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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
bath is taken and has possibly some connection with the sowing of wheat, gram, and oil seeds. The crushing of the cucurbitous fruit and the extinguishing of the lamp waved round the face of the bather, perhaps, indicate the death not only of the giant of filth or manure, but that of the first season,-producing rice. It is said that this Nark&sur (night-soil giant) was born of the goddess, Earth! So he (filth) always is!
The third stage of evolution may be perceived in the fact that the bhádvt crop is sold about this time, and the ubiquitous Baniâ has reason to be proud of the wealth it brings to his coffers. He therefore worships Lakshmi, or his accumulations heaped in trays.
Rama's accession is a Puranic embellishment of the natural religion, and the Kali-puja is an innovation of the Aryans, who have systemat ically been cheating the non-Aryan races of the East of India, in spite of their admission1 into the sacred religion, in order to counteract the numerical strength of the Buddhists. Aryan Brahmans took the assistance of the non-Aryans when needed, but carefully kept them on the lower rung of the ladder by thrusting down their throats such irregular beliefs. They thus preserved a distinct line of demarcation and sank the converted' Bengalis deeper in their follies about the worship of their local non-Aryan hideous deities,
In Bengal, it is likewise believed that the night of the pitris (ancestors) begins at this time, and that the lamps are lighted on the tops of poles to serve as a guide to these benighted souls. The shrádhas, or offerings to ancestors, are also performed on this day, the 30th or dark night of Asvin. It is this fact of the ancestors' souls being overtaken by a night, which extends over six months, that gives life in Bengal to a great feast on their account, to serve them for half the year.
The latest stage of the evolution need not surprise any one. It was quite possible to have selected for the celebration of Vikramaditya's coronation a day hallowed by the sacred memory of a similar grand ceremony ascribed to R&ma,
whose glorious career has been the ever-enchanting and ever-inspiring theme of all Hindu poets.
I solicit the attention of ethnographists to the chief points I have thus been able to disclose out of the multiplicity of accounts of the origin of the Divali, viz., the change of the season; (2) the
[MAY, 1903.
death of the rice-crop harvest; (3) the time of manuring the soil for the second crop; (4) the sun reaching Libra, the seventh sign of the Zodiac ; (5) the coronation of Rama; (6) the selection of this coronation-day for the conventional coronation and era-making day of Vikramaditya, the last of the Guptas: - and I invite further details with comments. Crooke's Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India gives the legend of a king who was visited by his fate in the form of a snake that saved him from death by forging the figure 70' in the place of the '0' found in Yama's account-books, but as the lamps are not kept burning all the night, and as nobody keeps up all the night, corroborative evidence is wanting. The return of the spirit of the dead king sounds like the story of Vatas vitri, whose husband, Satyavân, was restored to life at the devoted worship of his proverbially chaste wife.
As a help to the elucidation of this interesting subject I add a note on some peculiarities of the Divali Worship. There are many interesting details in this worship which are likely to reveal peculiar phases in the social strata of the Hindu society. For instance, the Chandraseni Prabhus of Bombay mould their effigies of Bali Raja out of cooked flour, while the Malis, or gardeners, of Indór, who are Sadras, use cow-dung. In the houses of the former, the figure of the king and that of his consort are mounted on horseback, followed by a mounted minister, and saluted by four footmen, who stand like a guard of honour in a row. The whole scene is placed in a silver or brass tray, while the Sadras mould a figure on the bare floor lying flat with its face upwards. The former draw from the 8th day of the second half of Asvin to Divali, a set of symbols in rice-flour on the floor of their compounds or verandahs and in front of the main entrance, vide Plate
drawn by my wife, specially in the native women's style. She has, however, reproduced only those designs, neglecting the conventional border, which are considered absolutely necessary, omitting the more elaborate and complicated
ones.
The central temple (1) is ascribed to LakshmiNarayan. In this compound name, the precedence given to the Goddess over her husband may be noted. Besides the usual (2) sun, (5) the moon, (3 and 4) the hanging lamps, (6) the shank shell, (8) the mace, (9) the lotus, (7) the wheel, (11) the svastika, (10) the shesha or thousand
1 Vide Adisur's mention of five "Kulin Brahmans sent out from Kanauj" (in Ballâl Sen's Charitras) to convert Bengal to Hinduism.
