The tank at Lalitpur is famous for the cure of leprosy. One day, a Râja afflicted with the disease was passing by, and his Rânî dreamt that he should eat some of the confervæ on the surface. He ate it, and was cured; and next night the Rânî dreamt that there was a vast treasure concealed there, which when dug up was sufficient to pay the cost of excavation.[132] So, at Qasûr is the tank of the saint Basant Shâh, in which children are bathed to cure them of boils.
Of the Rin Mochan pool the Brâhmans say that any one who bathes there becomes free from debt.[133] Another at Pushkar turns red if the shadow of a woman during her menstrual period fall upon it.[134] Sîtâ proved her virtue by bathing in a tank. She prayed to Mother Earth, who appeared and carried her to the other bank, an incident of which a curious parallel is quoted by Mr. Clouston from the Gospel of the pseudo Mathew.[135] In the legend of Chyavana, as told in the Mahâbhârata, the three suitors of Sukanyâ bathed in a tank and came forth of a celestial beauty equal to hers. So in one of the Bengal folk-tales the old discarded wife bathes in a tank and recovers her youth and beauty.[136] It is a frequent condition imposed on visitors to these holy tanks that they should remove a certain quantity of earth and thus improve it.
Many tanks, again, are supposed to contain buried treasure which is generally in charge of a Yaksha. Hence such places are regarded with much awe. There is a tank of this kind in the Bijaygarh fort in the Mirzapur District, where many speculators have dug in vain; another forms an incident in Lâl Bihâri Dê’s tale of Govinda Sâmanta.[137]
Mountain-worship; the Himâlaya.
“He who thinks of Himâchal (the Himâlaya), though he should not behold him, is greater than he who performs all worship at Kâsi (Benares); as the dew is dried up by the morning sun, so are the sins of mankind by the sight of Himâchal.”[138] Such was the devotion with which the early Hindus looked on it as the home of the gods. Beyond it their fancy created the elysium of Uttara Kuru, which may be most properly regarded as an ideal picture created by the imagination of a life of tranquil felicity, and not as a reminiscence of any actual residence of the Kurus in the north.[139]
From early times the Himâlayan valleys were the resort of the sage and the ascetic. Almost every hill and river is consecrated by their legends, and the whole country teems with memories of the early religious life of the Hindu race. As in the mythology of many other peoples,[140] it was regarded as the home of the sainted dead, and the common source or origin of Hinduism. Its caves were believed to be the haunt of witches and fairies. Demons lurked in its recesses, as at the Blockberg, where, as Aubrey tells us, “the devils and witches do dance and feast.”[141] Many of its most noted peaks are the home of the deities. Siva and Kuvera rest on Mount Kailâsa; Vaikuntha, the paradise of Vishnu, is on Mount Meru. The whole range is personified in Himavat, who is the father of Gangâ and Umâ Devî, who from her origin is known as Pârvatî, or “the mountaineer.” One of the titles of Siva is Girisa, the “mountain god.” His son Kârttikeya delights in the weird mountain heights.
Mountain-worship among the Drâvidians.
But, deeply rooted as the veneration for mountains is in the minds of the early Aryans, there is reason to suspect that this regard for mountains may be a survival from the beliefs of non-Aryan races whom the Hindus supplanted or absorbed. At any rate, the belief in the sanctity of mountains widely prevails among the non-Aryan or Drâvidian races. Most of these peoples worship mountains in connection with the god of the rain. The Santâls sacrifice to Marang Bura on a flat rock on the top of a mountain, and after feasting, work themselves up into a state of frenzy to charm the rain. The Korwas and Kûrs worship in the same way Mainpât, a plateau in the mountainous country south of the Son. The Nâgbansis and the Mundâri Kols worship a huge rock as the abode of the “great god,” Baradeo.[142] So, in Garhwâl in the Chhipula pass is a shrine to the god of the mountain. At Tolma is a temple to the Himâlaya, and below Dungagiri in the same valley is a shrine in honour of the same peak.[143] In Hoshangâbâd in the Central Indian plateau, Sûryabhân or “Sun-rays” is a very common name for isolated round-peaked hills, on which the god is supposed to dwell, and among the Kurkus, Dungardeo, the mountain god, resides on the nearest hill outside the village. He is worshipped every year at the Dasahra festival with a goat, two cocoa-nuts, five dates, with a ball of vermilion paste, and is regarded by them as their special god.[144] The idea that dwarfs, spirits, and fairies live on the tops of mountains is a common belief in Europe.