File:Popular religion and folk-lore of Northern India (1896) (14576692579).jpg

Identifier: popularreligionf01croouoft (find matches)
Title: Popular religion and folk-lore of Northern India
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Crooke, William, 1848-1923
Subjects: India -- Religion
Publisher: Westminster, Constable
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ind, any uncivilized Indian would surely fall down and worship at first sight of an ape. Then there is the modern idea that the god was really a great chief of some such aboriginal tribe as those which to this day dwell almost like wild creatures in the remote forests of India; and this may be the nucleus of fact in the legend regarding him. It seems as if hero worship and animal worship had got mixed up in the legend of Hanuman. At the same time, it must be remembered that the so-called Aryans enjoy no monopoly of his worship. He is sometimes like a tribal godling of the aboriginal Suiris, and the wild Bhuiyas of Keunjhar identify him with Boram, the Sun godling.4 It is at least a possible supposition that hisworship may have been imported into Brahmanism fromsome such source as these. 1 Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, ii. 99 sq. 2 See instances collected by Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 376 sqq. 3 Asiatic Studies, 13 sq. 4 Buchanan, Eastern India, i. 467; Dalton, Descriptive Ethno-logy, 147.
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HANUMAN AND HIS PRIEST. /. 87. The Heroic and Village Godlings. 87 Hanuman as a Village Godling. But whatever may be the origin of the cult, the fact remains that he is a great village godling, with potent influence to scare evil spirits from his votaries. His rude image, smeared with oil and red ochre, meets one somewhere or other in almost every respectable Hindu village. One of his functions is to act as an embodiment of virile power. He is a giver of offspring, and in Bombay womensometimes go to his temple in the early morning, stripthemselves naked, and embrace the god.1 Mr. Hartlandhas collected many instances of similar practices. Thus acannon at Batavia used to be utilized in the same way; and at Athens there is a rock near the Callirrhoe, where on women who wish to be made fertile rub themselves, calling on the Moirai to be gracious to them. 2 On the same principle he is, with Hindu wrestlers, their patron deity, his place among Musalmans being taken by Ali. Their aid is invoked at the

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