing an actual
human victim.

Weapons and Implement Fetishes.

In the same way soldiers and warlike tribes worship their weapons. Thus, the sword was
worshipped by the Râjputs, and when a man of lower caste married a Râjput girl, she
was married, as in the case of Holkar, to his sword with his kerchief bound round it.110
This sword-worship is specially performed, as by the Baiswârs of Mirzapur and the
Gautam sept of Râjputs. The Nepâlese worship their weapons and regimental colours at
the Dasahra festival. At the Diwâlî, or feast of lamps, on the first day they worship dogs;
on the second day cows and bulls; on the third day capitalists worship their treasure
under the name of Lakshmî, the goddess of wealth; on the fourth day every householder
worships as deities the members of his family, and on the fifth day sisters worship their
brothers.111

The same customs prevail among the artisan castes in Northern India. The hair-scraper
of the tanner is worshipped by curriers, and the potter’s wheel, regarded as a type of
productiveness, is reverenced at marriages by many of the lower castes. Even the clay
which has been mixed by the potter has mystic powers. When a person has been bitten
by a mad dog, a lump of this clay is brought, and the wound is touched with it while a
spell is recited.112 Carpenters worship their yard measure; Chamârs swear by the
shoemaker’s last, and the children of the Darzi or tailor are made to worship the scissors.

In Bengal, the Alakhiya sect of Saiva ascetics profess profound respect for their alms-
bag; the carpenters worship their adze, chisel, and saw; the barbers their razors, scissors,
and mirror. At the Srîpanchamî, or fifth day of the month of Mâgh, the writer class
worship their books, pens, and inkstand. The writing implements are cleaned, and the
books, wrapped in white cloth, are strewn over with flowers and the leaves of young
barley.113

The same customs prevail in Bombay. A mill is the Devak or guardian of oil-makers;
dancing girls worship a musical instrument; jewellers worship their pincers and
blowpipe; curriers worship an axe, and market gardeners a pair of scales.114

In the Panjâb, farmers worship their oxen in August, their plough at the Dasahra festival,
and they have a ceremony at the end of October to drive away ticks from their cattle;
shepherds worship their sheep at the full moon of July; bankers and clerks worship their
books at the Diwâlî festival; grain-sellers worship their weights at the Dasahra, Diwâlî,
and Holî, and, in a way, every morning as well. Oilmen worship their presses at odd
times; artisans salute their tools daily when they bathe; and generally the means of
livelihood, whatever they may be, are worshipped with honour at the Diwâlî, Dasahra,
and Holî.115 So the Pokharna Brâhmans, who are said to have been the navvies who
originally excavated the lake at Pushkar, worship in memory of this the Kudâla, or
mattock.116

All these customs are as old as the time of the Chaldeans, “who sacrifice unto their net
and burn incense unto their drag, because by them their portion is fat and their meat
plenteous.”117

Among these implement fetishes the corn-sieve and the plough, the basket, the broom,
and the rice-pounder are of special importance.

The Corn-sieve.

The corn-sieve or winnowing basket, the Mystica vannus Iacchi of Virgil, has always
enjoyed a reputation as an emblem of increase and prosperity, and as possessing magical
powers. The witch in Macbeth says:—

“Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, Master of the Tiger;
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail.”

It was used in Scotland to foretell the future at Allhallow Eve. Divination was performed
with a pair of shears and a sieve. Aubrey describes how “the shears are stuck in a sieve,
and the maidens hold up the sieve with the top of their fingers by the handle of the
shears, then say, ‘By St. Peter and St. Paul, he hath not stolen it.’ After many adjurations
the sieve will turn at the name of the thief.”118

In India the sieve is the first cradle of the baby, and in Bombay the winnowing fan in
which a newly-born child is laid is used on the fifth day for the worship of Satvâî. This
makes it impure, and it is henceforward used only for the house sweepings. In Northern
India, when a mother has lost a child, she puts the next in a sieve and drags it about,
calling it Kadheran or Ghasîtan, “the dragged one,” so as to baffle the Evil Eye by a
pretence of contempt.

All through Upper India, at low-caste marriages, the bride’s brother accompanies the
pair as they revolve in the marriage shed, and sprinkles parched grain over them out of a
sieve as a charm for good luck and a means of scaring the demon which causes
barrenness. So Irish brides in old times used to be followed by two attendants bearing
high over the heads of the couple a sieve filled with meal, a sign of the plenty that would
be in the house, and an omen of good luck and the blessing of children.119 We have
already seen that this rite survives in the custom of flinging rice over the newly-married
pair as they leave for the honeymoon.

This habit of scaring the spirits of evil by means of the sieve appears in a special usage
at the Diwâlî festival. Very early in the morning the house-mother takes a sieve and a
broom, and beats them in every corner of the house, exclaiming, “God abide, and
poverty depart!” The fan is then carried outside the village, generally to the east or north,
and being thrown away, is supposed, like the scapegoat, to bear away with it the poverty
and distress of the household. The same custom prevails in Germany. The Posterli is
imagined to be a spectre in the shape of an old woman. In the evening the young fellows
of the village assemble, and with loud shouts and clashing of tins, ringing of cow-bells
and goat-bells, and cracking of whips, tramp over hill and dale to another village, where
the young men receive them with like uproar. One of the party represents the Posterli, or
they draw it in a sledge in the shape of a puppet, and leave it standing in a corner of the
other village. In the same way the Eskimo drive the demon Tuna out of their houses.120

Among the Kols, when a vacancy occurs in the office of the village priest, the
winnowing fan with some rice is used, and by its magical power it drags the person who
holds it towards the individual on whom the sacred mantle has fallen. The same custom
prevails among the Orâons.121

The Greeks had a special name, Koskinomantis, for the man who divined in this way
with the sieve, and the practice is mentioned by Theocritus.122 The sieve is very
commonly used in India as a rude form of the planchette. Through the wicker-work of
the raised side or back a strong T-shaped twig is fixed, one end of which rests on the
finger. A question is asked, and according as the sieve turns to the right or left, the
answer is “Yes” or “No.” This is exactly what is known as “Cauff-riddling” in Yorkshire
and Scotland.123 In the eastern districts of the North-Western Provinces, when the Ojha
or “cunning man” is called in to cure disease, or possession by evil spirits, he puts some
sesamum into a sieve, shakes it about, and then proceeds to identify the ghost concerned
by counting the number of grains which remain stuck between the reeds. At a Santâl
cremation, a man takes his seat near the ashes, and tosses rice on them with a winnowing
fan till a frenzy appears to seize him, and he becomes inspired and says wonderful
things.124

It is one of the curiosities of comparative folk-lore that this instrument should be
credited with magical powers all over two continents.125

The winnowing basket, again, perhaps from its association, like the winnowing fan, with
the sacred grain, has mystic powers. In Scotland it was used in the rite of creeling as a
means of scaring barrenness. “The young wedded pair, with their friends, assemble in a
convenient spot. A small creel or basket is prepared for the occasion, into which they put
some stones; the young men carry it alternately, and allow themselves to be caught by
the maidens, who have a kiss when they succeed. After a great deal of innocent mirth
and pleasantry, the creel falls at length to the young husband’s share, who is obliged

generally to carry it for a long time, none of the young women having compassion upon
him. At length his fair mate kindly relieves him from his burden; and her complaisance,
in this particular, is considered as a proof of her satisfaction at the choice she has
made.126”

In Bengal, at the full moon immediately following the Durgâ Pûjâ, the festival of
Lakshmî, the goddess of wealth, is held. In every Hindu house a basket, which serves as
the representative of prosperity, is set up and worshipped. This basket, or corn measure,
is filled with paddy, encircled with a garland of flowers, and covered with a piece of
cloth. They sit up all night and watch for Lakshmî to arrive, and any negligence in
watching is believed to bring misfortune on the family.127

The Broom.

The same idea applies to the broom used in sweeping the house or collecting the grain
on the threshing-floor. We have already seen the use of it to drive out poverty.
“Pythagoras warned his followers against stepping over a broom. In some parts of
Bavaria, housemaids in sweeping out the house are careful not to step over the broom for
fear of the witches. Again, it is a Bavarian rule not to step over a broom while a
confinement is taking place in a house; otherwise the birth will be tedious, and the child
will always remain small with a large head. But if anyone has stepped over a broom
inadvertently, he can undo the spell by stepping backwards over it again.”128 So, in
Bombay, they say you should never step over a broom, or you will cause a woman to
suffer severely in childbed.

In Bombay, some old Hindu woman, to cure a child affected by the Evil Eye, waves salt
and water round its face and strikes the ground with a broom three times; and among the
Bani Isrâîls of Bombay, when the midwife drives off the blast of the Evil Eye, she holds
in her left hand a shoe, a winnowing fan, and a broom.129 In Italy, the broom is an old
Latin charm against sorcery. The Beriyas, a gypsy tribe of the Ganges-Jumna Duâb,
drive off the disease demon with a broom. In Oudh, it is said, when a broomstick has
been done with, it should always be laid down, and not left standing. Mahâ-Brâhmans,
who gain by officiating at funeral ceremonies, are alleged to violate this rule in order to
cause deaths.130

The Rice-pounder.

The rice-pounder, too, has magical powers. We have seen that it is one of the articles
waved round the heads of the bride and bridegroom to scare evil spirits. In Bengal, it is
worshipped when the child is first fed with grain. And there is a regular worship of it in
the month of Baisâkh, or May. The top is smeared with red lead, anointed with oil, and
offerings of rice and holy Dûrva grass made to it. The worship has even been provided
with a Brâhmanical legend. A Guru once ordered his disciple to pronounce the word
Dhenk at least one hundred and eight times a day. Nârada Muni was so pleased with his
devotion, as he is the patron deity of the rice-pounder, that he paid him a visit riding on
one, and carried off his votary to heaven.131

The Plough.

Next comes the plough as a fetish. The carrying about of the plough and the prohibition
common in Europe against moving it on Shrove Tuesday and other holidays have, like
many other images of the same class, been connected with Phallicism.132 But,
considering the respect which an agricultural people would naturally pay to the chief
implement used in husbandry, it is simpler to class it with the other tool fetishes of a
similar kind. In India, as in Europe on Plough Monday,133 there is a regular worship of
the plough at the end of the sowing season, when the beam is coloured with turmeric,
adorned with garlands, and brought home from the field in triumph. After that day it is
considered unlucky to use it or lend it. The beam is put up in the village cattle track
when rinderpest is about, as a charm to drive away the disease. Among some castes the
polished share is fixed up in the marriage shed during the ceremony. Among the Orâons,
the bride and bridegroom are made to stand on a curry stone, under which is placed a
sheaf of corn resting on the plough yoke, and among the same people their god Darha is
represented by a plough-share set upon an altar dedicated to him.134 Here we have the
mystic influence of grain and iron combined with the agricultural implement fetish.

Fire.

Fire is undoubtedly a very ancient Hindu protective fetish, and its virtue as a scarer of
demons is very generally recognized. One of the earliest legends of the Hindu race is

that recorded in the Rig Veda, where Agni, the god of fire, concealed himself in heaven,
was brought down to earth by Mâtarisvan, and made over to the princely tribe of Bhrigu,
in which we have the Oriental version of the myth of Prometheus. In the Vedas, Agni
ranks next to the Rain god, and takes precedence of every other god in connection with
sacrificial rites. Even the Sun godling is regarded as a form of the heavenly fire. One of
the titles of Agni is Pramantha, because on each occasion when he was required he was
summoned by the friction of the Aranî, or sacred fire-drill. This word Pramantha is
probably the equivalent of the Prometheus of the Greeks.

PRIESTS OF THE SACRED FIRE.

Origin of Fire-worship.

According to Dr. Tylor, “the real and absolute worship of fire falls into two great
divisions, the first belonging to fetishism, the second to polytheism proper, and the two
apparently representing an earlier and later stage of theological ideas. The first is the
rude, barbarous adoration of the actual flame which he watches writhing, devouring,
roaring like a wild animal; the second belongs to an advanced generalization that any
individual fire is a manifestation of one general elemental being, the fire god.”135 In a
tropical country it would naturally be associated with the worship of the sun, and with
that of the sainted dead as the medium by which the spirit wings its way to the other
world. Among many races fire is provided for the ghost after interment, to enable it to
warm itself and cook its food. As Mr. Spencer points out, the grave fire would tend to
develop into kindred religious rites.136

The Sacred Fire.

But it is almost certainly erroneous to class the sacred fire as an institution peculiar to
the so-called Aryan races. The Homa is, of course, one of the most important elements of
the modern Hindu ritual; but at the same time it prevails extensively as a means of
propitiating the local or village godlings among many of the Drâvidian races, who are
quite as likely to have discovered for themselves the mystical art of fire production by
mechanical means, as to have adopted it by a process of conscious or unconscious
imitation from the usages of their Hindu neighbours.

The production of fire by means of friction is a discovery which would naturally occur to
jungle races, who must have constantly seen it occur by the ignition of the bamboo stalks
rubbed together by the blasts of summer. From this would easily be developed the very
primitive fire-drill or Asgara, used to this day by the Cheros, Korwas, Bhuiyas and other
Drâvidian dwellers in the jungle. These people even to the present day habitually
produce fire in this way. A small round cavity is made in a dry piece of bamboo, in
which two men alternately with their open hands revolve a second pointed piece of the
wood of the same tree. Smoke and finally fire are rapidly produced in this way, and the
sparks are received on a dry leaf or other suitable tinder. The use of the flint and steel is
also common, and was possibly an early and independent invention of the same people.

Even to the present day in some of their more secret worship of the village godlings of
disease, fire is produced for the fire sacrifice by this primitive method.

The Fire-drill.

What has been called the Aryan fire-drill, the Aranî, which in one sense means “foreign”
or “strange,” and in another “moving” or “entering,” “being inserted,” is not apparently
nowadays used in the ordinary ritual for the production of fire for the Homa or fire
sacrifice. The rites connected with the sacred fire have been given in detail in another
place.137 In Northern India, at least, the production of the sacred fire has become the
speciality of one branch of the Brâhmans, the Gujarâti, who are employed to conduct
certain special services occasionally conducted at large cost by wealthy devotees, and
known as Jag or Yaksha, in the sense of some particular religious rite.

The Aranî in its modern form consists of five pieces. The Adhararanî is the lower bed of
the instrument, and is usually made of the hard wood of the Khadira or Khair—Acacia
catechu. In this are bored two shallow holes, one, the Garta, a small shallow round
cavity, in which the plunger or revolving drill works and produces fire by friction. Close
to this is a shallow oblong cavity, known as the Yonî or matrix, in which combustible
tinder, generally the husk of the cocoanut, is placed, and in which the sparks and heated
ashes are received and ignited. The upper or revolving portion of the drill is known as
Uttararanî or Pramantha. This consists of two parts, the upper portion a piece of hard,
round wood which one priest revolves with a rope or cord known as Netra. This part of
the implement is known as Mantha or “the churner.” It has a socket at the base in which
the Sanku, a spike or dart, is fixed. This Sanku is made of a softer wood, generally that
of the Pîpal, or sacred fig tree, than the Adhararanî or base; and each Aranî is provided
with several spare pieces of fig wood for the purpose of replacing the Sanku, as it
becomes gradually charred away by friction. The last piece is the Upamantha or upper
churner, which is a flat board with a socket. This is pressed down by one priest, so as to
force the Sanku deep and hard into the Garta or lower cavity, and to increase the
resistance.

