The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Vol. 1&2). William Crooke

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СКАЧАТЬ their relations; this is supposed to lengthen life. On the same night girls pour out water in the moonlight, and say that they are pouring out the cold weather, which was hidden in the water jar. The habit of making patients look at the moon in ghi, oil, or milk is common, and is said to be specially efficacious for leprosy and similar diseases.

There is now little special worship of Soma or Chandra, and when an image is erected to him it is generally associated with that of Sûrya. In the old ritual Anumati or the moon just short of full was specially worshipped in connection with the Manes. The full-moon day was provided with a special goddess, Râkâ. Nowadays the phases largely influence the domestic ritual. All over the world we find the idea that anything done or suffered by man on a waxing moon tends to develop, whereas anything done or suffered on a waning moon tends to diminish. Thus a popular trick charm for warts is to look at the new moon, lift some dust from under the left foot, rub the wart with it, and as the moon wanes the wart dies.32 It is on the days of the new and full moon that spirits are most numerous and active. The Code of Manu directs that ceremonies are to be performed at the conjunction and opposition of the moon.33 Among the Jews it would seem that the full moon was prescribed for national celebrations, while those of a domestic character took place at the new moon; there is some evidence to show that this may be connected with the habit of pastoral nations performing journeys in the cool moonlight nights.34

      Horace speaks of rustic Phidyle—

      “Coelo supinas si tuleris manus,

Nascente Lunâ rustica Phidyle,”35

and Aubrey of the Yorkshire maids who “doe worship the new moon on their bare knees, kneeling upon an earth-fast stone.” Irish girls on first seeing the moon when new fall on their knees and address her with a loud voice in the prayer—“O Moon! Leave us as well as you found us!”36 It is a common practice in Europe to turn a piece of silver, which being white is the lunar metal, when the new moon is first seen. So Hindus at the first sight of the new moon hold one end of their turbans in their hands, take from it seven threads, present them to the moon with a prayer, and then exchange the compliments of the season. In Bombay37 on all new moon days Brâhmans offer oblations of water and sesamum seed to their ancestors, and those who are Agnihotris and do the fire sacrifice kindle the sacred fire on all new and full moon days. Musalmâns on the new moon which comes after the new year sprinkle the blood of a goat beside the house door. In Bombay a young Musalmân girl will not go out at the new moon or on a Thursday, apparently because this is the time that evil spirits roam abroad. In Upper India the houses of the pious are freely plastered with a mixture of earth and cow-dung, and no animal is yoked.

A curious idea applies to the new moon of Bhâdon (August). Whoever looks at the moon on this day will be the victim of false accusations during the following year. The only way to avoid this is to perform a sort of penance by getting someone to shy brickbats at your house, which at other times is regarded as an extreme form of insult and degradation. There is a regular festival held for this purpose at Benares on the fourth day of Bhâdon (August), which is known as the Dhela Chauth Mela, or “the clod festival of the fourth.”38 We shall come across later on other examples of the principle that to court abuse under certain circumstances is a means of propitiating the spirits of evil and avoiding danger from them. This is probably the origin of the practice in Orissa—“On the Khurda estate the peasants give a curious reason for the absence of garden cultivation and fruit trees, which form a salient feature in that part of the country. In our own districts every homestead has its little ring of vegetable ground. But in Khurda one seldom meets with these green spots except in Brâhman villages. The common cultivators say that from time immemorial they considered it lucky at a certain festival for a man to be annoyed and abused by his neighbours. With a view to giving ample cause of offence they mutilate the fruit trees and trample the gardens of their neighbours, and so court fortune by bringing down the wrath of the injured owner.”39 We shall see that this is one probable explanation of the indecency which prevails at the Holî festival.

Moon-worship appears to be more popular in Bihâr and Bengal than in the North-West Provinces or the Panjâb.40 The fourth day of the waxing moon in the month of Bhâdon is sacred to the moon and known as Chauk Chanda. It is very unlucky to look at the moon on that day, as whoever does so will make his name infamous. The story runs that Takshaka, the king of the snakes, stole the ear-rings of King Aditi, who, being unable to discover the thief, laid it to the charge of Krishna, whose thefts of milk and cream from the Gopîs had made him sufficiently notorious. Krishna, mortified at this false accusation, recovered and restored the ear-ring, and as this was the day on which Krishna was wrongfully disgraced, the moon of that night is invested with associations of special sinfulness. Some people fast and in the evening eat only rice and curds. Brâhmans worship the moon with offerings of flowers and sweetmeats, and people get stones thrown at their houses, as further west on the day of the Dhela Chauth. On this day schoolboys visit their friends and make a peculiar noise by knocking together two coloured sticks, like castanets.

One idea lying at the base of much of the respect paid to the moon is that it is the abode of the Pitri or sainted dead. This is a theory which is the common property of many primitive races.41 The explanation probably is that the soul of the dead man rises with the smoke of the funeral pyre, and hence the realm of Yama would naturally be fixed in the moon. This seems to be the reason why the early Indian Buddhists worshipped the moon. At the new moon the monks bathed and shaved each other; and at a special service the duties of a monk were recited. On full moon days they dined at the houses of laymen. On that night a platform was raised in the preaching hall. The superior brethren chanted the law, and the people greeted the name of Buddha with shouts of “Sâdhu” or “the holy one.”42

      Eclipses and the Fire Sacrifice.

       Table of Contents

Hindus, like other primitive races, have their eclipse demons. “When once the practice of bringing down the moon had become familiar to the primitive Greek, who saw it done at sacred marriages and other rites, he was provided with an explanation of lunar eclipses; some other fellow was bringing down the moon for his private ends. And at the present day in Greece the proper way to stop a lunar eclipse is to call out ‘I see you!’ and thus make the worker of this deed of darkness desist. So completely did this theory, which we must regard as peculiarly Greek, establish itself in ancient Greece, that strange to say, not a trace of the earlier primitive theory, according to which some monster swallows the eclipsed moon, is to be found in classical Greek literature, unless the beating of metal instruments to frighten away the monster be a survival of the primitive practice.”43

      In India, however, this earlier explanation of the phenomena of eclipses flourishes in full vigour. The eclipse demon, Râhu, whose name means “the looser” or “the seizer,” was one of the Asuras or demons. When the gods produced the Amrita, or nectar, from the churned ocean, he disguised himself like one of them and drank a portion of it. The sun and moon detected his fraud and informed Vishnu, who severed the head and two of the arms of Râhu from the trunk. The portion of nectar which he had drunk secured his immortality; СКАЧАТЬ