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290
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1882.
Rasåld and Paran, but hope to do so when editing the series of legends called “The Adventures of Râjâ Rasåld." The unwritten tale I give here was picked up accidentally, and relates the birth of Lonûn and how she came to be Saliva hana's wife. Her later doings are duly recorded in a lithographed poem in Panjabi in the Persian character called " The Story of Puran Bhagat."
The Story of Lonún. Some madan escaped one day from a Rishi, and he knew that if it fell on the ground a man would be born from it, so he put it into a flower and threw the flower into a river in which a Chameli Rajpût princess was bathing. She took up the flower and smelt it, and so became pregnant. Ten months afterwards a girl was born and the princess through fear hid her in a box and threw the box into the river. A Chammar happened to be washing a skin by the river side, and saw the box floating by. In it he found a beautiful little girl, and took her hoine, but being a Chammar, he brought her up by hand on cow's milk, and when she was old enough he gave her a house to herself.
One day Raja Salbahan got very thirsty out hunting, and happened on the Chammar's house, who directed him to the girl's house for water as he could not give it himself owing to his low-caste. The girl sent out the water in a lotá covered over with a kerchief exquisitely worked by her own hand. The Râjâ wanted to know who had made so beautiful a kerchief, and the people said that the beautiful Hindu girl Lonan had made it. After this the Rija managed to see her and demanded her in
marriage. But the Chammár refused to give her up unless the Rajá married her from his house? This the Rajâ agreed to, and took the girl away as Queen to his own palace.'
As regards the story of the miraculous birth from the madan the sweeper caste of the Panjab (Chûhra, Bhangi, Mehtar, Lålbegi, etc.) tell the following extraordinary tale about the birth of Lal Beg, their very obscure deity or object of worship.
The Birth of Lal Beg. One day Siva (Mahadeo) got very drunk, and some madan escaped from him. Another god assumed the form of a man, and took it in his hand and put some into Anjana's ears, and so Hanuman was born. He then rubbed his hand on a red stone (lul baltd) and Lal Beg sprang forth. Then he rubbed it on a sarkanda reed (saccharum procerum), whence came Sarkandnatha; then on some cowdung (gobar), whence came Gobarnath, and lastly he washed his hands in a river where a fish swallowed some of the madan and brought forth Machhandarnath."
In a country like the Panjab, intersected by enormous rivers, the disposal of inconvenient children by exposure on the river banks, or by floating them down stream, cannot be very uncommon, and I have no doubt that many legends of river watfs exist. This Lonán is made out to be a riverside foundling, and in the Panjabi rescension of the very old Sindh story of Sassi and Punnün by Hashim Shah, in a well known poem, the heroine Sassi is made to be just such another waif.' Hashim Shah's tale varies considerably from that told by the Sindh poets.
One of these tales is given as a note to "Folklore from Kashmir," Ne 9.
This name has the ordinary modern fem. tormination, e.g., Tulsån, Gulaban, Totán, Kalan, Himtan, etc. It would be quite legitimate, according to prevailing custom, to derive it from the existing word lohna, to trouble, make angry (= roh = ros, anger); or from raun, & marshy field by a river, which would make the namo Raunin or Lonn mean the marsh or river foundling, for which sense see story. Scores of such naines have been invented and exist in the Panjab.
3 Madan, properly the same as Kima or Kamdeo, the god of love and procreation, is used to mean the malo procreating principle, semen virile. Mysterious birth from madan, as here, is not uncommonly ascribed by the lower orders to their heroes, saints or objects of worship.
Doubtless for Chandelt Rijput, for an account of whom see Elliot, Races of the N. W. P., Beames's Ed. vol. I, pp. 71-76.
Natívos always reckon pregnancy as ten lunar months, i. e. 280 (properly 285) days.
The Piran Bhagat says that Lonia was a Chumyår (Chammer) by caste. This legend, la the Hindus, was probably invented to give her a better dercent.
This ensured her being treated as a Rani, because had the Rijn taken her off and married her in his own palace she would have been a mere inferior wife or concubine.
It is almost impossible, owing to the suspicions of the sweepers when their beliefs are enquired into, and to the nbaence of writton records, to find out much about him. I begin to think for several reasons that the name should be L41 Bhek (bhikshu) or the Red Monk.
Parameivar, but seemingly should be V&yu. 10 Hanuman was the son of Anjani by Vyu. 11 () Sikandar, but perhaps merely the god of the
19 (?) Gobardhan - Ganea from false analogy. The game blunder has been made in Bengal.-Ind. Ant. vol. VIII, p. 141, vol. IX, p. 333.
13 Perhaps the preceptor of Gorakhneth.
1. See my transliteration and description of this poem in the Roman Urdu Journal, vol. IV, No. 38, pp. 19-31; No. 39, pp. 34-43; No. 40, pp. 12-20.
reed.