The working of the implement thus requires the labour of two priests, one of whom
presses down the plunger, and the other who revolves the drill rapidly by means of the
rope. It is not easy to obtain specimens of the implement, which is regarded as
possessing mystical properties, and the production of the sacred fire is always conducted
in secret.

We have in one of the African folk-tales a reference to the production of the fire by
friction, in which the hyæna gets his ear burnt.138 In one of the tales of Somadeva we
read, “Then the Brâhman blessed the king and said to him, ‘I am a Brâhman named
Nâga Sarman, and bear the fruit, I hope, from my sacrifice. When the god of fire is
pleased with this Vilva sacrifice, then Vilva fruits of gold will come out of the fire cavity.
Then the god of fire will appear in bodily form, and grant me a boon, and so I have spent
much time in offering Vilva fruits.’ Then the seven-rayed god appeared from the
sacrificial cavity, bringing the king a golden Vilva fruit of his tree of valour.”139

The Agnikunda, the hole or enclosed space for the sacred fire, out of which, according to
the popular legend, various Râjput tribes were produced, is thus probably derived from
the Garta or pit out of which the sparks fly in the fire-drill.

The Agnihotri Brâhman has to take particular care to preserve the germ of the sacred
fire, as did the Roman vestal virgins. It is in charge of the special guardians at some
shrines, such as those of Sambhunâth and Kharg Joginî at Nepâl.140

The Muhammadan Sacred Fire.

But it is not only in the Hindu ritual that the sacred fire holds a prominent place. Thus, in
ancient Ireland, the sacred fire was obtained by the friction of wood and the striking of
stones, and it was supposed “that the spirits of fire dwelt in these objects, and when the
priests invoked them to appear, they brought good luck to the household for the coming
year, but if invoked by other hands on that special day, their influence was malific.”141

So, among the Muhammadans in the time of Akbar, “at noon of the day when the sun
enters the 19th degree of Aries, the whole world being surrounded by the light, they
expose a round piece of a white shining stone, called in Hindi Sûrajkrant.142 A piece of
cotton is then held near it, which catches fire from the heat of the stone. The celestial fire
is committed to the care of proper persons.”143 Perhaps the best example of the
Muhammadan sacred fire is that at the Imâmbâra at Gorakhpur. There it was first started
by a renowned Shiah Faqîr, named Roshan ’Ali, and has been maintained unquenched
for more than a hundred years, a special body of attendants and supplies of wood being
provided for it. There seems little reason to believe that the fire is a regular
Muhammadan institution; it has probably arisen from an imitation of the customs of the
Hindu Jogis.

It is respected both by Hindus and Musalmâns, and as in the case of the fires of the same
kind, maintained by many noted Jogis, its ashes have a reputation as a cure for fever. We

shall meet with the same belief of the curative effects of the ashes of the sacred fire in
the case of the Holî. The ashes of the Jogi’s fire form a part of many popular charms. In
Italy, the holy log burnt on Christmas Eve, which corresponds to the Yule log of the
North of Europe, is taken with due observances to the Faunus, or other spirits of the
forest.144 In Ireland part of the ashes from the bonfire on the 24th of June is thrown into
sown fields to make their produce abundant.145 The ceremony of strewing ashes on the
penitent on Ash Wednesday dates from Saxon times.146 A modern Muhammadan of the
advanced school has endeavoured to rationalize the curative effect of the ashes of the
Gorakhpur fire by the suggestion that it is the potash in it which works the cure, but
probably the element of faith has much to do with it.147

Volcanic Fire; Will-o’-the-Wisp.

Fire of a volcanic nature is, as might be expected, regarded with veneration. Such is the
fire which in some places in Kashmîr rises out of the ground.148

The meteoric light or Shahâba is also much respected. In Hoshangâbâd there is a local
godling, known as Khapra Bâba, who lives on the edge of a tank, and is said to appear in
the darkness with a procession of lights.149 In Rohilkhand and the western districts of
Oudh, one often hears of the Shahâba. In burial-grounds, especially where the bodies of
those slain in battle are interred, it is said that phantom armies appear in the night. Tents
are pitched, the horses are tethered, and lovely girls dance before the heroes and the Jinn
who are in their train. Sometimes some foolish mortal is attracted by the spectacle, and
he suffers for his foolhardiness by loss of life or reason. Sometimes these ignes fatui
mislead the traveller at night, as Robin Goodfellow “misleads night wanderers, laughing
at their harm,” or the Cornish piskies, who show a light and entice people into bogs.150
There appears to be in Northern India no trace of the idea which so widely appears in
Europe, that such lights are the souls of unbaptized children.151

The Tomb Fetish.

Next comes the respect paid to the cairn which covers the remains of the dead or is a
mere cenotaph commemorating a death. We have already seen instances of this in the
pile of stones which marks the place where a tiger has killed a man, and in the cairns in

honour of the jungle deities, or the spirits which infest dangerous passes. The rationale
of these sepulchral cairns is to keep down the ghost of the dead man and prevent it from
injuring the living. We see the same idea in the rule of the old ritual, that on the
departure of the last mourner, after the conclusion of the funeral ceremony, the
Adhvâryu, or officiating priest, should place a circle of stones behind him, to prevent
death overtaking those who have gone in advance.152

THE FOOTPRINTS OF VISHNU.

The primitive grave-heap grows into the cairn, and the cairn into the tomb or Stûpa.153
In the way of a tomb Hindus will worship almost anything. The tomb of an English lady
is worshipped at Bhandâra in the Central Provinces. At Murmari, in the Nâgpur District,
a similar tomb is smeared with turmeric and lime, and people offer cocoanuts to it in the
hope of getting increased produce from their fields. The tomb of an English officer near
the Fort of Bijaygarh in the Aligarh District was, when I visited the place some years
ago, revered as the shrine of the local village godling. There is a similar case at
Râwalpindi. There is a current tale of some people offering brandy and cigars to the
tomb of a European planter who was addicted to these luxuries in his lifetime, but no
one can tell where the tomb actually exists.154

Miscellaneous Fetishes.

We have already referred to the Sâlagrâma fetish. Akin to this is the Vishnupada, the
supposed footmark of Vishnu, which is very like the footmark of Hercules, of which
Herodotus speaks.155

There is a celebrated Vishnupada temple at Gaya, where the footprint of Vishnu is in a
large silver basin under a canopy, inside an octagonal shrine. Pindas or holy balls and
various kinds of offerings are placed by the pilgrims inside the basin and around the
footprint.156 It was probably derived from the footmark of Buddha, which is a favourite
subject in the early Buddhistic sculptures. Dr. Tylor, curiously enough, thinks that it may
have some connection with the footmarks of extinct birds or animals imprinted on the
strata of alluvial rocks.157

Even among Muhammadans we have the same idea, and the Qadam-i-Rasûl, or mosque
of the footprint of the Prophet at Lucknow, used to contain a stone marked with his
footmarks, which was said to have been brought by some pilgrim from Arabia. It
disappeared during the Mutiny.158 There is another in a mosque at Chunâr and at many
other places.

The same respect is paid to the footprint of Râmanand in his monastery at Benares, and
the pin of Brahma’s slipper is now fixed up in the steps of the bathing-place at Bithûr,
known as the residence of the infamous Nâna Sâhib, where it is worshipped at an annual
feast.

1 Frazer, “Totemism,” 1; and his article on “Totemism,” in “Encyclopædia Britannica,” 9th Edition.
2 “Principles of Sociology,” i. 367.

3 “Origin of Civilization,” 260, and Mr. Frazer’s criticism, loc. cit.
4 “Tribes and Castes,” Introduction.

5 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 13, note.
6 Robertson-Smith, “Kinship,” 17.

7 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 90.
8 Quoted by McLennan, “Fortnightly Review,” 1869, p. 419.

9 O’Brien, “Multâni Glossary,” 260 sq.
10 “Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh,” s.v.v.

11 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 254; Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” ii. 327.
12 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 91.

13 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” ii. 95.
14 “Dissertation on the Proper Names of Panjâbis,” 155 sq.

15 “Totemism,” 3 sqq.

16 Yule, “Marco Polo,” i. 52.
17 Hardy, “Manual of Buddhism,” 251.

18 Max Müller, “Ancient Sanskrit Literature,” 290.
19 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 10; ii. 215; iii. 144; Ball, “Jungle Life,” 455 sqq.

20 Dalton “Descriptive Ethnology,” 126, 162, 165 sq., 179, 185, 209, 231, 265.
21 “Jungle Life,” 600.

22 Campbell, “Notes,” 7.
23 “Râjputâna Gazetteer,” i. 223.

24 Rhys, “Lectures,” 508.
25 Dalton, loc. cit., 327.

26 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” Introduction, xlvii.
27 Conway, “Demonology,” i. 27; “Herodotus,” ii. 73.

28 Dalton, loc. cit., 131, note; Ball, loc. cit., 89; Robertson-Smith, “Kinship,” 306 sq.
29 “Berâr Gazetteer,” 187.

30 Campbell, “Notes,” 8 sqq.
31 Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” ii. 68; and see Lang, “Custom and Myth,” 113.

32 Conway, “Demonology,” i. 144.
33 Tod, “Annals,” i. 599.

34 Gubernatis, loc. cit., ii. 13.
35 “Golden Bough,” ii. 26 sqq., 58.

36 “Asiatic Studies,” 264.
37 “Archæological Reports,” vi. 137.

38 Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 88.
39 “Tribes and Castes,” ii. Appendix; Dalton, loc. cit., 162, note, 213, 254.

40 Lyall, “Asiatic Studies,” 9 sq.
41 Ferrier, “Caravan Journey,” 186.

42 Muir, “Ancient Sanskrit Texts,” v. 425 sq.; Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales of Bengal,” 193 sq., 277; Temple, “Legends
of the Panjâb,” 48 sqq.; “Wideawake Stories,” 277 sqq.; Campbell, “Popular Tales,” i. 2; Tawney, “Katha Sarit
Sâgara,” ii. 323; and for fidelity tests, Grimm, “Household Tales,” i. 453; Tawney, loc. cit., ii. 601; Clouston, “Popular
Romances,” i. 43, 173.
43 Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 352, note; “Wideawake Stories,” 419 sqq.; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iv. 201;
Knowles, “Folk-tales of Kashmîr,” 192; Tawney, loc. cit., i. 123; Grimm, loc. cit., ii. 400; Hunt, “Popular Romances,”

178.

44 Also see Rhys, “Lectures,” 206; Lang, “Custom and Myth,” 52.
45 “Notes,” 163.

46 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 418.
47 “Modern Egyptians,” i. 325.

48 “Popular Romances,” 177.
49 “Popular Romances,” 412, 415.

50 Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 173.
51 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xi. 56; xvii. 698.

52 Robertson-Smith, “Kinship,” 49; Lubbock, “Origin of Civilization,” 306; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 164;
Conway, “Demonology,” ii. 284.
53 Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 268; Lang, “Custom and Myth,” i. 270.

54 “Indo-Aryans,” ii. 70 sqq.; “Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal,” 1876; Max Müller, “Ancient Sanskrit Literature,”
408 sq.; Muir, “Ancient Sanskrit Texts,” i., ii., passim; Wilson, “Rig Veda,” i. 59, 63; “Essays,” ii. 247 sqq.; Atkinson,
“Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 800, 867.
55 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 336; ii. 253, 338; Temple, “Wideawake Stories,” 147; Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-
tales,” 194; Miss Frere, “Old Deccan Days,” 6; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 111, 129; iii. 105.

56 Burton, “Arabian Nights,” iv. 376.
57 Tawney, loc. cit., i. 212; ii. 616.

58 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 65.
59 Ibid., ii. 22.

60 “Central India,” ii. 210.
61 Campbell, “Khondistân,” passim; Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 384 sqq.; “Râjputâna Gazetteer,” ii. 47; Dalton,
“Descriptive Ethnology,” 130, 147, 176, 285 sq., 281.

62 Chevers, “Medical Jurisprudence,” 406, 411.
63 Campbell, “Notes,” 339: Wilson, “Indian Caste,” ii. 22 sq.; “Bombay Gazetteer,” x. 114.

64 Wright, “History,” 11, note.
65 Ball, “Jungle Life,” 580.

66 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 112, 148. And for other instances, see Balfour, “Cyclopædia,” iii. 477 sqq.
67 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 75.

68 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 157, 214.
69 Knowles, “Folk-tales,” 2.

70 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 294; Grimm, “Household Tales,” i. 396; Hartland, “Legend of Perseus,” i.
98.

71 “Report Inspector-General Police, N.-W.P., 1870,” page 93; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 205; iii. 74, 162;
Chevers, “Medical Jurisprudence,” 842, 396; Campbell, “Notes,” 338.
72 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 148; iii. 71.

73 Robertson-Smith, “Kinship,” 48 sq.
74 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 456; Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 220.

75 “Folk-lore,” iv. 260.
76 “North Indian Notes and Queries.” iii. 40.

77 Ibid., 106.
78 “Bombay Gazetteer,” ii. 349; xiv. 49.

79 Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 194.
80 For similar instances see “Archæological Reports,” v. 98; “Bombay Gazetteer,” xx. 144; “Folk-lore Records,” iii.
Part II. 182; “Oudh Gazetteer,” iii. 253; “Indian Antiquary,” xi. 117; “Calcutta Review,” lxxvii. 106; Lâl Bihâri Dê,
“Folk-tales,” 130; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 110; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 27, 63, 93; Campbell,
“Santâl Folk-tales,” 106.

81 “Bombay Gazetteer,” iv. 276.
82 Campbell, “Notes,” 348.

83 “Settlement Report,” 126.
84 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 146, 281; Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 115.

85 Wright, “History,” 35 sq., 156, note, 126, 205, 265.
86 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 594.

87 Ibid., i. 306.
88 Yule, “Marco Polo,” ii. 165.

89 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 54, 200 sqq.
90 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 190.

91 Miss Cox, “Cinderella,” 485; Knowles, “Kashmîr Tales,” 199; Clouston, “Popular Tales,” i. 88; Rhys, “Lectures,”
241; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 612.
92 “Folk-lore Record,” iii. Part II. 283. For the commonplace Momiâî which is used as an application by women
before parturition, see Watt’s “Dictionary of Economic Products,” ii. 115.

93 Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 284.
94 Buchanan, “Eastern India,” i. 526.

95 “Oudh Gazetteer,” i. 303; ii. 415.

96 Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 311, note, 792 sq.
97 “Oudh Gazetteer,” i. 61.
98 “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 282.

99 Macaulay, “Battle of Lake Regillus,” Introduction.
100 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 220.
101 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 2.
102 Campbell, “Notes,” 30.

103 Rhys, “Lectures,” 193.
104 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 427.
105 Forbes, “Wanderings of a Naturalist,” 103.
106 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 165; Brand, “Observations,” 621.

107 “Principles of Sociology,” i. 109 sq., 310; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 353.
108 “Asiatic Studies,” 16.
109 “Illustrations of the History and Practice of the Thags.” 46 sqq.
110 Tod, “Annals,” i. 615; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 221.

111 Oldfield, “Sketches,” 344, 352.
112 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 54.
113 Wilson, “Essays,” ii. 188; Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 16, 67, 93, 451.
114 Campbell, “Notes,” 9.

115 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 20 sq., 93.
116 Tod, “Annals,” ii. 320.
117 Habakkuk i. 16 ; Isaiah xxi. 5 .
118 Dyer, “Popular Customs,” 400; Brand, “Observations,” 209, 773; Aubrey, “Remaines,” 25.

119 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 116.
120 Grimm, “Teutonic Mythology,” 934; Frazer, “Golden Bough,” ii. 164.
121 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 187, note, 247.
122 “Idylls,” iii. 31.

