Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/435

 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjah. 395

that the gods and saintly heroes are much mixed up, and naturally, in popular conception ; and we have more than one instance in which the special attributes of the Deity, even from the Hindu standpoint, are ascribed to such per- sonages — or ought we to say, more accurately, such abstrac- tions ? — as Guru Gorakhnath. And vice versa, even such gods par excellence as Siva and Parbati are reduced almost to the level of ordinary mortals.

In connection with the belief in immortality, that pathetic hope of the incapacity of a whole personality for death, so universal in mankind, we find that saints, especially deceased saints, are much mixed up in Indian idea with ghosts and spirits. In this form they have the power of appearance peculiar to ghosts all the world over, particularly at mid- night — " midnight the time for saints, adhi rat Pirdn da veld " — is an expression that occurs more than once. They appear also in dreams, sometimes I rather suspect with a view to helping the progress of the story.

A careful study of the instances in which beings endowed with immortality, t'.e. ghosts and spirits on the one hand, and gods, godlings, and warriors {Mrs) on the other, appear in the Legends, and of their actions as recorded therein, will afford yet another proof that fundamentally there is no indi- vidual difference between them in the popular conception, nor between them and their mortal counterparts, the holy personages of all sorts. They all, the mortal and the im- mortal, do the same things, have the same characteristics and powers, and are introduced into folktales for the same purposes. The differences to be observed in titles and attributes is due to an overlaying, a mere veneer, of rival religious philosophies — thus, where ghosts and spirits appear the tale will be found to be Muhammadan in origin or form, where gods, godlings, and warriors appear it will similarly be found to be Hindu in origin or form. Where the tale refers back to days before set Hinduism, or has its origin in an anti-Hindu form of belief, or is given an anti-Hindu cast,