The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Vol. 1&2). William Crooke
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Название: The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Vol. 1&2)
Автор: William Crooke
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Документальная литература
isbn: 4064066400101
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The worship of Hanumân appears, if the Census returns are to be trusted, to be much more popular in the North-West Provinces than in the Panjâb. In the former his devotees numbered about a million, and in the latter less than ten thousand persons. But the figures are probably open to question, as he is often worshipped in association with other deities.
Worship of Bhîmsen.
Another of these beneficent guardians or wardens is Bhîmsen, “he who has a terrible army.” He has now in popular belief very little in common with the burly hero of the Mahâbhârata, who was notorious for his gigantic strength, great animal courage, prodigious appetite and irascible temper; jovial and jocular when in good humour, but abusive, truculent and brutal when his passions were roused.14 He is now little more than one of the wardens of the house or village.
In parts of the Central Provinces he has become degraded into a mere fetish, and is represented by a piece of iron fixed in a stone or in a tree.15 Under the name of Bhîmsen or Bhîmpen, his worship extends from Berâr to the extreme east of Bastar, and not merely among the Hinduized aborigines, who have begun to honour Khandoba, Hanumân, Ganpati and their brethren, but among the rudest and most savage tribes. He is generally adored under the form of an unshapely stone covered with vermilion, or of two pieces of wood standing from three to four feet out of the ground, which are possibly connected with the phallic idea, towards which so many of these deities often diverge. Bhiwâsu, the regular Gond deity, is identical with him. Mr. Hislop16 mentions a large idol of him eight feet high, with a dagger in one hand and a javelin in the other. He has an aboriginal priest, known as Bhûmak, or “he of the soil,” and the people repair to worship on Tuesdays and Saturdays, offering he-goats, hogs, hens, cocks and cocoa-nuts. The headman of the village and the cultivators subscribe for an annual feast, which takes place at the commencement of the rains, when the priest takes a cow from the headman by force and offers it to the godling in the presence of his congregation. The Mâriya Gonds worship him in the form of two pieces of wood previous to the sowing of the crops. The Naikudê Gonds adore him in the form of a huge stone daubed with vermilion. Before it a little rice is cooked. They then besmear the stone with vermilion and burn resin as incense in its honour, after which the victims—sheep, hogs and fowls—with the usual oblation of spirits, are offered. The god is now supposed to inspire the priest, who rolls his head, leaps frantically round and round, and finally falls down in a trance, when he announces whether Bhîmsen has accepted the service or not. At night all join in drinking, dancing and beating drums. Next morning the congregation disperses. Those who are unable to attend this tribal gathering perform similar rites at home under the shade of the Mahua tree (Bassia latifolia).17
Pillar-worship of Bhîmsen.
The local worship of Bhîmsen beyond the Drâvidian tract is specially in the form of pillars, which are called Bhîmlâth or Bhîmgada, “Bhîm’s clubs.” Many of these are really the edict pillars which were erected by the pious Buddhist King Asoka, but they have been appropriated by Bhîmsen. Such are the pillars in the Bâlaghât District of the Central Provinces and at Kahâon in Gorakhpur. At Devadhâra, in the Lower Himâlaya, are two boulders, the uppermost of which is called Ransila, or “the stone of war.” On this rests a smaller boulder, said to be the same as that used by Bhîmsen to produce the fissures in the rocks; in proof of which the print of his five fingers is still pointed out, as they show the hand-mark of the Giant Bolster in Cornwall.18
Bhîmsen is one of the special gods of the Bhuiyas of Keunjhar, and they consider themselves to be descended from him, as he is the brother of Hanumân, the founder of their race. According to the Hindu ritual he has his special feast on the Bhaimy Ekâdashî, or eleventh of the bright fortnight in the month of Mâgh. The Bengal legend tells that Bhîmsen, the brother of Yudhisthira, when he was sent to the snowy mountains and lay benumbed with cold, was restored by the Saint Gorakhnâth, and made king of one hundred and ten thousand hills, stretching from the source of the Ganges to Bhutân. Among other miracles Bhîmsen and Gorakhnâth introduced the sacrifice of buffaloes in place of human beings, and in order to effect this Bhîmsen thrust some of the flesh down the throat of the holy man. So though they have both lost caste in consequence, they are both deified. The saint is still the tutelary deity of the reigning family of Nepâl, and all over that kingdom and Mithila Bhîmsen is a very common object of worship. That mysterious personage Gorakhnâth flits through religious legend and folk-lore from post-Vedic to mediæval times; and little has yet been done to discover the element of historical truth which underlies an immense mass of the wildest fiction.19
Worship of Bhîshma.
In about the same rank as Bhîmsen is Bhîshma, “the terrible one,” another hero of the Mahâbhârata. To the Hindu nowadays he is chiefly known by the tragic circumstances of his death. He was covered all over by the innumerable arrows discharged at him by Arjuna, and when he fell from his chariot he was upheld from the ground by the arrows and lay as on a couch of darts. This Sara-sayya or “arrow-bed” of Bhîshma is probably the origin of the Kantaka-sayya or “thorn-couch” of some modern Bairâgis, who lie and sleep on a couch studded with nails. He wished to marry the maiden Satyavatî, but he gave her up to his father Sântanu, and Bhîshma elected to live a single life, so that his sons might not claim the throne from his step-brethren. Hence, as he died childless and left no descendant to perform his funeral rites, he is worshipped with libations of water on the Bhîshma Ashtamî, or 23rd of the month of Mâgh; but this ceremony hardly extends beyond Bengal.
In Upper India five days in the month of Kârttik (November-December) are sacred to him. This is a woman’s festival. They send lamps to a Brâhman’s house, whose wife during these five days must sleep on the ground, on a spot covered with cow-dung, close to the lamps, which it is her duty to keep alight. The lamps are filled with sesamum oil, and red wicks wound round sticks of the sesamum plant rest in the lamp saucers. A walnut, an âonla (the fruit of the emblic myrobolon), a lotus-seed, and two copper coins are placed in each lamp. Each evening the women come and prostrate themselves before the lamps or walk round them. They bathe on each day of the feast before sunrise, and are allowed only one meal in the day, consisting of sugar-cane, sweet potatoes and other roots, with meal made of amarinth seed, millet and buckwheat cakes, to which the rich add sugar, dry ginger, and butter. They drink only milk. Of course the Brâhman gets a share of these good things, to which the rich contribute in addition a lamp-saucer made of silver, with a golden wick, clothes, and money. At the early morning bath of the last day five lighted lamps made of dough are placed, one at the entrance of the town or village, others at the four cross-roads, under the Pîpal or sacred fig tree, at a temple of Siva, and at a pond. This last is put in a small raft made of the leaves of the sugar-cane, and floated on the water. A little grain is placed beside each lamp. After the lamps handed СКАЧАТЬ