North Indian Popular Religion:12-Malevolent spirits

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This article is an extract from THE POPULAR RELIGION AND FOLK-LORE OF NORTHERN INDIA BY W. CROOKE, B.A. BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE WESTMINSTER ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. 2, Whitehall Gardens, S.W. 1896 Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this colonial article.

North Indian Popular Religion:12-Malevolent spirits

WORSHIP OF THE MALEVOLENT DEAD

Πρώτη δὲ ψυχὴ Ἐλπήνορος ἦλθεν ἐταίρου,

Οὐ γάρ πω ἐτέθαπτο ὑπὸ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης.

Odyssey, xi. 51, 52.

These deified ghosts and saints whom we have been discussing, though occasionally touchy and sensitive to insult or disrespect, are, as a rule, benevolent. But there is another class of beings at whose feet the rustic lies in grievous and perpetual bondage. These are the malevolent dead.

Spirits of the Dead Hostile

It is not difficult to understand why the spirits of the dead should be regarded as hostile. A stranger is, in the belief of all primitive people, synonymous with an enemy; and the spirit of the departed having abandoned his own and joined some other and invisible tribe, whose domains lie outside the world of sense, is sure to be considered inimical to the survivors left on earth. As we have already seen, even the usually kindly spirit of the departed household dead requires propitiation and resents neglect; much more those of a different tribe or family.

Again, those disembodied souls in particular whose departure from the earth occurred under unexpected or specially tragical circumstances are naturally considered to have been ejected against their will from their tenement of clay, and as for many of them the proper funeral rites have not been performed, they carry with them to the next world an angry longing for revenge.

As Brand, writing of British [231]ghosts, says, “The ghosts of murdered persons, whose bodies have been secretly buried, are restless until their bones have been taken up and deposited in consecrated ground with the due rites of Christian burial; this idea being the survival of the old heathen superstition that Charon was not allowed to ferry over the ghosts of the unburied, but that they wandered up and down the banks of the river Styx for a period of a hundred years, at the expiration of which they were admitted to a passage.”1

This conception of the state of the soul after death may be illustrated by the savage theory of dreams.

Savage Theory of Dreams

Many savages [Indpaedia: !!!] believe that the evidence of dreams is sufficient to prove that the soul moves about during sleep, and that the dream is the record of its experiences in hunting, dancing, visiting friends, and so on.

The Separable Soul

Hence arises the possibility that in the temporary absence of a man’s soul his body may be occupied by some other person’s spirit, or even by a malignant ghost or demon. In the Panchatantra there is a story of a king who lost his own soul, but afterwards recovered it. A Panjâb tale tells how a Hindu was once asleep and his soul went on its travels as usual. During its wanderings it felt thirsty and went into a pitcher of water to drink. While it was in the pitcher some one shut the lid, and it was imprisoned.

His friends took the corpse to the cremation ground, but some one happened fortunately to open the pitcher just in time, and the spirit flew into its own body, which awoke on the bier.2 In the same way, according to Apollonius, the soul of [232]Hermotimos of Klazomenoe left his body frequently, resided in different places, uttered all sorts of predictions, and used to come back to his body, which remained in his house. At last some spiteful persons burnt his body in the absence of his soul. In another tale of Somadeva the soul of Chandraprabha abandons his own body and enters that of a hero under the influence of Mâyâ or delusion.3

On this principle Hindus are very cautious about awaking a sleeping friend, lest his soul may happen to be absent at the time, and in Bombay it is considered most reprehensible to play jokes on a sleeping person, such as painting the face in fantastic colours, or giving moustaches to a sleeping woman. The absent soul may not be able to find its own body, the appearance of which has been thus changed, and may depart altogether, leaving the body a corpse.

It is a common incident of the folk-tales that the soul departs in a dream and falls in love with a girl. We have it in the common tale of the Rival Queens, where the king sees in a dream the most lovely woman in the world, and imposes on his courtiers the task of finding her. The same idea is found more or less in Somadeva, and constantly recurs in European folk-lore.4 In the same way we have the well-known tale of the instantaneous lapse of time in dreams, as that of the king who plunges his head into water, goes through wondrous adventures, and when he takes his head out of the vessel, finds himself surrounded by his courtiers as before.

The rustic Hindu firmly believes that in the absence of a man’s proper soul in a dream his body is occupied by some strange and consequently malignant ghost. Hence come the nightmare and evil dreams. Thus the Korwas of Mirzapur believe that a Bhûtin or dangerous female ghost named Reiyâ besets them at night under the orders of some witch, and attacks people’s joints with the rheumatism. [233]The Majhwârs believe that the Râkshasa attacks them in dreams.

He comes in the shape of an old man with enormous teeth, brown of colour, with black, entangled hair, and sometimes swallows his victims. It is fear of him that brings the fever, and he can be exorcised only by the Baiga with an offering of rice and pulse. The Dâno also comes in dreams, squeezes a man’s throat, and stops his breath.

The Bhuiyârs have adopted from the Hindu mythology Jam or Yama as one of their dream ghosts. He sits on his victim’s breast in sleep, and it is impossible to shake him off or make an alarm. Sometimes these night ghosts come as tigers, wolves, or bears, and hunt a man down in his sleep.

On the same principle the shadow of a man is believed to be part of a man’s soul, and may be separated from him, injured or wounded by an enemy. Hence it is considered dangerous to tread on the shadow of a man in the sunshine. Buddha is said to have left his shadow in the cave at Pabhosa, where he killed the Nâga.5

The same is the case with looking into other people’s mirrors, because you may chance leave behind your reflection, which is part of your soul. As we have seen, this is the basis of much of the theory of water spirits, which lurk in water holes and seize the reflection of anyone who looks into them. The Sunni Muhammadans in Bombay cover up all the looking-glasses in a house when a person is sick, as the soul, which is just then on the prowl, may be absorbed, and leave its owner a corpse.

Lastly, the same theory accounts for the disinclination which rustics have to being painted or photographed. Some of the soul goes out in the image and does not return. There is a rest-house on the Asthbhuja Hill at Mirzapur which was many years ago presented to the Europeans of the station by a wealthy banker. He was overpersuaded to allow his picture to be painted, and fell into a lingering consumption, of which he soon after died. [234]

The Bhût

The general term for these spirits is Bhût, in Sanskrit Bhûta, which means “formed” or “created.” In the earlier Hindu writings the word is applied to the powers of Nature, and even to deities. Siva himself is called Bhûtîsvara, or “Lord of spirits,” and, under the name of Bhûtîsvara Mahâdeva, has a shrine at Mathura. But as the Greek Dæmon acquired a less respectable meaning in the later ages of the history of the nation, so Bhût has now come to imply a malignant evil spirit.

But Bhût is a general term which includes many grades of evil spirits which it is necessary to distinguish. We shall first, however, deal with certain characters common to Bhûts in general.

The proper Bhût is the spirit emanating from a man who has died a violent death, either by accident, suicide, or capital punishment. Such a soul reaches an additional grade of malignancy if he has been denied proper funeral ceremonies after death. This is one of his special wants which deprive the spirit of his longed-for rest. Thus, we read in Childe Harold, “Unsepulchred they roamed and shrieked, each wandering ghost.”

The shade of Patroclus appeared to Achilles in his sleep and demanded the performance of his funeral, and the younger Pliny tells of a haunted house in Athens, in which a ghost played all kinds of pranks owing to his funeral rites having been neglected. This idea is at the base of the Hindu funeral ceremonies, and of the periodical Srâddha. Hence arose the conception of the Gayâl, or sonless ghost.

He is the spirit of a man who has died without any issue competent to perform the customary rites; hence he is spiteful, and he is especially obnoxious to the lives of the young sons of other people. Accordingly in every Panjâb village will be seen small platforms, with rows of little hemispherical depressions into which milk and Ganges water are poured, and by which lamps are lit and Brâhmans fed to conciliate the Gayâl; “while the careful mother will always dedicate a rupee to him, and hang it [235]round her child’s neck till he grows up.” Mr. Ibbetson6 suggests that this may have been the origin of the mysterious so-called “cup-marks,” described by Mr. Rivett-Carnac. But this is far from certain; they may equally well have been used for sacrifices to Mother Earth, or in any other primeval form of worship.

Shrines to Persons Accidentally Killed

Many of these shrines to persons who have died by an untimely death are known by special names, which indicate the character of the accident. We shall meet again with the Baghaut, or shrine, to a man killed by a tiger. We have also Bijaliya Bîr, the man who was killed by lightning, Târ Bîr, a man who fell from a Târ or toddy tree, and Nâgiya Bîr, a person killed by a snake. General Cunningham mentions shrines of this kind; one to an elephant driver who was killed by a fall from a tree, another to a Brâhman who was killed by a cow, a third to a Kashmîri lady who had only one leg and died in her flight from Delhi to Oudh of exhaustion on the journey.

Bhûts are most to be feared by women and children, and by people at any serious crisis of their lives, such as marriage or child-birth. They also attack people after eating sweets, “so that if you treat a school to sweetmeats, the sweetmeat seller will also bring salt, of which he will give a pinch to each boy to take the sweet taste out of his mouth.”7 Salt is, as we shall see later on, particularly offensive to evil spirits.8

Second Marriage and Bhûts

Women who have married a second time are specially liable to the envious attacks of the first husband. If in Bombay “a Mahâdeo Koli widow bride or her husband sicken, it is considered the work of the former husband. Among the Somavansi Kshatriyas, there is a strong belief [236]that when a woman marries another husband, her first husband becomes a ghost and troubles her.

This fear is so strongly rooted in their minds, that whenever a woman of this caste sickens, she attributes her sickness to the ghost of her former husband, and consults an exorcist as to how she can get rid of him. The exorcist gives her some charmed rice, flowers, and basil leaves, and tells her to enclose them in a small copper box and wear it round her neck. Sometimes the exorcist gives her a charmed cocoanut, which he tells her to worship daily, and in some cases he advises the woman to make a copper or silver image of the dead and worship it every day.”9

So in Northern India, people who marry again after the death of the first wife wear what is known as the Saukan Maura, or second wife’s crown. This is a little silver amulet, generally with an image of Devî engraved on it. This is hung round the husband’s neck, and all presents made to the second wife are first dedicated to it. The idea is that the new wife recognizes the superiority of her predecessor, and thus appeases her malignity. The illness or death of the second wife or of her husband soon after marriage is attributed to the jealousy of the ghost of the first wife, which has not been suitably propitiated.

In the Panjâb, on the same principle, if a man has lost two or three wives in succession, he gets a woman to catch a bird and adopt it as her daughter. He then pays the dower, marries his bird bride, and immediately divorces her. By this means the malignant influence is diverted to the bird, and the real wife is safe.10 We shall meet again with the same principle in dealing with the curious custom of tree marriage.

Food of Bhûts

Like evil spirits all the world over, Bhûts will eat filthy food, and as they are always thirsty, they are glad to secure [237]even a drop of water, no matter how impure the purpose may have been for which it has been used. On the other hand, they are very fond of milk, and no Panjâbi woman likes her child to leave the house after drinking fresh milk. If she cannot prevent it from going, she puts some salt or ashes into its mouth to scare the Bhût.11

Posture of Bhûts

Bhûts can never sit on the ground, apparently, because, as has been shown already, the earth, personified as a goddess, scares away all evil influence. Hence, near the low-caste shrines a couple of pegs or bricks are set up for the Bhût to rest on, or a bamboo is hung over it, on which the Bhût perches when he visits the place.12 On the same principle the Orâons hang up the cinerary urn containing the bones of a dead man on a post in front of the house,13 and the person who is going on a pilgrimage, or conveying the bones of a relative to the Ganges, sleeps on the ground; but the bones must not rest on the ground; they are hung on the branch of a tree, so that their late owner may revisit them if so disposed.

Near shrines where Bhûts are always about on the chance of appropriating the offerings, it is expedient to sleep on the ground. So the bride and bridegroom rest, and the dying man is laid at the moment of dissolution.

Tests of Bhûts

There are at least three infallible tests by which you may recognize a Bhût. In the first place he casts no shadow. In the third Canto of the Purgatorio, Dante is much distressed because Virgil, being a disembodied spirit, casts no shadow. In the second place a Bhût can stand almost anything in his neighbourhood but the scent of burning turmeric, which, as we shall see, is a well-known demon-scarer.

Thirdly, a genuine Bhût always speaks with a nasal [238]twang, and it is possibly for this last reason that the term for the gibberish in the mediæval plays and for modern English is Pisâcha Bhâsha, or the language of goblins.14 Some of them have throats as narrow as a needle, but they can drink gallons of water at a time. Some, like the Churel, whom we shall meet later on, have their feet turned backwards. Some, like Brâhman ghosts, are wheat-coloured or white; others, like the Kâfari, the ghost of a murdered negro, are black, and particularly dreaded. A famous ghost of this class haunts a lane in Calcutta, which takes its name from him.

Spirit Lovers

Many denizens of the spirit land have connection with mortals. We have the cycle of folk-tales known as that of the Swan maidens.

Urvasî came and lived with Parûravas until he broke the curiosity taboo. We shall see instances where Indra gives one of his fairies to a mortal lover, and spirits like the Incubi and Succubi of European folk-lore can be brought down by incantation.

Spirit Entries: The Head

Spirits enter and leave the body in various ways. They often use the head in this way, and in particular the tenth aperture of the body, one of the skull sutures, known as Brahma-randhra. This is the reason why the skull is broken at cremation to open the “crevice of Brahma,” as this orifice is called.

