180 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



Omkar — one of the oldest and most famous in all India. 

 Like that at Puchmurree, it is situated among rugged 

 hills and jungles ; but it has evidently at one time been 

 the seat of a great centre of Sivite worship. Ancient 

 fortifications surmount its scarps ; and the area of 

 nearly two square miles enclosed is piled up with the 

 ruins of a thousand gorgeous temples. The most 

 ancient of the temples at which worship is still paid are 

 held by aboriginal Bheels as their custodians, and the 

 more recent by a Bhihila family, who admit their remote 

 derivation from the former. A legend is here current, 

 and based on writings of some antiquity, that Kah' and 

 Kal-Bhairava were here worshipped by the Bheels, long 

 before the worship of Omkar (Siva) was introduced 

 along with the Pidjpiit adventurer and his attendant 

 priest, who were the ancestors of the present Bhilala 

 custodian and of the hereditary high priest of Siva's 

 shrine. The Kajpiit is said, by alliance with the Bheels, 

 to have obtained the headship of the tribe ; and the 

 holy man who accompanied him, to have stayed by his 

 austerities the ravages of their savage deities, locking 

 Kali up in a cavern of the hill (and if you do not believe 

 it you may still see the cavern closed up), and vowing to 

 Bhairavii an annual sacrifice of human beings. Listen 

 now to the inducements which the local Sivite gospel * 

 holds forth to devotees to cast themselves from the rock. 

 " At Omkdr-]\Iandh{itta is Kal Bbairavd,. Regarding 

 it, Parbati (wife of Siva) said unto twentj^-five crores 

 of the daughters of the Gandharvas (angels): 'Your 

 nuptials will be with persons who shall have cast them- 



* The Narmada Khanda, ■which jDrofesses to be a part of the Skandd 

 Parana. A more detailed account of the Holy Island and its Shrines, 

 by tlie autlior, will be found in the " Central Provinces Gazetteer," 

 second edition. 