123 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 52; Gregor, “Folk-lore of North-East Scotland,” 43, 92.
124 Dalton, loc. cit., 218.
125 “Academy,” 23rd July, 1887; “Gentleman’s Magazine,” July, 1887; Henderson, loc. cit., 233; Brand,
“Observations,” 233; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 207.
126 Brand, “Observations,” 354.

127 “Calcutta Review,” xviii. 60.
128 “Folk-lore,” i. 157; ii. 293.
129 Campbell, “Notes,” 53.

130 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 202; Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 79.
131 “Calcutta Review,” xviii. 51.
132 Cox, “Mythology of the Aryan Nations,” ii. 119, note.
133 Chambers, “Book of Days,” i. 94 sq.

134 Dalton, loc. cit., 252, 258.
135 “Primitive Culture,” ii. 277.

136 “Principles of Sociology,” i. 158, 273.
137 “Tribes and Castes of the N.-W. P. and Oudh,” s. v. “Agnihotri.”

138 Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 547.
139 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 322.

140 Oldfield, “Sketches,” ii. 242; Wright, “History,” 35; and compare Prescott, “Peru,” i. chap. 3; Lubbock, “Origin
of Civilization,” 312.
141 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 126.

142 Abul Fazl appears to have confused Sûraj Sankrânti or the entrance of the sun into a constellation with Sûrya-
Kânta or “sun-beloved,” the sun-crystal or lens, which gives out heat when exposed to the rays of the sun.
143 Blochmann, “Aîn-i-Akbari,” i. 48.
144 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 103.
145 “Folk-lore,” iv. 359.

146 Dyer, “Popular Customs,” 92.
147 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 199.
148 Hugel, “Travels,” quoted by Jarrett, “Aîn-i-Akbari,” ii. 314.
149 “Settlement Report,” 121.

150 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 117; Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 81; Campbell, “Popular Tales,” ii. 82.
151 Conway, “Demonology,” i. 225.
152 Rajendra Lâla Mitra, “Indo-Aryans,” i. 146.
153 Ferguson, “Tree and Serpent Worship,” 88; “History of Indian Architecture,” 60; Cunningham, “Bhilsa Topes,” 9;
Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 254 sq.

154 “Central Provinces Gazetteer,” 63; “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 8; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 93.
155 iv. 82.

156 Monier-Williams, “Hinduism and Brâhmanism,” 309.

157 Tennent, “Ceylon, ii. 132; Ferguson, “Indian Architecture,” 184, with engraving; Tylor, “Early History,” 116.
158 “Oudh Gazetteer,” ii. 370.

CHAPTER IV.

ANIMAL-WORSHIP.
Τῶ δέ καὶ Αὐτομέδων ὕπαγε ζυγὸν ὠκέας ἵππους
Χάνθον καὶ Βαλίον, τὼ ἅμα πνοιῆσι πετέσθην
Τούς ἔτεκε Ζεφύρω ἀνέμω Ἅρπυια Ποδάργη
Βοσκομένη λειμῶνι παρὰ ῥόον Ὠκεανοῖο.

Iliad, xvi. 148–51.

Origin of Animal-worship.

We now come to consider the special worship of certain animals. The origin of this form
of belief may possibly be traced to many different sources.

In the first place, no savage fixes the boundary line between man and the lower forms of
animal life so definitely as more civilized races are wont to do. The animal, in their
belief, has very much the same soul, much the same feelings and passion as men have, a
theory exemplified in the way the Indian ploughman speaks to his ox, or the shepherd
calls his flock.

To him, again, the belief is familiar that the spirits of his ancestors appear in the form of
animals, as among the Drâvidian races they come in the shape of a tiger which attacks
the surviving relatives, or as a chicken which leaves the mark of its footsteps in the ashes
when it re-visits its former home.

So, all these people believe that the witch soul wanders about at night, and for want of a
better shape enters into some animal, takes the form of a tiger or a bear, or flies through
the air like a bird.

All through folk-lore we find the idea that man has kinship with animals generally
accepted. We constantly find the girl wooed by the frog, marrying the pigeon, elephant,
eagle, or whale. Every child in the nursery reads of the frog Prince, and no savage sees
any particular incongruity in his marriage and transformation. In more than one of the
Indian tales the childless wife longs for a child and is delivered of a snake.

The incident of animal metamorphosis is also familiar. Thus, in one of Somadeva’s tales
his mistress turns a man into an ox; in another his wife transforms him into a buffalo; in

a third the angry hermit turns the king into an elephant.1 Everyone remembers the terrific
scene of transformation into various animals which makes up the tale of the second
Qalandar in the Arabian Nights. Animals, too, constantly assume other shapes. In one of
the Bengal stories the mouse becomes a cat. In other Indian tales the golden deer
becomes the mannikin demon, the white hind becomes the white witch, the hero’s
mother becomes a black bitch, the hero himself a parrot, and so on.2 In fact a large part
of the incidents of Indian stories turns on various forms of metamorphosis, and every
English child knows how the lover of Earl Mar’s daughter took the shape of a dove.

We have again the very common incident in the folk-tales of animals understanding the
speech of human beings, and men learning the tongue of birds, and the like. Solomon,
according to the Qurân, knew the language of animals; in the tales of Somadeva, the
Vaisya Bhâshâjna knows the language of all beasts and birds, a faculty which in
Germany is gained by eating a white snake.3

Then there is the large cycle of tales in which the grateful animal warns the hero or
heroine of approaching danger, as in the story of Bopuluchi, or brings news, or produces
gold. The idea of grateful animals assisting their benefactors runs through the whole
range of folk-lore.4

Another series of cognate ideas has been very carefully analyzed by Mr. Campbell. The
spirits of the dead haunt two places, the house and the tomb. Those who haunt the house
are friendly; those who haunt the tomb are unfriendly. Two classes of animals
correspond to these two classes of spirits—an at-home, fearless class, as the snake, the
rat, flies and ants and bees, into which the home-haunting or friendly spirits would go;
and a wild, unsociable class, such as bats and owls, dogs, jackals, or vultures, into which
the unfriendly or tomb-haunting spirits would go. In the case of some of these tomb-
haunting animals, the dog, jackal, and vulture, the feeling towards them as tomb-
haunters seems to have given place to the belief that as the spirit lives in the tomb where
the body is laid, so, if the body be eaten by an animal, the spirit lives in the animal, as in
a living tomb.5

Other animals, again, are invested with particular qualities, fierceness and courage,
strength or agility, and eating part of their flesh, or wearing a portion as an amulet,
conveys to the possessor the qualities of the animal. A familiar instance of this is the
belief in the claws and flesh of the tiger as amulets or charms against disease and the
influence of evil spirits.

Many animals, too, are respected for their use to man or as scarers of demons, as the
cow; as possessors of wisdom, like the elephant or snake; as semi-human in origin or
character, as the ape. But it is, perhaps, dangerous to attempt, as Mr. Campbell has done,

to push the classification much farther, because the respect paid to any particular animal
is possibly based on varied and diverging lines of belief.

Lastly, as Mr. Frazer has shown, many animals are regarded as representing the Corn
spirit, and are either revered or killed in their divine forms to promote the return of
vegetation with each recurring spring.

Horse-worship.

To illustrate some of these principles from the worship of certain special animals, we
may begin with the horse.

War horses were so highly prized by the early Aryans in their battles with the aborigines,
that the horse, under the name of Dadhikra, “he that scatters the hoar frost like milk,”
soon became an object of worship, and in the Veda we have a spirited account of the
worship paid to this godlike being.6

Another horse often spoken of in the early legends is Syâma Karna, “he with the black
ears,” which alone was considered a suitable victim in the horse sacrifice or Asvamedha.
One hundred horse sacrifices entitled the sacrificer to displace Indra from heaven, so the
deity was always trying to capture the horse which was allowed to roam about before
immolation. The saint Gâlava, who was a pupil of Visvamitra, when he had completed
his studies, asked his tutor what fee he should pay. The saint told him that he charged no
fee, but he insisted in asking, till at last the angry Rishi said that he would be content
with nothing less than a thousand black-eared horses. After long search Gâlava found
three childless Râjas, who had each two hundred such horses, and they consented to
exchange them for sons. Gâlava then went to Yayâti, whose daughter could bear a son
for any one and still remain a virgin. By her means the three Râjas became fathers of
sons, Visvamitra took them, and to make up the number, had himself two sons by the
same mystic bride.

In the Mahâbhârata, Uchchaihsravas, “he with the long ears,” or “he that neighs loudly,”
is the king of the horses, and belongs to Indra. He is swift as thought, follows the path of
the sun, and is luminous and white, with a black tail, made so by the magic of the
serpents, who have covered it with black hair. In the folk-tales he consorts with mares of
mortal birth, and begets steeds of unrivalled speed, like the divine Homeric coursers of
Æneas.7 In the tales of Somadeva we find the king addressing his faithful horse, and
praying for his aid in danger, as Achilles speaks to his steeds Xanthos and Balios, and in
the Karling legend of Bayard.8 We meet also with the horse of Manidatta, which was

“white as the moon; the sound of its neighing was as musical as that of a clear conch or
other sweet-sounding instrument; it looked like the waves of the sea of milk surging on
high; it was marked with curls on the neck, and adorned with the crest jewels, the
bracelet, and other signs, which it seemed it had acquired by being born in the race of
Gandharvas.”

At a later mythological stage we meet Kalki, the white horse which is to be the last
Avatâra of Vishnu, and reminds us of the white horse of the Book of Revelation. We
meet in the Rig Veda with Yatudhanas, the demon horse, which feeds now upon human
flesh (like the Bucephalus of the legend of Alexander), now upon horseflesh, and now
upon milk from cows. He has a host of brethren, such as Arvan, half horse, half bird, on
which the Daityas are supposed to ride. Dadhyanch or Dadhîcha has a curious legend.
He was a Rishiand. Indra, after teaching him the sciences, threatened to cut his head off
if he communicated the knowledge to any one else. But the Aswins tempted him to
disobey the god, and then, to save him from the wrath of Indra, cut off his head and
replaced it with that of a horse. Finally Indra found his horse-head in the lake at
Kurukshetra, and using it as Sampson did the jaw-bone of the ass, he slew the Asuras.
We have, again, Vishnu in the form of Hayagrîva, or “horse-necked,” which he assumed
to save the Veda, carried off by two Asuras, and in another shape he is Hayasiras or
Hayasîrsha, which vomits forth fire and drinks up the waters. In the Purânas we meet the
Daitya Kesi, who assumes the form of a horse and attacks Krishna, but the hero thrusts
his hand into his mouth and rends him asunder. A large chapter of Scottish folk-lore
depends on the doings of magic horses such as these.9

The flying horse of the Arabian Nights has been transferred into many of the current
folk-tales, and has found its way into European folk-lore.10 In the same connection we
meet the magic bridle; the flying car, such as Pushpaka, the flying vehicle of Kuvera, the
god of wealth; the flying bed, the Urân Khatola of the Indian tales; the flying boat, and
the flying shoes.11

There are numerous other horses famous in Hindu legend. The saint Alam Sayyid of
Baroda was known as Ghorê Kâ Pîr, or the horse saint. His horse was buried near him,
and Hindus hang images of the animal on trees round his tomb.12 We have already
spoken of Gûga and his mare Javâdiyâ. The horse of the king of Bhilsa or Bhadrâvatî
was of dazzling brightness, and regarded as the palladium of the kingdom, but in spite of
all the care bestowed upon it, it was carried off by the Pândavas.

There is a stock horse miracle story told in connection with Lâl Beg, the patron saint of
the sweepers. The king of Delhi lost a valuable horse, and the sweepers were ordered to
bury it, but as the animal was very fat, they proceeded to cut it up for themselves, giving
one leg to the king’s priest. They took the meat home and proceeded to cook it, but being
short of salt, they sent an old woman to buy some. She went to the salt merchant’s shop

and pressed him to serve her at once, “If you do not hurry,” said she, “a thousand rupees’
worth of meat will be ruined.” He informed the king, who, suspecting the state of the
case, ordered the sweepers to produce the horse. They were in dismay at the order, but
they laid what was left of the animal on a mound sacred to Lâl Beg, and prayed to him to
save them, whereupon the horse stood up, but only on three legs. So they went to the
king and confessed how they had disposed of the fourth leg. The unlucky priest was
executed, and the horse soon after died also.13

The horse is regarded as a lucky and exceedingly pure animal. When a cooking vessel
has become in any way defiled, a common way of purifying it is to make a horse smell
it. In the Dakkhin it is said that evil spirits will not approach a horse for fear of his
foam.14 In Northern India, the entry of a man on horseback into a sugar-cane field during
sowing time is regarded as auspicious. This taking of omens from horses was well
known in Germany, and Tacitus says, “Proprium gentis equorum praesagia ac monitus
experiri, hinnitus ac fremitus observant.”15 There does not appear to be in India any
trace of the idea prevalent in England that the horse has the power of seeing ghosts, or
that it can cure diseases such as whooping cough.16 But, like the bull, the stallion is
believed to scare the demon of barrenness. In the Râmâyana, Kausalyâ touches the
stallion in the hope of obtaining sons, and with the same object the king and queen smell
the odour of the burnt marrow or fat of the horse. The water in which a fish is washed
has the same effect on women in Western folk-lore. With the same object, at the
Asvamedha, the queen lies at night beside the slain sacrificial horse.17

It is popularly supposed that the horse originally had wings, and that the chestnuts or
scars on the legs are the places where the wings originally grew. Eating horseflesh is
supposed to bring on cramp, and when a Sepoy at rifle practice misses the target, his
comrades taunt him with having eaten the unlucky meat.18

Modern Horse-worship.

Of modern horse-worship there are many examples. The Palliwâl Brâhmans of
Jaysalmer worship the bridle of a horse, which Colonel Tod supposes to prove the
Scythic origin of the early colonists, who were equestrian as well as nomadic.19 Horse-
worship is still mixed up with the creed of the Buddhists of Yunân, who doubtless
derived it from India.20

In Western India this form of worship is common. It is the chief object of reverence at
the Dasahra festival. Some Râjput Bhîls worship a deity called Ghorâdeva or a stone

horse; the Bhâtiyas worship a clay horse at the Dasahra, and the Ojha Kumhârs erect a
clay horse on the sixth day after birth, and make the child worship it. Rag horses are
offered at the tombs of saints at Gujarât. The Kunbis wash their horses on the day of the
Dasahra, decorate them with flowers, sacrifice a sheep to them, and sprinkle the blood
on them.21 The custom among the Drâvidian races of offering clay horses to the local
gods has been already noticed. The Gonds have a horse godling in Kodapen, and at the
opening of the rainy season they worship a stone in his honour outside the village. A
Gond priest offers a pottery image of the animal and a heifer, saying, “Thou art our
guardian! Protect our oxen and cows! Let us live in safety!”22 The heifer is then
sacrificed and the meat eaten by the worshippers. The Devak or marriage guardian of
some of the Dakkhin tribes is a horse.

The Worship of the Ass.

