6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



the rani and her husband desirous of offspring came to 

 him to pray for a son. He induced her to confess her 

 crime ; then revealing himself he gave her a grain 

 of rice to eat and told her she would bear a son who 

 would be learned and brave and holy. That son was 

 Raja Rasalu, a monarch identified with the historical 

 Sri Syalapati Deva. 1 The birth of an older but 

 equally famous hero, Visvamitra, is attributed by the 

 Vishnu Purana to a similar cause. 2 Guga Pir, the 

 Mahratta saint, was born of a mother whose husband 

 had deserted her, but who received from Gorakhnath 

 some resin to be eaten mixed with milk. Her father's 

 mare Lilli, licking round the basin of resin and milk, 

 also became pregnant and foaled the winged stallion 

 LM, afterwards Guga's steed. We need not pursue 

 Guga's wonderful career in detail. Suffice it to say 

 that this mode of propagating the species was a family 

 specialty. His mother's sister brought into the 

 world two sons from two barleycorns given her by 

 the Guru Gorakhnath ; and he himself was childless 

 until his guardian deity bestowed upon him a similar 

 gift, by means of which he obtained from his wife a 

 son and from his favourite mare the famous steed 

 Jav&diya. 3 The traditions of the Malayan Minang- 

 kabau population of the Highlands of Sumatra speak 

 of a particular kind of cocoa-nut called niver balai that 

 had the property of causing pregnancy without fleshly 

 intercourse. The hero Tjindoer Mat5 was thus 

 called in allusion to this immaculate generation. 4 



1 Temple, Leg. Pan/, i. i ; Steel, 247. 

 1 Wilson, V. P. 399 (/. iv. c. 7). 



8 N. Ind. N. and Q. hi. 96 (par. 205) ; Elliot, N. W. Prov. i. 

 256; Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 211. 



4 Van der Toorn, Bijdragen, xxxix, 78. 



