DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0222
210 Tutelary and Village Deities.
primitive objects of worship. Possibly they may even be
developments of local fetishes once held in veneration by
uncivilized aboriginal tribes and afterwards grafted into the
Hindu system by the Brahmans, whose wise policy it has
ever been to appropriate and utilize all existing cults, cus-
toms, and superstitions. It is certain that even in the present
day scarcely a village, and indeed scarcely a household in
India, is without its tutelary divinity, usually represented by
some rudely carved image or symbol, located in homely
shrines or over doorways, or, it may be., denoted by simple
patches of red paint on rocks or under sacred trees or in
cross-ways, and always taking the place of the superior gods
in the religion of the lower orders.
The question however arises—In what sense are these
homely village deities tutelary? From whom or what are
they believed to protect ?
A Christian, when he prays for deliverance from evil, means
not only deliverance from a personal evil spirit, but from the
evil of sin and from the general evil existing in the world
around him.
A Hindu, on the other hand, has no idea of deliverance
from any evil except that inflicted by demons. To expect
any miraculous deliverance from sin or the effects of sin
either in himself or other men would be to him simple
foolishness. He is too firmly convinced that the conse-
quences of his own acts cling to him by an immutable and
inexorable law, the operation of which nothing can set aside.
The plain fact undoubtedly is that the great majority of the
inhabitants of India are, from the cradle to the burning-
ground, victims of a form of mental disease which is best
expressed by the term demonophobia. They are haunted
and oppressed by a perpetual dread of demons. They are
firmly convinced that evil spirits of all kinds, from malignant
fiends to merely mischievous imps and elves, are ever on the
watch to harm, harass and torment them, to cause plague,
primitive objects of worship. Possibly they may even be
developments of local fetishes once held in veneration by
uncivilized aboriginal tribes and afterwards grafted into the
Hindu system by the Brahmans, whose wise policy it has
ever been to appropriate and utilize all existing cults, cus-
toms, and superstitions. It is certain that even in the present
day scarcely a village, and indeed scarcely a household in
India, is without its tutelary divinity, usually represented by
some rudely carved image or symbol, located in homely
shrines or over doorways, or, it may be., denoted by simple
patches of red paint on rocks or under sacred trees or in
cross-ways, and always taking the place of the superior gods
in the religion of the lower orders.
The question however arises—In what sense are these
homely village deities tutelary? From whom or what are
they believed to protect ?
A Christian, when he prays for deliverance from evil, means
not only deliverance from a personal evil spirit, but from the
evil of sin and from the general evil existing in the world
around him.
A Hindu, on the other hand, has no idea of deliverance
from any evil except that inflicted by demons. To expect
any miraculous deliverance from sin or the effects of sin
either in himself or other men would be to him simple
foolishness. He is too firmly convinced that the conse-
quences of his own acts cling to him by an immutable and
inexorable law, the operation of which nothing can set aside.
The plain fact undoubtedly is that the great majority of the
inhabitants of India are, from the cradle to the burning-
ground, victims of a form of mental disease which is best
expressed by the term demonophobia. They are haunted
and oppressed by a perpetual dread of demons. They are
firmly convinced that evil spirits of all kinds, from malignant
fiends to merely mischievous imps and elves, are ever on the
watch to harm, harass and torment them, to cause plague,