In his “Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India” Crooke observes that many of the holy wells in Northern India are connected with the wanderings of Rama and Sita after their exile from Ayodhya. Sita’s kitchen (Sita ki rasoi) is shown in various places, as at Kanauj and Deoriya in the Allahabad District. Her well is on the Bindhachal hill in Mirzapur, and is a famous resort of pilgrims. There is another near Monghyr and a third in the Sultanpur District in Oudh. The Monghyr well has been invested with a special legend. Sita was suspected of faithlessness during her captivity in the kingdom of Ravana. She threw herself into a pit filled with fire, where the hot spring now flows, and came out purified. When Dr. Buchanan visited the place, he heard a new story in connection with it. Shortly before, it was said, the water became so cool as to allow bathing in it. The Governor prohibited the practice as it made the water so dirty that Europeans could not drink it. “But on the very day when the bricklayers began to build a wall in order to exclude the bathers, the water became so hot that no one could dare to touch it, so that the precaution being unnecessary, the work of the infidels was abandoned.”[20]
A bath in the waters of wells is believed to have the same efficacy for expiating sin as a bath in the holy rivers. This belief rests on the theory that springs and rivers flow under the agency of an indwelling spirit which is generally benignant and that bathing brings the sinner into communion with the spirit and purifies him in the moral more than in the physical sense. It is believed that even the dead are benefited by such ceremonies.
A very typical case of the efficacy of such religious baths is that of King Trisanku, who had committed three deadly sins. According to one story he tried to win his way to heaven by a great sacrifice which his priest, Vashishtha, declined to perform. According to another account he ran away with the wife of a citizen, and killed in a time of famine the wondrous cow of Vashishtha. Another story accused him of having married his step-mother. After he had been sufficiently chastised, the saint Viswamitra took pity on him and having collected water from all the sacred places in the world, washed him clean of all offences.
The Brahmins also wash themselves of sins with the washing of their sacred thread every year, with a ceremony of sprinkling of water and cow’s urine. This ceremony is known as Shrávani amongst the Marathas and Mārjan Vidhi amongst the Gujeratis.
It would be impossible to enumerate the numerous sacred wells of India. A few instances may, however, be cited from the Folklore Notes of Gujarat.
Six miles to the east of Dwarka there is a kund called Pind tarak, where many persons go to perform the Shrâddha and the Nârâyan-bali ceremonies. They first bathe in the kund; then, with its water, they prepare pindas, and place them in a metal dish; red lac is applied to the pindas, and a piece of cotton thread wound round them; the metal dish being then dipped in the kund, when the pindas, instead of sinking, are said to remain floating on the water. The process is believed to earn a good status for the spirits of departed ancestors in heaven. It is further said that physical ailments brought on by the avagati, degradation or fallen condition, of ancestors in the other world, are remedied by the performance of Shrâddha on this kund.
The Damodar kund is situated near Junagadh. It is said that if the bones of a deceased person remaining unburnt after cremation are dipped in this kund, his soul obtains moksha or final emancipation.
There is a vav or reservoir on Mount Girnar, known as Rasakupika-vav. It is believed that the body of a person bathing in it becomes as hard as marble, and that if a piece of stone or iron is dipped in the vav, it is instantly transformed into gold. But the vav is only visible to saints and sages who are gifted with a supernatural vision.
Kashipuri (Benares) contains a vav called Gnyan-vav, in which there is an image of Vishweshwar (the Lord of the Universe, i.e., Shiva). A bath in the water from this vav is believed to confer upon a person the gift of divine knowledge.