The aboriginal Bhuiyas of Chota Nâgpur, "after disposing of their dead, perform a ceremony which is supposed to bring back to the house the spirit of the deceased, henceforth an object of household worship. A vessel filled with rice and flour is placed for the time on the tomb, and when brought back the mark of a fowl's foot is found at the bottom of the vessel, and this indicates that the spirit of the deceased has returned.' This is, as we have seen, common to many of the Drâvidian tribes, and we shall meet instances of similar practices when we consider the malignant variety of ghosts.

A curious example of the popular form of ancestor-worship is given by General Sleeman :-" Râma Chandra, the Pandit, said that villages which had been held by old Gond proprietors were more liable than others to visitation from local ghosts, that it was easy to say what village was or was not haunted, but often exceedingly difficult to say to whom the ghost belonged. This once discovered, the nearest surviving relation was, of course, expected to take steps to put him to rest. But," said he, "it is wrong to suppose that the ghost of an old proprietor must be always doing mischief. He is often the best friend of the cultivators, and of the present proprietor too, if he treats him with proper respect; for he will not allow the people of any other village to encroach upon the boundaries with impunity, and they will be saved all expense and annoyance of a reference to the judicial tribunals for the settlement of boundary disputes. It will not cost much to conciliate these spirits, and the money is generally well laid out."

"A

He instances a case of a family of village proprietors, "who had for several generations insisted at every new settlement upon having the name of the spirit of the old proprietor inserted in the lease instead of their own, and thereby secured his good graces on all occasions." cultivator who trespassed on land believed to be in charge of such a spirit had his son bitten by a snake, and his two oxen were seized with the murrain. In terror he went off to the village temple, confessed his sin, and vowed to restore not

1 Dalton, "Descriptive Ethnology," 148.

only the half-acre of land, but to build a very handsome temple on the spot as a perpetual sign of his repentance. The boy and the bullocks all then recovered, the shrine was built, and is, I believe, still to be seen as a boundary mark.”1

WORSHIP OF WORTHIES.

From this family worship of deceased relations, the transition to the special worship of persons of high local reputation in life, or who have died in some remarkable way, is easy. The intermediate links are the Sâdhu and the Satî, and the worship finally culminates in a creed like that of the Jainas, who worship a pantheon of deified saints, that of the Lingayat worship of Siva incarnated as Chambasâpa, or the godlike weaver Kabîr of the Kabîrpanthis. The lowest phase of all is the worship by the Halbas of Central India of a pantheon of glorified distillers.2

THE SADHU.

The Sâdhu is a saint who is regarded as "the great power of God," the name meaning "he that is eminent in virtue." He is a visible manifestation of the divine energy acquired by his piety and self-devotion. We shall meet later on instances of deified holy men of this class. Meanwhile, it may be noted, we see around us the constant development of the cultus in all its successive stages. Thus, in Berâr at Askot the saint is still alive; at Wadnera he died nearly a century ago, and his descendants live on the offerings made by the pious; at Jalgânw a crazy vagabond was canonized on grounds which strict people consider quite insufficient. There is, of course, among the disciples and descendants of these local saints a constant competition going on for the honour of canonization, which once secured, the shrine may become a very valuable source of income and reputation. But the indiscriminate and ill-regulated deification of mortals

1 "Rambles and Recollections,” i. 269 sqq.

2 "Central Provinces Gazetteer," Introduction, cxxi.

is one of the main causes of the weakness of modern Hinduism, because, by a process of abscission, the formation of multitudinous sects, which take their titles and special forms of belief from the saint whose disciples they profess to be, is promoted and encouraged. Thus, as has been well remarked, Hinduism lies in urgent need of a Pope or acknowledged orthodox head, "to control its wonderful elasticity and receptivity, to keep up the standard of deities and saints, and generally to prevent superstitions running wild into a tangled jungle of polytheism."'

It would be out of place to give here any of the details of the numerous sects which have been founded in this way to commemorate the life and teaching of some eminent saint. The remarkable point about this movement is that the leaders of these sects are not always or even constantly drawn from the priestly classes. Thus the Charandâsis, who are Krishna worshippers, take their name from Charan Dâs, a Dhûsar, who are usually classed as Banyas, but claim to be Brâhmans; Jhambajî, the founder of the Bishnois, was a Râjput; Kabîr, whoever he may have been, was brought up by a family of Muhammadan weavers at Benares; Nâmdeo was a cotton carder; Râê Dâs is said to have been a Chamâr; Dâdu was a cotton cleaner; many of them are half Muhammadans, as the Chhaju-panthis and Shamsis. It is difficult to estimate highly enough the result of this feeling of toleration and catholicism on the progress of modern Hinduism.

