File:Popular religion and folk-lore of Northern India (1896) (14760164941).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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ndu shrine must always face east,while the Musalman shrine is in the form of a tomb andfaces the south. This sometimes gives rise to delicatequestions. In one village a section of the community hadbecome Muhammadan. The shrine of the common ances-tor needed rebuilding, and there was much dispute as to itsshape and aspect. They solved the difficulty by building aMusalman grave facing south, and over it a Hindu shrinefacing east. In another village an Imperial trooper wasonce burnt alive by the shed in which he was sleepingcatching fire, and it was thought best to propitiate him by ashrine, or his ghost might become troublesome. He wasby religion a Musalman, but he had been burnt, not buried,which seemed to make him a Hindu. After much discus-sion the latter opinion prevailed, and a Hindu shrine withan eastern aspect now stands to his memory. To the east of the North-Western Provinces the villageshrines are much less substantial erections. In the Gangetic 1 Panjab Ethnography, 114. m \\
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UJ Z 5xin tu a < The Heroic and Village Godlings. 97 valley, where the population has been completely Hinduized,the shrine of the collective village deities, known as theDeohar, consists of a pile of stones, some of which may bethe fragments of a temple of the olden days, collected undersome ancient, sacred tree. The shrine is the store-house ofanything in the way of a curious stone to be found in thevillage, water-worn pebbles or boulders, anything witheccentric veining or marking. Here have been occasionallyfound celts and stone hatchets, relics of an age anterior tothe general use of iron. In the same way in some Europeancountries the celt or stone arrow-head is worn as an amulet. Little clay images of elephants and horses are often foundnear these shrines. Some villagers will say that theserepresent the equipage (sawari) of the deity; others explainthem by the fact that a person in distress vows a horse oran elephant to the god, and when his wishes are realized,offers

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