________________
130
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1927
THE MEANING AND ETYMOLOGY OF PUJA. BY PROF. JARL CHARPENTIER, UPSALA. (Continued from page 99.)
IV. It can easily be observed that in all the more or less primitive cults spread all over India from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin perhaps the most common way of adoring the various gods, i.e., of performing their puja, is to smear the wooden logs, uncarved stones or idols which represent the deities with oil, or rather with lac, cinnabar, turmeric or other red or yellow dye stuffg37. Materials concerning this form of cult are to be found in overwhelming masses in European sources, and in the following only a few instances relating to various parts of India, and which seem to the present writer rather typical, will be quoted.
In the Himalayas the five Påndava brothers are often called Panj për and sometimes taken to be one single person ; generally they are adored in the form of five stones put up beneath a pipal tree and smeared with red ochre38. Hanuman, of whom more presently, all over the Punjab has his image smeared with red-stuff?. During the nine days' festival of the serpents (Naganavami) in the month of Bhadon the women in the Panjab make images of Nâgas from dough and smear them with red and black colour; and it is also usual to smear the brass images of the serpents with ghee40. When, in the Panjab, the women perforin puja to the cows, they smear not only the forehead of animal, but also their own with sandal and minium11. In Pehowa (Karnal District) there is a temple of Swami Karttikeya whose image is always smeared with oil and red ochre43. There is a special sect of Jogis, who are followers of the terrible god Bhairon, who anoint themselves with oil and red ochre and go alms-begging in the name of the god43-apparently pretending themselves to be manifestations of Bhairon. The goddess of small-pox, in Hissar generally called Devi Mata, has her abode in a pipal or in some sort of small shrine; this is festooned with red rags and painted with red colour-stuff44, Buffaloes which are to be sacrificed to Durga Mahizâsuramardini are adored as deities by the půjdris, who smear their frontheads with saffron and rico-graing16. In the Kangra District the god Narsingh (who is, perhaps, not always identical with the fourth avatar) is adored in the shape of a coconut which is daubod with sandal and rice-graing +6
In Eastern parts of the United Provinces the adoring and daubing with rod ochre of a drum belongs to the ceremonies preceding a wedding 47. The late Dr. Crooke ingeniously suggested that the drum (especially perhaps the hour-glasslike drum attributed to Siva, the damaru) belongs to "the very primitive fetishes of the aboriginal races18." The
39 That this way of loring the deities is spread over practically the whole of India Rems to suggest that, before the Aryan in vasion, a somewhat uniforın religion prevailed over greater parts of the subcontinent. In this connection stress may be laid also upon the great similarity between myths of deities in the Himalayas and myths of demons amongst the Tuluvas in the Far South (On the Devil worship of the Tuluvas, d. L.A., vols. XXIII-XXVI), cf. Rose, A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab, vol. I, p. 443 n. 2.
36 Punjab Noles and Queries, vol. III, $ 159; Rose, 1.c., vol. I, p. 121. 39 Rose, Lc., vol. I, p. 119 (cf. p. 284).
40 Rose, Lc., vol. I. pp. 144, 149. In the Ravi Valley the idols are often washed with milk, curls and ght, ibid., vol. I, pp. 232-233. 41 Punjab Notes and Queries, vol. III, 98 480, 837.
43 Rose, 1.c., vol. I, p. 324. 43 Rose, Lc., vol. I, p. 317; cf. Crooke, Popular Religion, vol. I, p. 109. 46 Rose, Lc., vol. I, p. 356 ; Crooke, L.c., vol. I, p. 135.
45 Rose, Lc., vol. I, p. 359. That sacrificial animals and men are treated as gods before being killed is a well-known fact and need not be dwelt upon here. Let us only remember the way in which the Khonds, batore performing the horrid Mori Ah sacrificos, treated the poor victims. It is sufficiently clear that they were looked upon as some sort of divine beings; amongst other things they were smeared with oil, ghi and turmeric. cf. c.9., Russell, Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. III, p. 475; Thurston, Oncns and Superstitions of 8. India, p. 200 sq.
46 Rose, Lc., vol. I, p. 376. 47 Crooke, Lc., vol. I, p. 28. 45 Cf. Elmore, Lc., p. 67.