The contempt for the ass seems to have arisen in post-Vedic times. Indra had a swift-
footed ass, and one of the epithets of Vikramaditya was Gadharbha-rûpa, or “he in the
form of an ass.” The Vishnu Purâna tells of the demon Dhenuka, who took the form of
an ass and began to kick Balarâma and Krishna, as they were plucking fruit in the
demon’s grove. Balarâma seized him, with sundry of his companions and flung him on
the top of a palm tree. Khara, a cannibal Râkshasa who was killed by Râma Chandra,
also used to take the form of an ass. Muhammad said, “The most ungrateful of all voices
is surely the voice of asses.” Muhammadans believe that the last animal which entered
the ark was the ass to which Iblîs was clinging. At the threshold the beast seemed
troubled and could enter no farther, when Noah said unto him, “Fie upon thee! Come
in!” But as the ass was still in trouble and did not advance, Noah cried, “Come in,
though the Devil be with thee!” So the ass entered, and with him Iblîs. Thereupon Noah
asked, “O enemy of Allah! Who brought thee into the ark?” And Iblîs answered, “Thou
art the man, for thou saidest to the ass, ‘Come in, though the Devil be with thee!’”23

The worship of the ass is chiefly associated with that of Sîtalâ, whose vehicle he is. The
Agarwâla sub-caste of Banyas have a curious rule of making the bridegroom just before
marriage mount an ass. This is done in secret, and though said to be intended to
propitiate the goddess of small-pox, is possibly a survival of some primitive form of
worship.

In folk-lore the ass constantly appears. We have in Somadeva the fable of the ass in the
panther’s skin, which also appears in the fifth book of the Panchatantra. Professor Weber
asserts that it was derived from the original in Æsop, but this is improbable, as it is also
found in the Buddhist Jâtakas. In one of the Kashmîr tales we have the bird saying, “If

any person will peel off the bark of my tree, pound it, mix the powder with some of the
juice of its leaves and then work it into a ball, it will be found to work like a charm; for
any one who smells it will be turned into an ass.”24 We have instances of ass
transformation in Apuleius and Lucian, and in German and other Western folk-tales.

The Lion.

The lion, from his comparative rarity in Northern India, appears little in popular belief. It
is one of the vehicles of Pârvatî, and rude images of the animal are sometimes placed
near shrines dedicated to Devî. There is a current idea that only one pair of lions exists in
the world at the same time. They have two cubs, a male and a female, which, when they
arrive at maturity, devour their parents. In the folk-tales the childless king is instructed
that he will find in the forest a boy riding on a lion, and this will be his son. The lovely
maiden in the legend of Jimutavâhana is met riding on a lion. We have the lion
Pingalika, king of beasts, with the jackal as his minister, and in one of the cycle of tales
in which the weak animal overcomes the more powerful, the hare by his wisdom causes
the lion to drown himself. The basis of the famous tale of Androcles is probably
Buddhistic, but only a faint reference to it is found in Somadeva. In one of the modern
stories the soldier takes a thorn out of the tiger’s foot, and is rewarded with a box which
contains a manikin, who procures for him all he desires.25

The Tiger.

The tiger naturally takes the place of the lion. According to the comparative
mythologists, “the tiger, panther, and leopard possess several of the mystical
characteristics of the lion as the hidden sun. Thus, Dionysos and Siva, the phallical god
par excellence, have these animals as their emblems.”26 Siva, it is true, is represented as
sitting in his ascetic form on a tiger skin, but it is his consort, Durgâ, who uses the
animal as her vehicle. Quite apart from the solar myth theory, the belief that witches are
changed into tigers, and the terror inspired by him, are quite sufficient to account for the
honour bestowed upon him.

Much also of the worship of the tiger is probably of totemistic origin. Thus the Baghel
Râjputs claim descent, and from him (bâgh, vyâghra, “the spotted one”) derive their
name. This tribe will not, in Central India, destroy the animal. So, “no consideration will

induce a Sumatran to catch or wound a tiger, except in self-defence, or immediately after
the tiger has destroyed a friend or a relation. When a European has set traps for tigers,
the people of the neighbourhood have been known to go by night to the spot and explain
to the tiger that the traps were not set by them, nor with their consent.” The Bhîls and the
Bajrâwat Râjputs of Râjputâna also claim tiger origin.27

Another idea appearing in tiger-worship is that he eats human flesh, and thus obtains
possession of the souls of the victims whom he devours. For this reason a man-eating
tiger is supposed to walk along with his head bent, because the ghosts of his victims sit
on it and weigh it down.28

He is, again, often the disguise of a sorcerer of evil temper, an idea similar to that which
was the basis of the European dread of lycanthropy and the were-wolf. “Accounts differ
as to the way in which the were-wolf was chosen. According to one account, a human
victim was sacrificed, one of his bowels was mixed with the bowels of animal victims,
the whole was consumed by the worshippers, and the man who unwittingly ate the
human bowel was changed into a wolf. According to another account, lots were cast
among the members of a particular family, and he upon whom the lot fell was the were-
wolf. Being led to the brink of a tarn, he stripped himself, hung his clothes on an oak
tree, plunged into the tarn, and swimming across it, went into desert places. There he
was changed into a wolf, and herded with wolves for nine years. If he tasted human
blood before the nine years were out he had to remain a wolf for ever. If during the nine
years he abstained from preying on men, then, when the tenth year came round, he
recovered his human shape. Similarly, there is a negro family at the mouth of the Congo
who are supposed to possess the power of turning themselves into leopards in the
gloomy depths of the forest. As leopards, they knock people down, but do no further
harm, for they think that if, as leopards, they once lapped blood, they would be leopards
for ever.”29

Hence in India the jungle people who are in the way of meeting him will not pronounce
his name, but speak of him as Gîdar, “the jackal,” Jânwar, “the beast,” or use some other
euphemistic term. They do the same in many cases with the wolf and bear, and though
they sometimes hesitate to kill the animal themselves, they will readily assist sportsmen
to destroy him, and make great rejoicings when he is killed. A Shikâri will break off a
branch on the road as he goes along, and say, “As thy life has departed, so may the tiger
die!” When he is killed they will bring forward some spirits and pour it on the head of
the animal, addressing him, “Mahârâja! During your life you confined yourself to cattle,
and never injured your human subjects. Now that you are dead, spare us and bless us!”
In Akola the gardeners are unwilling to inform the sportsmen of the whereabouts of a
tiger or panther which may have taken up its quarters in their plantation, for they have a
superstition that a garden plot loses its fertility from the moment one of these animals is

killed there. So, with the Ainos of Japan, who when a bear is trapped or wounded by an
arrow, go through an apologetic or propitiatory ceremony.30

In Nepâl they have a regular festival in honour of the tiger known as the Bâgh Jâtra, in
which the worshippers used to dance in the disguise of tigers.

Tiger-worship among the Jungle Races.

But, as is natural, the worship of the tiger prevails more widely among the jungle races.
We have already met with Bâgheswar, the tiger deity of the Mirzapur forest tribes. The
Santâls also worship him, and the Kisâns honour him as Banrâja, or “lord of the jungle.”
They will not kill him, and believe that in return for their devotion he will spare them.
Another branch of the tribe does not worship him, but all swear by him. The Bhuiyârs,
on the contrary, have no veneration for him, and think it their interest to slay him
whenever they have an opportunity. The Juângs take their oaths on earth from an ant-hill,
and on a tiger’s skin; the ant-hill is a sacred object with the Khariyas, and the tiger skin
is brought in when the Hos and Santâls are sworn. Among the eastern Santâls, the tiger is
worshipped, but in Râmgarh only those who have suffered from the animal’s ferocity
condescend to adore him. If a man is carried off by a tiger, the Bâgh Bhût, or “Tiger
ghost,” is worshipped, and an oath on a tiger’s skin is considered most solemn.31

Bâgh Deo, the Tiger Godling.

Further west the Kurkus of Hoshangâbâd worship the tiger godling, Bâgh Deo, who is
the Wâgh Deo of Berâr. At Petri in Berâr is a sort of altar to Wâghâî Devî, the tiger
goddess, founded on a spot where a Gond woman was once seized by a tiger. She is said
to have vanished as if by some supernatural agency, and the Gonds who desire protection
from wild beasts present to her altar gifts of every kind of animal from a cow
downwards. A Gond presides over the shrine and receives the votive offerings.

In Hoshangâbâd the Bhomka is the priest of Bâgh Deo. “On him devolves the dangerous
duty of keeping tigers out of the boundaries. When a tiger visits a village, the Bhomka
repairs to Bâgh Deo, and makes his offerings to the god, and promises to repeat them for
so many years on condition that the tiger does not appear for that time. The tiger, on his
part, never fails to fulfil the compact thus solemnly made by his lord; for he is pre-

eminently an upright and honourable beast—‘pious withal,’ as Mandeville says, not
faithless or treacherous like the leopard, whom no compact can bind. Some Bhomkas,
however, masters of more powerful spell, are not obliged to rely on the traditional
honour of the tiger, but compel his attendance before Bâgh Deo; and such a Bhomka has
been seen, a very Daniel among tigers, muttering his incantations over two or three at a
time as they crouched before him. Still more mysterious was the power of Kâlibhît
Bhomka (now, alas! no more). He died, the victim of misplaced confidence in a Louis
Napoleon of tigers, the basest and most bloodthirsty of his race. He had a fine large Sâj
tree into which, when he uttered his spells, he would drive a nail. On this the tiger came
and ratified the contract with enormous paw manual. Such was that of Timûr the Lame,
when he dipped his mighty hand in blood and stamped its impression on a parchment
grant.”32

In the same way in other parts of the Central Provinces the village sorcerers profess to be
able to call tigers from the jungles, to seize them by the ears, and control their voracity
by whispering to them a command not to come near their villages, or they pretend to
know a particular kind of root, by burying which they can prevent the beasts of the forest
from devouring men or cattle. With the same object they lay on the pathway small
models of bedsteads and other things which are supposed to act as charms and stop their
advance.

Magical Powers of Dead Tigers.

All sorts of magical powers are ascribed to the tiger after death. The fangs, the claws, the
whiskers are potent charms, valuable for love philters and prophylactics against
demoniacal influence, the Evil Eye, disease and death. The milk of a tigress is valuable
medicine, and it is one of the stock impossible tasks or tests imposed upon the hero to
find and fetch it, as he is sent to get the feathers of the eagle, water from the well of
death, or the mystical cow guarded by Dânos or Râkshasas.33 The fat is considered a
valuable remedy for rheumatism and similar maladies. The heart and flesh are tonics,
stimulants and aphrodisiacs, and give strength and courage to those who use them. The
Miris of Assam prize tiger’s flesh as food for men; it gives them strength and courage;
but it is not suited for women, as it would make them too strong-minded.34 The whiskers
are believed, among other qualities which they possess, to be a slow poison when taken
with food, and the curious rudimentary clavicles, known as Santokh or “happiness,” are
highly valued as amulets. There is a general belief that a tiger gets a new lobe to his liver
every year. A favourite amulet to repel demoniacal influence consists of the whiskers of
the tiger or leopard mixed with nail parings, some sacred root or grass, and red lead, and

hung on the throat or upper arm. This treatment is particularly valuable in the case of
young children immediately after birth. Tiger’s flesh is also a potent medicine and
charm, and it is burnt in the cow-stall when cattle disease prevails. The flesh of the tiger,
or if that be not procurable, the flesh of the jackal is burnt in the fields to keep off blight
from the crops.

Tigers, Propitiation of.

Some tigers are supposed to be amenable to courtesy. In one of the Kashmîr tales, the
hero in search of tiger’s milk shoots an arrow and pierces one of the teats of the tigress,
to whom he explains that he hoped she would thus be able to suckle her cubs with less
trouble. In other tales we find the tiger pacified if he is addressed as “Uncle.”35 So,
Colonel Tod describes how a tiger attacked a boy near his camp, and was supposed to
have, like the fierce Râkshasa of the Nepâl legend, released the child when he was
addressed as “Uncle.”36 “This Lord of the Black Rock, for such is the designation of the
tiger, is one of the most ancient bourgeois of Morwan; his stronghold is Kâla Pahâr,
between this and Magawâr; and his reign during a long series of years has been
unmolested, notwithstanding numerous acts of aggression on his bovine subjects.
Indeed, only two nights before he was disturbed gorging on a buffalo belonging to a poor
oilman of Morwan. Whether the tiger was an incarnation of one of the Mori lords of
Morwan, tradition does not say; but neither gun, bow, nor spear has ever been raised
against him. In return for this forbearance, it is said, he never preyed on man; or if he
seized one, would, on being entreated with the endearing epithet of ‘Uncle,’ let go his
hold.”37

Tiger-worship among the Gonds.

Among the Gonds tiger-worship assumes a particularly disgusting form. At marriages
among them, a terrible apparition appears of two demoniacs possessed by Bâgheswar,
the tiger god. They fall ravenously on a bleating kid, and gnaw it with their teeth till it
expires. “The manner,” says Captain Samuells, who witnessed the performance, “in
which the two men seized the kid with their teeth and killed it was a sight which could
only be equalled on a feeding day in the Zoological Gardens or a menagerie.”38

Men Metamorphosed into Tigers.

The only visible difference between the ordinary animal and a man metamorphosed into
a tiger was explained to Colonel Sleeman to consist in the fact that the latter had no tail.
In the jungles about Deori there is said to be a root, which if a man eats, he is converted
into a tiger on the spot; and if, when in this state, he eats another species of root, he is
turned back into a man again.

“A melancholy instance of this,” said Colonel Sleeman’s informant, “occurred in my
own father’s family when I was an infant. His washerman Raghu was, like all
washermen, a great drunkard. Being seized with a violent desire to ascertain what a man
felt like in the state of a tiger, he went one day to the jungle and brought back two of
these roots, and desired his wife to stand by with one of them, and the instant she saw
him assume the tiger’s shape to thrust the root she held into his mouth. She consented,
and the washerman ate his root and instantly became a tiger, whereupon she was so
terrified that she ran off with the antidote in her hand. Poor old Raghu took to the woods,
and there ate a good many of his friends from the neighbouring villages; but he was at
last shot, and recognized from his having no tail. You may be quite sure when you hear
of a tiger having no tail that it is some unfortunate man who has eaten of that root, and of
all the tigers he will be found the most mischievous.”39

This is a curious reversal of the ordinary theory regarding the tail of the tiger, to which a
murderous strength is attributed. A Hindu proverb says that the hair of a tiger’s tail may
be the means of losing one’s life. This has been compared by Professor De Gubernatis
with the tiger Mantikora spoken of by Ktesias, which has on its tail hairs which are darts
thrown by it for the purpose of defence.40

A Nepâl legend describes how some children made a clay image of a tiger, and thinking
the figure incomplete without a tongue, went to fetch a leaf to supply the defect. On their
return they found that Bhairava had entered the image and had begun to devour their
sheep. The image of Bâgh Bhairava and the deified children are still to be seen at this
place. We have the same legend in the Panchatantra and the tales of Somadeva, where
four Brâhmans resuscitate a tiger and are devoured by it.41

We have many instances in the folk-tales of the tiger befooled. In one of the tales told by
the Mânjhis of Mirzapur the goat has kids in the tiger’s den, and when he arrives she
makes her kids squall and pretends that she wants some tiger’s flesh for them.42 In a
Panjâbi tale the farmer’s wife rides up to the tiger calling out, “I hope I may find a tiger

in this field, for I have not tasted tiger’s flesh since the day before yesterday, when I
killed three,” whereupon the tiger runs away. The tale which tells how the jackal
succeeds in getting the tiger back into the cage and thus saves the Brâhman is common
in Indian folk-lore.43

Dog-worship.

