202 TJie Vc*Uk Y [No 



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



year.s ago. 



Nor did fear and superstition stop with th< 

 of poetical objects. In men's anxiety to avail th< 

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

 wise hated sow 



Sattipir, Jf<i?i//>-pir, SkdJyummd Faqir, Shak and 



many other similar dii minor* and saints, found their plai • 

 Iliiidu mythology entirely from this can-.'. In jungly di- 

 fcnd infested rivers and creeks, Ki\l» Rdyd and Dakshin 11. ij 

 as commonly worshipped as the Local Pirn and t It is 



remarkable that Kalu Raya and Dakshin Rdya are represented l>y 

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

 forest, and they ride on tigers and crocodiles. On th^ 30th d 

 the month of Pausha, these two forest demigods are worshipped- 

 and with them earthen figures of their tigers and crocodilesJ 

 Bui this Lb limited to the southern districts of Bengal, wh 

 ferocious animals abound. Th< rorshipped as Kshetrapalat 



or field gods, and BTS -aid to have originated from the hea 



Brahma, the creator, cut off by Siva. To them Bacrii 



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



crocodiles than the god- tie 



That the same principle of appeasing the unmanageable and 

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

 monstrate. Tho serpent goddess is worshipped in the Eupt 

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

 siding over them, is Manama, the object of love and devotion, and, as 

 tho name implies, an allegorical creation. Indeed, tree and s< . 

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

 imagination of the people, and in figures of speech. Tl. 

 the serpents is ^•prl, eternity, literally endless, of wliich the univer- 

 sally acknowledged symbol is a coiled snake. Though n pic- 

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

 chaos before creation, (God in eternity), he is, in the Tin 

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

 eternity of Vishnu. Thus the Puranas describe him as 



