________________
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ MAY 1926
tooth is the central ornament in the royal crown (op. cit. 269). In Guinea they are worshipped as containing the spirits of men (Primitive Culture, II, 8); so also in the Philippine Islands (op. cit. 230). Some South Africans put a man out of tribe who has been bit by an alligator (Livingstone's South Africa, 255). This is because the man is the alligator's prey and the alligator will punish them. Compare the Burmans not helping a drowning man, because he is the victim of the water nymphs. The Zaparo Indians of South America though enjoy killing all animals, still they won't kill the big alligator (Jour. Anthropological Institute, VII, 504). In Tahiti at the king's coronation two deified sharks are said to come and congratu. late the king. The kings used to play with them (Jones' Crowns, 453). According to Pliny (Natural History, XXVIII, 8), the crocodile cures fever, ague, weak eyes, and many other complaints."
In Bombay Gazetteer, vol. II (Broach), on pp. 567ff. is described a Sukaltirtha, the most important fair in the Broach district, and at p. 569 it is stated that "the ceremony of launching on the Narbadá a boat with black sails to become white in token that the sins of the penitent are taken from him, is still practised; but nowadays the pilgrims, not being kings, use instead of a boat a common earthen jar. This they set afloat, having set inside of it a lighted lamp, and as it drifts down the stream it carries away with it their sins."
Campbell, Notes on the Spirit Basis of Belief and Custom, p. 169, says : In the Konkan water spirits live in the round holes found in river-bed 'rocks. River beds are favourite spirit haunts, and so in Poona every year, when the rivers swell, all villagers come together, take a green sádi or waist cloth, and chóli or bodice cloth, flowers, fruits, frankincense, and betelnuts and leaves with them, and throw them in the river. In Melanesia holes in water rocks are sacred to spirits (Jour. Anthropological Institute, X, 277). In Scotland pot-holes are called fairies' cups (Scott's Border Minstrelsy, 462).
General quotations on Water and River Worship might be indefinitely extended, but the whole question is well summed up to the information obtainable at the beginning of the present century in Sir James Campbell's admirable Notes on the Spirit Basis of Belief and Customs, pp. 325-327. His remarks on the universal aspect of water worship go far to show us that in the legends surrounding Badaru'ddîn Aulia and Khwaja Khizar we are in the presence of beliefs going back to the beginnings of human thought and of superstitions that are world wide. He says : "Water as one of the chief scarers or foes of evil spirits rose to a high position among the Hindu objects of worship. Certain rivers and ponds are held very sacred and are often resorted to by thousands of pilgrims. In the Rig Veda the waters are personified, deified and honoured as goddesses, and called the mothers of the earth. They cleanse their worshippers from sin and untruthfulness and give birth to fire (Monier Williams' Religious Thought in India, 346-347). They are also praised for their power of healing (ibid).
"The Ganges is considered the most sacred of all the rivers, and next to it in importance are the Jamna, the Sarasvati, the Narmada, the Sharayu, and several other minor rivers, To bathe daily in the rivers and seas, especially in the months of Kartika, Margashirsha, Pausha and Mágha-that is, from December to March-is considered very meritorious; and to bathe on a new-moon day that falls on a Monday is still more meritorious. To bathe in the sea as well as some sacred ponds, like bathing in the rivers, is held holy. All high class Hindus in the Kônkan, especially Brahmans, daily worship a pot filled with water, called varunu, with flowers, rice and red powder. Among the Hirekurvinavarus of Dharwar on the twentieth day after a child birth the mother and five married women, whose first husbands are alive, go to a tank, well, or river, and worship the water with turmeric and red powder (Bombay Gazetteer, XXII, 168-169). The Kanara Halvaki Vakals at the Divali festival in the month of November worship an earthen vessel full of water with a row of lighted lamps round it (op. cit., XIV, 207).
