Rural ceremonies connected with agricultural operations. Rites performed for the protection of cattle. Rites performed for scaring noxious animals and insects. Rites performed for ensuring sunshine and favourable weather. Rites performed for the protection of crops. Rites in which secrecy and silence are observed. The observances at the Holi festival. Rites performed when girls attain puberty. 153
THE FOLKLORE OF GUJARAT
NATURE POWERS
CHAPTER I
Besides the higher-grade deities, whose worship is enjoined and treated of in the Shāstras and Purānas, numerous other minor deities, none of whom however find a place in the Scriptures, are worshipped by the lower classes. The principle underlying the whole fabric of the worship of these minor deities, who for the most part are the spirits of dead ancestors or heroes, has more in it of fear for their power of harming than of love for their divine nature. All untoward occurrences in domestic affairs, all bodily ailments and unusual natural phenomena, inexplicable to the simple mind of the villager, are attributed to the malignant action of these nameless and numerous spirits, hovering over and haunting the habitations of men.[1] The latent dread of receiving injuries from these evil spirits results in the worship by the low-class people of a number of devas and mātās, as they are called. The poor villager, surrounded on all sides by hosts of hovering spirits, ready to take offence, or even to possess him, on the smallest pretext, requires some tangible protector to save him from such malign influences.[1] He sets up and enshrines the spirit that he believes to have been beneficent to him, and so deserving of worship, and makes vows in its honour, often becoming himself the officiating priest. Each such deity has its own particular thānak (sthāna) or locality. Thus there is hardly a village which has not a particular deity of its own. But in addition to this deity, others in far off villages are generally held in high esteem.[1]
There are a number of ways in which these lower-class deities can be installed. Their images are made either of wood, stone, or metal.[2] No temples or shrines are erected in their honour.[3] An ordinary way of representing them is by drawing a trident, (trishūl, a weapon peculiar to god Shiva) in red-lead and oil on an upright slab of stone on a public road, on any dead wall, on the confines of a village, or a mountain side, or a hill top, in an underground cellar, or on the bank of a stream.[4] Some people paint tridents in their own houses. The trishūl, or trident, may also be made of wood, in which case its three points are plastered with red-lead and oil and covered with a thin coating of tin.[5] Sometimes carved wooden images in human shape, daubed over with red-lead and oil, are placed in a small wooden chariot or in a recess about a foot square. In some shrines two brooms or whisks of peacock’s feathers are placed on either side of the image.[6] A slight difficulty overcome or a disease remedied by a vow in honour of any of these deities offers the occasion for an installation, and in all future emergencies of the same kind similar vows are observed. A mātā installed to protect a fortress or a street is called a Gadheri Mātā, and the worshippers of a fortress, or street, mother are known as Pothias.[7] At the time of installation flags are hoisted near the dedicated places. A troop of dancers with jingling anklets recite holy verses, while the bhuva, exorcist-priest, performs the ceremonies. Generally installations are frequent during the Navarātra[8] holidays when, if no human-shaped image is set up, a trishūl at least is drawn in red-lead and oil.[9] Some of these evil deities require, at the time of their installation, the balidān (sacrifice or oblation) of a goat or a he-buffalo. Also, when a spirit is to be exorcised, the symbol of the familiar spirit of the exorcist is set up and invoked by him.[9] After the installation, no systematic form of worship is followed in connection with them.[10] Regular forms are prescribed for the real gods of the Purānas. But upon these the low-caste people are not authorised to attend.
Still, in practice there are two forms of worship: ordinary or sāmānya-pūjā and special or vishesha-pūjā.[11] Ordinary worship is performed by bathing the deity—which can be done by sprinkling a few drops of water over it—burning a ghi, or an oil, lamp before it, and by offering a cocoanut and a pice or a half-anna piece. The last is taken away by the bhuva, or priest, who returns generally half or three-quarters of the cocoanut as a prasād of the god.
There are no particular days prescribed for such worship, but Sundays and Tuesdays would seem to be the most favoured.[12] On such days, offerings are made for the fulfilment of a vow recorded in order to avoid a bādhā, or impending evil. In the observance of this vow the devotee abstains from certain things, such as ghi, butter, milk, rice, juvar, betelnut till the period of the vow expires. When a vow is thus discharged, the devotee offers flowers, garlands, incense, food or drink according to the terms of his vow.[12] The dhūpa, i.e., burning incense of gūgal (balsamodendron) is one of the commonest methods of worship.