The Pachpiriyas.
But it is in the eastern districts of the North-Western Provinces and Behâr that the worship has reached its most degraded form. No less than one million seven hundred thousand persons at the last census, almost entirely in the Gorakhpur and Benares Divisions, recorded themselves as Pachpiriyas or worshippers of the Pânch Pîr. It is impossible to get any consistent account of these worthies, and the whole cultus has become imbedded in a mass of the wildest legend and mythology.[55] According to the census lists these five saints are, in the order of their popularity—Ghâzi Miyân, Buahna Pîr, Palihâr, Aminâ Satî and Hathîlê or Hathîla. In Benares, according to Mr. Greeven, there are no less than five enumerations of the sacred quintette. One gives—Ghâzi Miyân, Aminâ Satî, Suthân, ’Ajab Sâlâr and Palihâr; a second—Ghâzi Miyân, Aminâ Satî, Suthân, ’Ajab Sâlâr and Buahna; a third—Ghâzi Miyân, Aminâ Satî, Buahna, Bhairon and Bandê; a fourth—Ghâzi Miyân, Aminâ Satî, Palihâr, Kâlikâ and Shahzâ; a fifth—Ghâzi Miyân, Suthân, ’Ajab Sâlâr, Buahna and Bahlâno. Among these we have the names of well-known Hindu gods, like Bhairon and Kâlikâ, a form of Kâlî. Among the actual companions of Ghâzi Miyân are, it is believed, Hathîlê Pîr, who is said to have been his sister’s son, Miyân Rajjab or Rajjab Sâlâr, and Sikandar Diwâna, the Buahna Pîr, who are all buried at Bahrâich, and Sâhu Sâlâr, father of the martyr prince, whose tomb is near Bârabanki.
In Behâr, again, the five saints are Ghâzi Miyân, Hathîla, Parihâr, Sahjâ Mâî and ’Ajab Sâlâr, and with them are associated Aminâ Satî, Langra Târ, who is represented by a piece of crooked wire, and Sobarna Tîr, the bank of the Sobarna river. Here we reach an atmosphere of the crudest fetishism. A little further west Sânwar or Kunwar Dhîr, of whom nothing certain is known, is joined with them, and has numerous worshippers in the Gorakhpur and Benares Divisions.