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NOTES ON SOME FRONTIER SHRINES.
APRIL, 1906.]
From all these symbols and from the time at which the Savitri-fast is observed, the conclusion forced on us is that it is a Nature-myth. Dr. Tylor tells us that the close and deep analogies between the life of Nature and the life of man have been for ages dwelt upon, and poets and philosophers have, in simile or in argument, told us of light and darkness, of calm and tempest, of birth, growth, change, decay, dissolution, renewal. The natural phenomena of the seasons due to the relation of the Earth with the Sun have given rise to many myths. The Sun is Savitur in Sanskrit, and Savitri means the daughter of the Sun, just as Janaki and Bhimaki mean the daughters of Janaka and Bhimaka respectively. Savitri is also the name of the wife of Brahmâ, the Creator (Nature), and the heroine of the legend is supposed to be her avatára or incarnation. The Sâvitri-vrata is therefore the annual celebration of Mother Earth's marriage with Nature, the Creative Power, Satyavat (lit., truth incarnate), or Nature just reviving after the first few showers of the monsoon. It is the marriage (not rape) of Persiphone. It is Odysseus returning to his mourning, constant, Penelope.
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A few points from the Sanskrit text called Savitri-puja in the Skanda Purana deserve notice. The original Savitri of the story is called the wife of Brahmâ, the Creator. When she appeared before "the king" she held aksha sûtra in one hand, and a water-jug in the other. Aksha sútra means terrestrial latitude, from aksha, to reach or to pervade, and it may mean the root of a tree when it reaches the earth and spreads itself. The king is called Dyumatsena, but dyu is sky and dyumat is brilliant. Satyavat or Satyavan, the husband of Savitri, who has mythologically been called his son, is also called Chitrasva, which means a wonderful horse-player, which is the name of Aruna, the Charioteer of the Sun, who manages the seven-faced horses of the St.n, and these wonderful horses represent the Sapt-rishis or the Constellation of the Northern Pole with the Polar star. Further on, there occurs expression, glanischa mchatija, a swoon. Can it be the state of hybernation? The God of Death is called an Southern Yama. May it not mean the Southern blast of wind which destroys tender shoots ?
One more interesting quotation, though not directly connected with this myth, gives strong corroborative evidence of the belief in the little man (soul) in the body of the living big man, described by Fraser in his Golden Bough, thus: aige ar godt front autore || o || i. e., Yama forcibly took out an image of a man of the size of the thumb from the mortal frame of Satyavat. This quotation serves to confirm the conclusions ethnologists have arrived at regarding primitive belief about "life as distinct from the body."
NOTES ON SOME FRONTIER SHRINES. BY LAL SHAH, BANNU.
I.
SHRINES OF THE KURBAM WAZIRIS.
1.The Ziarats of Pir Sabiq and Pir Ramdin.
THESE two shrines lie close to each other at the junction of the Thal and Biland Khel boundary, about four miles from the latter village, and are held in high veneration by the Biland Khêls, Thalwals, Khattaks and Kâbul Khêl Waziris, who pay annual visits to them and make Vows for the increase of their cattle, wealth, and sons. In former days, cows and sheep were slaughtered as offerings here, but no sacrifices are now made. Hindûs also resort to them,
Primitive Culture, Vol. Irp. 318.
"Tat Savitur Varenyam," &c. Hindu Sandaya.
7 Savitri is Gayatri, and Gayatri or Cow is the form in which Mother Earth appeared before Indra, whenever in distress through drought.
