Indian Antiquary Vol 26

SR No.: 032518
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 360
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 301

SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
NOVEMBER, 1897.]
to please whom dances or masks are held. Bhairav Dêvaru, the god of the Kurubars, is an unfriendly male spirit. The Parias of Malabar believe that, after death, good men become gods and bad men evil spirits. The Telugu Baydarns or Bedars, who, according to Buchanan, are the true husbandmen of Telangana, believe that, after death, wicked men become devils and good men are reborn as men. The Kad Kumbarns, a wild Mysore tribe, believe that the spirits of the dead come to the aged, and tell them to make offerings to the hill goddess. The following male spirits Pishâchâs, Gudghakâs, Siddhâs, Bhutâs, and Charans live with the gods, especially with Shiv, as servants; and the following female spirits Yoginis, Dakinis, Kakinis, Shikhinis, Bhutinis and Pretinis attend on Durga, the wife of Shiv. According to the Chinese traveller Hinen Tsiang (A. D. 620), the reason for abandoning the convent at Dharnakôt, near the mouth of the Krishna, was that the spirit of the hill changed itself. It became a wolf or an ape and frightened travellers."
In Ceylon, in 1820, the people were slaves to the belief in the influence of evil spirits. The people sang and danced all night, made offerings, and carried away charms, to keep off disease and evil,10 The evil spirits belonged to two main divisions those approaching to the nature of gods, wise, powerful, and not merciless, living in the upper regions of the sky, in magnificent palaces decorated with gold, silver and precious stones, enjoying an amount of happiness little inferior to that of the gods themselves, and some times called dewatawas; and those who with wild, savage, gross, beast-like natures pass their time near the surface of the earth, revelling in scenes of blood and misery, bringing disease and death on men, and in return receiving offerings of rice, meat, and blood.11 To the second division belonged four classes: - Balli-caama, lovers of bali, or coooked rice offerings; Billi-caama, lovers of live offerings; Ratti-caama, lovers of music, dancing, and other such pleasures; Hantn-caama, lovers of death.12 The names of the leading spirits were Recri Yakseya (demon of blood), Calloo Yakseya (black demon), Sauny Yakseya (the great demon of fatal diseases), Maha Sohon Yakseya (great graveyard demon), Calloo Cumare Dewatawa (the black prince), and Hooniyan Yakseya (sorcery demon). The other spirits were Athemana Yakseya, Tota Yakseya, Bahirawa Yakseya, Madana Yakseynio (female demons of lust), Morottoo Yaka (demon of Morottoo or Rata Yaka, that is, foreign demon), Gopolu Yakseya (demon of cattle), Anjenam_Dewi, Baddracali, Riddhi Yakseniyo, Uda Yakseyo, Curumbera Yakseyo, Hanuma, Gara Yaka, Gewal Yakseya, Bodrima, and Pretayo.13 The chief of all Ceylon demons was Wahala Bandara Dewiyo. The usual haunts of these demons were trees, roads, wells, woods, old deserted houses, temples of gods, and graves and graveyards. They frightened people not by actually seizing them but by other means quite as effectual by throwing sand or stones handful after handful, by appearing as a dark-featured man or like the passing shadow of a man, followed immediately by a loud crashing noise as if a number of elephants were forcing their way through the jungle, and sometimes appearing in the disguise of an old man or of a young woman with a child in her arms.14
Rice's Mysore, Vol. III. p. 261.
Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 493.
Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 128.
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The Parsis had a half-man, half-spirit class, who were incarnate devils.15 And among the Persian spirits were Yatus, Pairikas, Cathras, Koyas and Karafnas.16 Chengiz Khân (1162) was visited by spirits and made revelations.17 When the Turk finishes his prayers he bows to the right and left, saluting the spirits of good and evil. 18 Arab tradition mentions forty troops
9 Julien's Hiuen Thsang, Vol. III. p. 3.
10 Journal of the Ceylon Asiatic Society, 1885, p. 10;
11 Journal of the Ceylon Asiatic Society, 1835, p. 14.
13 Cp. cit. pp. 21-43.
16 Eleek's Vendidâd, p. 81.
Dabiston, Vol. III. p. 113.
295
Buchanan's Mysore, Vol. II. p. 141.
Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 359.
8 Ward's View of the Hindus, Vol. I. p. 192.
Marshall's Diseases of Ceylon, p. 26.
12 Op. cit. p. 16.
14 Op. cit. pp. 45, 16.
16 Bleek's Yaina, Vol. IX. pp. 52-56.
18 Lenormant's Chaldean Magic, p. 144.