Indian Antiquary Vol 46

SR No.: 032538
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 508
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(SEPTEMBER, 1917
reference to "heat" in dogs. There is still, however, the difficulty of the invocation to the crow.
Cutting right across all other customs is the world-wide ono of respect for holy trees. It is no uncommon thing for a man to tie a rag to a kabbar jhar tree as a token of invocation, or for women to tie wisps or bundles of hair. Tomb of holy men are usually located under the kabbar jhår, the 'jhâr,' though a grave will sanctify even a tamarisk. Again no such tree, nor, in fact, any tree on holy ground may be cut. Even on abandoned village sites the position of the mosque, where nothing of the village remains will be brought into remembrance by the preservation of a tree or shrub on its site. Such a tree is taboo ; indefinable trouble will overtake the rash person who cuts it down. Not even fallen dead wood in sacred groves may be removed; when it falls, there it lies. Cn Ashura day Mohanos gaudily decorate their favourite kabbar jlar shrub throughout the Lar.
Or. Brahui custom may be referred to as throwing light cn local customs. "On the new moon of the seventh month seven kinds of grain-to wit, barley, wheat, Indian corn, peas, millet, pulse and juari-are boiled together uncrushed in a large cauldron. Seven kirds of grain there must surely te in all. Small dishes of this pottage are sent out to the kinsfolk. The dishes are never sent away empty; each comes back with some trifle for the looked for babe." (Life History of Brahui, by D. Bray, p. 7).
Now, how did this interconnected mass of custom arise, if, and there is no disagreement on the subject, the makara was the vehicle' of Varuna, who was first a sky-god and then a water-god.
My reasoning is thus. Stone-age man, the dwarf who lived in the Kohistan, and annually moved in the cold weather to the rich grass plains of the Indus--as he still does-was terrified by the swamp and jungle of the lowlands, and above all by the crocodile, whom he elevated to the rank of a malevolent deity who must be propitiated. The generally beneficent floods of the Indus facilitated among the Aryans the evolution of the River-god from Varuņa, but the makara cult could not be simultaneously evolved because of the pre-existing and inferior cult of the doinonic crocodile. The required « vehicle was found in the pulla, whose peculiar habits rendered it a specially appropriate companion for the incarnate Uderolal. The crocodilo continued to typify the demonic force of the Indus in anger, in excessive flood, when it changes its course and in a season alters entirely the face of the country. Closely associated with these floods are the rich crops of grass and grain of the Indus flood plain. Without the strength of the river there is no sweetness of vegetation. Thus one may associate a male principle of the River and a female one in vegetation, Shah Jhando and the chaste virgine, the Satyun of
Tatta, Uderolâl and Mai Sahib, the coquettings of the Satâno festival. This seems to represent the course of early religion in Sind. Buddhism did not affect it--for the fish adorns the pottery of Mirpur Khas. Saivism passed it by, for the Gupta cult of Siva is still localised at Sehwan, Muhammadanism modified it for its own proselytes, but could not obliterate it, for there is, indeed, in Sind only one problem-what will the River be like next year, good or bad, divine or lemonic ?
(To be continued.)