In the Nepâl legend which we have been discussing we find Bhairava associated with the
tiger, but his prototype, the local godling Bhairon, has the dog as his sacred animal, and
his is the only temple in Benares into which the dog is admitted.44

Two conflicting lines of thought seem to meet in dog-worship. As Mr. Campbell says,
“There is a good house-guarding dog, and an evil scavenging and tomb-haunting dog.
Some of the products of the dog are so valued in driving off spirits that they seem to be a
distinct element in the feeling of respect shown to the dog. Still it seems better to
consider the dog as a man-eater, and to hold that, like the tiger, this was the original
reason why the dog was considered a guardian.”45 It is perhaps in this connection that
the dog is associated with Yama, the god of death.

BHAIRON AND HIS DOG.

An ancient epithet of the dog is Kritajna, “he that is mindful of favours,” which is also a
title of Siva. The most touching episode of the Mahâbhârata is where Yudhisthira refuses
to enter the heaven of Indra without his favourite dog, which is really Yama in disguise.
These dogs of Yama probably correspond to the Orthros and Kerberos of the Greeks, and
Kerberos has been connected etymologically with Sarvari, which is an epithet of the
night, meaning originally “dark” or “pale.”46 The same idea shows itself in the Pârsi
respect for the dog, which may be traced to the belief of the early Persians. The dog’s
muzzle is placed near the mouth of the dying Pârsi in order that it may receive his
parting breath and bear it to the waiting angel, and the destruction of a corpse by dogs is
looked on with no feeling of abhorrence. The same idea is found in Buddhism, where on
the early coins “the figure of a dog in connection with a Buddhist Stûpa recalls to mind
the use to which the animal was put in the bleak highlands of Asia in the preferential
form of sepulchre over exposure to birds and wild beasts in the case of deceased monks
or persons of position in Tibet. Strange and horrible as it may seem to us to be devoured
by domestic dogs, trained and bred for the purpose, it was the most honourable form of
burial among Tibetans.”47

The Kois of Central India hold in great respect the Pândava brethren Arjuna and Bhîma.
The wild dogs or Dhol are regarded as the Dûtas or messengers of the heroes, and the
long black beetles which appear in large numbers at the beginning of the hot weather are
called the Pândavas’ goats. None of them will on any account interfere with these divine
dogs, even when they attack their cattle.48

Dog-worship: Bhairon.

In modern times dog-worship appears specially in connection with the cultus of Bhairon,
the Brâhmanical Bhairava, the Bhairoba of Western India. No Marâtha will lift his hand
against a dog, and in Bombay many Hindus worship the dog of Kâla Bhairava, though
the animal is considered unclean by them. Khandê Râo or Khandoba or Khandoji is
regarded as an incarnation of Siva and much worshipped by Marâthas. He is most
frequently represented as riding on horseback and attended by a dog and accompanied
by his wife Malsurâ, another form of Pârvatî. His name is usually derived from the
Khanda or sword which he carries, but Professor Oppert without much probability
would connect it with that of the aboriginal Khândhs who are supposed to have been
original settlers in Khândesh, after whom it was called.49 In many temples of
Bhaironnâth, as at Benares and Hardwâr, he is depicted on the wall in a deep blue colour
approaching to black, and behind him is the figure of the dog on which he rides.
Sweetmeat sellers make little images of a dog in sugar, which are presented to the deity
as an offering.

At Lohâru, in the Panjâb, a common-looking grave is much respected by the Hindus. It
is said to contain the remains of a dog formerly possessed by the chief of the victorious
Thâkurs, which is credited with having done noble service in battle, springing up and
seizing the wounded warriors’ throats, many of whom it slew. Finally it was killed and
buried on the spot with beat of drum, and has since been an object of worship and
homage. “Were it not,” says General Cunningham, “for the Sagparast of Naishapur,
mentioned in Khusru’s charming Darvesh tales, this example of dog-worship would
probably be unique.”50 This is, it is hardly necessary to say, a mistake.

Thus, close to Bulandshahr, there is a grove with four tombs, which are said to be the
resting-place of three holy men and their favourite dog, which died when the last of the
saints departed this life. They were buried together, and their tombs are held in much
respect by Muhammadans.51

In Pûna, Dattâtreya is guarded by four dogs which are said to stand for the four Vedas,
and at Jejuri and Nâgpur children are dedicated to the dogs of Khandê Râo. The

Ghisâdis, on the seventh day after a birth, go and worship water, and on coming back rub
their feet on a dog. At Dharwâr, on the fair day of the Dasahra at Malahâri’s temple, the
Vâggayya ministrants dress in blue woollen coats and meet with bell and skins tied
round their middles, the pilgrims barking and howling like dogs. Each Vâggayya has a
wooden bowl into which the pilgrims put milk and plantains. Then the Vâggayyas lay
down the bowls, fight with each other like dogs, and putting their mouths into the bowls,
eat the contents.52 In Nepâl, there is a festival, known as the Khichâ Pûjâ, in which
worship is done to dogs, and garlands of flowers are placed round the neck of every dog
in the country.53 Among the Gonds, if a dog dies or is born, the family has to undergo
purification.54

Dogs in Folk-lore: The Bethgelert Legend.

The famous tale of Bethgelert, the faithful hound which saves the child of his master
from the wolf and is killed by mistake, appears all through the folk-tales and was
probably derived from India. In the Indian version the dog usually belongs to a Banya or
to a Banjâra, who mortgages him to a merchant. The merchant is robbed and the dog
discovers the stolen goods. In his gratitude the merchant ties round the neck of the dog a
scrap of paper, on which he records that the debt has been satisfied. The dog returns to
his original master, who upbraids him for deserting his post, and, without looking at the
paper, kills him, only to be overcome by remorse when he learns the honesty of the
faithful beast. This famous tale is told at Haidarâbâd, Lucknow, Sîtapur, Mirzapur, and
Kashmîr. In its more usual form, as in the Panchatantra and the collection of Somadeva,
the mungoose takes the place of the dog and kills the cobra on the baby’s cradle.55

Throughout folk-lore the dog is associated with the spirits of the dead, as we have seen
to be the case with Syâma, “the black one,” and Sabala or Karvara, the “spotted ones,”
the attendants of Yama.56 Hence the dog is regarded as the guardian of the household,
which they protect from evil spirits. According to Aubrey,57 “all over England a spayed
bitch is accounted wholesome in a house; that is to say they have a strong belief that it
keeps away evil spirits from haunting of a house.” As in the Odyssey, the two swift
hounds of Telemachus bear him company and recognize Athene when she is invisible to
others, and the dogs of Virgil howl when the goddess approaches, so the Muhammadans
believe that dogs recognize Azraîl, the angel of death, and in Northern India it is
supposed that dogs have the power of seeing spirits, and when they see one they howl. In
Shakespeare King Henry says:—

“The owl shriek’d at thy birth, an evil sign;

The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howled and hideous tempests shook down trees.”

Hence in all countries the howling of dogs in the vicinity of a house is an omen of
approaching misfortune.

The respect for the dog is well shown in the case of the Bauris of Bengal, who will on no
account kill a dog or touch its body, and the water of a tank in which a dog has been
drowned cannot be used until an entire rainy season has washed the impurity away. They
allege that as they kill cows and most other animals, they deem it right to fix on some
beast which should be as sacred to them as the cow to the Brâhman, and they selected
the dog because it was a useful animal when alive and not very nice to eat when dead, “a
neat reconciliation of the twinges of conscience and cravings of appetite.”58

Various omens are in the Panjâb drawn from dogs. When out hunting, if they lie on their
backs and roll, as they generally do when they find a tuft of grass or soft ground, it
shows that plenty of game will be found. If a dog lies quietly on his back in the house, it
is a bad omen, for the superstition runs that the dog is addressing heaven for support, and
that some calamity is bound to happen.59

We have seen already that some of the Central Indian tribes respect the wild dog. The
same is the case in the Hills, where they are known as “God’s hounds,” and no native
sportsman will kill them.60 In one of Grimm’s tales we read that the “Lord God had
created all animals, and had chosen out the wolf to be his dog,” and the dogs of Odin
were wolves.61 Another sacred dog in Indian folk-lore is that of the hunter Shambuka.
His master threw him into the sacred pool of Uradh in the Himâlaya. Coming out
dripping, he shook some of the water on his owner, and such was the virtue of even this
partial ablution that on their death both hunter and dog were summoned to the heaven of
Siva.62

All over Northern India the belief in the curative power of the tongue of the dog widely
prevails. In Ireland they say that a dried tongue of a fox will draw out thorns, however
deep they be, and an old late Latin verse says:—

In cane bis bina sunt, et lingua medicina
Naris odoratus, amor intiger, atque latratus.63

Among Musalmâns the dog is impure. The vessel it drinks from must be washed seven
times and scrubbed with earth. The Qurân directs that before a dog is slipped in chase of
game, the sportsman should call out, “In the name of God, the great God!” Then all
game seized by him becomes lawful food.

The Goat.

The goat is another animal to which mystic powers are attributed. In the mythology of
the West he is associated with Dionysos, Pan, and the Satyr. In England it is commonly
believed that he is never seen for twenty-four hours together, and that once in this space
he pays a visit to the Devil to have his beard combed.64 The Devil, they say, sometimes
appears in this form, which accounts for his horns and tail. The wild goat was associated
with the worship of Artemis, the Arab unmarried goddess.65 In the Râmâyana,
Agamukhî, or “goat’s face,” is the witch who wishes Sîtâ to be torn to pieces.

Mr. Conway asks whether this idea about the goat is due to the smell of the animal, its
butting and injury to plants, or was it demonized merely because of its uncanny and
shaggy appearance?66 Probably the chief reason is because it has a curious habit of
occasionally shivering, which is regarded as caused by some indwelling spirit. The
Thags in their sacrifice used to select two goats, black, and perfect in all their parts. They
were bathed and made to face the west, and if they shook themselves and threw the
water off their hair, they were regarded as a sacrifice acceptable to Devî. Hence in India
a goat is led along a disputed boundary, and the place where it shivers is regarded as the
proper line. Plutarch says that the Greeks would not sacrifice a goat if it did not shiver
when water was thrown over it.

In the Panjâb it is believed that when a goat kills a snake it eats it and then ruminates,
after which it spits out a Manka or bead, which, when applied to a snake-bite, absorbs
the poison and swells. If it be then put in milk and squeezed, the poison drips out of it
like blood, and the patient is cured. If it is not put in milk, it will burst to pieces.67 It
hence resembles the Ovum Anguinum, or Druid’s Egg, to which reference has been
already made.68 If a person suffers from spleen, they take the spleen of a he-goat, if the
patient be a male; or of a she-goat, if the patient be a female. It is rubbed on the region of
the spleen seven times on a Sunday or Tuesday, pierced with acacia thorns and hung on a
tree. As the goat’s spleen dries, the spleen of the patient reduces.

The horn is regarded as somehow most closely connected with the brain. So, in the
“Merry Wives of Windsor,” Mrs. Quickly says: “If he had found the young man, he
would have been horn mad,” and Horace gives the advice, “Fenum habet in cornu longe
fuge.” Martial describes how in his time the Roman shrines were covered with horns,
Dissimulatque deum cornibus ora frequens.69

It is for this reason that the local shrines in the Himâlaya are decorated with horns of the
wild sheep, ibex, and goat. In Persia many houses are adorned with rams’ heads fixed to
the corners near the roof, which are to protect the building from misfortune. In
Bilochistân and Afghanistân it is customary to place the horns of the wild goat and sheep
on the walls of forts and mosques.70 Akbar covered his Kos Minars or mile-stones with
the horns of the deer he had killed. The conical support of the Banjâra woman’s head-
dress was originally a horn, and many classes of Faqîrs tie a piece of horn round their
necks. We have the well-known horn of plenty, and it is very common in the folk-tales to
find objects taken out of the ears or horns of the helpful animals.71

Goat and Totemism.

We perhaps get a glimpse of totemism in connection with the goat in some of the early
Hindu legends. When Parusha, the primeval man, was divided into his male and female
parts, he produced all the animals, and the goat was first formed out of his mouth. There
is, again, a mystical connection between Agni, the fire god, Brâhmans, and goats, as
between Indra, the Kshatriyas, and sheep, Vaisyas and kine, Sûdras and the horse. These
may possibly have been tribal totems of the races by whom these animals were
venerated.72 The sheep, as we have already seen, is a totem of the Keriyas. The
Aheriyas, a vagrant tribe of the North-Western Provinces, worship Mekhasura or
Meshasura in the form of a ram.

Cow and Bull Worship.

But the most famous of these animal totems or fetishes is the cow or bull. According to
the school of comparative mythology the bull which bore away Europe from Kadmos is
the same from which the dawn flies in the Vedic hymn. He, according to this theory, is
“the bull Indra, which, like the sun, traverses the heaven, bearing the dawn from east to
west. But the Cretan bull, like his fellow in the Gnossian labyrinth, who devours the
tribute children from the city of the Dawn goddess, is a dark and malignant monster,
akin to the throttling snake who represents the powers of night and darkness.”73 This
may be so, but the identification of primitive religion, in all its varied phases, with the
sun or other physical phenomena is open to the obvious objection that it limits the ideas

of the early Aryans to the weather and their dairies, and antedates the regard for the cow
to a period when the animal was held in much less reverence than it is at present.

Respect for the Cow Modern.

That the respect for the cow is of comparatively modern date is best established on the
authority of a writer, himself a Hindu. “Animal food was in use in the Epic period, and
the cow and bull were often laid under requisition. In the Aitareya Brâhmana, we learn
that an ox, or a cow which suffers miscarriage, is killed when a king or honoured guest is
received. In the Brâhmana of the Black Yajur Veda the kind and character of the cattle
which should be slaughtered in minor sacrifices for the gratification of particular
divinities are laid down in detail. Thus a dwarf one is to be sacrificed to Vishnu, a
drooping-horned bull to Indra, a thick-legged cow to Vâyu, a barren cow to Vishnu and
Varuna, a black cow to Pûshan, a cow having two colours to Mitra and Varuna, a red
cow to Indra, and so on. In a larger and more important ceremonial, like the Aswamedha,
no less than one hundred and eighty domestic animals, including horses, bulls, goats,
sheep, deer, etc., were sacrificed.

IMAGE OF THE SACRED BULL.

“The same Brâhmana lays down instructions for carving, and the Gopatha Brâhmana
tells us who received the portions. The priests got the tongue, the neck, the shoulder, the
rump, the legs, etc., while the master of the house wisely appropriated to himself the
sirloin, and his wife had to be satisfied with the pelvis. Plentiful libations of Soma beer
were to be allowed to wash down the meat. In the Satapatha Brâhmana we have a
detailed account of the slaughter of a barren cow and its cooking. In the same Brâhmana
there is an amusing discussion as to the propriety of eating the meat of an ox or cow. The
conclusion is not very definite. ‘Let him (the priest) not eat the flesh of the cow and the
ox.’ Nevertheless Yajnavalkya said (taking apparently a very practical view of the
matter), ‘I, for one, eat it, provided it is tender.’”74

The evidence that cows were freely slaughtered in ancient times could be largely
extended. It is laid down in the early laws that the meat of milch cows and oxen may be
eaten, and a guest is called a Goghna or “cow-killer,” because a cow was killed for his
entertainment.75 In the Grihya Sûtra we have a description of the sacrifice of an ox to
Kshetrapati, “the lord of the fields.” In another ancient ritual the sacrifice of a cow is
stated to be very similar to that of the Satî, and, according to an early legend, kine were
created from Parusha, the primal male, and are to be eaten as they were formed from the
receptacle of food.76

It need hardly be said that the worship of the cow is not peculiar to India, but prevails
widely in various parts of the world.77

Origin of Cow-worship.

