The days for special worship are the Navarātra holidays, the second day of the bright half of Āshādh, the ninth month of the Hindu Calendar,[13] Divāsā[14] or the fifteenth day of the dark half of Āshādh, and Kālī-chaudas[15] or the fourteenth day of the dark half of Āshvin, the last month; besides other extraordinary occasions when a spirit has to be exorcised out of a sick person.
The Navarātra days are said to be the most auspicious days for devī-worship. People believing in the power of the mātās observe fast on these days. Most of them at least fast on the eighth day of the Navarātra known as Mātā-ashtamī, taking only a light meal which consists of roots, as a rule, especially the suran (Amorphophallus campanulatus), and of dates and milk.[16] On the Navarātra days red-lead and oil are applied to the images of the devis, and a number of oblations, such as loaves, cooked rice, lāpsi[17], vadān[18] and bāklā[19] are offered.[20] The utmost ceremonial cleanliness is observed in the preparation of these viands. The corn is sifted, cleaned, ground or pounded, cooked, treated with frankincense, offered to the gods and lastly partaken of before sunset, and all these operations must be performed on the same day; for the offerings must not see lamp-light.[21] Girls are not allowed to partake of these offerings. All ceremonies should be conducted with much earnestness and reverence; otherwise the offerings will fail to prove acceptable to the mātās or devis.[21]
On Mātā-ashtamī and Kālī-chaudas devotees sometimes offer rams, goats or buffaloes as victims to the devis or devas in addition to the usual offerings of lāpsi, vadān and bāklā.[21] The night of Kālī-chaudas is believed to be so favourable for the efficacious recitation (sādhana) of certain mantras, mysterious incantations possessing sway over spirits, that bhuvas (exorcists) leave the village and sit up performing certain rites in cemeteries, on burning-ghats, and in other equally suitable places where spirits are supposed to congregate.[22]
On Divāsā, the last day of Āshādh, the ninth month, low-caste people bathe their gods with water and milk, besmear them with red-lead and oil, and make offerings of cocoanuts, lāpsi, bāklā of adād (Phaseoleus radiatus) or kansār[23]. Particular offerings are believed to be favoured by particular deities: for instance, khichdo (rice and pulse boiled together) and oil, or tavo (flat unleavened loaves) are favoured by the goddess Meldi, boiled rice by Shikotar and lāpsi by the goddess Gātrād.[24]
On these holidays, as well as on the second day of the bright half of Āshādh the devotees hoist flags in honour of the spirits, and play on certain musical instruments producing discordant sounds. Meanwhile bhuvas, believed to be interpreters of the wills of evil spirits, undergo self-torture, with the firm conviction that the spirits have entered their persons. Sometimes they lash themselves with iron chains or cotton braided scourges.[25] At times a bhuva places a pan-full of sweet oil over a fire till it boils. He then fries cakes in it, and takes them out with his unprotected hands, sprinkling the boiling oil over his hair. He further dips thick cotton wicks into the oil, lights them and puts them into his mouth and throws red-hot bullets into his mouth, seemingly without any injury.[26] This process secures the confidence of the sevakas or followers, and is very often used by bhuvas when exorcising spirits from persons whose confidence the bhuvas wish to gain. A bowl-full of water is then passed round the head of the ailing person (or animal) to be charmed, and the contents are swallowed by the exorcist to show that he has swallowed in the water all the ills the flesh of the patient is heir to.[26]
In the cure of certain diseases by exorcising the process known as utār is sometimes gone through. An utār is a sacrificial offering of the nature of a scapegoat, and consists of a black earthen vessel, open and broad at the top, and containing lāpsi, vadān, bāklā, a yard of atlas (dark-red silk fabric), one rupee and four annas in cash, pieces of charcoal, red-lead, sorro (or surmo-lead ore used as eye-powder), an iron-nail and three cocoanuts.[26] Very often a trident is drawn in red-lead and oil on the outer sides of the black earthen vessel.[27] The bhuva carries the utār in his hands with a drawn sword in a procession, to the noise of the jingling of the anklets of his companions, the beating of drums and the rattling of cymbals. After placing the utār in the cemetery the procession returns with tumultuous shouts of joy and much jingling of anklets.[28]
Sometimes bhuvas are summoned for two or three nights preceding the day of the utār ceremony, and a ceremony known as Dānklān-beswān or the installation of the dānklā[29] is performed. (A dānklā[30] is a special spirit instrument in the shape of a small kettle-drum producing, when beaten by a stick, a most discordant, and, by long association, a melancholy, gruesome and ghastly sound—K. B. Fazlullah).
Many sects have special deities of their own, attended upon by a bhuva of the same order.[31] The bhuva holds a high position in the society of his caste-fellows. He believes himself to be possessed by the devi or mātā whose attendant he is, and declares, while possessed by her, the will of the mātā, replying for her to such questions as may be put to him.[32] The devis are supposed to appear in specially favoured bhuvas and to endow them with prophetic powers.[33]
The following is a list of some of the inferior local deities of Gujarat and Kathiawar:—
(1) Suro-pūro.—This is generally the spirit of some brave ancestor who died a heroic death, and is worshipped by his descendants as a family-god at his birthplace as well as at the scene of his death, where a pillar (pālio) is erected to his memory.[34]