Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism 129 



at first applied to the tribes which have not at all come within Hin- 

 duism, but the Dravidians who have come have brought with them 

 the same practices, and therefore their religion must be termed 

 animistic.^^ Animism is not altogether a satisfactory term in this 

 connection, for as usually understood it does not accurately de- 

 scribe the Dravidian conception. -^ Tylor defines it as the belief 

 that inanimate objects and the phenomena of nature are endowed 

 with personal life or a living soul. This approaches more to fetish- 

 ism. In fact, it is difficult to draw any hard and fast lines be- 

 tween animism and f etishism.^^ The Travencore State Manual^*' 

 says that animism differs from fetishism in that it is the spirit 

 which is feared, while in fetishism it is the object which has super- 

 natural powers.^^ 



it is not especially the dead ancestors who are worshiped. Such an origin 

 for a Dravidian god would be a marked exception. 



21 Census of 1911, Vol. XII, Pt. i, paras. 86-103, gives an account of the 

 Khonds, a hill tribe which has not come into Hinduism. Their home is 

 in the Nalamalli Hills. In this tribe may be found all the fundamental 

 ideas of the worship of local deities such as have been described in the pre- 

 ceding pages. There is no belief in Karma or Transmigration, which comes 

 only from philosophical Hinduism. There is a god who guards the village 

 from the outside, and a helper who receives a fee of fowls and eggs. 

 These seem like Poleramma and Potu Razu. There are numerous gods 

 which brings various diseases, and connected with their various kinds of 

 property. Paragraph 96 says, " It may be that the Khonds' hilly country, 

 with its feverish climate, has prevented the intersection of its orbit with that 

 of so-called Hinduism. Did opportunity offer, the Khond would probably 

 enter the Hindu fold, bringing with him his gods, as easily as many another 

 Dravidian demon worshiper has done, and receive in time a tincture of 

 deeper and more spiritual religious ideas, with a greater fixity and seem- 

 hness of his social relations." 



22 The Travencore State Manual, II, p. 39, says, " Animism is an exceed- 

 ingly crude form of religion in which magic or the propitiation of the 

 unknown predominates. . . . According to Prof. Tiele of Leyden, animism 

 is the belief in the existence of souls or spirits of which only the powerful 

 acquire the rank of divine beings and become objects of worship. They 

 are free, or may take up their abode in any object, living or inanimate." 



23 Monier- Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism, p. 340. 



24 Travencore State Manual, II, p. 39. 



28 Census of India, 1901, I, p. 358, gives an interesting account of clerks 

 worshiping a foreign ink bottle, pens, and stationary. This is said to be a 



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