THE RELIGION AND CUSTOMS OF THE URAONS. 175 



(My respected guru, my respected father has come for a visit ; give to my guru a 

 cobra basket to sit upon.) 



Exactly the same song is sung for newra and also for the six others, the name of 

 the guru alone being changed. 



" Guru ji baba ji ai gelain pahun 

 More Madho guru de rakho 

 Baise ke sone ke machlawa? " 



(My respected guru, my respected father has come for a visit ; give to my Madho 

 guru a gold stool to sit upon.) 



The eight great gurus or Deotas are Kanru, Newra, Madho, Deogan, Hanuman, 

 Narsingh, Bhainsasur, and Bhuinphar. These are the Deotas who produce trances. 

 The classes always begin on a Sundav. After learning for six days, i.e., on the next 

 Sunday, they have the ceremony called Painsaru. They go to the jungle with their 

 guru, and everyone cuts a handful of sabai grass growing on an ant-hill (no other 

 will do). This is to make a whip, which everyone keeps with him as long as his 

 education lasts. The incantations being very monotonous and lessons continuing till 

 very late in the night, the pupils are very often tempted to sleep. But when anyone is 

 seen to be nodding, all the others strike him with their whips. When everyone has 

 collected sabai enough, they return to the school-room, with mud taken from an ant-hill, 

 and in the middle of the room build an erection resembling the stone used by the natives 

 for grinding wheat. A piece of iron curved to the shape of a cobra and a trident with 

 the middle prong protruding are stuck in the middle. This acts as an altar, and every day 

 everyone has to bring fresh flowers to decorate it. On the day of the Painsaru a sacri- 

 fice of two fowls is offered to the chief deified guru, and the blood of the offering spilt is 

 on the altar. Near it on the floor they burn a mixture of frankincense, ghi, and gur 

 which is called gandhup. The whole day the stricktest fast is observed, and the morning 

 is devoted to going about the jungle with the guru and learning the medicines they have 

 to use. Every Sunday the same routine is followed. In the evening every pupil has 

 to come and bend for some time before the altar and inhale the fumes of gandhup. Then 

 begins a scene which is also repeated every Sunday. All begin their incantations and 

 mantras, singing moving their heads and clapping their hands in tune with the music. 

 Their invocations are to the eight deities that produce trances to come and take posses- 

 sion of them. After some time, when one of them begins to show signs of possession, 

 they all sing together the following song : — 



" Bharua to bharua bhori gaio 

 Isar Mahadeo na pawe 

 Kunia chata pari gail." 



(Possession, possession, be so complete that the god Mahadeo cannot increase it — that 

 the waters of the well be exhausted.) The music is so soft, so sweet, so insinuating with 

 such a perfect gradation of feeling, that at the last word the singer seems to softly 

 swoon away into the land of oblivion. 



There are five different kinds of possession according to the different Deotas that 