In the case of one of the ascetic orders, who are buried and not cremated, a blow is given on the head with a cocoanut or a conch shell. Thus, when the chief teacher of the Brâhmans in Bombay dies, his successor breaks a cocoanut on his skull and makes an opening, in which the sacred [239]Sâlagrâma stone is laid.15 This rite of skull-breaking, which is done by the next relation, is a recognized part of the Hindu cremation rite, and is known as Kapâlakriya.

The same theory that the head is an entry for spirits accounts for numerous strange practices. Thus, when in Kumaun a man is bitten by a snake they pull three hairs from his scalp-lock and strike him three times on the top of the head with the first joint of the middle finger, a kind of blow which in ordinary cases is regarded with the utmost terror.

So when a person has fever, they take a bone and fill it with grain, and, making the patient stand in the sun, dig a hole where the shadow of his head falls, and there bury the bone, saying, “Fever! Begone with the bone!”16 At a Gond wedding, the old man who officiates knocks the heads of the bride and bridegroom together to scare the evil spirits,17 and at a Hindu marriage in Northern India the mother of the youth, as he leaves to fetch his bride, and as he returns with her, waves lamps, a brass tray, grain, and a rice pounder, to drive off the Bhûts fluttering round his head.

It is on the same principle that the bridegroom wears a marriage crown, and this also accounts for many of the customs of blessing by the laying on of hands and anointing which prevail all over the world. In the same way the hair has always been regarded as a spirit entry. Magistrates in Northern India are often troubled by people who announce their intention of “letting their hair grow” at some one whom they desire to injure.

This, if one can judge by the manifest terror exhibited by the person against whom this rite is directed, must be a very stringent form of coercion. For the same reason ascetics wear the hair loose and keep it uncut, as Sampson did, and the same idea probably accounts for the rites of ceremonial shaving of youths, and of the mourners after death. [240]

The Mouth

As might have been expected, Bhûts are very fond of entering by the mouth. Hence arise much of the mouth-washing which is part of the daily ritual of the Hindu, and many of the elaborate precautions which he takes at meals. This will be referred to again in connection with the Evil Eye.

Yawning

Hence it is very dangerous to yawn, as two kinds of danger are to be apprehended—either a Bhût may go down your throat, or part of your soul may escape, and you will be hard set to recover it. So if you chance to yawn, you should put your hand to your mouth and say Nârâyan—“Great God!” afterwards, or you should crack your fingers, which scares the evil spirit. This idea is the common property of folk-lore.18

Sneezing

So, sneezing is due to demoniacal influence, but opinions differ as to whether it is caused by a Bhût entering or leaving the nose. The latter view is generally taken by Musalmâns, because it is one of the traditions of the Prophet that the nose should be washed out with water, as the devil resides in it during the night. The sneezing superstition in India is at least as old as the Buddhist Jâtakas, where we have a remarkable tale about it, which describes how the future Buddha and his father Gagga went to pass the night in a place haunted by a Yakkha, or Yaksha, and were very near being devoured by him because they did not say the spell “Live!” when they sneezed.19

So, in Somadeva’s tale of Sulochana and Sushena, the spirit of the air says, “When he enters into his private apartments, he shall sneeze a hundred times; and if some one there does not say to him a hundred times, ‘God bless [241]you,’ he shall fall into the grasp of death.”20 It is needless to say that the same belief prevails in Europe.

As Dr. Tylor says, “Even the Emperor Tiberius, that saddest of men, exacted this observance.” According to the Muhammadan rule, if a person sneezes and then says immediately afterwards, Al-hamdu li’llah, “God be praised,” it is incumbent upon at least one of the party to reply, Yarhamu-ka ’llah, just as among the Jews the sneezing formula was Tobkin Khayim, “Good life!”

On the whole, sneezing is considered auspicious, because it implies the expulsion of a Bhût. As a general rule, if a person sneezes when another is beginning some work, the latter stops for a while, and then begins afresh; if there be two sneezes in succession, there is no necessity for interruption. If a man sneezes behind the back of another, the back of the latter is slightly pinched. In Bombay, if a man sneezes during a meal, one of the party calls on him to name his birthplace.21 The threshold in the folk-lore of all nations is regarded as a sacred place. It is here, according to the Scotch and Irish belief, that the house fairies reside.

Sitting on the threshold is believed by Indian matrons likely to produce boils in children in that part of the body which touches it, and it is thought most unlucky to sneeze on the threshold. On the whole, one sneeze is ominous, while after two work may be commenced with safety. So it was in the days of Homer—“Even so she spoke, and Telemachus sneezed loudly, and around the roof rang wondrously, and Penelope laughed, and straightway spoke Eumœus winged words, ‘Go! call me the stranger, even so into my presence. Dost thou not mark how my son has sneezed a blessing on all my words?’”22

The Hands and Feet

The hands and feet are also means by which Bhûts enter [242]the body. Hence much of the ablution at prayers and meals; the hand-clapping which accompanies so many religious and mystical rites; the passing of the hand over the head; the laying of the hands on the eyes to restore sight, of which we have many examples in the Indian folk-tales; the hand-pledging at marriages; the drinking of the Charan-amrita, or water, in which the feet of a holy man have been washed; the ceremonial washing of the feet of the bridegroom at a wedding by the father of the bride.

The stock case of the danger of the not washing the feet at night is that of Adilî, whose impurity allowed Indra to form the Maruts out of her embryo. A man with flat feet is considered most unlucky, as in North England, where if you meet a flat-soled man on Monday you are advised to go home, eat and drink, or evil will befall you.23 The chief basis of feet-washing is the idea that a person coming from abroad and not immediately carrying out the required ablution runs the risk of bringing some foreign, and presumably dangerous, spirit with him.

The Ears

And so with the ears, which are believed to communicate direct with the brain, and are kept by the rustic carefully muffled up on chilly mornings. Hence the custom of Kanchhedan, or ear-piercing, which is in Northern India about the only survival of the world-wide rite of mutilation when males attain puberty, and of wearing ear-rings and similar ornaments, which is habitual with all classes of Hindus, and specialized among the Kanphata Jogis, who take their name from this practice.

Varieties of Bhûts

In Bengal the ordinary Bhût is a member of the Kshatriya, Vaisya, or Sûdra class. The Brâhman Bhût, or Brahmadaitya, is quite another variety. The ordinary Bhûts are as tall as palmyra trees, generally thin and very black. They [243]usually live on trees, except those which the Brahmadaitya frequent.

At night, and especially at the hour of midnight, they wander about the fields frightening travellers. They prefer dirty places to those which are clean; so when a person goes to worship a Bhût, he does so in some dirty, retired place, and gives him only half-cooked food, so that he may not have time to gobble it up, and perchance rend his worshipper. They are never seen in the temples of the gods, though they often, as we have seen, lurk about in the vicinity in the hope of getting some of the offerings if the priest be not on the alert and scare them with his bell or shell-trumpet.

They are always stark naked, and are fond of women, whom they sometimes abduct. They eat rice, and all sorts of human food, but their favourite diet is fish. Hence no Bengâli, except for a considerable bribe, will talk about fish at night. Here they agree with the fairies of Manxland. Professor Rhys24 tells a story of a Manx fisherman, who was taking a fresh fish home, and was pursued by a pack of fairy dogs, so that it was only with great trouble he reached his own door.

He drove the dogs away with a stone, but he was shot by the fairies, and had a narrow escape of his life. On the other hand, the Small People in Cornwall hate the smell of fish as much as the savour of salt or grease.25 The best chance of escape from these Bengal Bhûts is when they begin to quarrel among themselves. A person beset by them should invoke the gods and goddesses, especially Kâlî, Durgâ, and Siva, the last of whom is, as already noted, the Lord of Bhûts.26

Bhûts are of many varieties. Vetâla, or Baitâl, their leader, is familiar to everyone in the tales of the Baitâl Pachîsi. He is not, as a rule, particularly offensive. More usually he is a vagrant Bhût which enters the body of a man when the real spirit is absent. But he often approximates to the Vampire as we meet him in Western folk-lore. “It is as a vitalized corpse that the visitor from the other [244]world comes to trouble mankind, often subject to human appetites, constantly endowed with more than human strength and malignity.”27 Thus in one of Somadeva’s stories the hero goes at night to a cemetery and summons at the foot of a tree a Vetâla into the body of a man, and after worshipping him, makes an oblation of human flesh to him.

In another there is a Vetâla with a body made up of the limbs of many animals, who hurls the king to the earth, and when he sits on the Vetâla’s back the demon flies with him through the air like a bird and flings him into the sea.28 The spirit entering the body of the dead man forms the leading incident in the tale of Fadlallah in the Arabian Nights, and there are many instances of it in Indian folk-lore.

This disposes of the assertion which has been sometimes made that among races which bury their dead little is known of regular corpse spectres, or that they are special to lands tenanted or influenced by the Slavonians.29 Most usually the Vetâla appears as the spirit of some living person dissatisfied with his lodgings on earth, which leaves his own body and occupies a corpse in preference. He, in company with the Vasus, Yakshas, Bhûtas, and Gandharvas, has passed into the degraded Tantrika worship.30

The Pret

The Hindu notion of the state of the soul between death and the performance of the prescribed funeral rites agrees exactly with that of the older European races. They wandered about in a state of unhappy restlessness, and were not suffered to mix with the other dead. The term Pret or Preta, which simply means “deceased” or “departed,” represents the soul during this time.

It wanders round its original home, and, like the Bâlakhilyas, who surround the chariot of the sun, is no larger than a man’s thumb. The stages of his progress, according to the best authorities, are that up to the performance of the ten Pindas the dead man [245]remains a Preta, through the Nârâyanabali rite he becomes a Pisâcha, and by the Sapindikarana he reaches the dignity of the Pitri or sainted dead. The term Preta is, however, sometimes applied to the spirit of a deformed or crippled person, or one defective in some limb or organ, or of a child who dies prematurely owing to the omission of the prescribed ceremonies during the formation of the embryo.

Here it may be noted that there are indications in India of the belief which is common among savages, that young children, apparently in consequence of their incomplete protection from the birth impurity, are under a taboo. Thus in India a child is regarded as a Bhût until the birth hair is cut. Some of the jungle tribes believe that it is unnecessary to protect a child from evil spirits until it begins to eat grain, because up to that time it is nothing more than a Bhût itself. Under the old ritual a child under two years of age was not burnt, but buried, and no offering of water was made to it.

We are familiar with the same idea in England regarding unbaptized children, whose spirits are supposed to be responsible for the noise of Gabriel’s Hounds in the sky, really caused by the bean geese in their southern flight.

The Pret is occasionally under provocation malignant, but as it partakes to some degree of the functions of the benign ancestral household spirit, it is not necessarily malicious or evil-disposed towards living persons. The Pret is specially worshipped at Gaya on the Hill, known as Pretsila, or “the rock of the Pret,” and a special class of Brâhmans at Patna call themselves Pretiya, because they worship the ghost of some hero or saint.31

The Pisâcha

Next comes the Pisâcha, which, as we have seen, is by one account only a stage in the progress of the soul to its final rest. But more properly speaking it is an evil spirit produced by a man’s vices, the ghost of a liar, adulterer, or [246]criminal of any kind, or of one who has died insane.

But his attributes and functions are not very clearly defined, and he merges into the general class of Bhûts. In some cases he seems to have the power to cure disease. Thus we read in Somadeva, “Rise up in the last watch of the night, and with dishevelled hair, and naked, and without rinsing your mouth, take two handfuls of rice as large as you can grasp with the two hands, and, uttering a form of words, go to a place where four roads meet and there place the two handfuls of rice, and return in silence without looking behind you.

Do so always until that Pisâcha appears and says, ‘I will put an end to your ailment.’ Then receive his aid gladly, and he will remove your complaint.”32

The Râkshasa

The Râkshasa again, a word that means “the harmer” or “the destroyer,” is of the ogre-vampire type. He goes about at night, haunts cemeteries, disturbs sacrifices and devout men, animates dead bodies, even devouring human beings, in which capacity he is known as Kravyâda, or carnivorous, and is generally hostile to the human race. He is emphatically a devourer of human flesh, and eats carrion. He is often represented in the folk-tales as having a pretty daughter, who protects the hero when he ventures perchance into the abode of the monster.

Her father comes in, and with the cry of “Manush gandha,” which is equivalent to the “Fee! fo! fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman!” of the Western tale, searches about, but fails to find him. When Hanumân entered the city of Lanka in the form of a cat, to reconnoitre, he saw that the Râkshasas who slept in the house “were of every shape and form. Some of them disgusted the eye, while some were beautiful to look on. Some had long arms and frightful shapes; some were very fat and some were very lean; some were dwarf and some were prodigiously tall. Some had only one eye, and others had only one ear. Some had monstrous bellies, hanging [247]breasts, long projecting teeth, and crooked thighs; whilst others were exceedingly beautiful to behold and clothed in great splendour.

Some had the heads of serpents, some the heads of asses, some of horses, and some of elephants.” The leader of them was Râvana, who is said to have been once a Brâhman and to have been turned into a Râkshasa, “with twenty arms, copper-coloured eyes, and bright teeth like the young moon. His form was as a thick cloud or as a mountain, or the god of death with open mouth.”

The Râkshasa is the great Deus ex machinâ of folk-lore. He can change into almost any form he pleases, his breath is a roaring wind; he can lengthen his arms to eighty miles; he can smell out human beings like Giant Blunderbore. He can carry a man leagues through the air; if his head be cut off, it grows again. He is the Eastern type of the monster dragon which is subdued by St. George, Siegmund, Siegfried, or Beowulf.

His spouse, the Râkshasî, is a creature of much the same kind. In the folk-tales she often takes the form of the ogress queen who marries the king and gets up at night and devours an elephant, or two or three horses, or some sheep or a camel, and then puts the blood and scraps of meat at the doors of her rivals, and gets them banished, until the clever lad discovers her wiles and brings her to condign punishment.33 Often she besets a city and demands the daily tribute of a human victim.