The explanation of the origin of cow-worship has been a subject of much controversy.
The modern Hindu, if he has formed any distinct ideas at all on the subject, bases his
respect for the cow on her value for supplying milk, and for general agricultural
purposes. The Panchagâvya, or five products of the cow—milk, curds, butter, urine, and
dung—are efficacious as scarers of demons, are used as remedies in disease, and play a
very important part in domestic ritual Gaurochana, a bright yellow pigment prepared
from the urine or bile of the cow, or, as is said by some, vomited by her or found in her
head, is used for making the sectarial mark, and as a sedative, tonic, and anthelmintic. In
Bombay it is specially used as a remedy for measles, which is considered to be a spirit
disease.78

There is, again, something to be said for the theory which finds in these animals tribal
totems and fetishes.79 We have a parallel case among the Jews, where the bull was
probably the ancient symbol of the Hyksos, which the Israelites having succeeded them

could adopt, especially as it may have been retained in use by their confederates the
Midianites; and it appears in the earliest annals of Israel as a token of the former
supremacy of Joseph and his tribe, and was subsequently adopted as an image of Iahveh
himself.

So, speaking of Egypt, Mr. Frazer writes: “Osiris was regularly identified with the bull
Apis of Memphis and the bull Mnevis of Heliopolis. But it is hard to say whether these
bulls were embodiments of him as the corn spirit, as the red oxen appear to have been, or
whether they were not entirely distinct deities which got fused with Osiris by syncretism.
The fact that these two bulls were worshipped by all the Egyptians, seems to put them on
a different footing from the ordinary sacred animals, whose cults were purely local.
Hence, if the latter were evolved from totems, as they probably were, some other origin
would have to be found for the worship of Apis and Mnevis. If these bulls were not
originally embodiments of the corn god Osiris, they may possibly be descendants of the
sacred cattle worshipped by a pastoral people. If this were so, ancient Egypt would
exhibit a stratification of the three great types of religion corresponding to the three great
stages of society. Totemism or (roughly speaking) the worship of wild animals—the
religion of society in the hunting stage—would be represented by the worship of the
local sacred animals; the worship of cattle—the religion of society in the pastoral stage
—would be represented by the cults of Apis and Mnevis; and the worship of cultivated
plants, especially of corn—the religion of society in the agricultural stage—would be
represented by the worship of Osiris and Isis. The Egyptian reverence for cows, which
were never killed, might belong either to the second or third of these stages.”80

There is some evidence that the same process of religious development may have taken
place in India. It is at least significant that the earlier legends represent Indra as created
from a cow; and we know that Indra was the Kuladevatâ or family godling of the race of
the Kusikas, as Krishna was probably the clan deity of some powerful confederation of
Râjput tribes. Cow-worship is thus closely connected with Indra and with Krishna in his
forms as the “herdman god,” Govinda or Gopâla; and it is at least plausible to conjecture
that the worship of the cow may have been due to the absorption of the animal as a tribal
totem of the two races, who venerated these two divinities.

Further, the phallic significance of the worship, in its modern form at least, and its
connection with fertility cannot be altogether ignored.81 This is particularly shown in the
close connection between Siva’s bull Nandi and the Lingam worship; and there seems
reason to suspect that the bull is intended to intercept the evil influences which in the
popular belief are continually emitted from the female principle through the Yonî. As we
have already seen, the dread of this form of pollution is universal. Hence when the
Lingam is set up in a new village the people are careful in turning the spout of the Yonî
towards the jungle, and not in the direction of the roads and houses, lest its evil influence

should be communicated to them; and in order still further to secure this object, the bull
Nandi is placed sitting as a guardian between the Yonî and the inhabited site.82

Cow-worship assumes another form in connection with the theory of transmigration. It
has become part of the theory that the soul migrates into the cow immediately preceding
its assumption of the human form, and she escorts the soul across the dreaded river
Vaitaranî, which bounds the lower world.

Cow-worship: Its Later Development.

Though cow-worship was little known in the Vedic period, by the time of the
compilation of the Institutes of Manu it had become part of the popular belief. He classes
the slaughter of a cow or bull among the deadly sins; “the preserver of a cow or a
Brâhman atones for the crime of killing a priest;”83 and we find constant references in
the mediæval folk-lore to the impiety of the Savaras and other Drâvidian races who
killed and ate the sacred animal. Saktideva one day, “as he was standing on the roof of
his palace, saw a Chandâla coming along with a load of cow’s flesh, and said to his
beloved Vindumatî: ‘Look, slender one! How can the evil-doer eat the flesh of cows, that
are the object of veneration to the three worlds?’ Then Vindumatî, hearing that, said to
her husband: ‘The wickedness of this act is inconceivable; what can we say in palliation
of it? I have been born in this race of fishermen for a very small offence owing to the
might of cows. But what can atone for this man’s sin?’”84

Re-birth through the Cow.

When the horoscope forebodes some crime or special calamity, the child is clothed in
scarlet, a colour which repels evil influences, and tied on the back of a new sieve, which,
as we have seen, is a powerful fetish. This is passed through the hindlegs of a cow,
forward through the forelegs towards the mouth, and again in the reverse direction,
signifying the new birth from the sacred animal. The usual worship and aspersion take
place, and the father smells his child, as the cow smells her calf. This rite is known as the
Hiranyagarbha, and not long since the Mahârâja of Travancore was passed in this way
through a cow of gold.85

The same idea is illustrated in the legend of the Pushkar Lake, which probably represents
a case of that fusion of races which undoubtedly occurred in ancient times. The story
runs that Brahma proposed to do worship there, but was perplexed where he should
perform the sacrifice, as he had no temple on earth like the other gods. So he collected
all the other gods, but the sacrifice could not proceed as Savitrî alone was absent; and
she refused to come without Lakshmî, Pârvatî, and Indrânî. On hearing of her refusal,
Brahma was wroth, and said to Indra: “Search me out a girl that I may marry her and
commence the sacrifice, for the jar of ambrosia weighs heavy on my head.” Accordingly
Indra went and found none but a Gûjar’s daughter, whom he purified, and passing her
through the body of a cow, brought her to Brahma, telling him what he had done. Vishnu
said: “Brâhmans and cows are really identical; you have taken her from the womb of a
cow, and this may be considered a second birth.” Siva said: “As she has passed through a
cow, she shall be called Gâyatrî.” The Brâhmans agreed that the sacrifice might now
proceed; and Brahma having married Gâyatrî, and having enjoined silence upon her,
placed on her head the jar of ambrosia and the sacrifice was performed.86

Respect Paid to the Cow.

The respect paid to the cow appears everywhere in folk-lore. We have the cow
Kâmadhenû, known also as Kâmadughâ or Kâmaduh, the cow of plenty, Savalâ, “the
spotted one,” and Surabhî, “the fragrant one,” which grants all desires. Among many of
the lower castes the cow-shed becomes the family temple.87 In the old ritual, the bride,
on entering her husband’s house, was placed on a red bull’s hide as a sign that she was
received into the tribe, and in the Soma sacrifice the stones whence the liquor was
produced were laid on the hide of a bull. When a disputed boundary is under settlement,
a cow skin is placed over the head and shoulders of the arbitrator, who is thus imbued
with the divine influence, and gives a just decision. It is curious that until quite recently
there was a custom in the Hebrides of sewing up a man in the hide of a bull, and leaving
him for the night on a hill-top, that he might become a spirit medium.88 The pious Hindu
touches the cow’s tail at the moment of dissolution, and by her aid he is carried across
the dread river of death. I have more than once seen a criminal ascend the scaffold with
the utmost composure when he was allowed to grasp a cow’s tail before the hangman did
his office. The tail of the cow is also used in the marriage ritual, and the tail of the wild
cow, though nowadays only used by grooms, was once the symbol of power, and waved
over the ruler to protect him from evil spirits. Quite recently I found that one of the chief
Brâhman priests at the sacred pool of Hardwâr keeps a wild cow’s tail to wave over his
clients, and scare demons from them when they are bathing in the Brahma Kund or
sacred pool.

The Hill legend tells how Siva once manifested himself in his fiery form, and Vishnu
and Brahma went in various directions to see how far the light extended. On their return
Vishnu declared that he had been unable to find out how far the light prevailed; but
Brahma said that he had gone beyond its limits. Vishnu then called on Kâmadhenû, the
celestial cow, to bear testimony, and she corroborated Brahma with her tongue, but she
shook her tail by way of denying the statement. So Vishnu cursed her that her mouth
should be impure, but that her tail should be held holy for ever.89

Modern Cow-worship.

There are numerous instances of modern cow-worship. The Jâts and Gûjars adore her
under the title of Gâû Mâtâ, “Mother cow.” The cattle are decorated and supplied with
special food on the Gopashtamî or Gokulashtamî festival, which is held in connection
with the Krishna cultus. In Nepâl there is a Newâri festival, known as the Gâê Jâtra, or
cow feast, when all persons who have lost relations during the year ought to disguise
themselves as cows and dance round the palace of the king.90 In many of the Central
Indian States, about the time of the Diwâlî, the Maun Charâûn, or silent tending of cattle,
is performed. The celebrants rise at daybreak, wash and bathe, anoint their bodies with
oil, and hang garlands of flowers round their necks. All this time they remain silent and
communicate their wants by signs. When all is ready they go to the pasture in procession
in perfect silence. Each of them holds a peacock’s feather over his shoulder to scare
demons. They remain in silence with the cattle for an hour or two, and then return home.
This is followed by an entertainment of wrestling among the Ahîrs or cowherds. When
night has come, a gun is fired, and the Mahârâja breaks his fast and speaks. The rite is
said to be in commemoration of Krishna feeding the cows in the pastures of the land of
Braj.91

During an eclipse, the cow, if in calf, is rubbed on the horns and belly with red ochre to
repel the evil influence, and prevent the calf being born blemished. Cattle are not worked
on the Amâvas or Ides of the month. There are many devices, such as burning tiger’s
flesh, and similar prophylactics, in the cow-house to drive away the demon of disease.
So, on New Year’s Day the Highlander used to fumigate his cattle shed with the smoke
of juniper.92 Cow hair is regarded as an amulet against disease and danger, in the same
way as the hair of the yak was valued by the people of Central Asia in the time of Marco
Polo.93 An ox with a fleshy excrescence on his eye is regarded as sacred, and is known
as Nadiya or Nandi, “the happy one,” the title of the bull of Siva. He is not used for
agriculture, but given to a Jogi, who covers him with cowry shells, and carries him about
on begging excursions. One of the most unpleasant sights at the great bathing fairs, such

as those of Prayâg or Hardwâr, is the malformed cows and oxen which beggars of this
class carry about and exhibit. The Gonds kill a cow at a funeral, and hang the tail on the
grave as a sign that the ceremonies have been duly performed.94 The Kurkus sprinkle the
blood of a cow on the grave, and believe that if this be not done the spirit of the departed
refuses to rest, and returns upon earth to haunt the survivors.95 The Vrishotsarga
practised by Hindus on the eleventh day after death, when a bull calf is branded and let
loose in the name of deceased, is apparently an attempt to shift on the animal the burden
of the sins of the dead man, if it be not a survival of an actual sacrifice.

Feeling against Cow-killing.

Of the unhappy agitation against cow-killing, which has been in recent years such a
serious problem to the British Government in Northern India, nothing further can be said
here. To the orthodox Hindu, killing a cow, even accidentally, is a serious matter, and
involves the feeding of Brâhmans and the performance of pilgrimages. In the Hills a
special ritual is prescribed in the event of a plough ox being killed by accident.96 The
idea that misfortune follows the killing of a cow is common. It used to be said that
storms arose on the Pîr Panjâl Pass in Kashmîr if a cow was killed.97

General Sleeman gives a case at Sâgar, where an epidemic was attributed to the practice
of cattle slaughter, and a popular movement arose for its suppression.98 Sindhia offered
Sir John Malcolm in 1802 an additional cession of territory if he would introduce an
article into the Treaty with the British Government prohibiting the slaughter of cows
within the territory he had been already compelled to abandon. The Emperor Akbar
ordered that cattle should not be killed during the Pachûsar, or twelve sacred days
observed by the Jainas; Sir John Malcolm gives a copy of the original Firmân.99 Cow-
killing is to this day prohibited in orthodox Hindu States, like Nepâl.

Bull-worship among Banjâras.

There is a good example of bull-worship among the wandering tribe of Banjâras. “When
sickness occurs, they lead the sick man to the foot of the bullock called Hatâdiya; for
though they say that they pay reverence to images, and that their religion is that of the
Sikhs, the object of their worship is this Hatâdiya, a bullock devoted to the god Bâlajî.

On this animal no burden is ever laid, but he is decorated with streamers of red-dyed silk
and tinkling bells, with many brass chains and rings on neck and feet, and strings of
cowry shells and silken tassels hanging in all directions. He moves steadily at the head
of the convoy, and the place he lies down on when tired, that they make their halting-
place for the day. At his feet they make their vows when difficulties overtake them, and
in illness, whether of themselves or cattle, they trust to his worship for a cure.” The
respect paid by Banjâras to cattle seems, however, to be diminishing. Once upon a time
they would never sell cattle to a butcher, but nowadays it is an every-day occurrence.100

Superstitions about Cattle.

Infinite are the superstitions about cattle, their marks, and every kind of peculiarity
connected with them, and this has been embodied in a great mass of rural rhymes and
proverbs which are always on the lips of the people. Thus, for instance, it is unlucky for
a cow to calve in the month of Bhâdon. The remedy is to swim it in a stream, sell it to a
Muhammadan, or in the last resort give it away to a Gujarâti Brâhman. Here may be
noticed the curious prejudice against the use of a cow’s milk, which prevails among
some tribes such as the Hos and some of the aboriginal tribes of Bengal. The latter use a
species of wild cattle, the Mithun, for milking purposes, but will not touch the milk of
the ordinary cow.101

The Buffalo.

The respect paid to the cow does not fully extend to the buffalo. The buffalo is the
vehicle of Yama, the god of death. The female buffalo is in Western India regarded as the
incarnation of Savitrî, wife of Brahma, the Creator. Durgâ or Bhavânî killed the buffalo-
shaped Asura Mahisa, Mahisâsura, after whom Maisûr is called. According to the legend
as told in the Mârkandeya Purâna, Ditî, having lost all her sons, the Asuras, in the fight
with the gods, turned herself into a buffalo in order to annihilate them. She underwent
such terrible austerities to propitiate Brahma, that the whole world was shaken and the
saint Suparsva disturbed at his devotions. He cursed Ditî that her son should be in the
shape of a buffalo, but Brahma so far mitigated the curse that only his head was to be
that of a buffalo. This was Mahisâsura, who ill-treated the gods, until they appealed to
Vishnu and Siva, who jointly produced a lovely representation of a Bhavânî, the

Mahisâsurmardanî, who slew the monster. This Mahisâsura is supposed to be the origin
of the godling Mahasoba, worshipped in Western India in the form of a rude stone
covered with red lead.

Another of these buffalo demons is Dundubhi, “he that roars like the sound of the kettle-
drum,” who in the Râmâyana bursts with his horns the cavern of Bali, son of Indra and
king of monkeys. Bali seized him by the horns and dashed him to pieces. The
comparative mythologists regard him as one of the forms of the cloud monster the
sun.102

Sadasiva, one of the forms of Mahâdeva, took the form of a buffalo to escape the
Pândavas, and sank into the ground at Kedârnâth. The upper portion of his body is said
to have come to the surface at Mukhâr Bind in Nepâl, where he is worshipped as
Pasupatinâtha. When the Pândavas were freed from their guilt, they in their gratitude
built five temples in honour of the hinder parts of the deity, which are now known as the
Pânch Kedâr-Kedarnâth, Madhya Maheswar, Rudranâth, Tungunâth, and Kalpeswar.

