Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/438

412 the same stock. It is on the contrary an aggregation of minor growths, some of cognate origin, some of foreign provenance, all grouped together under the shadow of one mighty tree. It is an influence which has taken possession of well nigh all the roads by which man approaches the unseen in India, its churches are as well the stately Cathedral, where scholars and princes worship, as the humble shrine where villagers offer wild flowers to some god born of their own rude hearts, or the wayside spot haunted by some random godling, who may have dwelt there long before the Hindus came into India, or may have arrived there last week." The attitude of the Brahman towards the gods of the savage races with whom he comes in contact seems to me somewhat similar to that of the Vicar of Bray. Whatever they may be, and whatever the rites of their worship, he is ready to accept them as one or other of the Hindu gods or godlings and to instal himself as high priest.

The Manipur chronicle, which is a very interesting history of the State from the very earliest times, commences with a pedigree, thus: Naran begat Brahma, Brahma begat Marichi, and so on through five generations to Chitraketu, who had one million wives and reigned in Mahendranagarh. The youngest of the million partners of Chitraketu had only one son, whose granddaughter Chitrangada became the wife of Arjun, the third son of Pandu, by whom she had only one son, Babrubahon, who changed the name of Mahendranagarh to Manipur. From Babrubahon the pedigree is carried through three generations to Hemanga, who died childless, but his widow Bhanumati worshipped the sun and obtained two divine eggs, one of which took the form of Taoroinai, known later as Pureiromba (of whom you will hear more when we come to the Umanglais or forest gods). Pureiromba, taking the other egg in his mouth, descended to earth. On the way he was asked by