The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Vol. 1&2). William Crooke
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Vol. 1&2) - William Crooke страница 23
Название: The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Vol. 1&2)
Автор: William Crooke
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Документальная литература
isbn: 4064066400101
isbn:
Another instance of the nudity rite in connection with cattle disease comes from Jâlandhar.173 “When an animal is sick the remedy is for some one to strip himself and to walk round the patient with some burning straw or cane fibre in his hands.”
Nudity also appears to be in some places a condition of the erection of a pinnacle on a Hindu temple. “The Temple of Arang in Râêpur district and that at Deobalada were built at the same time. When they were finished and the pinnacles (kalas) had to be put on, the mason and his sister agreed to put them on simultaneously at an auspicious moment. The day and hour being fixed by Brâhmans, the two, stripping themselves naked, according to custom on such occasions, climbed up to the top. As they got up to the top each could see the other, and each through shame jumped down into the tank close to their respective temples, where they still stand turned into stone, and are visible when the tank water falls low in seasons of drought.”174
Of the regular nudity rite in case of failure of rain, we have a recent instance from Chunâr in the Mirzapur district. “The rains this year held off for a long time, and last night (24th July, 1892) the following ceremony was performed secretly. Between the hours of 9 and 10 p.m. a barber’s wife went from door to door and invited all the women to join in ploughing. They all collected in a field from which all males were excluded. Three women from a cultivator’s family stripped off all their clothes; two were yoked to a plough like oxen, and a third held the handle. They then began to imitate the operation of ploughing. The woman who had the plough in her hand shouted, ‘O Mother Earth! bring parched grain, water and chaff. Our bellies are bursting to pieces from hunger and thirst.’ Then the landlord and village accountant approached them and laid down some grain, water and chaff in the field. The women then dressed and went home. By the grace of God the weather changed almost immediately, and we had a good shower.”175 Here we see the ceremony elaborately organized; the privacy taboo is enforced, and the ritual is in the nature of sympathetic magic, intended to propitiate Mother Earth.
The nudity rite for the expulsion of disease is also found in Madras. “The image of Mariyamma, cut out of Margosa wood, is carried from her temple to a stone called a Baddukal, in the centre of the village, on the afternoon of the first day of the feast. A rounded stone, about six inches above the ground and about eight inches across, is to be seen just inside the gate of every village. It is what is called the Baddukal or navel stone; it is worshipped in times of calamity, especially during periods of cattle disease; often women passing it with water pour a little on it, and every one on first going out of the village in the morning is supposed to give it some little tribute of attention. The following day all men and women of Sûdra castes substitute garments of leaves of the Margosa, little branches tied together, for their ordinary clothes, and thus attired go with music to the goddess.”176 Here the dress may imply some form of nudity rite, or may be a reminiscence of the time when, like the Juângs of Chota Nâgpur, they wore leaf aprons.
There can be little doubt that rites of this kind largely prevail in India, but, as might naturally be expected, they are very carefully concealed, and it is extremely difficult to obtain precise information about them.
Other Rites to bring Rain.
Besides these nudity rites there are many ways of causing rain to fall. In Kumaun when rain fails they sink a Brâhman up to his lips in a tank, and there he goes on repeating the name of Râja Indra, the god of rain, for a day or two, when rain is sure to fall; or they dig a trench five or six feet deep and make a Brâhman or a Jogi sit in it, when the god, in pity for the holy man, will relent and give rain. Another plan is to hang a frog with his mouth open on a bamboo, and the deity pities him and brings the rain.177 In Mirzapur they turn a plough upside down and bury it in a field, rub the lingam of Mahâdeva with cow-dung, and offer water at the grave of a Brahm or bachelor Brâhman.
Among the Bhîls in time of drought women and girls go out dancing and singing with bows and arrows in their hands, and seizing a buffalo belonging to another village, sacrifice it to the goddess Kâlî. The headman of the village to which the animal belongs seldom objects to the appropriation of it. If he does, the women by abusing and threatening to shoot him always have their own way.178 Analogous to this regular rain sacrifice is the custom at Ahmadnagar, where on the bright 3rd of Baisâkh (April–May) the boys of two neighbouring villages fight with slings and stones. The local belief is that if the fight be discontinued, rain fails, or if rain does fall that it produces a plague of rats.179 At Ahmadâbâd, again, there is a city headman, known as the Nagar Seth or “chief man of the town.” When rain holds off he has to perambulate the city walls, pouring out milk to appease Râja Indra.180 Here we reach the “sympathetic magic” type of observance under which most of the other practices may be classed, though here and there we seem to find the germ of the principle of vicarious sacrifice. Thus in the Panjâb the village girls pour down on an old woman as she passes some cow-dung dissolved in water; or an old woman is made to sit down under the house-roof spout and get a wetting when it rains. Here the idea must be that her sufferings in some way propitiate the angry god. In the Muzaffarnagar District, if rain fails, they worship Râja Indra and read the story of the Megha Râja, or king of the rain. In his name they give alms to the poor and release a young bull or buffalo. Crushed grain is cooked on the edge of a tank in his honour and in the name of the rain god Khwâja Khizr, and some offering is made to Bhûmiya, the lord of the soil. In Chhattarpur, on a wall facing the east, they paint two figures with cow-dung—one representing Indra and the other Megha Râja, with their legs up and their heads hanging down. It is supposed that the discomfort thus caused to them will compel them to grant the boon of rain. The Mirzapur Korwas, when rain fails, get the Baiga to make a sacrifice and prayer to Sûraj Deota, the Sun godling.
Another common plan in Upper India is for a gang of women to come out to where a man is ploughing and drive him and his oxen by force back to the village, where he and his cattle are well fed. Another device is to seize the blacksmith’s anvil and pitch it into a well or the village tank. We have already given instances of the connection of wells with rainfall, such as the case of the well in Farghâna which caused rain if defiled.181 Mr. Gomme has collected several European instances of the same belief.182 The anvil is probably used for this purpose because it is regarded as a sort of fetish, and the blacksmith himself is, as we shall see later on, considered as invested with supernatural powers.
In the Panjâb, apparently on the principle of vicarious sacrifice to which reference has been already made, an earthen pot of filth is carried to the door of some old woman cursed with a СКАЧАТЬ