The king takes the place of the victim, and the Râkshasî is so affected by his generosity that she abandons eating the flesh of men. In a case in the folk-tales a boy becomes a Râkshasa by eating the brains of a corpse.34 Like all other demons, Râkshasas are scared by light, and one of the names of the lamp is Râkshogna, or “the destroyer of the Râkshasas.”

The idea of the Râkshasa comes from the earliest times. Some have thought them to be types of the early Drâvidian opponents of the Hindus. Nirritî, the female personification [248]of death, is a Râkshasa deity in the Vedas, and Dr. Muir has traced the various stages by which the Râkshasa was developed into a godling.35 Thus, in the Mahâbhârata, Jarâ is called a household goddess; the great King Jarasandha was born in two halves, and Jarâ united them; she is always represented as seeking to requite by benefits the worship which is paid to her. Manu prescribes a special oblation for “the spirits which walk in darkness.”

The blood in the sacrifice is, according to the old ritual, offered to them, though even here we notice the transition from animal to corn offerings.36

Nowadays Râkshasas live in trees and cause vomiting and indigestion to those who trespass on their domains at night. They mislead night travellers like Will-o’-the-Wisp, and they are always greedy and in quest of food. So, if a man is eating by lamp-light and the light goes out, he will cover the dish with his hands, which are, as we have already seen, scarers of demons, to preserve the food from the Râkshasa, and Bengal women go at night with a lamp into every room to expel the evil spirits.37

The Râkshasas are said to be always fighting with the gods and their blood remains on many of these ghostly battlefields. In the Hills this is believed to be the cause of the red ferruginous clay which is occasionally observed, and the Lohû or “blood-red” river has a similar origin.38 The same idea appears in the folk-lore of Europe.

In a Swabian legend the red colour of shoots of rye when they first appear above the surface is attributed to Cain having killed Abel in a rye-field, which thus became reddened with innocent blood.39 One species of feathered pink has a dark purple spot in it which people in Germany say is a drop of the [249]blood of the Redeemer which fell from the Cross.40 In one of the Irish Sagas the blood of a murdered man fell on a white stone and formed the red veins which are still shown to the traveller.41 In Cornwall a red stain on the rocks marks where giant Bolster died, and the red lichen in a brook commemorates a murder.42 Every English child knows the legend of Robin Redbreast.

In folk-lore Râkshasas have kingdoms, and possess enormous riches, which they bestow on those whom they favour, like Târâ Bâî in the story of Seventee Bâî. In this they resemble the Irish fairies, who hide away much treasure in their palaces underneath the hills and in the lakes and sea. “All the treasure of wrecked ships is theirs; and all the gold that men have hidden or buried in the earth when danger was on them, and then died and left no sign to their descendants.

And all the gold of the mine and the jewels of the rocks belong to them, and in the Sifra or fairy house the walls are silver and the pavement is gold, and the banquet hall is lit by the diamonds that stud the rocks.”43

The finger nails of the Râkshasas, as those of Europeans in popular belief, are a deadly poison, and the touch of them produces insensibility, or even death. They often take the disguise of old women and have very long hair, which is a potent charm.

Their malignity is so great that it would be difficult to avoid them, but fortunately, like the Devil in the European tales, and evil spirits all the world over, they are usually fools, and readily disclose the secrets of their enchantment to the distressed heroine who is unlucky enough to fall into their power, and the victim has generally only to address the monster as “Uncle!” to escape from his clutches.44

They are, as has been said already, usually cannibals. One [250]of these was Vaka in the Mahâbhârata, who lived at Ekachakra and levied a daily toll of food and human victims on the Râja till he was torn to pieces by Bhîma. Bhîma also contrived to kill another monster of the same kind named Hidimba. In the great Panjâb legend of Rasâlu, he conquers the seven Râkshasas, who used to eat a human being every day, and there is a Nepâl story of the Râkshasa Gurung Mâpa, who used to eat corpses. He was propitiated with a grant of land to live on and an annual offering of a buffalo and some rice.45

Power of Lengthening Themselves

All ghosts, as we shall see later on, have the power of lengthening themselves like the Naugaza, whom we have already mentioned. For this reason demons, as a rule, are of gigantic form, and many of the enormous fossil bones found in the Siwâlik Hills were confidently attributed to the Râkshasas, which reminds us of the story of the smith in Herodotus who found the gigantic coffin seven cubits long containing the bones of Orestes.46

Night Spirits

Like the ghost in Hamlet, the angel that visited Jacob, and the destroying angels of Sodom, the Râkshasas always fly before the dawn. They invariably travel through the air and keep their souls in birds or trees—a fertile element in folk-lore which has been called by Major Temple “The Life Index.”47

Râkshasas as Builders

The tales of Western lands abound with instances of buildings, bridges, etc., constructed by the Devil. So the Indian [251]Râkshasa is commonly regarded as an architect. Thus, at Râmtek in the Central Provinces there is a curious old temple built of hewn stones, well fitted together without mortar.

From its shape and structure it is probably of Jaina origin, though local tradition connects it with the name of Hemâdpant, the Râkshasa. He is an example of Râkshasas developed in comparatively recent times from a historical personage. He was probably the Minister of Mahâdeva (1260–1271 A.D.), the fourth of the Yâdava Kings of Deogiri. According to the common story, he was a giant or a physician, who brought the current Marâthi character from Ceylon. The Dakkhin swarms with ancient buildings attributed to him.48

Such is also the case with another class of demons, the Asuras, a word which means “spiritual” or “superhuman,” who were the rivals of the gods. In Mirzapur the ancient embankment at the Karsota tank is considered to be their work. Once upon a time two of these demons vowed that whoever first succeeded in building a fort should be the conqueror, and that his defeated rival should lose his life. So they set to work in the evening, one on the Bijaygarh Hill, and the other on the opposite peak of Kundakot, about twelve miles distant. The demon of Bijaygarh, having lost his tools in the dark, struck a light to search for them. His adversary seeing the light, and imagining that the sun was rising and his rival’s work completed, fled precipitously.

The Bijaygarh fort was completed during the night and stands to the present day, while on Kundakot you see only a few enormous blocks of stone which was all the vanquished Asura had time to collect. The tales of demons interfering with the construction of buildings are common in European folk-lore.

Many other buildings are said to have been built in the same way. The Bârahkhamba at Shikârpur in the Bulandshahr [252]District was built by demons; Baliya in Pilibhît was the work of Bali, the Daitya; the demon Loha or Lohajangha built Lohâban in Mathura.49 In the same way the Cornish giants built chiefly in granite, and the Hack and Cast embankment was constructed by them.50 In Patna the Asura Jarâsandha is the reputed builder of an enormous embankment which is called Asuren after him, and another demon of the same class is said to be the architect of an ancient fortification in Puraniya.51

Many buildings, again, are attributed to personages who succeeded in getting an Asura under their influence, and being obliged to find work for him, compelled him to occupy his time in architecture. In the “Lay of the Last Minstrel” Michael Scott got out of the dilemma by making the demons twist ropes of sand, and the same tale is told of Tregeagle in Cornwall.52

Modern Râkshasas

Râkshasas are developed even in these prosaic days of ours. In the folk-tales many human beings lie under the well-founded suspicion of being Asuras or Râkshasas.53 The ghost of some Musalmâns is believed by some Hindus to become a most malignant Râkshasa. Such a ghost is conciliated by being addressed by the euphemistic title of Mamduh, “the praised one.” Visaladeva, the famous King of Ajmer, was turned into a Râkshasa on account of his oppression of his subjects, in which condition he resumed the evil work of his earthly existence, “devouring his subjects,” until one of his grandchildren offered himself as a victim to appease his hitherto insatiable appetite. “The language of innocent affection,” says Col. Tod, “made its way to the heart of the Râkshasa, who recognized his offspring, and winged his flight to the Jumnâ.”54 [253]

Young men who are obliged to travel at night have reason to be cautious of the Râkshasî, as well as of the Churel, with whom she is occasionally identified. She takes the form of a lovely woman and lures her victims to destruction.

Brâhman Ghosts

We have already mentioned the Brahm or malignant Brâhman ghost. These often develop into Râkshasas, and are a particularly dangerous species. Thus the sept of Gaur Râjputs are haunted by the Râkshasa or ghost of the Brâhman Mansa Râm, who, on account of the tyranny of the Râja Tej Sinh, committed suicide. He lives in a tree in a fort in the Sîtapur District, and no marriage or any other important business in the family of the Râja is undertaken until he has been duly propitiated.55 So, at the mound of Bilsar in the Etah District, there lived a Râja whose house overlooked that of a Brâhman named Pûran Mall.

The Brâhman asked the Râja to change the position of his sitting-room, as it was inconvenient to the ladies of his family, and when the request was refused, poisoned himself with a dose of opium. His body turned blue like indigo, and he became a most malignant demon or Bîr, known as the Brahm Râkshasa, which caused the death of the Râja and his family, and forced his successors to remove to a distance from their original family residence.

The Deo

Closely connected with the Râkshasas are various classes of demons, known as Deo, Dâno, or Bîr. The Deo is a survival of the Devas or “shining ones” of the old mythology. It is another of the terms which have suffered grievous degradation. It was originally applied to the thirty-three great divinities, eleven of which inhabited each of the three worlds. Now the term represents a vague class of the demon-ogre family.

The Deo is a cannibal, and were he not [254]exceedingly stupid could do much harm, but in the folk-tales he is always being deceived in the most silly way. He has long lips, one of which sticks up in the air, while the other hangs down pendant. Like many of his kinsfolk all over the world, he is a potent cause of tempests.56

The Bîr

The Bîr, who takes his name from the Sanskrit Vîra, “hero,” is a very malignant village demon. In one of the Mirzapur villages is the shrine of Kharbar Bîr, or “the noisy hero.” No one can give any satisfactory account of him, but it is quite certain that if he is not propitiated by the Baiga, he brings disease on men and cattle. Gendâ Bîr, a woman who was tired of life, and, instead of burning herself, threw herself down from a tree, is worshipped at Nâgpur.57 Kerâr Bîr has, according to the last census returns, thirty-one thousand worshippers in the eastern districts of the North-West Provinces.

He is said to have been a demon who resided on the spot where the present fort of Jaunpur now stands. He became such a pest to the country about, that the great Râma Chandra warred against him and overcame him. His head and limbs he flung to the four corners of heaven, and his trunk in the form of a shapeless mass of stone remains as a memorial and is worshipped. Some allege that he was really some hero of the aboriginal Bhar race who fell in battle with the Aryan.

It is also alleged that when the British engineers attempted to blow down the fort their mines failed to disturb the shrine of Kerâr, whose importance has been much increased by this example of his prowess.58 In Bombay there are seven Bîrs who go about together and scour the fields and gardens at night.59 [255]

The Dâno

The Dâno represents the Dânava of the early mythology. Of these there are seven also, and the leader of them is Vritra, who is the ancestor of the dragons and keeps back and steals the heavenly waters, on which account Indra slays him with his thunderbolt. Vala, the cave in which the rain cows are hidden, is called the brother of Vritra. No trace remains now of this beautiful weather myth.

The Dâno nowadays is hardly to be distinguished from the Bîr and his brethren, and at Hazâribâgh he is worshipped in the form of a stone daubed with five streaks of red lead and set up outside the house.60

The Daitya

So with the Dait or Daitya, who is connected in nothing but name with the demons of the olden world who warred with the gods. In Mirzapur he lives in a tree; in front he looks like a man, but seen from behind he is quite hollow, only a mere husk without a backbone. In this he resembles the Ellekone of Denmark, who is beautiful in front, but hollow in the back like a kneading trough.61 So the Hadal or Hedali of Bombay is said to be plump in front and a skeleton behind.62

At midnight the Daitya shows himself in his tree in a flash of fire and smoke, and sometimes flies off to another tree a short distance off.

In Mirzapur he is sometimes known as Daitra Bîr and is associated with two others named Akata Bîr and Latora Bîr, all of whom live in trees and go out at night and dance for a while with torches in their hands. They are worshipped with an offering consisting of the Kalsa or holy water-pots and some greens.63 In one village the Daitya is known as Beohâr Bâba or the “father of merchandise,” as [256]he is supposed in some way to guard merchants. Col. Tod describes a place in the table-land of Central India known as Daitya kâ har or “the demon’s bone,” on which those who are in search of ease jump from above.

Although most of the leapers perish, some instances of escape are recorded. The hope of obtaining offspring is said to be the most usual motive for the act.64 Instances of religious suicides are common. One of the most famous places for this is behind the peak of Kedâr, where the Pândavas devoted themselves and were carried off to heaven. The practice seems to have almost completely ceased under British rule.

The Headless Horseman

At the present time the most dreaded of these creatures is, perhaps, the Headless Horseman, who is popularly known as Dûnd, or “truncated.”

He has many of his kindred in other lands. Sir Francis Drake used to drive a hearse into Plymouth with headless horses and followed by yelling hounds. Coluinn gun Cheann of the Highlands goes about a headless trunk. A coach without horses used to career about the neighbourhood of Listowel when any misfortune was about to take place. A monster in one of the German tales carries about his head under his arm.65

By one account the Dûnd took his origin from the wars of the Mahâbhârata. However this may be, he appears periodically in the form of a headless trunk seated on horseback, with his head tied before him on the pommel of the saddle.

He makes his rounds at night and calls to the householder from outside; but woe to any one who answers him, for this means death. The belief in these visionary death summonses is very common. The Irish Banshee howls at night and announces death. In Mirzapur, Bâghesar, or the tiger demon, lives on the Churni Hill. He [257]sometimes comes down at night in human form, and calls people by name at their doors. If any one answers him he becomes sick.

