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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JUXE, 1880.
or Rudra; and the fifth, on the north side, pro- perly belongs to Ganesa. Through the north wall of the great shrine comes the channel for the water which has been used in washing the great linga, and falls into a trongh: this outlet is called the Somasútra, which it is unlawful for the worshipper to pass in performing his ritual. For the parikramá or pradakshind of Siva is not properly performed by going round and round the temple, as in the case of the other gods, but in accordance with the bloka :
Vrisham Chandan ishan chaiva 8omasútrai punarusisham Chanda cha Somasútrain cha
punaschandari punarusishan. That is the worshipper must first go to the Nandi, which is always in front of the linga shrine, and standing behind it perform his
namarkára to Siva; thence he goes along the pradakshina pasrage to the right, to the shrine of Chanda, and pays his worship there; returns to Nandi and again worships the linga; then round as before, but past the shrine of Chanda to the Somasútra, where he touches his eyes with the water used for washing the god, and worships. Next he returns to Nandi and a third time worships the linga; he returns a second time to Chanda, and having performed his namaskára to him he advances as far as the Somasútra, and looking up he worships the flag on the spire; then returning to Chanda he again does pája to him, and comes back to Nandi to make another namaskara to Siva.
This is the full parikrama; but the custom has almost fallen out of use all over the peninsula of India, and no figare of Chanda is to be found in any temple of modern times.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL NOTES. BY M. J. WALHOUSE, LATE M.C.S.
(Continued from p. 78.) No. XXV.-Rag.bushes in the East. nect the rag-bushes I saw there, and of which One of the most universal of superstitious I could not at the time get any account or excustoms is that of tying bits of rag to bushes planation, with them. In the southern districts or trees at spots held to be sacred or haunted of Madras there is also a prickly shrub, the by any supernatural presence. In vol. VIII. botanical name of which I do not know, but of the Indian Antiquary, at page 219, the wan. the prickles have a stinging quality, which indering trader or pedlar caste, called Banjaris duces fever, and its branches are sometimes or Lambadies, in travelling from Bastar to the seen stack all over with bits of rag by way of Godavari Taluqâs are said "to fasten small propitiation'. In Wales the prickly furze is held rags torn from some old garment to a bush in to fence off evilly-disposed fairies, being there honour of Kampalamma, (kampa = a thicket.)" in such matters held protective rather than On three or four occasions, when going up from injurious. Once near Dindigul in the Madura the Koimbatúr plain to the Maisur frontier by district I saw a solitary mimosa tree by a pool the Gazzalhaçţi or Kavêripuram passes, once in the middle of a wide barren maidun with a famous in the wars with Haidar and Tipa, but great many bits of rag and cloth tied to its now for three quarters of a century hardly branches, and was told that a traveller unknown traceable tracts through wild stony jangal, had some years before been found dead by the I have seen a thorn-bush rising out of a heap pool, that his spirit had become a malignant of stones piled round it, and bearing bits of rag demon, which haunted the spot, and that the tied to its branches; these deserted passes are rags were tied to the tree as offerings to prevent frequented by Lambadies carrying salt-fish, it injuring the herd-boys and cattle pasturing grain, &c. by means of large droves of pack. on the plain. Closely analogous must be the bullocks and asses; whether of the same race custom amongst the GÂros of the deep jangals as the Bastar people I do not know. I have on the Asâm border of raising a bamba arch more than once encountered their encampments decorated with tufts of cotton over each path in the Kåvêri jangals, and am now led to con- leading into a village to propitiate the deities;
* At the temple of Siva-Ganga Kondai, in Tinniveli, there Bir Walter Elliot informs me he has repeatedly seen is & small shrine of " Shendiswara," which is perhaps the nge tied to bashes in the Dakhan, most frequently on the same as Chanda. See p. 119.
Bēr tree (Zizyphus).
