In about the same rank as Bhîmsen is Bhîshma, “the terrible one,” another hero of the Mahâbhârata. To the Hindu nowadays he is chiefly known by the tragic circumstances of his death. He was covered all over by the innumerable arrows discharged at him by Arjuna, and when he fell from his chariot he was upheld from the ground by the arrows and lay as on a couch of darts. This Sara-sayya or “arrow-bed” of Bhîshma is probably the origin of the Kantaka-sayya or “thorn-couch” of some modern Bairâgis, who lie and sleep on a couch studded with nails. He wished to marry the maiden Satyavatî, but he gave her up to his father Sântanu, and Bhîshma elected to live a single life, so that his sons might not claim the throne from his step-brethren. Hence, as he died childless and left no descendant to perform his funeral rites, he is worshipped with libations of water on the Bhîshma Ashtamî, or 23rd of the month of Mâgh; but this ceremony hardly extends beyond Bengal.
In Upper India five days in the month of Kârttik (November-December) are sacred to him. This is a woman’s festival. They send lamps to a Brâhman’s house, whose wife during these five days must sleep on the ground, on a spot covered with cow-dung, close to the lamps, which it is her duty to keep alight. The lamps are filled with sesamum oil, and red wicks wound round sticks of the sesamum plant rest in the lamp saucers. A walnut, an âonla (the fruit of the emblic myrobolon), a lotus-seed, and two copper coins are placed in each lamp. Each evening the women come and prostrate themselves before the lamps or walk round them. They bathe on each day of the feast before sunrise, and are allowed only one meal in the day, consisting of sugar-cane, sweet potatoes and other roots, with meal made of amarinth seed, millet and buckwheat cakes, to which the rich add sugar, dry ginger, and butter. They drink only milk. Of course the Brâhman gets a share of these good things, to which the rich contribute in addition a lamp-saucer made of silver, with a golden wick, clothes, and money. At the early morning bath of the last day five lighted lamps made of dough are placed, one at the entrance of the town or village, others at the four cross-roads, under the Pîpal or sacred fig tree, at a temple of Siva, and at a pond. This last is put in a small raft made of the leaves of the sugar-cane, and floated on the water. A little grain is placed beside each lamp. After the lamps handed over to the Brâhman have burnt away or gone out, the black from the wicks is rubbed on the eyes and fingers of the worshippers, and their toe-nails are anointed with the remainder of the oil. All the articles used in the worship are well-known scarers of demons, and there can be little doubt that the rite is intended to conciliate Bhîshma in his character of a guardian deity, and induce him to ward off evil spirits from the household of the worshipper.
There is a curious legend told to explain the motive of the rite. A childless Râja once threatened to kill all his queens unless one of them gave birth to a child. One of the Rânîs who had a cat, announced that she had been brought to bed of a girl, who was to be shut up for twelve years, a common incident in the folk-tales.[20] This was all very well, but the supposed princess had to be married, and here lay the difficulty. Now this cat had been very attentive during this rite in honour of Bhîshma, keeping the wicks alight by raising them from time to time with her paws, and cleaning them on her body. So the grateful godling turned her into a beautiful girl, but her tail remained as before. However, the bridegroom’s friends admired her so much that they kept her secret at the wedding, and so saved the Rânî from destruction, and when the time came for the bride to go to her husband her tail dropped off too. So Hindu ladies use the oil and lamp-black of Bhîshma’s feast day as valuable aids to beauty. Such cases of animal transformation constantly appear in the folk-tales. In one of the Kashmîr stories a cat, by the advice of Pârvatî, rubs herself with oil and is turned into a girl; but she does not rub a small patch between her shoulders, and this remained covered with the cat’s fur.[21]
The worship of the heroes of the Mahâbhârata does not prevail widely, unless we have a survival of it in the worship of the Pânch Pîr. At the last Census in the North-Western Provinces less than four thousand persons declared themselves worshippers of the Pândavas. The number in the Panjâb is even smaller.
Worship of the Local Godlings.
We now come to the local or village godlings, a most nondescript collection of deities, possessing very various attributes. There is good reason to believe that most of these deities, if not all, belong to the races whom it is convenient to call non-Aryan, or at least outside Brâhmanism, though some of them may have been from time to time promoted into the official pantheon. But Dr. Oppert,[22] writing of Southern India, remarks that “if the pure Vedic doctrine has been altered by the influx of non-Aryan tenets, so have also the latter undergone a change by coming in contact with Aryan ideas, and not only have males intruded into the once exclusive female circle of the Grâmadevatâs, but also a motley of queer figures have crept in, forming indeed a very strange gathering. The Grâmadevatâ-prathishtha mentions as Grâmadevatâs the skull of Brahma, the head of Vishnu, the skull of Renukâ, the figure of Draupadî, the body of Sîtâ, the harassing followers of Siva (the Pramathas), the attendants of Vishnu (Pârishadas), demons, Yoginîs, various kinds of Sâktis made of wood, stone, or clay; persons who were unsuccessful in their devotional practice, Sunasepha, Trisanku, Ghatotkacha, and others; Devakî’s daughter, multiform Durgâs and Sâktis; Pûtanâ and others who kill children; Bhûtas, Pretas, and Pisâchas; Kûsmânda, Sâkinî, Dâkinî, Vetâlas, and others; Yakshas, Kirâtadevî, Sabarî, Rudra, one hundred millions of forms of Rudra; Mâtangî, Syâmalâ, unclean Ganapati, unclean Chândalî, the goddess of the liquor pot (Surabhandeswarî), Mohinî, Râkshasî, Tripurâ, Lankhinî, Saubhadevî, Sâmudrikâ, Vanadurgâ, Jaladurgâ, Agnidurgâ, suicides, culprits, faithful wives, the goddesses of matter, goddesses of qualities, and goddesses of deeds, etc.” Through such a maze as this it is no easy task to find a clue.
The non-Brâhmanic character of the worship is implied by the character of the priesthood. In the neighbourhood of Delhi, where the worship of Bhûmiya as a local godling widely prevails, the so-called priest of the shrine, whose functions are limited to beating a drum during the service and receiving the offerings, is usually of the sweeper caste. Sîtalâ, the small-pox goddess, is very often served by a Mâli, or gardener. Sir John Malcolm notes that the Bhopa of Central India, who acts as the village priest, is generally drawn from some menial tribe.[23] In the hill country of South Mirzapur, the Baiga who manages the worship of Gansâm, Râja Lâkhan, or the aggregate of the local deities, known as the Dih or Deohâr, is almost invariably a Bhuiyâr or a Chero, both semi-savage Drâvidian tribes. Even the shrine erected in honour of Nâhar Râo, the famous King of Mandor, who met in equal combat the chivalrous Chauhân in the pass of the Aravalli range, is tended by a barber officiant.[24] Though the votaries of the meaner godling are looked on with some contempt or pity by their more respectable neighbours, little active hostility or intolerance is exhibited. More than this, the higher classes, and particularly their women, occasionally join in the worship of the older gods. At weddings and other feasts their aid and protection are invoked. Every woman, no matter what her caste may be, will bow to the ghosts which haunt the old banyan or pîpal tree in the village, and in time of trouble, when the clouds withhold the rain, when the pestilence walketh in darkness, and the murrain devastates the herds, it is to the patron deities of the village that they appeal for assistance.