The Bengâli personifies Nisi or Night as the Homeric Greeks did.66 She often comes at midnight, calls the house-master, who when he opens the door falls senseless and follows her where she will. Sometimes she takes him into a tank and drowns him, or leads him into a dense forest and drops him among thorns or on the top of some high tree. In fact it is always very dangerous to speak to these spirits or ghosts. Falstaff knew this well when he said, “They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die.”

The Dûnd makes occasional incursions throughout the country. He was in the neighbourhood of Agra in 1882, and some twelve years after appeared in Mirzapur. On both occasions the news of his arrival caused considerable alarm. Every one shut up their houses at sunset, and no one on any consideration would answer a call from outside after nightfall. It was shrewdly suspected at the time that this rumour was spread by some professional burglar who made a harvest while the scare lasted.

Somewhat akin to the Dûnd is the spectral Râja of Bûndi who occasionally appears in the neighbourhood of Sahâranpur. Some years ago a Brâhman astrologer heard some one calling him from outside one night. When he answered the summons he was told that the Râja of Bûndi wanted to have his horoscope examined and was then encamped near the town. The Pandit proceeded to the place with the guide and saw a splendid encampment, and the Râja in his royal robes sitting in a tent ornamented with pearls.

When he saw him the unfortunate astrologer knew that he was a Râkshasa, and he was the more convinced of this when he examined his horoscope and found that he was fated to live for ever. He told the Râja that his life would be long and prosperous, and after receiving three gold coins as his fee went home more dead than alive. Next morning he went [258]to the place, but could find no sign of the camp, and when he looked in his box the coins were found to have disappeared.

There are numerous other versions of the Headless Horseman story in Northern India. In a fight at Khândesh the Gâoli prince engaged in personal conflict with the saint Sayyid Saadat Pîr, and struck off his head. The headless body continued to fight, and the Hindu army fled in panic.

The trunk then snatched up the head and led the victorious troops to a neighbouring hill, where the earth opened and swallowed it.67 So, in Oudh, Malik Ambar, the companion of Sâlâr Masaud, was, it is said, killed with his master at Bahrâich, but wandering back from Bijnor, a headless trunk on horseback, he at length reached the place where his tomb now stands, when the earth opened and received him and his horse.68

The Dûnd is apparently a close relation of the Skandhahâta of Bengal, who goes about with his head cut off from the shoulders. He dwells in low moist lands outside a village, in bogs and fens, and goes about in the dark, rolling about on the ground, with his long arms stretched out. Woe betide the belated peasant who falls within his grasp.69

The Ghostly Army

Closely connected with this are the numerous legends of the Ghostly Army. Thus, at Faizâbâd, the country people point out a portion of the Queen’s highway along which they will not pass at night. They say that after dark the road is thronged with troops of headless horsemen, the dead of the army of Prince Sayyid Sâlâr. The great host moves on with a noiseless tread; the ghostly horses make no sound; and no words of command are shouted to the headless squadrons.

Another version comes from Ajmer. There for some time past a troop of four or five hundred [259]horsemen, armed and dressed in green, issue from a valley in the neighbourhood of the city, and after riding about for some time, mysteriously disappear. They are believed to be the escort of the Imâm Husain, whose tragical fate is commemorated at the Muharram.

The same idea prevails all through India, and indeed all the world over. The persons killed at a recent disastrous railway accident haunt the locality, and have caused the breakdown of other trains at the same place.70 The ghosts of the battle of Chiliânwâla began to appear very shortly after the battle, and Abul Fazl mentions the ghosts of Pânipat in the days of Akbar.71 In America the anniversaries of the battles of Bunker’s Hill, Concord, Saratoga, and even as late as that of Gettysburg, are celebrated by spectral armies, who fight by night the conflict o’er again.72 If you walk nine times round Neville’s Cross, you will hear the noise of the battle and the clash of armour, and the same tale is told of the battle of Marathon, which a recent prosaic authority attributes to the beating of the waves on the shore, while others say that these spectral armies of the sky are nothing more than wild geese or other migratory birds calling in the darkness.73

Masân

Masân, the modern form of the Sanskrit Smasâna, “a place of cremation,” is the general term for those evil spirits which haunt the place where they were forced to abandon their tenements of clay. So the modern Italian Lemuri are the spirits of the churchyard and represent the Lemures or Larvæ, the unhappy ghosts of those who have died evil deaths or under a ban, to which there are innumerable allusions in the Latin writers.74 In India Masân is very generally regarded as the ghost of a child, and we have [260]already seen that some tribes regard an infant as a Bhût.

He is occasionally the ghost of a low-caste man, very often that of an oilman, who, possibly from the dirt which accompanies his trade, is considered ill-omened. By another account such ghosts prowl about in villages in the Hills in the form of bears and other wild animals.75 Others say that Masân is of black and hideous appearance, comes from the ashes of a funeral pyre, and chases people as they pass by.

Some die of fright from his attacks, others linger for a few days, and some even go mad. “When a person becomes possessed of Masân, the people invoke the beneficent spirit of the house to come and take possession of some member of the family, and all begin to dance. At length some one works himself up into a state of frenzy, and commences to torture and belabour the body of the person possessed by Masân, until at length a cure is effected, or the patient perishes under this drastic treatment.” Khabish resembles Masân in his malignant nature and his fondness for burial grounds. He is also met with in dark glens and forests in various shapes.

Sometimes he imitates the bellow of a buffalo, or the cry of a goatherd or neatherd, and sometimes he grunts like a pig. At other times he assumes the disguise of a religious mendicant and joins travellers on their way; but his conversation is, like that of ordinary Bhûts, always unintelligible. Like Masân, he often frightens people and makes them ill, and sometimes possesses unfortunate travellers who get benighted.76

Children afflicted by Masân are said to be “under his shadow” (chhâya), and waste away by a sort of consumption. Here we have another instance of the principle already referred to, that the shadow represents the actual soul.77 This malady is believed to be due to some enemy flinging the ashes from a funeral pyre over the child. The remedy in such cases is to weigh the child in salt, a well-known demon scarer, and give it away in charity. The cremation [261]ground and the bones and ashes which it contains are constantly used in various kinds of magical rites. It is believed when thieves enter a house, that they throw over the inmates some Masân or ashes from a pyre and make them unconscious while the robbery is going on.

This resembles the English “Hand of Glory,” to which reference will be made in another connection. As to the influence by means of the shadow, it may be noted that a Nepâl legend describes how a Lâma arrested the flight of a Brâhman by piercing his shadow with a spear, and the Râkshasî Sinhikâ used to seize the shadow of the object she desired to devour and so drag the prey into her jaws.78

Tola

Tola is a sort of “Will-o’-the-Wisp” in the Hills. According to one account, he is, like the Gayâl, of whom we have spoken already, the ghost of a bachelor, and other ghosts refuse to associate with him; so he is seen only in wild and solitary places. Others say that he belongs to the class of children ghosts, who have died too young to undergo the rites of tonsure or cremation.

They are, as a rule, harmless, and are not much dreaded. After a child undergoes the specified religious ceremonies, its soul is matured, and fitted either to join the spirits of the sainted dead or to assume a new existence by transmigration. The estate of the Tola is only temporary, and after a time, it, too, enters another form of existence.79

Airi

Another famous Hill Bhût is Airi. He is the ghost of some one who was killed in hunting. We have many instances of these huntsmen ghosts, of which the most familiar example is the European legend of the Wild Huntsman, who haunts the forest in which he used to hunt, [262]and is sometimes heard hallooing to his dogs. So in Cornwall Dando rides about accompanied with his hounds.80 The British fairies ride at night on horses which they steal from the stables, and in the morning the poor beasts are found covered with sweat and foam.81 In Southern India Aiyanâr rides about the land at night on a wild elephant, sword in hand, and surrounded by torch-bearers, to clear the country from all obnoxious spirits.82

The companions of Airi are fairies, who, like the Churel, have their feet turned backwards. He is accompanied by two litter-bearers and a pack of hounds with bells round their necks. Whoever hears their bark is certain to meet with calamity.

Airi is much given to expectoration, and his saliva is so venomous that it wounds those on whom it falls. Incantations must be used and the affected part rubbed with the branch of a tree. If this be not done at once, the injured man dies, and in any case he must abstain from rich food for several days. We shall meet again with the magical power of spittle. Here it may be noted that in Western folk-lore it confers the power of seeing spirits.

“Those who see Airi face to face are burnt up by the flash of his eye, or are torn to pieces by his dogs, or have their livers extracted and eaten by the fairies who accompany him. But should any one be fortunate enough to survive, the Bhût discloses hidden treasures to him. The treasure-trove thus disclosed varies in value from gold coins to old bones. His temples are always in deserted places.

A trident represents the god, and a number of surrounding stones his followers. He is worshipped once a year by lighting a bonfire, round which all the people sit. A kettle-drum is played, and one after another they become possessed, and leap and shout round the fire. Some brand themselves with heated iron spoons, and sit in the flames. Those who escape burning are believed to be truly possessed, while those who are burned are considered mere pretenders [263]to divine frenzy.”83 This closely resembles the worship of Râhu already described.

“The revels usually last for about ten nights, and until they are ended, a lamp is kept burning at the shrine of the god. Those possessed dye a yard of cloth in red ochre and bind it round their heads, and carry a wallet in which they place the alms they receive. While in this state they bathe twice, and eat but once in the twenty-four hours.

They allow no one to touch them, as they consider other men unclean, and no one but themselves is permitted to touch the trident and stones in Airi’s temple, at least as long as the festival lasts. The offerings, goats, milk, etc., are consumed by the worshippers. The kid is marked on the forehead with red, and rice and water are thrown over him. If he shakes himself to get rid of it, the god has accepted the offering, whereupon his head is severed with a knife. If he does not shake himself, or bleats, it is a sign that the offering is not accepted, and the victim escapes.”

The same rule of testing the suitability of the sacrifice prevailed among the Greeks. The same practice prevails among other tribes. Thus, the Bâwariyas, when they sacrifice a goat, take a little water in the palm of the hand and pour it on the nose of the victim. If it shiver, its head is cut off with a single blow of a sword. The rule has elsewhere received a further development.

Thus when the Râo of Cutch sacrifices a buffalo, “as it stoops to eat, a few drops of water are scattered between its horns. If it shake its head it is led away as displeasing to the goddess; if it nods its head a glittering scimitar descends on its neck.”84

Hill Demons

Other Bhûts in the Hills are Acheri, the ghosts of little girls, who live on the tops of mountains, but descend at night to hold their revels in more convenient places. To [264]fall in with their train is fatal, and they have a particular antipathy to red colour. When little girls fall suddenly ill, the Acheri is supposed to have cast her shadow over them. The Deo are the regular demons already described; some are obnoxious to men, some to cattle. The Rûniya moves about at night and uses a huge rock as his steed, the clattering of which announces his approach.

He is the demon of the avalanche and landslip. Should he take a fancy to a woman, she is haunted by his spirit in her dreams, and gradually wasting away, finally falls a victim to her passion. He thus resembles the Faun and the Satyr, the Incubus and Succubus, against whose wiles and fascination the Roman maiden was warned.85

Birth Fiends

Another of these night fiends is the Jilaiya of Bihâr, which takes the shape of a night bird, and is able to suck the blood of any person whose name it hears. Hence women are very careful not to call their children at night. It is believed that if this bird fly over the head of a pregnant woman her child will be born a weakling.86

Hence it closely approximates to the birth fiends which beset the mother and child during the period of impurity after parturition. Thus the Orâons of Chota Nâgpur believe that the fiend Chordevan comes in the form of a cat and tears the mother’s womb.87 The Brâhman, Prabhu, and other high-caste women of Bombay believe that on the fifth and sixth night after birth the mother and child are liable to be attacked by the birth spirit Satvâî, who comes in the shape of a cat or a hen. Consequently they keep a watch in the lying-in room during the whole night, passing the time in playing, singing and talking to scare the fiend. The Marâthas of Nâsik believe that on the fifth night, at about twelve o’clock, the spirit Sathî, accompanied by a male fiend, [265]called Burmiya, comes to the lying-in room, and making the mother insensible, either kills or disfigures the child.

The Vadâls of Thâna think that on the fifth night the birth spirit Sathî comes in the form of a cat, hen, or dog, and devours the heart and skull of the child. They therefore surround the bed with strands of a creeper, place an iron knife or scythe on the mother’s cot, fire in an iron bickern at the entrance of the lying-in room, and keep a watch for the night. The customs all through Northern India are very much of the same type. It is essential that the fire should be kept constantly burning, lest the spirit of evil, stepping over the cold ashes, should enter and make its fatal mark on the forehead of the child.

The whole belief turns on the fear of infantile lockjaw, which is caused by the use of foul implements in cutting the umbilical cord and the neglect of all sanitary precautions. It usually comes between the fifth and twelfth day, and as Satvâî, or the Chhathî of Northern India, has been raised to the dignity of a goddess. All this is akin to the belief in fairy changelings and the malignant influences which surround the European mother and her child.88

The Parî and Jinn

Little reference has yet been made to the Parî or fairies, or the Jinn or genii, because they are, in their present state at least, of exotic origin, though their original basis was possibly laid on Indian soil. Thus we have the Apsaras, who in name at least, “moving in the water,” is akin to Aphrodite. They appear only faintly in the Veda as the nymphs of Indra’s heaven, and the chief of them is Urvasî, to whom reference has been already made. Two of them, Rambhâ and Menakâ, are shown as luring austere sages from their devotions, as in the Irish legend of Glendalough.

