Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/437

 The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjab. 397

instances of miracles performed through an agent, by proxy as it were. The agency need not be necessarily that of a supernatural or human being. Things dedicated or sacred or appertaining to a saint are sufficient for the purpose, as when a fountain or well sacred to a saint will effect a cure, or when his flute, or conch, or horse, or other animate or inanimate thing belonging to him, will procure for him even a passing desire. The miracles effected at tombs and shrines belong to this class, and these are ubiquitous in India generally, their universality giving form to the widely-spread and pretty notion of the lover miraculously disappearing alive into the tomb of the dead and buried beloved.

By assuming the power of working miracles to be an attribute of saints, one becomes prepared for their being able to do anything that is necessary for their own personal glory, the protection of themselves and their followers, or the exigencies of the tales about them. But even then one is sometimes taken aback at the ingenuity of the story- tellers, e.g.., causing the gods to cash a document that corresponds to a cheque is one bright idea, and carrying a tiger up his sleeve to terrify the ruler of the period is another. Both are attributed to well-known saints. But the very quaintest, and in some respects the most remarkable and instructive tale I have ever come across of an Indian miracle, is one arising out of the well-known scientific and astronomical proclivities of the celebrated Raja Jai Singh Sawai of Jaipur, who flourished only one hundred and fifty years ago, and to be found in the Legends. According to this tale the populace believe that not only could he make a moon, but that he had a private moon of his own to light up his city on dark nights.

It is obviously necessary to the greatness of the saints, indeed to the very success of the shrines, on the proceeds of which the bards and story-tellers live, that holy men should be able to protect themselves and their followers ; and the varieties of ways in which they are fabled to be