WHO WERE THE WATER DEMONS?
Whence arose the fear of evil spirits? Who were those water demons? Both
philology and history confirm the view that the _Devas_ or demons of old
were in many cases either the conquered aborigines of the various lands
in which the ancient Aryans settled themselves, or hostile races dwelling
along their frontiers. Out of this hostility of races coming in close
contact with one another sprang various superstitions. In some cases the
armies of the aborigines were represented as accompanied by their own
guardian spirits, who waged war upon the newcomers and who were therefore
regarded as demoniacal. In other cases, the aborigines were themselves
credited with the power of exercising demon functions or assuming demon
forms. Thus the people of Iran believed that the land of Turan was full
of demons. This influence of the conquered people did not die out after
the struggle with them was over. Not only did the aborigines continue to
believe in their own demoniacal powers and to observe their old rites and
customs in the new régime, but they also spread the beliefs in many ways
among their conquerors.
All untoward occurrences and unusual natural phenomena thus came to be
attributed to the malignant action of those evil spirits. Storms, floods,
famines, disease and death all proceeded from the _Devas_, who in the
_Yasna Haptanhaiti_ of the Zoroastrians are described as “the wicked,
bad, wrongful originators of mischief, the most baneful, destructive and
basest of beings.” Professor Robertson Smith relegates demonism to the
position of a cult hostile to and separate from the tribal beliefs of
early people and Mr. Walhouse points out[50] that these beliefs in demons
“belong to the Turanian races and are antagonistic to the Aryan genius
and feelings.”
No doubt, Max Müller holds a different view. He considers that there
is no difficulty in tracing a belief in evil, unclean and maleficent
spirits, such as abound in Atharva-Veda, to the same soil which produced
a faith in good and beneficent spirits. “We need not go for them,” says
he, “to the original inhabitant of India or the Blacks of Australia. Some
of the great Vedic gods like Rudra and the Maruts often assume a double
aspect. They are unkind as well as kind, they cause disease though they
likewise heal them. We have plenty of evil spirits in the Veda, such as
Vritras, Rakshasas, Yâmdhânas, Pisâkas. Of course, nothing is easier
than to say that they were borrowed from the native races of India, but
this, which was formerly a very favourite expedient, would hardly commend
itself now to any serious scholar, excepting always the cases where
Dravidian words can actually be discovered in Sanscrit.”
These comments, however, merely contain a warning not to stretch
too widely a partial explanation of the origin of evil spirits. The
race-origin of the lesser malignant spirits may not account for the
existence of the Vedic giants and demons. Neither has anyone attempted
to do so. There is, however, no doubt that several of the myths of
_bhuts_ and _dâkans_, giants and dwarfs, are connected with traditions
of hostile races. Folklore throws considerable light on this question
and a good deal of evidence has been brought forward by Grimm and other
folklorists. Tylor has endorsed this evidence and the influence of
the hostility of races on the beliefs of people in many lands is very
skilfully examined by Sir Laurence Gomme in a chapter entitled the
“Mythic influence of a conquered race” in his _Ethnology of Folklore_,
and also in a chapter on “Ethnological conditions” in his later work,
_Folklore as an Historical Science_. For our present purpose one or two
examples from Indian Folklore will suffice. On Bombay side, when a person
is possessed, generally the evil spirit is of a low caste, a Mahar, or
Bhanghi or a Mochi or a Pinjari. The _dâkans_ (witches) who haunt our
wayside wells and trees and cemeteries also belong to such low castes,
as Kolis, Vaghris and Charans. The mountain ranges and jungle tracts of
Southern India are still inhabited by semi-savage tribes, who, there is
good reason to believe, once held the fertile open plains. As pointed out
by Walhouse in the _Journal of the Anthropological Society_, the contempt
and loathing in which they are ordinarily held, are curiously tinctured
with superstitious fear; for they are believed to possess secret powers
of magic and witchcraft and influence with the old malignant deities of
the soil who can direct good or evil fortune. To this day the people of
Chota Nagpur believe that the Moondahs possess powers of sorcery and
can transform themselves into tigers and other beasts of prey with a
view to devouring their enemies. Similarly, the Kathodis are believed
to transform themselves into tigers. Many closely parallel beliefs
can be quoted from the history of demonism in the western world and
Sir Laurence Gomme points out that the general characteristics of the
superstitions brought about by the contact between the Aryan conquerors
of India and the non-Aryan aborigines are also represented in the cult of
European witchcraft. Underneath the emblems of the foreign civilisation
lie the traditional custom and belief, “the attributes of the native
uncivilisation.”