They are the wives or mistresses of the Gandharvas, the singers and musicians who attend the banquets of the gods. [266]Indra in the Rig Veda is the giver of women, and he provides one of his aged friends with a young wife.89 Rambhâ, one of the fairies of his court, appears constantly in the tales of Somadeva, and descends in human form to the arms of her earthly lovers, as Titania with Bottom in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Their successor in the modern tales is Shâhpasand, “The beloved of the king,” who takes the shape of a pigeon and kisses the beautiful hero. In one of the stories which appears in many forms, the youth with the help of a Faqîr finds his way to the dance of Râja Indra, takes the place of his drummer, and wins the fairy, whom he identifies in spite of the many schemes which the jovial god invents to deceive him. These ladies are all of surpassing beauty, skilled in music and the dance, with white skins, and always dressed in red.

With the Jinn we reach a chapter of folk-lore of great extent and complexity. They are probably in origin closely allied to the Râkshasa, Deo and his kindred.90 They are usually divided into the Jann, who are the least powerful of all the Jinn, the Shaitân or Satan of the Hebrews, the Ifrît and the Mârid, the last of whom rules the rest. The Jann, according to the Prophet, were created out of a smokeless fire.

The Jann is sometimes identified with the serpent, and sometimes with Iblîs, who has been imported direct from the Greek Diabolos. The Jinn were the pre-Adamite rulers of the world, and for their sins were overcome by the angels, taken prisoners and driven to distant islands. They appear as serpents, lions, wolves or jackals. One kind rules the land, another the air, a third the sea.

There are forty troops of them, each consisting of six hundred thousand. Some have wings and fly, others move like snakes and dogs, others go about like men. They are of gigantic stature, sometimes resplendently handsome, sometimes horridly hideous. They can become invisible and move on earth when they please. Sometimes one of them is shut up in a jar under the seal of the Lord Solomon who rules them. [267]They ride the whirlwind like Indian demons, and direct the storm. Their chief home is the mountains of Qâf, which encompass the earth.

The Ghoul

Besides these there is a host of minor demons, such as the Ghûl, the English Ghoul, who is a kind of Shaitân, eats men, and is variously described as a Jinn or as an enchanter. By one tradition, when the Shaitân attempt by stealth to hear the words of men, they are struck by shooting stars, some are burnt, some fall into the sea and become crocodiles, and some fall upon the land and become Ghûls.

The Ghûl is properly a female, and the male is Qutrub. They are the offspring of Iblîs and his wife. The Silât or Silâ lives in forests, and when it captures a man makes him dance and plays with him, as the cat plays with the mouse. Similar to this creature is the Ghaddâr, who tortures and terrifies men, the Dalhâm, who is in the form of a man and rides upon an ostrich, and the Shiqq or Nasnâs, who are ogres and vampires. But these are little known in Indian folk-lore, except that directly imported from Arabic sources.91

The Baghaut

As an instance of the respect paid to the ghosts of those who have perished by an untimely death, we may mention the Baghaut. According to the last census returns some eight thousand persons recorded themselves as worshippers in the North-Western Provinces of Bagahu or Sapaha, the ghosts of people killed by tigers or snakes. The Baghaut is usually erected on the place where a man was killed by a tiger, but it sometimes merges into the common form of shrine, as in a case given by Dr. Buchanan, where a person received the same honour because he had been killed by the aboriginal Kols.92 The shrine is generally a heap of stones or branches [268]near some pathway in the jungle.

Every passer-by adds to the pile, which is in charge of the Baiga or aboriginal priest, who offers upon it a pig, or a cock, or some spirits, and lights a little lamp there occasionally. Many such shrines are to be found in the Mirzapur jungles. In the Central Provinces they are known as Pât, a term applied in Chota Nâgpur to holy heights dedicated to various divinities.93 They are usually erected in a place where a man has been killed by a tiger or by a snake; sometimes no reason whatever is given for their selection. “In connection with these shrines they have a special ceremony for laying the ghost of a tiger.

Until it is gone through, neither Gond nor Baiga will go into the jungles if he can help it, as they say not only does the spirit of the dead man walk, but the tiger is also possessed, for the nonce, with an additional spirit of evil (by the soul of the dead man entering into him) which increases his power of intelligence and ferocity, rendering him more formidable than usual, and more eager to pursue his natural enemy, man.

Some of the Baigas are supposed to be gifted with great powers of witchcraft, and it is common for a Baiga medicine man to be called in to bewitch the tigers and prevent them carrying off the village cattle. The Gonds thoroughly believe in the powers of these men.”94

I myself came across a singular instance of this some time ago. I was asking a Baiga of the Chero tribe what he could do in this way, but I found him singularly reticent on the subject. I asked the Superintendent of the Dudhi Estate, who was with me, to explain the reason. “Well,” he answered, “when I came here first many years ago, a noted Baiga came to me and proposed to do some witchcraft to protect me from tigers, which were very numerous in the neighbourhood at the time.

I told him that I could look after myself, and advised him to do the same. That night a tiger seized the wretched Baiga while he was on his way home, and all that was found of him were some scraps of cloth and [269]pieces of bone. Since then I notice that the Baigas of these parts do not talk so loudly of their power of managing tigers when I am present.”

The Churel

More dreaded even than the ghost of a man who has been killed by a tiger is the Churel, a name which has been connected with that of the Chûhra or sweeper caste. The ghosts of all low-caste people are notoriously malignant, an idea which possibly arises from their connection with the aboriginal faith, which was treated half with fear and half with contempt by their conquerors.

The corpses of such people are either cremated or buried face downwards, in order to prevent the evil spirit from escaping and troubling its neighbours. So, it was the old custom in Great Britain in order to prevent the spirit of a suicide from “walking” and becoming a terror to the neighbourhood, to turn the coffin upside down and thrust a spear through it and the body which it contained so as to fix it to the ground.95 Riots have taken place and the authority of the magistrates has been invoked to prevent a sweeper from being buried in the ordinary way.96

The Churel, who corresponds to the Jakhâî, Jokhâî, Mukâî, or Navalâî of Bombay,97 is the ghost of a woman dying while pregnant, or on the day of the child’s birth, or within the prescribed period of impurity. The superstition is based on the horror felt by all savages at the blood, or even touch of a woman who is ceremonially impure.98 The idea is, it is needless to say, common in India.

The woman in her menses is kept carefully apart, and is not allowed to do cooking or any domestic work until she has undergone the purification by bathing and changing her garments. Some of the Drâvidian tribes refuse to allow a woman in this condition to touch the house-thatch, and she is obliged to creep through [270]a narrow hole in the back wall whenever she has to leave the house.

Hence, too, the objection felt by men to walk under walls or balconies where women may be seated and thus convey the pollution. From Kulu, on the slopes of the Himâlayas, a custom is reported which is probably connected with this principle and with the rules of the Couvade, to which reference will be made later on. When a woman who is pregnant dies, her husband is supposed to have committed some sin, and he is deemed unclean for a time. He turns a Faqîr and goes on pilgrimage for a month or so, and, having bathed in some sacred place, is re-admitted into caste. The woman is buried, the child having been first removed from her body by one of the Dâgi caste, and her death is not considered a natural one under any circumstances.99

The Churel is particularly malignant to her own family. She appears in various forms. Sometimes she is fair in front and black behind, but she invariably has her feet turned round, heels in front and toes behind. The same idea prevails in many other places. The Gira, a water-spirit of the Konkan, has his feet turned backwards.100 In the Teignmouth story of the Devil he leaves his backward footsteps in the snow. Pliny so describes Anthropophagi of Mount Imœus, and Megasthenes speaks of a similar race on Mount Nilo.101

She generally, however, assumes the form of a beautiful young woman and seduces youths at night, especially those who are good-looking. She carries them off to some kingdom of her own, and if they venture to eat the food offered to them there, she keeps them till they lose their manly beauty and then sends them back to the world grey-haired old men, who, like Rip Van Winkle, find all their friends dead long ago.

So the Lady of the Lake won Merlin to her arms.102 The same idea prevails in Italy, but there the absence is only temporary. “Among the wizards and witches are even [271]princes and princesses, who to conceal their debauchery and dishonour take the goat form and carry away partners for the dance, bearing them upon their backs, and so they fly many miles in a few minutes, and go with them to distant cities and other places, where they feast, dance, drink, and make love.

But when day approaches they carry their partners home again, and when they wake they think they have had pleasant dreams. But indeed their diversion was more real than they supposed.”103 So, the Manxmen tell of a man who was absent from his people for four years, which he spent with the fairies.

He could not tell how he returned, but it seemed as if, having been unconscious, he woke up at last in this world.104 I had a smart young butler at Etah, who once described to me vividly the narrow escape he had from the fascinations of a Churel, who lived on a Pîpal tree near the cemetery. He saw her sitting on the wall in the dusk and entered into conversation with her; but he fortunately observed her tell-tale feet and escaped. He would never go again by that road without an escort. So, the fairies of England and Ireland look with envy on the beautiful boys and girls, and carry them off to fairyland, where they keep them till youth and beauty have departed.

Eating Food in Spirit Land

The consequences of rashly eating the food of the underworld are well known. The reason is that eating together implies kinship with the dwellers in the land of spirits, and he who does so never returns to the land of men.105

The Churel superstition appears in other forms. Thus, the Korwas of Mirzapur say that if a woman dies in the delivery-room, she becomes a Churel, but they do not know, or do not care to say, what finally becomes of her. The Patâris and Majhwârs think that if a woman dies within the [272]period of pregnancy or uncleanness, she becomes a Churel. She appears in the form of a pretty little girl in white clothes, and seduces them away to the mountains, until the Baiga is called in to sacrifice a goat and release her victim.

The Bhuiyârs go further and say that little baby girls who die before they are twenty days old become Churels. They live in stones in the mountains and cause pain to men. The remedy is for the afflicted one to put some rice and barley on his head, turn round two or three times, and shake off the grain in the direction of the jungle, when she releases her victim. The idea seems to be that with these holy grains, which are scarers of demons, the evil influence is dispersed. But she continues to visit him, and requires propitiation.

Among these people the Churel has been very generally enrolled among the regular village godlings and resides with them in the common village shrine, where she receives her share of the periodical offerings. Any one who sees a Churel is liable to be attacked by a wasting disease, and, as in the case of the Dûnd, to answer her night summons brings death.

Modes of Repelling the Churel

There are fortunately various remedies which are effective in preventing a woman who dies under these circumstances from becoming a Churel. One way is that practised by the Majhwârs of Mirzapur, which resembles that for laying the evil spirit of a sweeper, to which reference has been made already. They do not cremate the body, but bury it, fill the grave with thorns and pile heavy stones above to keep down the ghost.

Among the Bhandâris of Bengal, when a pregnant woman dies before delivery, her body is cut open and the child taken out, both corpses being buried in the same grave.106 In Bombay, when a woman dies in pregnancy, her corpse, after being bathed and decked with flowers and ornaments, is carried to the burning ground. There her husband [273]sprinkles water on her body from the points of a wisp of the sacred Darbha grass and repeats holy verses. Then he cuts her right side with a sharp weapon and takes out the child.

Should it be alive, it is taken home and cared for; should it be dead, it is then and there buried. The hole in the side of the corpse is filled with curds and butter, covered with cotton threads, and then the usual rite of cremation is carried out.107 In one of the tales of Somadeva, Saktideva cuts the child out of his pregnant wife.108

In the Hills, if a woman dies during the menstrual period or in childbirth, the corpse is anointed with the five products of the cow, and special texts are recited. A small quantity of fire is then placed on the chest of the corpse, which is either buried or thrown into flowing water.109 Here we have the three great demon-scarers,—fire, earth and water, combined. In another device, iron, which has similar virtue, is used. Small round-headed iron spikes, specially made for the purpose, are driven into the nails of the four fingers of the corpse, while the thumbs and great toes are securely fastened together with iron rings.

Most Hindus, it may be remarked, tie the corpse to the bier, whatever may have been the cause of death, and in parts of Ireland a thread is tied round the toe of the corpse, the object apparently being to secure the body and prevent an evil spirit from entering it.110

In the Hills the place where a pregnant woman died is carefully scraped and the earth removed. The spot is then sown with mustard, which is sprinkled along the road traversed by the corpse on its way to the burial ground.

The reason given for this is twofold. First, the mustard blossoms in the world of the dead, and its sweet smell pleases the spirit and keeps her content, so that she does not long to revisit her earthly home; secondly, the Churel rises from her grave at nightfall and seeks to return to her [274]friends; she sees the minute grains of the mustard scattered abroad and stoops to pick it up, and while so engaged cock-crow comes, she is unable to visit her home, and must return to her grave. This is another instance of the rule that evil spirits move about only at night.

Counting

This counting of the grains of mustard illustrates another principle which is thus explained by Mr. Leland:111 “A traveller in Persia has observed that the patterns of carpets are made intricate, so that the Evil Eye, resting upon them and following the design, loses its power. This was the motive of all the interlaces of the Celtic and Norse designs. When the witch sees the Sâlagrâma, her glance is at once bewildered with its holes and veins.

As I have elsewhere remarked, the herb Rosaloaccio, not the corn poppy, but a kind of small house leek, otherwise called ‘Rice of the Goddess of the four Winds,’ derives its name from looking, ere it unfolds, like confused grains of rice, and when a witch sees it she cannot enter till she has counted them, which is impossible; therefore it is used to protect rooms from witchcraft.” Sarson or mustard is, it may be noted, used as a scarer of demons. In all the principal Hindu ceremonies in Western India, grains of Sarshapa or Sarson (Sinapts dichotoma) and parched rice are scattered about to scare fiends. Akbar used to have Sipand or Sarson burnt on a hot plate to keep off the Evil Eye—Nazar-i-bad—from his valuable horses.112

Though the Churel is regarded with disgust and terror, curiously enough a family of Chauhân Râjputs in Oudh claim one as their ancestress.113

The Couvade

In connection with this subject of parturition impurity, the very remarkable custom of the Couvade may be referred to here. This is the rule by which at the birth of a child [275]the father is treated as an invalid, instead of or in addition to the mother:—

When Chineses go to bed,

And lie in in their ladies’ stead.