MIRACLE-WORKING TOMBS.

These saints have wrested from the reluctant gods by sheer piety and relentless austerities, a portion of the divine thaumaturgic power, which exudes after their death from the places where their bodies are laid. This is the case with the shrines of both Hindu and Musalmân saints. Many instances of this will be found in succeeding pages. Thus at Chunâr there is a famous shrine in honour of Shâh Qâsim

1 "Berâr Gazetteer," 191.

Sulaimâni,' a local saint whose opinions were so displeasing to Akbar that he imprisoned him here till his death in 1614 A.D. His cap and turban are still shown at his tomb, and these, when gently rubbed by one of his disciples, pour out a divine influence through the assembled multitude of votaries, many of whom are Hindus. This holy influence extends even to the animal kingdom. Thus the tomb of the saint Nirgan Shâh at Sarauli in the Bareilly District abounds in scorpions, which bite no one through the virtue of the saint.

Hindu saints of the same class are so directly imbued with the divine afflatus that they need not the purifying influence of fire, and are buried, not cremated. Their Samâdhi or final resting-place is usually represented by a pile of earth, or a tomb or tumulus of a conical or circular form. Others, again, like some of the Gusâîns, are after death enclosed in a box of stone and consigned to the waters of the Ganges. These shrines are generally occupied by a disciple or actual descendant of the saint, and there vows and prayers are made and offerings presented.

THE SATI.

The next link between ancestor-worship and that of special deceased worthies is seen in the Satî, or "faithful wife," who, before the practice was prohibited by our Government, was bound to bear her deceased lord company to the world of spirits for his consolation and service. The rite seems to have at one time prevailed throughout the Aryan world." It undoubtedly prevailed in Slavonic lands, and there are even traces of it in Greece. Evadne is said to have burnt herself with the body of her husband, Capaneus, and Oenone, according to one account, leaped into the pyre on which the body of Paris was being cremated. There are indications that

3

1 For an account of this worthy see "North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 163.

2 Spencer, "Principles of Sociology," i. 187; Lubbock, "Origin of Civilization," 284; Tylor, "Primitive Culture," i. 458 sq.

3 Ralston, "Songs of the Russian People," 327.

the rite prevailed among the Drâvidian races, and it has been suggested that the Hindus may have adopted it from them. Even to the present day among some of the Bhîl tribes the wife of the dead man is carried along with him on the bier to the burning ground, where she is laid down. There she breaks her marriage necklace, and her ornaments are consumed with the corpse of her husband, obviously a survival of the time when she was actually burnt with him.'

It is unnecessary here to enter into the controversy whether or not the rite was based on a misinterpretation or perversion of one of the sacred texts. That in old times the Satî was treated with exceptional honour is certain. In some places she went to the burning ground richly dressed, scattering money and flowers, and calling out the names of the deities, with music sounding and drums beating. In some places she used to mark with her hands the gateways and walls of the chief temple, and she sometimes marked in the same way a stone for her descendants to worship, a practice to which reference will be made later on. On such stones it was the custom to carve a representation of her, and in many places a Chhatri, or ornamental cenotaph pavilion, was erected in her honour. The small shrines in honour of the village Satî are found often in considerable numbers on the banks of tanks all over Upper India. They are visited by women at marriages and other festivals, and are periodically repaired and kept in order. According to Mr. Ibbetson, in the Delhi territory, these shrines take the place of those dedicated to the Pitri, or sainted dead. They often contain a representation in stone of the lord and his faithful spouse, and one of his arms rests affectionately on her neck. Sometimes, if he died in battle, he is mounted on his war steed and she walks beside him; but her worshippers are not always careful in identifying her shrine, and I have seen at least one undoubted Revenue Survey pillar doing duty as a monument to some unnamed local divinity of this class.

2

Among the warrior tribes of Râjputâna, the Satî shrine 1 Hislop, "Papers," 19; Appendix, iii. 2 Panjâb Ethnography," 115.

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