The buffalo is constantly sacrificed at shrines in honour of Durgâ Devî. The Toda
worship of the buffalo is familiar to all students of Indian ethnology.

The Antelope.

The black buck was in all probability the tribal totem of some of the races occupying the
country anciently known as Âryâvarta. Mr. Campbell accounts for the respect paid to the
animal by the use of hartshorn as a remedy for faintness, swoons, and nervous
disorders.103 But this hardly explains the respect paid to it, and the use of its dung by the
Bengal Parhaiyas instead of cowdung to smear their floors looks as if it were based on
totemism.104 This too is shown by the regard paid its skin. As Mr. Frazer has proved, it is
a custom among many savage tribes to retain the skin as an image of the deity which the
animal represented.105 Hence according to the old ritual, the skin of the antelope was the
prescribed dress of the student of theology, and it is still the seat of the ascetic.106

The antelope constantly appears in the folk-tales as a sort of Deus ex machinâ, which
leads the hero astray in the chase and brings him to the home of the ogress or the
ensorcelled maiden.107 In the Mahâbhârata, the King Parîkshit is led astray by a gazelle,
and King Pându dies when he meets his wife Madrî, because he had once killed under
similar circumstances a gazelle with his mate. In the Vishnu Purâna, Bharata loses the
fruits of his austerities by becoming enamoured of a fawn. These fairy hinds appear
throughout the whole range of folk-lore. A Nepâlese legend tells how the three gods

Vishnu, Siva, and Brahma once appeared in the form of deer, whence the place where
they were seen is known as Mrigasthali.108

The Elephant.

The elephant naturally claims worship as the type of strength and wisdom. To the rustic
he impersonates Ganesa, the god of wisdom, the remover of obstacles, who is propitiated
at the commencement of any important enterprise, such as marriage and the like. Many
legends are told to account for his elephant head. One tells how his mother Pârvatî was
so proud of her baby that she asked Sani to look at him, forgetting the baneful effects of
the look of the ill-omened deity. When he looked at the child its head was burned to
ashes, and Brahma, to console her, told her to fix on the first head she could find, which
happened to be that of the elephant. By another account she put Ganesa to guard the door
while she was bathing, and when he refused to allow Siva to enter, the angry god cut off
his head, which was afterwards replaced by that of the elephant. Again, one of his tusks
was broken off by Parasurâma with the axe which Siva, father of Ganesa, had given him.

THE ELEPHANT A TEMPLE WARDEN.

Again, there are the Lokapâlas, the eight supporters of the world. These eight pairs of
elephants support the earth. Indra with Airâvata and Abhramu support the east; Agni
with Pundarîka and Kapilâ the south-east; Yama with Vâmana and Pingalâ the south;
Sûrya with Kumuda and Anupamâ the south-west; Varuna with Anjana and Anjanavatî
the west; Vâyu with Pushpadanta and Subhadantî the north-west; Kuvera on the north
with Sarvabhauma, and Soma on the north-east with Supratîka. As usual, there are
differences in the enumeration.

From these all the modern elephants are descended. As Abul Fazl writes: “When
occasion arises people read incantations in their names and address them in worship.

They also think that every elephant in the world is offspring of one of them. Thus,
elephants of a white skin and white hairs are related to the first, and elephants with a
large head and long ears, of a fierce and bold temper, and eyelids far apart, belong to the
second. Such as are good-looking, black, and high in the back, are the offspring of the
third. If tall, ungovernable, quick in understanding, short-haired, and with red and black
eyes, they come from the fourth. If bright black, with one tusk longer than the other, with
a white breast and belly, and long and thick forefeet, from the fifth. If fearful, with
prominent veins, a short hump and ears, and a long trunk, from the sixth. If thin-bellied,
red-eyed, and with a long trunk, from the seventh. And if of a combination of the
preceding seven qualities, from the eighth.”109

Through India the reverence for the white elephant of Burma and Siam has arisen. The
figure of the elephant appears on some of the pillars of Asoka. There is an elephant gate
at Fatehpur Sîkri, one of the King Huvishka at Mathura, and another connected with the
dynasty of Kanauj at Dabhâon in the Azamgarh District. Delhi contains the remarkable
elephant statues, believed by General Cunningham to have been erected in honour of
Jaymal and Patta, the two Râjput heroes who defended the Fort of Chithor against
Akbar.110

The elephant constantly occurs in folk-lore. In the projection of its forehead it possesses
a pearl, known as the Kunjara Mani, or Gaja Mukta, which is invested with magical
qualities. In the folk-tales the wooden horse of Troy is represented by an artificial
elephant filled with soldiers; other elephants have the power of flying through the air; in
other stories, as in one of La Fontaine’s fables, an elephant selects a king by raising him
up with his trunk; the elephant Kuvalyapîda is the guardian of a kingdom, and touching
an elephant is one of the tests of a woman’s chastity. We have also numerous instances
of the metamorphosis of human beings into elephants.111

The hair of the elephant’s tail is in high repute as an amulet, and little village children,
when an elephant passes, pat the dust where his feet have rested and sing a song, of
which one version is—

Hâthi hâthi, bâr dé
Sone kî tarwâr dé—

“Give us a hair, elephant, like a sword of gold.”

In Europe, it may be noted, the hair from the tail of a horse is commonly regarded as a
cure for wens.112

In the Fatehpur District there is an elephant turned into stone. The famous Jaychand of
Kanauj, it is said, as in the Carthage legend, offered to Parâsara Rishi as many villages

as an elephant could walk round. It traversed an enormous extent of country, and finally
halted at Irâdatnagar, where it was turned into stone, and once a year an enormous fair is
held in its honour.113

The Cat.

The cat is everywhere invested with demoniac qualities, and is the companion of the
witch. In “Macbeth” the first witch says, “Thrice the brinded cat has mewed.” Among
Muhammadans the cat is a pure animal, and to kill a cat is very unlucky, and brings on
trouble and sickness. So, among Hindus, the killing of a cat can be expiated only by the
performance of the rite known as the Prajapati Yajna, which secures the birth of male
issue. They say that Mahâdeva and Pârvatî were one day playing dice, and Pârvatî called
in Ganesa in his form as a rat to upset the dice with his tail and cause her to make a good
throw. Mahâdeva was wroth, and called in a demon like a cat, but he was afraid to kill
Ganesa. Then Mahâdeva cursed any one in after days who should kill a cat. We have the
same tale in the Rasâlu cycle, where the rat of Dhol Râja changes the course of the game
between him and Râja Sarkap. The cat is respected because she is the vehicle of
Shashthî, the protectress of children, and part of the orthodox Hindu rite at dinner is
giving food to the cat. Among the Orâons, as we have seen, the birth fiend Chordeva
comes in the form of a cat.

The Rat and Mouse.

The rat is sacred as the vehicle of Ganesa. In Bombay, “to call a rat a rat is considered by
lower classes of Hindus as unlucky, and so they call him Undir Mâma, or ‘the rat uncle.’
He is so called because he is probably supposed to be the spirit of an uncle. It is
considered a great sin to kill a rat, and so, when rats give trouble in a house, the women
of the house make a vow to them that, if they cease troubling, sweet balls will be given
to them on a certain day, and it is believed by the Hindus that when such a vow has been
made, the rats cease troubling them for some time.”114 In parts of England it is believed
that a field mouse creeping over the back of a sheep gives it paralysis, and that this can
be cured only by shutting up a mouse in a hollow of the trunk of the witch elm or witch
hazel tree and leaving it to die of famine.115

The curiously deformed idiot boys which are collected at the shrine of Shâh Daula at
Gujarât are known from their wizened appearance as the rats of Shâh Daula.116

The Squirrel.

The little Indian squirrel is called in the Panjâb Râma Chandra Kâ Bhagat, or the saint of
Râma Chandra, because when he was building the bridge across the strait to Lanka, the
squirrel helped by shaking dust from his tail, and the god stroked it on the back, hence
the dark marks which it bears to the present day. Many of the Drâvidian tribes claim
descent from the squirrel.

The Bear.

The bear is regarded as a scarer of disease, and sickly children are taken for a ride on the
back of a tame bear or one of his hairs is worn round the neck as an amulet. It was
Jâmbavat, the king of the bears, who carried off the celebrated amulet, Syamantaka. He
was pursued by Krishna, to whom he surrendered the gem and gave him his daughter
Jâmbavatî to wife. He afterwards with his army of bears assisted Râma in his invasion of
Lanka.

The Jackal.

The jackal is an important character in the folk-tales, where he assumes the part taken in
Europe by the fox. Many are the tales told of his acuteness. The pack is supposed to
howl only at each watch of the night, and the leader says, Main Dilli kâ Bâdshâh hûn
—“I am King of Delhi” thrice, and his companions say, Ho! ho! ho!—“Yes! of course
you are.”

The Hare.

Of the hare in the moon we have spoken already, and also referred to the animal in
connection with omens. In Cornwall, when a girl has loved not wisely but too well, she
haunts her deceiver in the shape of a white hare.117

Birds: The Crow.

Passing on to birds, the crow is a famous totem or sacred bird.118 It personifies in Indian
tradition the soul of the dead man; hence, to give food to the crows, known in Northern
India as Kâgaur, is equivalent to offering food to the Manes. Râma in the Râmâyana
orders Sîtâ to make this offering, and Yama, in reward for its services, conceded to it the
right of eating the funeral meats, for which reason the souls of the dead, when this food
is given to the crows, are enabled to pass into a better world. Hence the bird is known as
Balipushta or “nourished by offerings,” and Balibhuj or “devourer of oblations.”119

In the Mahâbhârata, the son of Drona, one of the few survivors of the Kauravas, sees an
owl killing the crows on a sacred fig tree, and this suggests to him the idea of attacking
the camp of the Pândavas. This contest of the owl and the crow forms the subject of one
of the tales of Somadeva.120 The incident of the wicked crow, which bit the foot of Sîtâ,
is related in the Râmâyana. The Bhâtus of Central India, a class of migratory athletes,
worship Nârâyana and the bamboo, with which all their feats are performed. When they
bury their dead they place rice and oil at the head of the grave, and stand near to worship
whatever animal comes to eat the offerings. They draw the happiest omen of the state of
the departed from crows visiting the spot.121

In the Garuda Purâna a tale is told of a wicked hunter who was killed by a tiger in the
depths of the forest, and his ghost became a troublesome Bhût, until one day a crow
carried off one of the bones and dropped it into the Ganges, when the sinner was at once
carried in a heavenly chariot to the mansions of the blessed. This legend is localized in
the Hills and tells how Karma Sarma was killed by a tiger in the forest. A crow took up
one of his bones and carried it to the shrine at Tungkshetra, and such is the virtue of the
soil there that the hunter was at once carried off to the heaven of Indra.122

Bhusundi is the legendary crow of the battlefield, who drinks the blood of the slain. He
had more blood than he could drink in the wars of the two Asuras, Sumbha and
Nisumbha, who contended with the gods. He just quenched his thirst in the wars of
Râma, but broke his beak against the hard, dry ground, which had soaked in the small

amount of blood shed by the comparatively degenerate heroes of the Mahâbhârata. He
now croaks over the armies as they go out to war, and looks for some Armageddon,
when his thirst will at last be satisfied.

Manifold are the ideas about crows and omens taken from their appearance and cawing.
Some people think a crow has only one eye, which he shifts from one cavity to the other
as he finds it convenient. In the Panjâb, if a crow picks up a woman’s handkerchief and
then drops it, she will not use it, but gives it to a beggar.123 The brains of a crow are a
specific against old age, but the cawing of a crow is ominous at the beginning of a
journey. If a crow hops and caws on the roof a guest may be expected. Musalmâns have
both fear and respect for the crow, because it was he showed Cain how to bury Abel.

The Hand of Glory.

It is a common belief in Europe that the Hand of Glory, or the dried-up hand of a
criminal who has been executed, is a powerful charm for thieves. In Ireland, “if a candle
is placed in a dead hand, neither wind nor water can extinguish it, and if carried into a
house, the inmates will sleep the sleep of the dead as long as it remains under the roof,
and no power on earth can wake them as long as the dead hand holds the candle.” The
hand of a dead man is also used to stir the milk when butter will not form.124 So, in
Northern India, thieves have a superstition that the ashes of a corpse will, if sprinkled by
the door of a house, prevent the inmates from awaking during the commission of a
burglary. The Hand of Glory, according to Sir G. Cox, is “the light flashing from the dim
and dusky storm-cloud,”125 but this can hardly, with the utmost ingenuity, be invoked to
explain the similar usage of Indian burglars, who carry about with them the stick out of a
crow’s nest, the Gad kî Lakrî, which opens locks and holds the household spell-bound.
The Indian thief, like his English brother, by the way, often carries about a piece of
charcoal as a charm in his operations.

The Fowl.

Among some of the Indian races the value set on the fowl may possibly, as Mr.
Campbell suggests, depend on the feeling that the spirits of the dead wandering near
their ancient homes find an asylum in the domestic fowls.126 At any rate, as a sacrifice,
the black fowl is very generally preferred. This is so among the Drâvidian races of

Central India. In Ireland the first egg laid by a little black hen, eaten the very first thing
in the morning, will keep you from fever for the year.127 In Germany it was held that to
find treasure, that is to say, to scare the fiends which guard and hide it, one should use a
black he-goat and a black fowl.128

One of the Italian charms directs, “To bewitch one till he die, take a black hen and pluck
from it every feather; and this done, keep them all carefully, so that not one be lost. With
these you may do any harm to grown-up people or children.”129 Another possible reason
for the respect paid to the fowl is that the corn spirit is often killed in the form of a cock
to promote the periodical vegetation of the crops.

The Dove and Pigeon.

The dove is held in much respect by Musalmâns. “Among the Northern Semites the
dove is sacred to Ashtoreth and has all the marks of a totem, for the Syrians would not
eat it. It was not merely a symbol, but received divine honour. In Arabia we find a dove
idol in the Qaaba, and sacred doves surround it.”130 So, the Kheshgi Pathâns of Qasûr in
the Panjâb will not kill pigeons; they are similarly protected by Hindus at Bharatpur, and
among Muhammadans they rank as the Sayyid among birds. In Northern India a house
with pigeons is supposed to be safe from ghosts. The dove is believed to utter a peculiar
note four times in succession, in which she bewails her neglected lover. She says,—

Pisûn thi, kâtûn thi:
Ayâ thâ, chalâ gayâ.

“While I was grinding flour and spinning, he came and departed.”131

The Goose or Swan.

The goose or swan is possibly an illustration of what may be a tribal totem. It is said in
the Bhâgavata Purâna that at one time there existed one Veda, one god Agni, and one
caste. This we learn from the commentator was in the Krita age, and the one caste he
tells us of was named Hansa or Swan. The Hansas are, again, in the Vishnu Purâna, said
to be one of four castes or tribes existing in a district exterior to India, and finally we
learn from the Linga Purâna that Hansa was a name of Brahma himself. It is reasonable

to suppose that we have a swan tribe in the Indian Hansas.132 As an argument in favour
of the theory that the Hansa was a tribal totem, we find that the Kalhans Râjputs of Oudh
are said to take their name from the Kâla Hansa or Black Swan; that Râjputs nowadays
will not eat it; and that the same respect is shown to a bird of allied type, the Brâhmani
Duck, and its mate, the Chakwa, Chakwi of our rivers. They were once two lovers,
separated by fate, changed into ducks, and all through the night they call sadly to each
other across the broad stream of the Ganges, which keeps them apart.

