besides numerous varieties of the more popular forms. They are probably all local deities of the Churel type, who have been adopted into Brâhmanism. Some are represented by rudely carved images, others by simple shrines, and others are remarkable for preferring empty shrines, and the absence of all visible representations. Each has special functions. Thus one called Khodiâr, or "mischief," is said to cause trouble unless propitiated; another called Antâî causes and prevents whooping cough; another named Berâî prevents cholera; another called Marakî causes cholera; Hadakâî controls mad dogs and prevents hydrophobia; Asapurâ, represented by two idols, satisfies the hopes of wives by giving children. Not a few are worshipped either as causing or preventing demoniacal possession as a form of disease. The offering of a goat's blood to some of these Mothers is regarded as very effectual. A story is told of a Hindu doctor who cured a whole village of an outbreak of violent influenza, attributed to the malignant influence of an angry Mother goddess, by simply assembling the inhabitants, muttering some cabalistic texts, and solemnly letting loose a pair of scapegoats in a neighbouring wood as an offering to the offended deity. One of these Mothers is connected with the curious custom of the Couvade, which will be discussed later on. Another famous Gujarât Mother is Ambâ Bhavânî. On the eighth night of the Naurâtra the Râna of Danta attends the worship, fans the goddess with a horsehair fly-flapper, celebrates the fire sacrifice, and fills with sweetmeats a huge cauldron, which, on the fall of the garland from the neck of the goddess, the Bhîls empty. Among the offerings to her are animal sacrifice and spirituous liquor. The image is a block of stone roughly hewn into the semblance of a human figure.2 MOTHER-WORSHIP IN UPPER INDIA. In the Hills what is known as the Mâtrî Pûjâ is very popular. The celebrant takes a plank and cleans it with 1 Campbell, "Notes," 311; "" Athenæum," 6th December, 1879; "Folk-lore Record," iii. Part i. 117 sqq. 2 "Bombay Gazetteer," v. 432 sq. I rice flour. On it he draws sixteen figures representing the Mâtrîs, and to the right of them a representation of Ganesa. Figures of the sun and moon are also delineated, and a brush made of sacred grass is dipped in cow-dung and the figures touched with it. After the recital of verses, a mixture of sugar and butter is let drop on the plank, three, five, or seven times. The celebrant then marks the forehead of the person for whose benefit the service is intended with a coin soaked in butter, and keeps the money as his fee. The service concludes with a waving of lamps to scare vicious ghosts, singing of hymns and offering of gifts to Brâhmans.' At Khalâri, in the Râêpur District of the Central Provinces, is a Satî pillar worshipped under the name of Khalârî Mâtâ. According to the current legend Khalârî Mâtâ often assumes a female human form and goes to the adjacent fairs, carrying vegetables for sale. Whoever asks any gift from her receives it. Once a young man returning from a fair was overtaken by a strange woman on the road, who said she was going to see her sister. She asked him to go in front, and said that she would follow. Not wishing to allow a beautiful young woman to travel alone at night, he hid himself among some bushes. Presently he heard a great jingling noise and saw a four-armed woman go up the steep, bare hill and disappear. It was quite certain that this was Khalârî Mâtâ herself." In many parts of the plains, Mâyâ, the mother of Buddha, has been introduced into the local worship as the Gânwdevî, or village goddess. Her statues, which are very numerous in some places, are freely utilized for this purpose. In the same way a figure of the Buddha Asvaghosha is worshipped at Deoriya in the Allahâbâd District as Srinagarî Devi.3 THE JUNGLE MOTHERS. As an instance of another type of Mother-worship we may take Porû Mâî of Nadiya. She is "represented by a 'Atkinson," Himâlayan Gazetteer," ii. 884. 2 Cunningham, "Archæological Reports," vii. 158. 3 Growse, 27, 132. Mathura," 116, 125; Führer, "Monumental Antiquities" 1 little piece of rough black stone painted with red ochre, and placed beneath the boughs of an ancient banyan tree. She is said to have been in the heart of the jungles, with which Nadiya was originally covered, and to have suffered from the fire which Râja Kâsi Nâth's men lighted to burn down the jungle." She is, in fact, a Mother goddess of the jungle, of whom there are numerous instances. In the North-Western Provinces she is usually known as Banspatî or Bansapatî Mâî (Vanaspatî, “mistress of the wood"). Agni, the fire god, is described in the Rig Veda as "the son of the Vanaspatis," or the deities of the large, old forest trees." Another name for her in the Western Districts is Âsarorî, because her shrine is a pile of pebbles (rorî) in which her votaries have confidence (âsâ) that it will protect them from harm. The shrine of the jungle mother is usually a pile of stones and branches to which every passer-by contributes. When she is displeased she allows a tiger or a leopard to kill