1839.] March between M how and Saugor, 1838. 819 



From Bhopal to Sanchi, the villages, (inhabited by Gonds, miser- 

 able in appearance, and sunk in the grossest ignorance) will afford but 

 few ruins, on which the antiquary can exercise his fancy or judgment. 

 Even the temples elsewhere so common, are seldom found here ; or if 

 found, have but little pooja made in them, in lieu of the more gene- 

 rally worshipped Deotas of the country — the Bairawas, Lings, and 

 Matas. The villagers pay their adoration to a parcel of small stones ar- 

 ranged in a square or circle, forming walled enclosures of a few yards, 

 with a small gap for an entrance, the stones opposite which, from 

 their larger share of paint, seem the principal objects of pooja. 

 These gods, with a curious contradiction, (for the stones are rarely 

 so high as a foot,) they call the Burra Deos ; and though they 

 pay a general reverence to the Hindoo Pantheon — for as one of them 

 told me, once a year a goat dies (bukri murta) to Kali — these are the 

 powers to whom they look, in the hour of joy or sorrow, round whom 

 they wind the votive thread,* before whom they throw the marriage 

 mouri, and hang up the old plough at the singust.% In one of these 

 inclosures we remarked several clubs set up, and on asking the cause, 

 were told that finding all prayers and ceremonies ineffectual to stop 

 a sickness which afflicted the neighbourhood at the commencement of 

 this year, they had determined to threaten the great gods with a 

 beating ; and sickness having shortly afterwards ceased, they believe 

 their remedy to have been efficacious.§ At one village, Sahapoor, two 

 miles south-east from the halting place between Bhopal and Bhilsa we 

 were shewn about forty or fifty (unfortunately we forgot to count) figures 

 of horsemen carved in sandstone, about a foot and a half high, and 

 ranged round a small walled inclosure in an oval ; of the warriors who 



* Made of threads, and commonly seen encircling Lings. The grateful piety of mo- 

 thers whose infants have survived the small-pox, generally prompts this simple form 

 of devotion. 



f The caps made of split date leaf, or false jewellery, of a Hindu bride and bride- 

 groom. When a river is at hand, they are generally thrown into it, otherwise at the 

 feet of some deity. The custom, doubtless of great antiquity, may be traced in other 

 countries — and as one of the many coincidences between Yavan and Hindu manners, 

 which seem to argue a common origin, we may notice the i*esemblance of the Sehura 

 of an Indian maiden, to the tinsel cap of the Athenian bride. 



X The old plough alone is thus gratefully honored (the iron however taken off) 

 every twelfth year, other worn out articles, brooms, baskets, ghurras, &c. are merely 

 thrown out in a heap. 



§ A method of managing the gods of which there is a well known example in His- 

 tory, and one still practised by some of the hill tribes of India. 



5n 