To the Hansa is ascribed the fabulous power of being able to separate milk from water
after the two have been mixed together.133 In England the goose is supposed to have
some uncanny way of predicting weather.134 In Welsh belief the wild goose is a witch,
especially if first seen on the first Thursday night of the lunar month.135 The ancient
Greeks ascribed to the swan the gift of prophecy and song; the sacred geese of the
capital were respected at Rome, and the ancient Germans considered it a prophetic bird.
The goose was a favourite Buddhist emblem, and a flock of them is depicted on the Lion
Pillar at Betiya in Tirhût.136

In the story of Nala and Damayantî, a flock of these birds arranges the interviews
between the lovers, and in the Mahâbhârata the Rishis take the form of a swan to convey
the divine message. According to the comparative mythologists, it is needless to say, the
Hansa is the sun.137

Sundry Sacred Birds.

Mention has already been made of Garuda, half man, half bird, the vehicle of Vishnu. He
is the son of one of the daughters of Daksha, whom we have already met with in
connection with the moon, and the sage Kasyapa. According to the Mahâbhârata, he was
given leave to devour wicked men, but not to touch a Brâhman. Once he did devour a
Brâhman, but the holy man so burnt his throat that he was glad to disgorge him. In the
Râmâyana we meet with Jatâyu, who is said to be a son of Garuda and king of the
vultures. He tried to stop the chariot in which Râvana was abducting Sîtâ, and though
wounded, was able to carry the news to Râma.

A bird known as the Malahâri or “filth destroyer” is a sort of totem of the Kanjar gipsies.
If they see it singing on a green branch to the front or right, it is an auspicious omen, and
they start at once on the prowl.

So with the Khanjarît, in Sanskrit Khanjanâkriti, the wagtail, which is also known as
Râm Chiraiya or “the bird of Râma.” It is associated with Vishnu, because the marks on

its throat are said to resemble the Sâlagrâma. It comes from the heaven of Râma in the
end of the rains, and remains till the close of spring, and then bears back to Râma a
report of the state of the world and the crops. When it first appears every one bows to it.
A Sanskrit text lays down that when a person first sees the bird, if he be standing near a
Brâhman, or near water, or sitting on an elephant, or at daybreak, or when the bird is
flying near or sitting on a serpent, it is considered propitious. When a person first sees it
in the east, it brings him good luck all through the year; when seen in the south-east, it
predicts loss by fire; to the south-west, fighting; to the west, acquisition of wealth; if
seen to the north-east, the observer will gain good clothes and jewels. He who sees it in
the north-west will die. The superstitions in Europe connected with the magpie and
cuckoo are of much the same class. In Ireland it is said, “Beware of killing the water
wagtail, for it has three drops of the Devil’s blood in its little body, and ill-luck ever goes
with it and follows it.”138

The Ojhiyâls or wizards of the Central Provinces sell the skins of a species of Buceros,
called Dhanchirya, which are used to hang up in the house to secure wealth (dhan),
whence its name; and thigh bones of the same bird are hung round the wrists of children
as a charm against evil spirits.139

The Hoopoe.

The legend of the hoopoe is thus told by Arrian: “To the king of the Indians was born a
son. The child had elder brothers, who, when they came to man’s estate, turned out to be
very unjust and the greatest of reprobates. They despised their brother because he was
the youngest; and they scoffed at their father and their mother, whom they despised
because they were old and grey-headed. The boy, accordingly, and his aged parents
could no longer live with these wicked men, and away they fled from home, all three
together. In the course of the protracted journeys which they had then to undergo, the old
people succumbed to fatigue and died, and the boy showed them no light regard, but
buried them in himself, having cut off his head with a sword. Then, as the Brachmanes
(Brâhman) tell us, the all-seeing sun, in admiration of this surprising act of piety,
transformed the boy into a bird, which is most beautiful to behold, and which lives to a
very advanced age. So on his head there grew up a crest, which was, as it were, a
memorial of what he had done in the time of his flight.”140

Somadeva gives another story of this bird. Rajatadanshtra one day saw his sister
Somaprabhâ playing on a Pinjara, and when she would not give it to him, took the form
of a bird and flew away with it to heaven. She cursed him that he should become a bird
with a golden crest, but promised that when in his bird shape he should fall into a blind

well, “and a merciful person draws you out, and you do him a service in return, you shall
be released from this curse.”141

The Muhammadan tradition is that the Hudhud, or hoopoe, had the power of finding
water which the devils have buried under the earth, and she assisted Solomon to find
water for ablution, and helped him to find Bilqîs, the queen of Sheba. In Sweden the
appearance of the hoopoe is looked on as an omen of war.142

The Woodpecker.

So of the woodpecker, which is said to have been a Râja in a former birth, and still to
retain his royal crest. In Italian tradition the woodpecker (Picus Martis) is a digger in
forests, where he lives alone and digs and hews, and knows all hidden secrets and
treasures.143 In India the Titihrî, or sandpiper, is said to sleep with his legs in the air and
thus supports the firmament.

The Peacock.

The peacock is, of course, a sacred bird. He is specially venerated by the Jâts, who
strongly object to seeing the bird killed near their villages. A bunch of the feathers is
waved over the sick to scare the demon of disease. As we have already seen, it is a
charm against snake-bite to smoke one of its feathers in a pipe. In Europe the loud
calling of the bird presages a death.

The Pheasant.

Once upon a time the Monâl pheasant of the Hills and the Kalchuniya had a dispute as to
when the sun arose. The Monâl woke first and then walked between the legs of the other,
who was so injured that he has never been able to do anything but skip ever since.

The Kite.

Young kites do not open their eyes till they are shown a bit of gold. The best cure for
weak eyes is to apply to them antimony mixed with the yolk of a kite’s egg, a good
instance of sympathetic magic, because the kite is the most long-sighted of birds. When
sweepers suffer from rheumatic pains, they kill a kite on Tuesday, cut up the bones, and
tie them to the affected part, which brings about an immediate cure.144

The Partridge.

The partridge and the peacock once contended in dancing, and when the turn of the
partridge came he borrowed the pretty feet of the peacock, which he has never returned
since. Râja Nala, at one period of his life, came under the malignant influence of Sani or
Saturn and lost all he possessed in the world. At last, as he was starving, he managed to
catch a black partridge and set about roasting it. But the ill-luck of the evil planet
asserted itself and the dead bird came to life and flew away. The result is the black marks
of charring which still remain upon its body. Now it cries in the words, Subhân terî
qudrat—“Great is the power of the Almighty,” because it was saved from the fire.

The Parrot.

Last among sacred birds comes the parrot. Of course, according to Professor De
Gubernatis and his school, he represents the sun.145 The bird appears constantly in the
folk-tales as gifted with the power of speaking and possessed of wisdom. The wife of the
sage Kasyapa was, according to the Vishnu Purâna, the mother of all the parrots. In the
folk-tales we have the parrot who knows the four Vedas who is like the falcon in the
Squire’s tale of Chaucer.146 In others he warns the hero of fortune, befriends the heroine,
and is the companion of Râja Rasâlu.147 The talking parrot constantly warns the
deceived husband. The bird seems to have been a sort of marriage totem among the
Drâvidian races, for images of it made of the wood of the cotton tree or of clay are hung

up in the marriage shed among the Kols and lower castes in the North-Western
Provinces.

The Alligator.

The alligator and crocodile are revered because of their habit of killing human beings.
Writing of South Africa, Mr. Macdonald says: “To the Bathlapin the crocodile is sacred,
and by all it is revered, but rather under the form of fear than of affection. I have often
thought that the ‘river calling’ of South Africa, where there are no crocodiles, is the
survival of an ancient recollection of the time when the ancestors of the present Kaffirs
dwelt on the margins of rivers infested by these murderous brutes, and where they often
saw their women drawn underneath when going to the river to fetch water.”148 The
crocodile may thus be the type of many of the Indian water demons to whom reference
has been already made. Hence, it is a general rule among savages to spare crocodiles, or
rather only to kill them in obedience to the law of blood feud, that is, as a retaliation for
the slaughter of men by crocodiles. In India it became a favourite form of religious
suicide to be devoured by the crocodiles at Gangasâgar. Makara, a sort of marine
monster, half crocodile and half shark, is the vehicle of Kâmadeva, the god of love, and
Gangâ Mâî is depicted as riding on an alligator. They are sometimes put into tanks and
worshipped, and fishermen have a tradition that, if duly appeased, they never attack
them.149

Fish.

Fish are in many places regarded as sacred. The salmon of knowledge appears in the
Celtic folk-lore.150 The sacred speckled trout are found in many Irish wells, and the
same idea prevails in many parts of Europe.151 We find the fish figuring in the Hindu
myth of the Creation. Manu, while he was bathing, found a fish in the water, which said,
“I will save thee from the flood which shall destroy the world.” The fish grew and was
about to go to the ocean, when he directed Manu to build a boat. When the deluge came,
the fish dragged the boat by his horn to a place of safety. The myth appears in other
forms, more or less akin to the Hebrew story based on Babylonian tradition.

There are many places in India where fish are protected, such as those at Kota and in the
Mahânadî river, the Betwa at Bhilsa, Hardwâr, Mathura, Mirzapur, Benares, Nepâl, and

in Afghanistân.152 In the Sâraswata pool in the Himâlaya lived the sacred fish called
Mrikunda; they are fed on the fourteenth of the light half of each month, and oblations
are offered for the repose of the Manes of deceased relations.153 It is a common custom
among pious Hindus to feed fish at sacred places with a lâkh or more of little balls of
flour wrapped up in Bhojpatra or birch bark or paper with the name of Râma written
upon it. Their eating the name of the deity ensures their salvation, and thus confers
religious merit on the giver. The fish is the vehicle of Khwâja Khizr, the water god, and
hence has become a sort of totem of the Shiah Musalmâns and the crest of the late royal
family of Oudh. Pictures of fish are constantly drawn on the walls of houses as a charm
against demoniacal influence.

The Fish in Folk-lore.

The fish constantly appears in the folk-tales. We have in Somadeva the fish that laughed
when it was dead; the fish that swallows the hero or heroine or a boat.154 In one of the
Kashmîr tales we have the fish swallowing the ring, which is like the tale which
Herodotus tells of Polycrates. In another we have the Oriental version of the story of
Jonah, where the merchant is found by the potter in the belly of the fish.155 So,
Pradyumna, son of Krishna and Rukminî, was thrown into the ocean by the demon
Sambara, and recovered from the belly of a fish by his wife Mâyâ Devî. In many of the
modern tales the fish takes the form of the Life Index. The king Bhartari, the brother of
the celebrated Râja Vikramaditya, who is now a godling and spends part of the day at
Benares and part at the Chunâr Fort, had a fish, “the digestion of which gave him
knowledge of all that occurred in the three worlds.” By a divine curse the nymph Adrikâ
was transformed into a fish which lived in the Jumnâ. Here she conceived by the king
Uparichara, was caught by a fisherman, taken to the king and opened, when she regained
her heavenly form, and from her were produced Matsya, the male, and Matsyâ, the
female fish, the progenitors of the finny race. The fish often plays a part in the
miraculous conception myths, as in the Mahâbhârata we read of a fish which devours the
seed, and a girl having eaten it brings forth a child. The fish incarnation of Vishnu
possibly represents the adoption of a fish totem into Brâhmanism. It is needless to say
that the legendary fish has been identified with the sun by the school of comparative
mythologists.156

The Eel.

The eel is a totem of the Mundâri Kols of Bengal and of the Orâons, neither of whom
will eat it. In Northern England an eel skin tied round the leg is a cure for cramp. Eel fat,
in the European tales, is used as a magic ointment, and gives the power of seeing the
fairies.157

The Tortoise.

The tortoise, again, is sacred. Vishnu appeared as a tortoise in the Satya Yuga or first age
to recover some things of value which had been lost in the deluge. In the form of a
tortoise he placed himself at the bottom of the sea of milk, and made his back the basis
on which the gods and demons, using the serpent Vâsuki as a rope, churned the ocean by
means of the mount Mandara. The Ganrâr, a tribe of Bengal fishermen, make sacrifices
of the river tortoise to the goddess Kolokumârî, the daughter of the deep; this is the only
sacrifice she will accept, and she brings sickness on those who fail to make this
offering.158 The tortoise is a totem of the Mundâri Kols, and the Kharwârs and Mânjhis
of Mirzapur worship clay images of it, which they keep in their house, because on one
occasion it conveyed their first ancestor across a river in flood.

The Gonds have a similar tradition that the tortoise saved their ancestor Lingo from the
clutches of the alligator. The tortoise is also a helper in one of the German tales.159 In
one of Somadeva’s stories, the tortoise is sacrificed by a Brâhman to the Manes of his
father.160

The Frog.

The frog, again, is invested with mystical powers. The monstrous toad of Berkeley
Castle is said to be really a seal.161

In English folk-lore it is associated with witches, and wears a precious jewel in its head.
Hindus believe that the female frog is the spirit of Mandodarî, the wife of Râvana. It is a
common belief that the fat of the frog forms a magic ointment which enables witches to
fly through the air.162 According to a Scotch Saga, the middle piece of a white snake

roasted by the fire gives a knowledge of supernatural things to anyone who shall put his
finger in the fat which drops from it. According to one of the Indian legends, Agni, the
fire god, took refuge in the water to escape the gods, but the frogs, suffering from the
heat, informed the gods, and the angry deity cursed them that their speech should
henceforth be inarticulate. The frog by his voice announces the coming of rain; hence
when rain holds off it is a common charm to pour water over a frog, another instance of
sympathetic magic.

Insects.

Even insects are in some cases regarded with veneration. In Cornwall, the ants are “the
small people” in their state of decay from off the earth; it is deemed most unlucky to
destroy a colony of ants.163

The ant-hill is, as we have seen, used as an altar by some of the Drâvidian tribes, and on
it they take their oaths. Hence ants are carefully fed on certain days by both Hindus and
Jainas, and are regarded as in some way connected with the souls of the sainted dead. We
have in many of the folk-tales the ant as a helper.

So, in many parts of the Panjâb, the many-coloured grasshopper, which feeds on the
leaves of the Madâr or great swallow wort, is called Râmjî-kî-gâê or “Râma’s cow,”
which reminds us of the respect paid by English children to the ladybird insect.164 So,
the Greeks and Romans called the Cicada Mantis or “the soothsayer,” and it is often
delineated on their tombs as a charm against evil. Mystic powers of the same kind are
attributed to the spider, and to Daddy Longlegs in our nurseries.

The souls of the dead are believed to enter into flies and bees. Hence in parts of Great
Britain news of a death in a family is whispered into the beehive.165 In one of
Somadeva’s tales we find the monkeys trying to warm themselves over a firefly, which is
gifted with various miraculous powers.166 A fly falling into an inkstand is a lucky omen.
In the Râmâyana Hanumân metamorphoses himself into a fly to reach Sîtâ, and there are
many instances of this in the tales.

Lastly, comes the Tassar silkworm. In Mirzapur, when the seed of the silkworm is
brought to the house, the Kol or Bhuiyâr puts it in a place which has been carefully
plastered with cowdung to bring good luck. From that time the owner must be careful to
avoid ceremonial impurity; he must give up cohabitation with his wife, he must not sleep
on a bed, he must not shave nor have his nails cut, nor anoint himself with oil, nor eat
food cooked with butter, nor tell lies, nor do anything opposed to his simple code of