her negligent votary. She is the great goddess of the herdsmen and other dwellers in the forest, and they vow to her a cock, a goat, or a young pig if she saves them and their cattle from beasts of prey. Sometimes she is identified with the Churel, more often with a Havva or Bhût, the spirit, usually malignant, of some one who has met untimely death in the jungle. Akin to her is the Ghataut of Mirzapur, who is the deity of dangerous hill passes (ghât) and is worshipped in the same way, and Baghaut, the ghost of a man who was killed by a tiger (bâgh). These all, in the villages along the edge of the jungle, merge in character and function with the divine council, or Deohâr, of the local gods. OTHER MOther Goddesses. Another of these divine mothers, Mâtâ Januvî or Janamî, the goddess of births, is a sort of Juno Lucina among the Râjputs, like the Greek Ilithyia, or the Carmenta of the Romans. Her power rests in a bead, and all over Northern 1 Bholanath Chandra, “Travels of a Hindu," i. 38. India midwives carry as a charm to secure easy delivery a particular sort of bead, known as Kailâs Maura, or the crown of the sacred mountain Kailâsa." Difficult parturition is a disease caused by malignant spirits, and numerous are the devices to cure it. The ancient Britons, we are told,' used to bind a magic girdle, impressed with numerous mystical figures, round the waist of the expectant mother, and the jewel named Aetites, found in the eagle's nest, applied to the thigh of one in labour, eases pain and quickens delivery. Sir W. Scott had a small stone, called a toad-stone, which repelled demons from lying-in women. 2 On the sacred plain of Kurukshetra there once stood a fort, known as Chakravyûha, and to the moderns as Chakâbu Kâ Qila, from which to the present day immense ancient bricks are occasionally dug. Popular belief ascribes great efficacy to these bricks, and in cases of protracted labour, one of them is soaked in water, which is given to the patient to drink. Sometimes an image of the fort, which is in the form of a labyrinth or maze, is drawn on a dish, which is first shown to the mother and then washed in water, which is administered to the woman. All through Nepal and the neighbouring districts, the local rupee, which is covered with Saiva emblems, is used in the same way, and Akbar's square rupee, known as the Châryârî, because it bears the names of the four companions (Châr-Yâr) of the Prophet, is credited with the same power. There are numerous Mantras or mystic formula which are used for the same purpose. Dread famine has become a goddess under the title of Bhûkhî Mâtâ, the "hunger Mother," who, like all the deities of this class, is of a lean and starved appearance." An interesting ceremony for the exorcism of the hunger Mother is recorded from Bombay. The people subscribed to purchase ten sheep, fifty fowls, one hundred cocoanuts, betel nuts, sugar, clarified butter, frankincense, red powder, turmeric, and flowers. A day previous to the commence2 "Border Minstrelsy," 466. 1 Brand, "Observations," 331. Tod, "Annals,” ii. 363 sq., 763; Conway, “Demonology," i. 54. ment of the ceremony, all the inhabitants of the village, taking with them their clothes, vessels, cattle, and other movable goods, left their houses and encamped at the gate or boundary of the village. At the village gate a triumphal arch was erected, and it was adorned with garlands of flowers and mango leaves covered with red powder and turmeric. All these things are, as we shall see, well known as scarers of demons. The villagers bathed, put on new clothes, and then a procession was formed. On coming to the triumphal arch the whole procession was stopped. A hole was dug in the ground, and the village watchman put in it the head of a sheep, a cocoanut, betel nuts, with leaves and flowers. The arch was then worshipped by each of the villagers. The village watchman first entered the arch, and he was followed by the villagers with music, loud cheering, and clapping of hands. The whole party then went to the village temple, bowed to the village god, and went to their respective houses. The blood of the ten sheep and fifty fowls was offered to the village god, and the flesh was distributed among the people. A dinner was given to Brâhmans and the rite came to an end.' The idea of the sanctity of the arch is probably based on the same principle as that of perforated stones, to which reference will be made in another connection. Greatest of all the mother goddesses of the Râjputs is Mâmâ Devî, the mother of the gods. She is thus on the same plane as Cybele Rhea and Demeter, the Corn Mother, who gives the kindly increase of the fruits of the earth. In one of her temples she is represented in the midst of her numerous family, including the greater and the minor divinities. Their statues are all of the purest marble, each about three feet high and tolerably executed, though evidently since the decline of the art.2 WORSHIP OF Gansâm Deo. We now come to consider some divinities special to the Drâvidian races, who touch on the North-Western Provinces 1 Campbell, "Notes," 145. 2 Tod, "Annals," i. 708; ii. 670. |