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                          THE POPULAR RELIGION
                            AND FOLK-LORE OF
                             NORTHERN INDIA

                                   BY

                            W. CROOKE, B.A.
                          BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE



                             IN TWO VOLUMES

                                VOL. I.

                 A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ILLUSTRATED

                              WESTMINSTER
                       ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.
                       2, Whitehall Gardens, S.W.

                                  1896







PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


The success of this book has been much beyond my expectations. That
a considerable edition has been exhausted within a few months after
publication proves that it meets a want.

I have now practically re-written the book, and have taken
the opportunity of introducing a considerable amount of fresh
information collected in the course of the Ethnographical Survey of
the North-Western Provinces, the results of which will be separately
published.

For the illustrations, which now appear for the first time, I am
indebted to the photographic skill of Mr. J. O'Neal, of the Thomason
Engineering College, Rurki. I could have wished that they could have
been drawn from a wider area. But Hardwar and its shrines are very
fairly representative of popular Hinduism in Northern India.


W. Crooke.

Saharanpur,
February, 1895.



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

Many books have been written on Brahmanism, or the official religion
of the Hindu; but, as far as I am aware, this is the first attempt
to bring together some of the information available on the popular
beliefs of the races of Upper India.

My object in writing this book has been threefold. In the first place
I desired to collect, for the use of all officers whose work lies
among the rural classes, some information on the beliefs of the people
which will enable them, in some degree, to understand the mysterious
inner life of the races among whom their lot is cast; secondly, it
may be hoped that this introductory sketch will stimulate inquiry,
particularly among the educated races of the country, who have,
as yet, done little to enable Europeans to gain a fuller and more
sympathetic knowledge of their rural brethren; and lastly, while I
have endeavoured more to collect facts than to theorize upon them,
I hope that European scholars may find in these pages some fresh
examples of familiar principles. My difficulty has arisen not so much
from deficiency of material, as in the selection and arrangement of
the mass of information, which lies scattered through a considerable
literature, much of which is fugitive.

I believe that the more we explore these popular superstitions and
usages, the nearer are we likely to attain to the discovery of the
basis on which Hinduism has been founded. The official creed has
always been characterized by extreme catholicism and receptivity, and
many of its principles and legends have undoubtedly been derived from
that stratum of the people which it is convenient to call non-Aryan
or Dravidian. The necessity, then, of investigating these beliefs
before they become absorbed in Brahminism, one of the most active
missionary religions of the world, is obvious.

I may say that the materials of this book were practically complete
before I was able to use Mr. J. S. Campbell's valuable collection of
"Notes on the Spirit Basis of Belief and Custom;" but, in revising
the manuscript, I have availed myself to some extent of this useful
collection, and when I have done so, I have been careful to acknowledge
my obligations to it. Even at the risk of overloading the notes
with references, I have quoted the authorities which I have used,
and I have added a Bibliography which may be of use to students to
whom the subject is unfamiliar.

The only excuse I can plead for the obvious imperfections of this
hasty survey of a very wide subject is that it has been written in
the intervals of the scanty leisure of a District Officer's life in
India, and often at a distance from works of reference and libraries.


W. Crooke.

Mirzapur,
February, 1893.







CONTENTS.



    CHAPTER I.                                              PAGE

    The Godlings of Nature                                     1

    CHAPTER II.

    The Heroic and Village Godlings                           83

    CHAPTER III