Marco Polo, writing of Zardandan, gives a good example:—“When one of their wives has been delivered of a child, the infant is washed and swathed, and then the woman gets up and goes about her household affairs, whilst the husband takes to bed with the child by his side, and so keeps his bed for forty days; and all the kith and kin come to visit her, and keep up a great festivity. They do this because they say the woman has had a bad time of it, and it is but fair that the man should have a share of suffering.”114 Professor Rhys remarks that the gods of Celtic Ireland used to practise the Couvade.115

Professor Max Müller thinks that it is clear that the poor husband was at first tyrannized over by his female relations and afterwards frightened into superstition. He then began to make a martyr of himself, till he made himself really ill, or took to bed in self-defence. The custom appears, however, to rest on a much more primitive set of ideas.

It partly implies, perhaps, the transition from that social state in which, owing to the laxity of the connection between the sexes, the only recognized form of descent was through the mother, and partly, the kindred conception that the father has more to do with the production of the child than the mother, and that the father must, at the critical period of the baby’s existence, exercise particular caution that through his negligence no demoniacal influence may assail the infant,116 [276]

It is curious that in India itself so few actual instances of the Couvade have been discovered. This, however, as Mr. Hartland shows, is not unusual, and the Couvade is not found in the lowest stage of savagery. But that the custom once generally prevailed is quite certain, and in Northern India, at least, it seems to have been masked by special birth ceremonies of great stringency and elaborate detail, but of distinctly later date than the very primitive usage with which we are now concerned.

One instance of the actual Couvade is given by Professor Sir Monier-Williams.117 Among a very low caste of basket-makers in Gujarât, it is the usual practice for a wife to go about her work immediately after delivery, as if nothing had occurred. “The presiding Mother (Mâtâ) of the tribe is supposed to transfer the weakness to her husband, who takes to his bed and has to be supported for several days with good nourishing food.” Again, among the Kols of Chota Nâgpur, father and mother are considered impure for eight days, during which period the members of the family are sent out of the house, and the husband has to cook for his wife.

If it be a difficult case of parturition, the malignancy of some spirit of evil is supposed to be at work, and after divination to ascertain his name, a sacrifice is made to appease him.118 Among many of the Drâvidian tribes of Mirzapur, when the posset or spiced drink is prepared for the mother after her confinement, the father is obliged to drink the first sup of it. Among all these people, the father does not work or leave the house during the period of parturition impurity, and cooks for his wife. When asked why he refrains from work, they simply say that he is so pleased with the safety of his wife and the birth of his child, that he takes a holiday; but some survival of the Couvade is probably at the root of the custom. The same idea prevails in a modified form in Bombay.

The Pomaliyas, [277]gold-washers of South Gujarât, after a birth, take great care of the husband, give him food, and do not allow him to go out; and “when a child is born to a Deshasth Brâhman, he throws himself into a well with all his clothes on, and, in the presence of his wife’s relations, lets a couple of drops of honey and butter fall into the mouth of the child.”119

Various Birth Ceremonies

The same idea that the infant is likely to receive demoniacal influences through its father appears to be the explanation of another class of birth ceremonies. In Northern India, in respectable families, the father does not look on the child until the astrologer selects a favourable moment. If the birth occur in the unlucky lunar asterism of Mûl, the father is often not allowed to see his child for years, and has in addition to undergo an elaborate rite of purification, known as Mûla-sânti. So, in Bombay, “the Belgaum Chitpavans do not allow the father to look on the new-born child, but at its reflection in butter.

The Dharwâr Radders do not allow the father to see the lamp being waved round the image of Satvâî, the birth goddess. If the father sees it, it is believed that the mother and child will sicken. The Karnâtak Jainas allow anyone to feed the new-born babe with honey and castor oil, except the father. Among the Beni Isrâels, when the boy is being circumcised, the father sits apart covered with a veil.

Among the Pûna Musalmâns, friends are called to eat the goat offered as a sacrifice on the birth of a child. All join in the feast except the parents, who may not eat the sacrifice.”120 Probably on the same principle, among most of the lower castes, the father and mother do not eat on the wedding day of their children until the ceremony is over.

Places Infested by Bhûts: Burial Places

There are, of course, certain places which are particularly [278]infested by Bhûts. To begin with, they naturally infest the neighbourhood of burial places and cremation grounds. This idea is found all over the world. Virgil says:—

Moerim, saepe animas imis excire sepulcris,

Atque satas alio vidi traducere messes;

and Shakespeare in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,”—

Now it is the time of night

That graves all gaping wide,

Every one lets forth its sprite,

In the church-way paths to glide.

Deserts

All deserts, also, are a resort of Bhûts, as the great desert of Lop, where Marco Polo assures us they are constantly seen at night. In the Western Panjâb deserts, during the prairie fires and in the dead of night, the lonely herdsmen used to hear cries arising from the ground, and shouts of Mâr! Mâr! “Strike! Strike!” which were ascribed to the spirits of men who had been killed in former frontier raids. Such supernatural sounds were heard by the early settlers within the last fifty years, and, until quite recently, the people were afraid to travel without forming large parties for fear of encountering the supernatural enemies who frequented these uninhabited tracts.121 So, among the Mirzapur jungle tribes, the wild forests of Sarguja are supposed to be infested with Bhûts, and if any one goes there rashly he is attacked through their influence with diarrhœa and vomiting.

The site of the present British Residency at Kathmându in Nepâl was specially selected by the Nepâlese as it was a barren patch, supposed to be the abode of demons. So, in Scotland, the local spirit lives in a patch of untilled ground, known as the “Gudeman’s field” or “Cloutie’s Croft.”122 [279]

Owls and Bats

The goblins of the churchyard type very often take the form of owls and bats, which haunt the abodes of the dead. “Screech owls are held unlucky in our days,” says Aubrey.123

Sedit in adverso nocturnus culmine bubo,

Funereosque graves edidit ore sonos.

The Strix, or screech owl, in Roman folk-lore was supposed to suck the blood of young children. Another form of the word in Latin is Striga, meaning a hag or witch. The Lilith of the Jews, the “night monster” of our latest version of the Old Testament, becomes in the Rabbinical stories Adam’s first wife, “the Queen of demons” and murderess of young children, who is the “night hag” of Milton.124

The Kumaun owl legend is that they had originally no plumes of their own, and were forced to borrow those of their neighbours, who pursue them if they find them abroad at daylight. Owl’s flesh is a powerful love philter, and the eating of it causes a man to become a fool and to lose his memory; hence, women give it to their husbands, that as a result of the mental weakness which it produces they may be able to carry on their flirtations with impunity. On the other hand, the owl is the type of wisdom, and eating the eyeballs of an owl gives the power of seeing in the dark, an excellent example of sympathetic magic.

If you put an owl in a room, go in naked, shut the door and feed the bird with meat all night, you acquire magical powers. I once had a native clerk who was supposed to have gone through this ordeal, and was much feared accordingly. Here we have another instance of the nudity charm. In the same way in Gujarât, if a man takes seven cotton threads, goes to a place where an owl is hooting, strips naked, ties a knot at each hoot, and fastens the thread round the right arm of a fever patient, the fever goes away.125 [280]

Ghosts and Burial Grounds

To return to the connection of ghosts with burial grounds. At Bishesar in the Hills, the Hindu dead from Almora are burnt. The spirits of the departed are supposed to lurk there and are occasionally seen. Sometimes, under the guidance of their leader Bholanâth, whom we have mentioned already, they come, some in palanquins and some on foot, at night, to the Almora Bâzâr and visit the merchants’ shops. Death is supposed to follow soon on a meeting with their processions. These ghosts are supposed to be deficient in some of their members. One has no head, another no feet, and so on; but they can all talk and dance.126

Mutilation

This illustrates another principle about ghosts, that mutilation during life is avoided, as being likely to turn the spirit into a malignant ghost after death. This is the reason that many savages keep the cuttings of their hair and nails, not only to put them out of the way of witches, who might work evil charms by their means, but also that the body when it rises at the Last Day may not be deficient in any part.127 This also explains the strong feeling among Hindus against decapitation as a form of execution, and the dread which Musalmâns exhibit towards cremation.

It also, in all probability, explains the lame demons, which abound all the world over, like Hephaistos, Wayland Smith, the Persian Æshma, the Asmodeus of the book of Tobit, and the Club-footed Devil of Christianity. The prejudice against amputation, based on this idea, is one of the many difficulties which meet our surgeons in India.

Ghosts of Old Ruins

Another place where ghosts, as might have been expected, [281]resort is in old ruins. Many old buildings are, as we have seen, attributed to the agency of demons, and in any case interference with them is resented by the Deus loci who occupies them. This explains the number of old ruined houses which one sees in an Indian town, and with which no one cares to meddle, as they are occupied by the spirits of their former owners. The same idea extends to the large bricks of the ancient buildings which are occasionally disinterred. Dr. Buchanan describes how on one occasion no one would assist him in digging out an ancient stone image.

The people told him that a man who had made an attempt to do so some time before had met with sudden death.128 The landlord of the village stated that he would gladly use the bricks from these ruins, but that he was afraid of the consequences. So, in Bombay, interference with the bricks of an ancient dam brought Guinea worm and dysentery into a village, and some labourers were cut off who meddled with some ancient tombs at Ahmadnagar.129 General Cunningham, in one of his Reports, describes how on one occasion, when carrying on some excavations, his elephant escaped, and was recovered with difficulty; the people unanimously attributed the disaster to the vengeance of the local ghosts, who resented his proceedings.

The people who live in the neighbourhood of the old city of Sahet Mahet are, for the same reason, very unwilling to meddle with its ruins, or even to enter it at night. When Mr. Benett was there, a storm which occurred was generally believed to be a token of the displeasure of the spirits at his intrusion on their domains.130 The tomb of Shaikh Mîna Shâh at Lucknow was demolished during the Mutiny, and the workmen suffered so much trouble from the wrath of the saint, that when the disturbances were over they collected and rebuilt it at their own expense.

The same theory exists in other countries. Thus, in the Isle of Man, “a good Manx scholar told me how a relative of his had carted the earth from an old burial ground on his [282]farm and used it as manure for his fields, and how his beasts died afterwards. It is possible for a similar reason that a house in ruins is seldom pulled down and the materials used for other buildings; where that has been done misfortunes have ensued.”131

In the Konkan it is believed that all treasures buried underground, all the mines of gold, silver, and precious stones, all old caves and all ruined fortresses, are guarded by underground spirits in the shape of a hairy serpent or frog. These spirits never leave their places, and they attack and injure only those persons who come to remove the things which they are guarding.132 In short, these places are like the Sith Bhruaith mounds in Scotland, which were respected, and it was deemed unlawful and dangerous to cut wood, dig earth there, or otherwise disturb them.

In the same way the sites of ancient villages which abound in Northern India are more or less respected. They were abandoned on account of the ravages of war, famine, or pestilence, and are guarded by the spirits of the original owners, these calamities being self-evident proofs of the malignity and displeasure of the local deities.

Mine and Cave Spirits

We have already mentioned incidentally the mine spirits. It is not difficult to see why the spirits of mine and cave should be malignant and resent trespass on their territories, because by the nature of the case they are directly in communication with the under-world.

In the folk-tales of Somadeva we have more than one reference to a cave which leads to Pâtâla, “the rifted rock whose entrance leads to hell.” Others are the entrance to fairy palaces, where dwell the Asura maidens beneath the earth.133 Of a mine at Patna, Dr. Buchanan writes: “A stone-cutter who was in my service was going into one of the shafts to break a specimen, when the guide, a Muhammadan trader, acquainted [283]with the fears of the workmen, pulled him back in alarm, and said, ‘Pull off your shoes! Will you profane the abode of the gods?’” Under the same belief, the Cornish miners will allow no whistling underground.134

CAVE TEMPLE OF ANNAPÛRNA.

Mr. Spencer suggests that the respect for caves is based on the early practice of burial in such places.135 At any rate, the belief is very general that spirits and deities live in caves. There is a whole cycle of fairy legend centering round the belief that some of the heroes of old live in caves surrounded by their faithful followers, and will arise some day to win back their kingdom.

Thus, Bruce and his enchanted warriors lie in a cave in Rathlin Island, and one day they will arise and win back the island for Scotland.136 The same tale is told of Arthur, Karl the Great, Barbarossa, and many other heroes. The same tale appears in Oriental folk-lore in the shape of the Ashâbu-’l-Kahf, “the companions of the cave,” the seven sleepers of Ephesus. So the famous Alha of the Bundelkhand epic is said to be still alive. He makes regular visits on the last day of the moon to Devî Sârad’s temple on the Mahiyâr Hill, where he has been repeatedly seen and followed. But he sternly warns any one from approaching him, and the main proof of his presence is that some unknown hand puts a fresh garland on the statue of the goddess every day.137

Cave Deities

In India many deities live in caves. There are cave temples of Kâlî, Annapûrna, and Sûraj Nârâyan, the Sun god, at Hardwâr. Kumaun abounds in such temples. That at Gaurî Udyâr is where Siva and Pârvatî once halted for the night with their marriage procession. Their attendants overslept themselves and were turned into the stalactites for which the cave is famous. Another is called from its depth Pâtâla Bhuvaneswar, from the roof of which a [284]white liquid trickles.

