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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1895.
of rice is applied to prevent any wandering influence making its abode in the empty lodging, 89 When a married girl comes of age, Sholapur Komatis throw rice over the girl and her husband.89 In the yearly village festival, in the Southern Marathi Country, every husbandman gets some grain and some flesh to bary in his field. Among the Karnatak Musalmans grains of rice are thrown after the dead, and during the Muharram festival, to scare evil, wheat and rice are pounded, spread on the ground, and pinches of them laid in the corners of the house. In Jain temples the worshipper strews grains of rice in the form of the svastika, or guard-ended cross, in front of the image. A millet poultice is a common medicine with the Khonds.91 The Khonds marry in the place where rice is husked.92 The Oraons put rice in the corpse's mouth.93 They throw rice on the urn as they take it to the tomb, and sprinkle grain on the ground behind the bones to keep the spirit from coming back.94 Like Parsis, Oraons believe that they please the gods when they make merry,95 At a Gond marriage rice is several times poured on the ground. The Madia Gonds pour handfuls of rice on the ground when the corpse is lifted, and drop some grains on the body.97 Among the Bengal Kôiris, the bride and bridegroom walk seven times round a pile of water vessels, spilling grain as they go.98 At a Beni-Isra'il wedding, women touch the boy's knees, shoulders, and head with rice. The winnowing fan, probably owing to its connection with grain, is holy. It is one of the gods of the Nilgiri Irulas.100 The Kois of Southern India fasten cords of rice-straw on trees or at the borders of fields. In Southern India, the chief rite in the new-year, pongol, or boiling, festival, is the boiling of rice. At the crowning of the chief of Kolastri (in Madras ?) in 1778, the chief was seated on a throne under a canopy, screened from sight till the lucky moment came. The chief priest thrice dropped rice on the chief's crown. When the third sprinkling was over, a great shout was raised.3 Rice, coloured with saffron and vermilion and charmed, is used at pújá, or worship. This coloured rice is the proper offering to make to any one asked to a wedding or thread-girding. Mourners in south India drop some grains of rice into the mouth of the corpse. In Ceylon, parched rice is scattered at special ceremonies connected with spirits. According to the Persian sacred books, fasting brings the spirit of hunger and thirst. So with the Parsis fasting is wrong, and as with the Hindu Vaishṇavas, feasting is a religious duty. It is said in the Avesta :-"At seed-corn spirits hiss, at shoots they cough, at stalks they weep, from thick ears of corn they fly. He who grows much corn sears the mouths of spirits with red-hot iron." With the Parsi belief that the man who grows grain scares fiends may be compared the account given by a European writer (A. D. 1248) of a man who saw the Night Hunt coming, and rushed into a field because he was there safe. It is known, says the writer, that evil spirits cannot come into fields. Opinions differ as to the reason. Some say the Creator will not let them come, because grain is useful to men; others say the field guardians keep them off.9 In a Japanese legend the sun goddess throws rice to drive off darkness, that is, evil spirits.10 In Nubia, while crossing a certain valley each man throws grain on the ground as a spirit offering. 11 In Greece, in the rites of Isis, baskets were carried filled with wheat or barley, 12 and in modern Greece wheat is strewn over the dead.13 The Romans offered millet cakes at the Palilia (21st April), because, says Ovid, 14 the rustic gods take pleasure in millet. A trace of the older spirit88 Op. cit. Vol. XX. p. 114.
89 Op. cit. Vol. XX. p. 70. 90 Jour. Ethno. Soc. Vol. I. p. 99.
91 Macpherson's Khonds, p. 59. 92 Op.cit. p. 55. 93 Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 261, Op. cit. p. 261.
95 Op.cit. p. 249. 96 Hislop's Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces, App. I. P. v.
97 Op. cit. p. 10. 98 Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 321. 99 Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XVIII. p. 523. 100 Balfour's Encyclopædia, Vol. V. p. 34.
1 Jour. R. 4. Soc. Vol. XIII. p. 418. 2 Dubois, Vol. II. p. 337.
3 Jones Crowns, p. 429. Dubois, Vol. I. p. 203. 6 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 207.
& Jour. R. A. Soc. Vol. XIII. p. 522. Bleek's Khordah Avesta, p. 135.
8 Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 25. ? Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Vol. III. p. 941. 10 Reed'e Japan, Vol. I. p. 30. 1: Burkhardt's Nubia, p. 184.
12 Maurice's Indian Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 538. · 13 Braud's Popular Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 115.
14 Ovid's Fasti, iv. 740-750.
