172 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



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 Bhilala family, who admit their remote derivation from 

 the former. A legend is here current, and based on writings 

 of some antiquity, that Kali and Kal-Bhairava were here 

 worshipped by the Bheels, long before the worship of Omkar 

 (Siva) was introduced along with the Rajput 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 Rajput 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 Bhairava 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 Omkar-Mandhatta is Kal Bhairava. 

 Regarding it Parbati (wife of Siva) said unto twenty-five 

 crores of the daughters of the Gandharvas (angels), ' Your 

 nuptials will be with persons who shall have cast themselves 

 over that rock/ Whoever thus devotes himself to Kal Bhairava 

 will receive forgiveness, even though he had killed a Br&hnian. 



* The Narmada Khanda, which professes to be a part of the Skanda Purana. 

 A more detailed account of the Holy Island and its Shrines, by the author, will 

 be found in the Central Provinces Gazetteer, 2nd edition. 



