202 The Ydstu Yoga. [No. 3, 



were much in vogue in Bengal, even as late as about fifty 

 years ago. 



Nor did fear and superstition stop with the creation of gods out 

 of poetical objects. In men's anxiety to avail themselves of super- 

 natural aid, they did not hesitate to borrow from foreign and other- 

 wise hated sources. 



Sattipir, Mdnikpir, Shahjummd Faqir, Shah JFarid, Oldbibi, and 

 many other similar dii minores and saints, found their places in 

 Hindu mythology entirely from this cause. In jungly districts 

 and infested rivers and creeks, Kdlu Rdyd and Dalcshin Rdya are 

 as commonly worshipped as the local Firs and Ghdzis. It is 

 remarkable that Kdlu Rdya and Dalcshin Rdya are represented by 

 trunkless mitred heads. They are held to be guardians of the 

 forest, and they ride on tigers and crocodiles. On the 30th day of 

 the month of Fausha, these two forest demigods are worshipped, 

 and with them earthen figures of their tigers and crocodiles. 

 But this is limited to the southern districts of Bengal, where these 

 ferocious animals abound. They are worshipped as Kshetrapdlas 

 or field gods, and are said to have originated from the heads of 

 Brahma, the creator, cut off by S'iva. To them sacrifices of goats 

 and ducks are offered, perhaps more to appease the tigers and the 

 crocodiles than the gods themselves. 



That the same principle of appeasing the unmanageable and 

 the dreadful is the basis of serpent worship, is easy to de- 

 monstrate. The serpent goddess is worshipped in the Euphorbia 

 antiquorum, The goddess mother of the serpents, and goddess pre- 

 siding over them, is Manasa, the obj ect of love and devotion, and, as 

 the name implies, an allegorical creation. Indeed, tree and serpent 

 worship may be said to have originated partly, if not entirely, in the 

 imagination of the people, and in figures of speech. The chief of 

 the serpents is ^*Ri, eternity, literally endless, of which the univer- 

 sally acknowledged symbol is a coiled snake. Though represented 

 as the support of Vishnu, while floating on the fathomless sea of 

 chaos before creation, (Grod in eternity), he is, in the Puranas, 

 described as having the form of Vishnu, meaning, perhaps, the 

 eternity of Vishnu. Thus the Puranas describe him as 



