Indian Antiquary Vol 27

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 29

JANUARY, 1898.]
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
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becomes in the new system the leader of the hosts of spirits who are hostile to man. Christianity has degraded the classic and northern gods to be devils. How far Christianity robbed classic spirits of their kindly element is shewn by these words of St. Augustine (A,D. 600) :- "The devil while we feed allures us with gluttony, thrasteth lust into our generation, sloth into our exercise, envy into our talk, greed into our dealings, wrath into our correction, pride into our government, evil thoughts into our hearts, lies into our mouths. When we wake he moreth us to evil thoughts, when we sleep to evil dreams. He stirreth the merry to looseness and the mad to despair."61 As regards the northern gods, Grinam has rhewn how Satan has usurped the names and titles of many of the early German Guardians.63 Not less in India is it hard to draw a line between thüts or anfriendly and devs or guardian spirits. Were not all déus onco Whits : were not some bhits once déus : Virs, Vêtâls, and other powers are by some ranked as thûts, by others as devs living in the cê vastkáne or seat of the guardians. Vir, the spirit of a dead warrior, often known as the sát várs or seved heroes, holds a place of special honour. When 4 man asks a leo to harm his enemy, the dev first sends a ver and himself goes behind to help. In such a case the sacrificial goat is divided equally between the dev and the vir. As a rulo Vêtål is a dio to the Maritha and a bhat to the Brahman. Still certain Marathis rank Vêtil among bhits and certain Brihmaņs rank him among déve. One reason why all déus were once bhůts is that originally not all bhuts were unfriendly to man. Among some Tamil tribes Buta is the benevolent god. The word bhatt had once, to some extent the word still has, the sense of spirit, not of fiend. A mother who comes back to nurse and care for her child, though she is the bad type of blút known as jakni, is still a guardian. The following details shew how even a jakni, one of the worst forms of bkits, the dreaded ghost of a woman who has died in child-bed, may become a guardian or dév. When the cradle of a babe, whose mother is dead, recks of itself, the house-women ask: "Who are you that rocks the cradle ? Come into one of us, and tell us who you are." The women sit in a circle, and, as the mother passes into her, one of them shivers, and says: - "I am Ganga. I have a child, I have come to take care of my child. I will do you no harm." The house-women doubt if this is a true spirit. "To try your truth we will give you something to do. You will ripen the crop : you will cure Rama's cough, you will heal the lame Môti. Do this, and we will trust you." If the task is done the women ask the mother to enter into one of the men of the family, since mothers rarely pass into the bodies of women. The men and women sit round. Presently one of the men shirers as the mother passes into him. The women ask :- "Mother, what is your
land is probably a recollection that the Christians took the building from the service of an early god. Grimm (Teutonic Mythology, Vol. III. p. 25) writes - "Under the influence of Christianity elves and giants developed into angels and devils. Apparently the change was evil. The fairies who in the honoured days of King Arthur fulfilled the land of Britain disappeared. Sights were no longer to be seen of the Elf Queen and her Jolly Company dancing full of faerie in many a green mead (Chaucer in Folkard's Plant-Lure,. 64). Similarly the German goda Wuotan, Donar, Tio and Phol pat on the nature of diabolic beings. Their yearly visitation was tarned into a rabble-rout which the people sbavned. The result of the degradation of the guardian on the belief of the lowest classes in Germany in shewn by the characteristic remark of Luther (A, D, 1500) :-“When we walk abroad, sit at our board, lie on our bed, legions of devils are round about ready to fling whole hell into our hearts" (Seafield's Dreams, Vol. I. p. 145). Other countries refused to give up their faith in the good element in spirits and much trust continued to be placed in elves and feeries With Satan, whose virtue was a grim northorn hamour, were associated men and women possessed by evil spirits, witches, wizards and warlocks (Folk-Lors Record, Vol. II. p. 94). In Russia, the devil is thought of more in sorrow than in angor. He is really poor old domovoi, the ancestral spirit, the Guardian of tho
isgraced by the teuth century enthusiasts who wanted either the art or the patience to work his old gvardianship into some Christian graco (Bee Ralston's Russian Songs, p. 124). In talk the French feeling is kindly to the devil. Un bon diable is a gepial companion like the English A queer devil. The usnal and natural shape of the devil in the time of James II. (1685) was an empty bottle (Hope's Everyday Book, Vol. II. p. 1241). Before John Knox (1530) and other destroyers, according to Sharpe (Witchcraft in Scolland, r. 23), in many parts of Scotland, about milldams and green brao facos elrich elfs and brownies strayed and green-gowned fairies danced and played. According to N. Scott (1584) the result of Knox's influence was evil. The spread of the belief in witchoraft was due to the loss of Robin Goodfellow and the fairies which were wont to maintain the common people's talk in this belief (R. Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, Ed. 1886, p. xxii.). 61 Quoted in Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 426.
Boots, Nick, Scratch, Walker. Journal Ethnological Society, Vol. VIII. p. 115, in Lubbook's Primitive Condition of Man, p. 206.