The attendant of the shrine says that this was milk in the olden days, but a greedy Jogi boiled his rice in it and since then the supply has ceased. Another is called Guptâ Gangâ or “the hidden Ganges,” whose waters may be heard rushing below. Hence bathing there is as efficacious as in the sacred river itself.138 Among the Korwas of Chota Nâgpur, their bloodthirsty deity has a cave for her residence. Mahâdeva, say the Gonds, shut up the founders of their race in a cave in the Himâlayas, but Lingo removed the stone and released sixteen crores of Gonds.

Talâo Daitya, a noted demon of Kâthiâwâr, lives in a cave where a lamp is lit which never goes out, however violently the wind may blow or the rain may fall. Saptasrî Devî, a much dreaded spirit in the Konkan, lives in a cave; such is also the case with the eight-armed Devî at Asthbhuja, in the Mirzapur District. Her devotees have to creep through a narrow passage into what is now the shrine of the goddess, but is said to have been, and very probably was, a cave.139

When the Korwas of Mirzapur have to enter a cave, they first arm themselves with a rude spear and axe as a protection against Bhûts. There are two haunted caves in the Mircha and Banka Hills in Sarguja. The Mircha cave is inhabited by a demon called Mahâdâni Deo, who is much feared. Not even a Baiga can enter this cave, but many of them have seen his white horse tied up near the entrance, and green grass and horsedung lying there. In the cave on the Banka Hill lives a Dâno, whose name either no one knows or dares to tell.

No one ventures to enter his cave, and he worries people in dreams and brings sickness, unless a Baiga periodically offers a cock with black and white feathers below the cave, makes a fire sacrifice and throws some grains of rice in the direction of the mountain. When this Deo is enraged, a noise which sounds like Gudgud! Gudgud! comes from the cave. He is also heard shouting [285]at night, and when cholera is coming he calls out Khabardâr! Khabardâr! “Be cautious! Be cautious!” Any one who goes near the cave gets diarrhœa. Captain Younghusband has recently solved the mystery of the famous Lamp Rock cave of Central Asia, which is simply the light coming through a concealed aperture at the rear of the entrance.140

Many caves, again, have acquired their sanctity by being occupied by famous Hindu and Muhammadan saints. Such are some of the Buddhistic caves found in many places, which are now occupied by their successors of other faiths. There is a cave at Bhuili, in the Mirzapur District, which has a very narrow entrance, but miraculously expands to accommodate any possible number of pilgrims.

They say that when the saint Salîm Chishti came to visit Shâh Vilâyat at Agra, the stone seat in front of the mosque of the latter was large enough to accommodate only one person, but when Salîm Chishti sat on it its length was miraculously doubled.141

These cave spirits are common in European folk-lore. Such are the Buccas and Knockers of the Cornwall mines,142 and the Kobolds of Germany. Falstaff speaks of “learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil.” Burton thus sums up the matter: “Subterraneous devils are as common as the rest, and do as much harm. These (saith Munster) are commonly seen among mines of metals, and are some of them noxious; some, again, do no harm. The metal men in many places account it good luck, a sign of treasure and rich ore, when they see them. Georgius Agricola reckons two more notable kinds of them, Getuli and Kobali; both are clothed after the manner of mortal men, and will many times imitate their works.

Their office is, as Pictorius and Paracelsus think, to keep treasure in the earth, that it be not all at once revealed.”143 [286]

Bhûts Treasure Guardians

This leads us to the common idea that Bhûts, like the Cornwall Spriggans,144 guard treasure. Ill luck very often attaches to treasure-trove. Some years ago a Chamâr dug up some treasure in the ancient fort of Atranji Khera in the Etah District. He did his best to purge himself of the ill luck attaching to it by giving away a large portion in charity. But he died a beggar, and the whole country-side attributes his ruin to the anger of the Bhûts who guarded the treasure. Some time ago an old man came into my court at Mirzapur and gave up two old brass pots, which he had found while ploughing about a year before. Since then he had suffered a succession of troubles, and his son, who was with him when he found the property, died. He then called a conference of sorcerers to consider the matter, and they advised him to appease the Bhût by giving up the treasure.

He further remarked that the Sarkâr or Government doubtless knew some Mantra or charm which would prevent any harm to it from taking over such dangerous property. Occasionally, however, the Bhût is worsted, as in a Kumaun tale, where an old man and his daughter-in-law tie up a Bhût and make him give up five jars full of gold.145

Treasure is often thus kept guarded in sacred caves. In Jaynagar is said to be the treasury of Indradyumna, sealed with a magic seal. He was king of Avanti, who set up the image of Jagannâtha in Orissa. The spot presents the appearance of a plain smooth rock, which has been perhaps artificially smoothed. It is said that Indradyumna had a great warrior, whom he fully trusted and raised to the highest honours. At last this man began to entertain the idea of asking his master’s daughter in marriage. The king, hearing this, was sorely wroth, but his dependent was too powerful to be easily subdued. So he contrived that a cavern should be excavated, and here he removed all his treasure, and when all was secured he invited the warrior to [287]the place.

The man unsuspectingly went in, when Indradyumna let fall the trap-door and sealed it with his magic seal; but he was punished for his wickedness by defeat at the hands of the Muhammadans.146

In Ireland the Leprehaun, a little cobbler who sits under the hedge and whose tapping as he mends his shoes may be heard in the soft summer twilight, is a guardian of treasure, and if any one can seize him he will give a pot of gold to secure his escape.147

Fairy Gifts

In connection with these treasure guardians, we reach another cycle of folk-lore legends, that of gifts or robberies from fairy-land. Professor Rhys, writing of the Celts, well explains the principle on which these are based.148 “The Celts, in common with all other peoples of Aryan race, regarded all their domestic comforts as derived by them from their ancestors in the forgotten past, that is to say from the departed.

They seem, therefore, to have argued that there must be a land of untold wealth and bliss somewhere in the nether world inhabited by their dead ancestors; and the further inference would be that the things they most valued in life had been procured from the leaders of that nether world through fraud or force by some great benefactor of the human race; for it seldom seems to have entered their minds that the powers below would give up anything for nothing.” Hence the many tales which thus account for the bringing of fire and other blessings to man.

Of the same type are the usual tales of the fairy gifts. Thus, in one version from Patna we read that one day a corpse came floating down the river, and a Faqîr announced that this was Chân Hâji. He was duly buried and honoured, and in many places he used to keep silver and gold vessels for the use of travellers.

If anyone wanted [288]a vessel, he had only to say so, and one used to float out of the water. But a covetous man appropriated one, and since then the supply has ceased.149 The same legend is told of the great Karsota lake in Mirzapur, and of numbers of others all over the country. The culprit is generally a Banya, or corn-chandler, the type of sneaking greediness. The same story appears constantly in European folk-lore, as is shown by Mr. Hartland’s admirable summary.150

Another version current in India also corresponds with the Western tradition. This is where a person receives a gift from the fairies, which he does not appreciate, and so loses. Thus, in a tale from Râêpur, in the Central Provinces, the goatherd used to watch a strange goat, which joined his flock. One day it walked into the tank and disappeared.

While the goatherd was looking on in wonder, a stone was thrown to him from the water, and a voice exclaimed, “This is the reward of your labour.” The disappointed goatherd knocked the stone back into the water with his axe. But he found that his axe had been changed by the touch into gold. He searched for the stone, but could never find it again.151

In another tale of the same kind, the cowherd tends the cow of the fairy, and, following the animal into a cave, receives some golden wheat. In a third version, the fool throws away a handful of golden barley, and only comes to know of his mistake when his wife finds that some fuel cakes, on which he had laid his blanket, had turned into gold.152 So, at Pathari, in Bhopâl, there lived a Muni, or a Pîr, in a cave unknown to any one. His goat used to graze with the herdsman’s flock. The shepherd, one day, followed the goat into the cave and found an old man sitting intent in meditation.

He made a noise to attract the saint’s attention, who asked the object of his visit. The herdsman asked for wages, whereupon the saint gave him a handful of barley. He took it home, and, in disgust, [289]threw it on fire, where his wife soon after found it turned into gold. The herdsman went back to thank the old man, but found the cave deserted, and its occupant was never heard of again. The shepherd devoted the wealth, thus miraculously acquired, to building a temple.153

Underground Treasure

This underground kingdom, stored with untold treasure, appears in other tales. Thus, Kâfir Kot, like many other places of the same kind, is supposed to have underground galleries holding untold treasures. One day a man is said to have entered an opening, where he found a flight of steps. Going down the steps, he came to rooms filled with many valuable things. Selecting a few, he turned to go, but he found the entrance closed.

On dropping the treasure the door opened again, and it shut when he again tried to take something with him. According to another version he lost his sight when he touched the magic wealth, and it was restored when he surrendered the treasure.154

Another tale of the same kind is preserved by the old Buddhist traveller, Hwen Thsang.155 There was a herdsman who tended his cattle near Bhâgalpur. One day a bull separated from the rest of the herd and roamed into the forest. The herdsman feared that the animal was lost, but in the evening he returned radiant with beauty.

Even his lowing was so remarkable that the rest of the cattle feared to approach him. At last the herdsman followed him into a cleft of the rock, where he found a lovely garden filled with fruits, exquisite of colour and unknown to man. The herdsman plucked one, but was afraid to taste it, and, as he passed out, a demon snatched it from his hand.

He consulted a doctor, who recommended him next time to eat the fruit. When he again met the demon, who as before tried to pluck it out of his hand, the herdsman ate it. But no sooner had it reached his stomach than it began to [290]swell inside him, and he grew so enormous, that although his head was outside, his body was jammed in the fissure of the rock. His friends in vain tried to release him, and he was gradually changed into stone. Ages after, a king who believed that such a stone must possess medical virtues, tried to chisel away a small portion, but the workmen, after ten days’ labour, were not able to get even a pinch of dust.

These treasure rocks, which open to the touch of magic, are common in folk-lore.156

Ghosts of Roads

Bhûts are also found at roads, cross-roads, and boundaries. It is so in Russia, where, “at cross-roads, or in the neighbourhood of cemeteries, an animated corpse often lurks watching for some unwary traveller whom it may be able to slay and eat.”157 Thus, in the Hills, and indeed as far as Madras, an approved charm for getting rid of a disease of demoniacal origin is to plant a stake where four roads meet, and to bury grains underneath, which crows disinter and eat.158 The custom of laying small-pox scabs on roads has been already noticed. The same idea is probably at the root of the old English plan of burying suicides at cross-roads, with a stake driven through the chest of the corpse.

In the eastern parts of the North-West Provinces we have Sewanriya, who, like Terminus, is a special godling of boundaries, and whose function is to keep foreign Bhûts from intruding into the village under his charge. For the same reason the Baiga pours a stream of spirits round the boundary.

This is also probably the basis of a long series of customs performed, when the bridegroom, with his procession, reaches the boundary of the bride’s village. Of the Khândh godling of boundaries, we read:—“He is adored by sacrifices human and bestial. Particular points upon [291]the boundaries of districts, fixed by ancient usage, and generally upon the highways, are his altars, and these demand each an annual victim, who is either an unsuspecting traveller struck down by the priests, or a sacrifice provided by purchase.”159

Ghosts of Empty Houses

Bhûts particularly infest ancient empty houses. If a house be unoccupied for any time, a Bhût is sure to take up his quarters there. Such houses abound everywhere. The old Fort of Agori on the Son is said to have been abandoned on account of the malignancy of its Bhûts. Not long ago a merchant built a splendid house in the Mirzapur Bâzâr, and was obliged to abandon it for the same reason.

The Collector’s house at Sahâranpur is haunted by a young English lady; there is one in the Jhânsi cantonment, where a Bhût, in the form of a Faqîr, dressed in white clothes, appears at night. Fortunately he is of a kindly disposition.

Ghosts of Flowers

Bhûts occasionally take up their abode in flowers, and hence it is dangerous to allow children to smell them. In Kumaun the Betaina tree (Melia sempervivens) is supposed to be infested by Bhûts, and its flowers are never used as offerings to the gods.160 But, on the other hand, as we shall see elsewhere, flowers and fruits are considered scarers of demons. Bhûts, it is believed, do their cooking at noon and evening, so women and children should be cautious about walking at such times, lest they should tread unwittingly upon this ghostly food and incur the resentment of its owners.161 In the same way the Scotch fairies are supposed to be at their meals when rain and sunshine come together. In England, at such times the devil is said to [292]be beating his wife, and in India they call it the “Jackal’s wedding.”162

The Hearth

Among the many places where Bhûts resort comes the house hearth. This probably in a large measure accounts for the precautions taken by Hindus in preparing and protecting the family cooking-place, and smearing it with fresh cowdung, which is a scarer of demons. The idea was common among all the Aryan races,163 but it is found also among the Drâvidian tribes, who perform much of the worship of Dulha Deo and similar family guardians at the family hearth. In Northern India, when a bride first goes to the house of her husband she is not permitted to cook.

On an auspicious day, selected by the family priest, she commences her duties, and receives presents of money and jewellery from her relations. Among the low castes, at marriages a special rite, that of Matmangara, or “lucky earth,” is performed, when the earth intended for the preparation of the marriage cooking-place is brought home. The women go in procession to the village clay-pit, accompanied by a Chamâr beating a drum, which is decorated with streaks of red lead.

The earth is dug by the village Baiga, who passes five shovelfuls into the breast-cloth of a veiled virgin, who stands behind him. So, in Bihâr, after bathing the bride and bridegroom, the mother or female guardian brings home a clod of earth, out of which a rude fireplace is prepared. On this butter is burnt, and paddy parched on the threshold of the kitchen, where the spirit is supposed to dwell. A goat is sacrificed at the same time, and some of this parched paddy is reserved, to be flung over the pair as they make the marriage revolutions.164

For the same reason great care is taken of the ashes, [293]which must be removed with caution and not allowed to fall on the ground. We have seen that it is used to identify the spirits of the returning dead, and ashes blown over by a holy man are used to expel the Evil Eye. In Bombay a person excommunicated from caste is re-admitted on swallowing ashes given him by the religious teacher of the caste.

