Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/452

422 fallen in love with a girl belonging to the Old Kuki clan called Anal, and to have assumed a human form and married her in the most prosaic way, after serving for her the customary three years. He carried her off to his golden palace in the river near Shuganu, where she bore him several sons. In other cases it seems that the same god or goddess may be worshipped under different names in different places, while some deities are said to be emanations from greater gods. There are cases in which Rajas have been deified after death, but the pundits maintain that their spirits were emanations from one of the original nine gods.

The pundits gave me the following names of the original nine gods: 1, Athingkho Guru sidaba, the creator of the world out of chaos. This god is said to have been the first great cause, whence all things and beings have emanated. He is said to be identical with Lai-ningthau-ahanba, i.e., the eldest chief of the gods, and Pākhangba the mythical snake ancestor of the Meithei royal family. 2, Athiya Guru sidaba, god of the void above, also called Chāk-khāba. 3, 'Ashiba Guru sidaba, the controller of all living beings, said to be identical with Khumlangba, the god of the iron workers of Kakching. 4, Thāngjing, the great god of Moirang. 5, Mārjing. 6, Khong Ningthau, identical with Khobru, the guardian of the north, whose abode is on the top of a lofty peak, known by his name, which rises above the northern end of the valley. 7, Thongngārel. 8, Nong Ningthau, chief of the rain. 9, Senamahi, the household god of the Meithei. The word guru is an importation, and it seems to me that much of the contents of the pundits' books is of a considerably later date than that to which they are ascribed, and, in spite of the learned way in which they studied them, they were not always able to reconcile the statements they extracted from them; for instance, having given me Senamahi as one of the original nine gods, they told me on