Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/47

 The Legends of Krishna. ^il

worshipped at Sitamarhi in Bengal under the title of Adbhutnatha, or " the miraculous god." ^

We are then, perhaps, justified in suspecting that more than one line of influence may have contributed to the representation of Krishna as a black god.

There is, first, the Negrito element, which shows itself in the popular representations of Buddha.

Secondly, if Krishna in his earliest form be a god of agriculture and cattle, the blackness may connote his chthonic attributes.

Thirdly, if the Rajputs may be identified with the Yu-echi of Central Asia, they may have brought their black god with them. In this part of the world to this day black gods are found. At Tashkent is the shrine of the saint Zangata, " the dark father," who is said to have been dark like a negro ; and a black stone near Bukhara, called Sianghi Murad, is rubbed by pilgrims, who touch their faces and beards with it.^ There is also much in the earlier legends of the Rajputs which suggests an influence which, whatever it may have been, was probably not Hindu. The Pandavas were probably a rude non-Aryan confederation and brought with them foreign practices, such as polyandry, which shows itself in the Draupadi Legend, brutality to conquered enemies, as when Bhima drains the life-blood of Duscasana.^ The brutal practices of Krishna's own tribe, the Yadavas, chiefly as regards marriage, are notorious.^

It is thus possible that they may have largely absorbed some of the Dravidian or indigenous races among whom, as we have seen, black stone worship was prevalent. In fact there seems reason to believe that this element in the

' Pliny, Nat. Hist. , ii. , 59 ; Asiatic Researches, iv. , 388 ; Burton, Filgi-iiiiage, ii., 300 seqq. ; Shea-Troyer, Dabistaji, i., 49; Burckhardt, Travels, i., 172, 249 seqq. ; Crooke, loc. cii., i., 82 ; Pavjab Notes and Queries, ii., 145.

- Schuyler, Turkistan, ii. , 113 ; i., 138.

^ Frazer, Literary History of India, 216 note ; Mahdbhdrata, Kavna Parva, Ixxxiii., 17; Ray, trans., vi., 316.

^ Ragendralala Mitra, Indo Aryans, i., 425.