Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/209

 *coloured boy, with three eyes, clothed in red garments. His hair stands erect; his teeth are very large; he wears a necklace of human skulls, and a large turban of his own hair; in one hand he holds a stick, and in another the foot of a charpāī; his body is swollen, and his appearance terrific. Images of this form of Shivü] are not made in Bengal, but a pan of water, or an emblem of Mahadēo, are substituted; before which bloody sacrifices are offered. Except before this image, such sacrifices are never offered to Shiv[)u].

MAHADÉO, OR MAHĀ-DEVA.

Shiv[)u] appeared on earth in the form of a naked mendicant, with one head, two arms, and three eyes, and was acknowledged as Mahadēo, the great god: when he was about to be married to Pārvātīrvatī below], the daughter of the Himalaya, her friends treated the god in a scurrilous manner, and cried out, "Ah! ah! ah! this image of gold, this most beautiful damsel, the greatest beauty in the three worlds, to be given in marriage to such a fellow,—an old fellow, with three eyes, without teeth, clothed in a tiger's skin, covered with ashes, encircled with snakes; wearing a necklace of human bones; with a human skull in his hand; with a filthy j[)u]ta—that is, hair matted about his head in form of a tiara; who chews intoxicating drugs, has inflamed eyes, rides naked on a bull, and wanders about like a madman. Ah! they have thrown this beautiful daughter into the river!" The asoca is a shrub consecrated to Mahadēo, and is planted near his temples. The biloa, otherwise called Malura, is also sacred to him; he alone wears a chaplet of its flowers, and they are offered in sacrifice to no other deity; and if a pious Hindū should see any of its flowers fallen on the ground, he would remove them reverently to a temple of Mahadēo. The Hindū poets call it Srīphul, the flower of Srī.

I have a beautiful image in white marble, highly gilt and ornamented, representing Mahadēo as a white man, young and handsome, sitting on a platform, with Pārvatī on his left knee. His hair is braided into the shape of a conical turban around his head, about which a serpent is twisted; and from the top of his