Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/450

 4IO The Folklore in the Legends of the Panjah.

dismissals, has evidently presented itself to the Oriental mind as a very serious vow or oath, it matters little which ; and we constantly find in consequence that not only the notion, but even the very terminology of this form of divorce has come to be synonymous with that of taking a binding oath or vow. There is among the Indian peasantry a regular custom nowadays of emphasising both oaths and vows by taking them three times.

Besides the miracle and magic working powers, there are two others of importance, which may be said to be inherent in saints, those of prophecy and metamorphosis. In the Legends the saintly power of prophecy is usually introduced for the very useful story-telling purpose of indicating the unborn hero's career as about to be developed, and the power of metamorphosis for the purely folklore object of helping on the progress of the stories connected with the saints, or those in whom they are interested, or with whom they have been concerned.

Metamorphosis is a belief that has struck its roots deeply into the minds of the Indian folk ; and hence we find it constantly occurring in the hagiological legends. The saints can assume any form that is necessary to the tale or likely to attract the attention of the audience, can change the forms of others, and delegate unlimited power of meta- morphosis to their followers. The idea so obviously lends itself to fancy that the variations of it assume forms most startling to the everyday man. In the Legends there are many astonishing extensions of the notion, of which turning the Deity himself into a dog in a legend about Namdev, for the purpose of pointing a moral, is perhaps the best example. A dog ran off with the saint's (jogi's) food, and, instead of beating him, the saint addressed him in language applicable properly to the Deity. For his reward the dog turned into the Deity, and thus the saint had the inestimable privilege of beholding the Deity in person.

In the application of the theory of metamorphosis to folk-