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RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
He was moved, however, by the penitence of the flower, so far to remit the penalty, as to allow its decorating the Linga worshipped at the Sivaratri pujá.
The worship of Siva at this season is permitted to all castes, even to Chándalas, and to women, and the use of the Mantras seems to be allowed to them; the only exception being the mystical syllable “Om”. This they are not to utter; but they may go through the acts of worship with the prayer “Siváya namah". The same rewards attend their performance of it with faith, elevation to the sphere of Siva, identification with him and freedom from future birth, and these benefits accrue even though the rite be observed unintentionally and unwittingly, as is evidenced by the legend of a forester which is related in the second part of the Siva Puráňa, ch. XXXIV. Being benighted in the woods on the Sivaratri, the forester took shelter in a Vilwatree. Here he was kept in a state of perpetual wakefulness by dread of a tiger' prowling round the foot of the tree. He therefore observed, though compulsorily, the Jágarana or vigil. The forester had nothing with him to eat, consequently he held the fast. Casting down the leaves of the tree to frighten the tiger, some of them fell upon a deserted Linga near the spot, and thus he made the prescribed offering. On the ensuing morning the forester fell a prey to the tiger, but such was the fruit of his involuntary observance of the rites of the Sivaratri, that when the messengers of Yama came to take his spirit to the infernal regions they were opposed by the mes
