We shall come elsewhere on instances of the belief that human beings were sacrificed under the foundations of important buildings. Nathu Kahâr, the godling of the Oudh boatmen, is said to have been buried alive under the foundations of the fort of Akbarpur in the Faizâbâd District, where a fair is held in his honour.[48] At the last census one hundred and twenty-four thousand persons recorded themselves as his votaries.
Jokhaiya.
Jokhaiya, who had by the same enumeration eighty-seven thousand worshippers, was a Bhangi or sweeper, who is said to have been killed in the war between Prithivî Râja of Delhi and Jaychand of Kanauj. He has a noted shrine at Paindhat in the Mainpuri District, where a sweeper for a small fee will kill a pig and let its blood drop on his shrine.
Ramâsa Pîr.
So, the godling invoked by the Pindhâri women when their husbands went on marauding expeditions, was Ramâsa Pîr. He was a well-known warrior killed in a battle at Ranuja, near Pushkar. Saturday is his day for prayer, on which occasions small images of horses in clay or stone are offered at his shrine. The figure of a man on horseback, stamped in gold or silver, representing the godling, was found on the necks of many of the Pindhâris killed in the great campaign of 1817–18. It was worn by them as an amulet. He is now known as Deva Dharma Râja, which is one of the titles of Yama, the god of death, and Yudhisthira, his putative son.
Râê Sinh.
Another local godling of the same class is Râê Sinh, whose legend is thus told by General Sleeman: “At Sanoda there is a very beautiful little fortress or castle, now occupied, but still entire. It was built by an officer of Râja Chhattar Sâl of Bundelkhand about 1725 A.D. His son, by name Râê Sinh, was, soon after the castle had been completed, killed in an attack upon a town near Chhatarkot, and having in the estimation of the people become a god, he had a temple and a tank raised to him. I asked the people how he became a god, and was told that some one who had been long suffering from quartan ague went to the tomb one night and promised Râê Sinh, whose ashes lay under it, that if he could contrive to cure his ague for him, he would during the rest of his life make offerings at his shrine. After this he never had an attack and was very punctual in his offerings. Others followed his example and with like success, till Râê Sinh was recognized universally among them as a god, and had a temple raised to his name.” “This is the way,” remarks General Sleeman, “gods were made all over the world and are now made in India.”[49]