Volcanic Fire; Will-o’-the-Wisp.
Fire of a volcanic nature is, as might be expected, regarded with veneration. Such is the fire which in some places in Kashmîr rises out of the ground.[148]
The meteoric light or Shahâba is also much respected. In Hoshangâbâd there is a local godling, known as Khapra Bâba, who lives on the edge of a tank, and is said to appear in the darkness with a procession of lights.[149] In Rohilkhand and the western districts of Oudh, one often hears of the Shahâba. In burial-grounds, especially where the bodies of those slain in battle are interred, it is said that phantom armies appear in the night. Tents are pitched, the horses are tethered, and lovely girls dance before the heroes and the Jinn who are in their train. Sometimes some foolish mortal is attracted by the spectacle, and he suffers for his foolhardiness by loss of life or reason. Sometimes these ignes fatui mislead the traveller at night, as Robin Goodfellow “misleads night wanderers, laughing at their harm,” or the Cornish piskies, who show a light and entice people into bogs.[150] There appears to be in Northern India no trace of the idea which so widely appears in Europe, that such lights are the souls of unbaptized children.[151]
The Tomb Fetish.
Next comes the respect paid to the cairn which covers the remains of the dead or is a mere cenotaph commemorating a death. We have already seen instances of this in the pile of stones which marks the place where a tiger has killed a man, and in the cairns in honour of the jungle deities, or the spirits which infest dangerous passes. The rationale of these sepulchral cairns is to keep down the ghost of the dead man and prevent it from injuring the living. We see the same idea in the rule of the old ritual, that on the departure of the last mourner, after the conclusion of the funeral ceremony, the Adhvâryu, or officiating priest, should place a circle of stones behind him, to prevent death overtaking those who have gone in advance.[152]
THE FOOTPRINTS OF VISHNU.
The primitive grave-heap grows into the cairn, and the cairn into the tomb or Stûpa.[153] In the way of a tomb Hindus will worship almost anything. The tomb of an English lady is worshipped at Bhandâra in the Central Provinces. At Murmari, in the Nâgpur District, a similar tomb is smeared with turmeric and lime, and people offer cocoanuts to it in the hope of getting increased produce from their fields. The tomb of an English officer near the Fort of Bijaygarh in the Aligarh District was, when I visited the place some years ago, revered as the shrine of the local village godling. There is a similar case at Râwalpindi. There is a current tale of some people offering brandy and cigars to the tomb of a European planter who was addicted to these luxuries in his lifetime, but no one can tell where the tomb actually exists.[154]