Most Hindus particularly dislike being watched at their meals, and make a pretence of eating in secret. If on a walk round your camp you come on one of your servants eating, he pretends not to recognize his master, and his hang-dog look is the equivalent of the ordinary salaam. This is an idea which prevails in many parts of the world. The Vaishnava sect of Râmânujas165 are very particular in this respect. They cook for themselves, and should the meal during its preparation, or while they are eating, attract the looks of a stranger, the operation is instantly stopped, and the food buried in the ground.

Ghosts of Filthy Places

Bhûts, again, frequent privies and dirty places of all kinds. Hence the caution with which a Hindu performs the offices of nature, his aversion to going into a privy at night, and the precaution he uses of taking a brass vessel with him on such occasions. Mr. Campbell supposes this to depend on the experience of the disease-bearing properties of dirt.166 “This belief explains the puzzling inconsistencies of Hindus of all classes that the house, house door, and a little in front is scrupulously clean, while the yard may be a dung-heap or a privy. As long as the house is clean, the Bhût cannot come in. Let him live in the privy; he cannot do much harm there.”

The House Roof

Lastly comes the house roof. We have already seen that the Drâvidian tribes will not allow their women to touch [294]the thatch during a whirlwind. So, most people particularly object to people standing on their roof, and in a special degree to a buffalo getting upon it. It is on the roof, too, that the old shoe or black pot or painted tile is always kept to scare the Bhûts which use it as a perch.

________________________________________

1 “Observations,” 625; and see Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 150; Lubbock, “Origin of Civilization,” 220; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 27; Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 215 sq.; Sir W. Scott, “Letters on Demonology,” 90.

2 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iii. 166.

3 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 21, 420; Miss Cox, “Cinderella,” 489; Clouston, “Popular Tales,” i. 437.

4 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 31; Clouston, loc. cit., ii. 228; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 588.

5 Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 144.

6 “Panjâb Ethnography,” 116.

7 Ibbetson, loc. cit., 117.

8 Aubrey, “Remaines,” 121; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 44, 233.

9 Campbell, “Notes,” 171.

10 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 13; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 4.

11 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iv. 57.

12 See Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” xvii. 147.

13 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 261.

14 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iv. 51; Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk Tales,” 199; “Govinda Sâmanta,” i. 109, 152 sq., 157; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 83.

15 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xv. 150; Campbell, “Notes,” 172.

16 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iv. 5; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 9; iii. 74.

17 Hislop, “Notes,” i. 3.

18 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 114, 167; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 102; Aubrey, “Remaines,” 177, 194; Campbell, “Notes,” 177.

19 Fausböll, “Jâtaka,” ii. 15 sq.; Ibbetson, “Panjâb Ethnography,” 118.

20 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 254.

21 Campbell, “Notes,” 177.

22 “Odyssey,” xvii. 541 sq.; Yule, “Marco Polo,” ii. 351; Aubrey, “Remaines,” 177.

23 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 117.

24 “Folk-lore,” ii. 289.

25 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 109.

26 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Gobinda Sâmanta,” i. 115 sqq.

27 Ralston, “Russian Folk-tales,” 306.

28 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 231, 543.

29 Ibid., ii. 208.

30 Wilson, “Essays,” i. 26.

31 Buchanan, “Eastern India,” i. 65, 166.

32 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 256 sqq.

33 Knowles, “Kashmîr Folk-tales,” 43; Clouston, “Popular Tales,” i. 135.

34 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 210; ii. 318.

35 “Journal Royal Asiatic Society,” N.S. ii. 300; “Ancient Sanskrit Texts,” iv. 247; Wilson, “Rig Veda,” i. 107.

36 Manu, “Institutes,” iii. 90; Haug, “Aitareya Brâhmanam,” ii. 87, 90 sq.

37 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” ii. 132; Lai Behâri Dê, “Govinda Sâmanta,” i. 117; Campbell, “Notes,” 24 sqq.

38 “Journal Asiatic Society Bengal,” 1847, p. 582.

39 “Folk-lore,” iii. 323.

40 Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 381.

41 Hartland, “Legend of Perseus,” i. 16.

42 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 75, 270.

43 Miss Frere, “Old Deccan Days,” 41, 198; Wright, “History of Nepâl,” 175; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 257.

44 Miss Frere, loc. cit., 82, 58, 62, 208, 268 sqq.; Knowles, “Kashmîr Folk-tales,” 47.

45 Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 352, note; Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” ii. 21.

46 Tylor, “Early History,” 316; Herodotus, i. 68.

47 Campbell, “Popular Tales,” ii. 95; “Wideawake Stories,” 404 sqq.; Miss Stokes, “Fairy Tales,” 261; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 161; Frazer, “Golden Bough,” ii. 300; Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 42, 47; Hartland, “Legend of Perseus,” ii. chap. viii.

48 “Central Provinces Gazetteer,” 428; Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” ix. 142; xviii. 5; “Indian Antiquary,” vi. 360; “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 449; compare Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 394 sq.; Wright, “History of Nepâl,” 175; “Folk-lore,” i. 524.

49 Führer, “Monumental Antiquities,” 7, 40, 103.

50 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 43, 75.

51 Buchanan, “Eastern India,” i. 88; iii. 56.

52 Grimm, “Household Tales,” ii. 413; Hunt, loc. cit., 136.

53 Knowles, “Folk-tales of Kashmîr,” 423.

54 Annals, ii. 382, note; Wright, “History of Nepâl,” 86.

55 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 71.

56 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Folk-tales,” 257; Miss Stokes, “Fairy Tales,” 273, 291; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” ii. 98 sq., 378; Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 55.

57 Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” xvii. 1.

58 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 1.

59 “Gazetteer,” xi. 308.

60 Risley, “Tribes and Castes of Bengal,” i. 303.

61 Grimm, “Teutonic Mythology,” ii. 449.

62 Campbell, “Notes,” 150.

63 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 57, 80, 130.

64 “Annals,” ii. 681.

65 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 145, 244; Campbell, “Popular Tales,” ii. 101; “Folk-lore,” iv. 352; Grimm, “Household Tales,” i. 346.

66 Lâl Bihâri Dê, “Govinda Sâmanta,” i. 9; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 199.

67 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xxv. 457.

68 “Oudh Gazetteer,” i. 308, 311.

69 Lâl Behâri Dê, “Govinda Sâmanta,” i. 158.

70 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 180.

71 Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” xx. 96.

72 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 213.

73 Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 308; Grote, “History of Greece,” iv. 285; “Folk-lore,” i. 167.

74 Leland, loc. cit., 95.

75 Traill, “Asiatic Researches,” xvi. 137 sq.

76 Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 820.

77 Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 428 sq.

78 Wright, “History,” 153; Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 142.

79 Traill, “Asiatic Researches,” xvi. 137 sq.; “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 27.

80 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 223.

81 Brand, “Observation,” 571.

82 Oppert, “Original Inhabitants,” 505.

83 Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 825 sqq.; Madden, “Journal Asiatic Society Bengal,” 1847, p. 599 sqq.

84 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” i. 120; iii. 171.

85 Traill, “Asiatic Researches,” xvi. 137; Atkinson, loc. cit., ii. 831; Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 101.

86 Grierson, “Behâr Peasant Life,” 408.

87 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 251.

88 Campbell, “Notes,” 387; Hartland, “Science of Fairy Tales,” 93 sqq.

89 “Rig Veda,” iv. 17, 16; i. 51, 13.

90 Burton, “Arabian Nights,” i. 9, note.

91 Hughes, “Dictionary of Islâm,” s.v. Genii; Burton, “Arabian Nights,” passim.

92 “Eastern India,” i. 106.

93 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 132.

94 “Central Provinces Gazetteer,” 280.

95 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 253.

96 Ibbetson, “Panjâb Ethnography,” 117.

97 Campbell, “Notes,” 149.

98 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 185, 187; ii. 238.

99 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” iii. 204.

100 Campbell, “Notes,” 156.

101 Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 307; Pliny, “Natural History,” vii. 2.

102 Rhys, “Lectures,” 156.

103 Leland, “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 158.

104 “Folk-lore,” ii. 288; Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 7, 39.

105 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” ii. 198; Hartland, “Science of Fairy Tales,” 42.

106 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 94.

107 Campbell, “Notes,” 488.

108 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 227.

109 Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 932.

110 “Folk-lore,” iv. 363.

111 “Etruscan Roman Remains,” 337.

112 Blochmann, “Aîn-i-Akbari,” i. 139.

113 “Oudh Gazetteer,” ii. 418.

114 Yule, “Marco Polo,” ii. 70, with note.

115 “Lectures,” 626 sq.

116 The most recent authority on the subject, Mr. Hartland, sums up the matter thus: “It is founded on the belief that the child is a part of the parent; and, just as after apparent severance of hair and nails from the remainder of the body, the bulk is affected by anything which happens to the severed portion, so as well after as before the infant has been severed from the parent’s body, and in our eyes has acquired a distinct existence, he will be affected by whatever operates on the parent.

Hence whatever the parent ought for the child’s sake to do or avoid before severance it is equally necessary to do or avoid after. Gradually, however, as the infant grows and strengthens he becomes able to digest the same food as his parents, and to take part in the ordinary avocations of their lives. Precaution then may be relaxed, and ultimately remitted altogether,”—“Legend of Perseus,” ii. 406.

117 “Brâhmanism and Hinduism,” 229.

118 Dalton, “Descriptive Ethnology,” 191; Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 323; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 84.

119 Campbell, “Notes,” 410.

120 Ibid.

121 “Sirsa Settlement Report,” 32.

122 Wright, “History,” 15; Yule, “Marco Polo,” i. 203; Spencer, “Principles of Sociology,” i. 249 sq.; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 278.

123 “Remaines,” 109 sq.; Spencer, loc. cit., i. 329; Farrer, “Primitive Manners,” 24, 225 sq.

124 Isaiah xxxiv. 14; Mayhew, “Academy,” June 14th, 1884; Conway, “Demonology,” ii. 91 sqq.; Gubernatis, “Zoological Mythology,” ii. 202.

125 Campbell, “Notes,” 59.

126 “Journal Asiatic Society Bengal,” 1848, p. 609; Benjamin, “Persia,” 192; Tylor, “Primitive Culture,” i. 451.

127 Frazer, “Golden Bough,” i. 204; Tylor, loc. cit., ii. 230; “Early History,” 358; Cox, “Mythology of the Aryan Nations,” ii. 327; Conway, “Demonology,” i. 18.

128 “Eastern India,” i. 414.

129 “Bombay Gazetteer,” xii. 13; xvii. 703.

130 “Oudh Gazetteer,” iii. 286.

131 “Folk-lore,” iii. 83.

132 Campbell, “Notes,” 150 sq.

133 Tawney, “Katha Sarit Sâgara,” i. 446, 558; ii. 197.

134 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 431.

135 “Principles of Sociology,” i. 201.

136 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 86.

137 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 27.

138 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 106; iii. 147.

139 Atkinson, “Himâlayan Gazetteer,” ii. 321 sq.; “Bombay Gazetteer,” viii. 660; xi. 383.

140 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 103 sq.

141 Ibid., ii. 3.

142 Hunt, “Popular Romances,” 82.

143 “Anatomy of Melancholy,” 126.

144 Hunt, loc. cit., 81.

145 Ganga Datt Upreti, “Folk-lore,” 10.

146 Cunningham, “Archæological Reports,” x. 117.

147 Lady Wilde, “Legends,” 56; Henderson, “Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,” 320 sq.; “Folk-lore,” iv. 180.

148 “Lectures,” 265.

149 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” ii. 58.

150 “Science of Fairy Tales,” chap. vi.

151 “Archæological Reports,” xxiii. 91.

152 Ibid., xvii. 31; x. 72.

153 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” II. 174.

154 Ibid., II. 29.

155 Julien’s “Translation,” i. 179.

156 Miss Cox, “Cinderella,” 498.

157 Ralston, “Russian Folk-tales,” 311.

158 “North Indian Notes and Queries,” i. 100.

159 Macpherson, “Khonds,” 67 sq.

160 Ganga Datt, “Folk-lore,” 97.

161 “Panjâb Notes and Queries,” iv. 132.

162 Campbell, “Popular Tales,” ii. 63.

163 Hearn, “Aryan Household,” 55 sq.

164 Risley, “Tribes and Castes,” i. 456.

165 Wilson, “Essays,” i. 39.

166 “Notes,” 169.

[Contents]

LONDON: PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD., ST. JOHN’S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL ROAD, E.C.

Page Source Correction 2 Hindu- Hinduism,” 8 ’ ” 12 Uma Umâ 17 Gopis Gopîs 25 Bâbâ Bâba 29 similiar similar 45, 122, 274, 276 [Not in source] ” 51 orginal original 60 Diê Dê 72 Buddukal Baddukal 91 Yudishthira Yudhisthira 98 a a a 103 godling godlings 114 Khalâri Khalârî 127 Gândhâri Gândharî 128 saîd said 129 Gurgaon Gurgâon 140 Tumhârîjay Tumhârî jay 146 Punjâb Panjâb 154, 240 “ [Deleted] 155 Dakkin Dakkhin 162 remimbrance remembrance 167 passsing passing 171, 207, 232 [Not in source] . 194 Khan Khân 199 sacrified sacrificed 214 Janamejaya Janamejâya 241 sneeze sneezes 242 ununlucky unlucky 243 tell tells 283 ANNAPÛRNÂ ANNAPÛRNA 283 centring centering 283 Annapûrnâ Annapûrna