A notable illustration is given by Evans Wentz in _Fairy Faith in Celtic
Countries_. The only true Cornish Fairy, says the author, is the Piksy,
of the race which is the _Pohel Vean_ or Little People, and the Spriggan
is only one of his aspects. The Piksy would seem to be the “Brownie” of
the Lowland Scot, the _Duine Sith_ of the Highlanders, and if we may
judge from an interesting note in Scott’s _Pirate_, the “Peight” of the
Orkneys. If _Duine Sith_ really means “the Folk of the Mounds (burrows),”
not the “People of Peace,” it is possible that there is something in
the theory that Brownie, _Duine Sith_, and “Peight,” which is Pict, are
only in their origin ways of expressing the little dark-complexioned
aboriginal folk who were supposed to inhabit the burrows, cromlechs, and
allées couvertes, and whose cunning, their only effective weapon against
the mere strength of the Aryan invader, earned them a reputation for
magical powers.[51]
Let us now see how far this view of the case helps us in understanding
the Parsi beliefs in the Mahomedan guardian spirits of wells, to which
reference has already been made. The relations of the Parsis with the
Hindus and Mahomedans in the land of their adoption were not exactly
those of conquered aborigines to the conquerors, but were, until the
advent of the English, practically the same as those of subject races to
the rulers. It was, however, no case of contact with a higher culture,
rather it was the case of assimilation of a ruder culture. No doubt,
the Parsis had taken to India from their ancient home a belief in the
existence of a presiding genius of water. That, however, was a belief
considerably different from that which in India gave the water-spirits
a local habitation and a name. But by long contact with the Hindus and
Mahomedans the community came to believe in several local deities and
absorbed several local rituals. No doubt, the primary factor in inducing
this recognition and worship of local deities was the fear of their power
to do harm, but with it must also have been blended the desire to please
the neighbouring communities and the hope of receiving favours at the
hands of the spirits if properly adored and propitiated.
This it was that seems to have led many a Parsi in the mofussil to offer
oil at the temple of _Hanuman_ or to take flowers to the shrines of
Mahomedan saints, whose aid they sought and who did not fail to appear
to them, warning them and directing them, mostly in dreams. When they
went to Bombay they had already absorbed the Hindu ideas concerning the
spirits lurking in or near deserted tanks and wells and regarded them
as the haunts of evil spirits such as _dâkans_ and _sankhinis_, _bhuts_
and _prets_. When, however, they dug wells in their own houses, in the
absence of any well-spirit in the Zoroastrian pantheon and in the absence
of any Hindu guardian-spirits of household wells, they appear to have
invariably peopled their private wells with _sayyids_ and _pirs_ in
whose virtues they had already come to believe and whom they had already
venerated at their shrines and whom it was thus convenient for them to
honour in their own houses by giving them a _sthan_ or _thanak_ in their
wells.
Thus we see that what was at first a purely Scriptural belief in the
sanctity of water and its presiding genius is now a medley of many
divergent elements owing to the fusion of divers local traditions
with the fundamental tribal belief during the long intercourse of the
community with the Hindus and Mahomedans. There is no country in the
world where people live under more varied social and religious conditions
and where they are more exposed to the influence of neighbours than in
India and of all the cities of this cosmopolitan country there is none
more cosmopolitan than the city of Bombay.
Possibly, if we carry on local research in the Bombay Presidency and
try to localise the beliefs and customs concerning well-worship, a good
deal of fresh light may be thrown on this question. The work is by no
means very difficult and with the aid of European folklorists, who
have already shown us the way, it should be easy to carry on research
throughout India. Sir Laurence Gomme, for instance, has given us in a
luminous chapter on the localisation of primitive beliefs, a very skilful
analysis of the different phases in which water-worship is still found in
the United Kingdom. All the survivals of this cult he has allocated and
explained by their ethnological bearing.