The calamity of floods should not, however, be exclusively attributed to sheer demoniacal influence of malignant spirits. It may, in some cases, be due to the offence given to patron saints of water. Curtiss relates,[49] on the authority of Rev. J. Steward Crawford, an old resident in Syria, a remarkable incident which occurred at Nebk. The town derives its water-supply from a series of wells connected with one another. Once, owing to heavy rains, there came a succession of three floods which washed away the wells which had been repaired after each catastrophe. This left no room for doubt that the Vali of the wells had been offended. They began to ascertain the reason and discovered that the sacrifices which had been offered to the saint at an annual festival had been intermitted, that people used to perform their ablutions in a portion of the stream which was inside of the courtyard of the mukam (shrine), thus defiling it, and that a dead body had been carried across the stream. All this had angered the saint. Sacrifices were, therefore, offered to propitiate him. A number of sheep were stationed over the stream and their throats were cut so that the blood would run into the water.
It is refreshing to turn from these river wraiths to the spirits of the sea, who are more powerful but less exacting. A cocoanut is enough to keep them in good humour, and a special day is named for this offering, called Narali Purnima, or Cocoanut Holiday. On that day multitudes of people flock to the sea-shore in Bombay to offer their puja to the sea to keep it quiet after the monsoon. The Brahmin first offers prayers, then the votary throws into the sea the holy water which the Brahmin pours into the hollow of his hands, then some red lead, then a few flowers and some rice, and last of all the cocoanut. The safety of the seas during the fair season is thus insured.
CHAPTER XIII.
WHO WERE THE WATER DEMONS?
Whence arose the fear of evil spirits? Who were those water demons? Both philology and history confirm the view that the Devas or demons of old were in many cases either the conquered aborigines of the various lands in which the ancient Aryans settled themselves, or hostile races dwelling along their frontiers. Out of this hostility of races coming in close contact with one another sprang various superstitions. In some cases the armies of the aborigines were represented as accompanied by their own guardian spirits, who waged war upon the newcomers and who were therefore regarded as demoniacal. In other cases, the aborigines were themselves credited with the power of exercising demon functions or assuming demon forms. Thus the people of Iran believed that the land of Turan was full of demons. This influence of the conquered people did not die out after the struggle with them was over. Not only did the aborigines continue to believe in their own demoniacal powers and to observe their old rites and customs in the new régime, but they also spread the beliefs in many ways among their conquerors.
All untoward occurrences and unusual natural phenomena thus came to be attributed to the malignant action of those evil spirits. Storms, floods, famines, disease and death all proceeded from the Devas, who in the Yasna Haptanhaiti of the Zoroastrians are described as “the wicked, bad, wrongful originators of mischief, the most baneful, destructive and basest of beings.” Professor Robertson Smith relegates demonism to the position of a cult hostile to and separate from the tribal beliefs of early people and Mr. Walhouse points out[50] that these beliefs in demons “belong to the Turanian races and are antagonistic to the Aryan genius and feelings.”
No doubt, Max Müller holds a different view. He considers that there is no difficulty in tracing a belief in evil, unclean and maleficent spirits, such as abound in Atharva-Veda, to the same soil which produced a faith in good and beneficent spirits. “We need not go for them,” says he, “to the original inhabitant of India or the Blacks of Australia. Some of the great Vedic gods like Rudra and the Maruts often assume a double aspect. They are unkind as well as kind, they cause disease though they likewise heal them. We have plenty of evil spirits in the Veda, such as Vritras, Rakshasas, Yâmdhânas, Pisâkas. Of course, nothing is easier than to say that they were borrowed from the native races of India, but this, which was formerly a very favourite expedient, would hardly commend itself now to any serious scholar, excepting always the cases where Dravidian words can actually be discovered in Sanscrit.”