5. Resort to them for oracles.
The forest ascetics were credited with prophetic powers, and were resorted to by Hindu princes to obtain omens and oracles on the brink of any important undertaking. This custom is noticed by Colonel Tod in the following passage describing the foundation of Jodhpur:[10] “Like the Druids of the cells, the vana-perist Jogis, from the glades of the forest (vana) or recess in the rocks (gopha), issue their oracles to those whom chance or design may conduct to their solitary dwellings. It is not surprising that the mandates of such beings prove compulsory on the superstitious Rājpūt; we do not mean those squalid ascetics who wander about India and are objects disgusting to the eye, but the genuine Jogi, he who, as the term imports, mortifies the flesh, till the wants of humanity are restricted merely to what suffices to unite matter with spirit, who had studied and comprehended the mystic works and pored over the systems of philosophy, until the full influence of Maia (illusion) has perhaps unsettled his understanding; or whom the rules of his sect have condemned to penance and solitude; a penance so severe that we remain astonished at the perversity of reason which can submit to it. We have seen one of these objects, self-condemned never to lie down during forty years, and there remained but three to complete the term. He had travelled much, was intelligent and learned, but, far from having contracted the moroseness of the recluse, there was a benignity of mien and a suavity and simplicity of manner in him quite enchanting. He talked of his penance with no vainglory and of its approaching term without any sensation. The resting position of this Druid (vana-perist) was by means of a rope suspended from the bough of a tree in the manner of a swing, having a cross-bar, on which he reclined. The first years of this penance, he says, were dreadfully painful; swollen limbs affected him to that degree that he expected death, but this impression had long since worn off. To these, the Druids of India, the prince and the chieftain would resort for instruction. Such was the ascetic who recommended Joda to erect his castle of Jodhpur on the ‘Hill of Strife’ (Jodagīr), a projecting elevation of the same range on which Mundore was placed, and about four miles south of it.”
Jogi musicians with sārangi or fiddle