DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0270
258 Hero-worship and Saint-worship.
worship during life, but after their decease their claim to
a position in the celestial hierarchy is pretty sure to be
fully recognized; and if their lives have been marked by
any extraordinary or miraculous occurrences, they soon be-
come objects of general adoration. It is not merely that a
niche is allotted to them among the countless gods of the
Hindu Pantheon (popularly 330,000,000 in number). A
shrine is set up and dedicated to their deified spirits upon
earth, and generally in the locality where they were best
known. There they are supposed to be objectively present—
not indeed visibly to men, and not always represented by
visible images or symbols—but as ethereal beings possessed
of ethereal frames which need the aroma or essence of food
for their support (see p. 1%). The idea seems to be that
the localizing of a deified or canonized spirit involves the
duty of its maintenance. Hence oblations are daily offered,
and if by a happy accident some miraculous event, such as
the unexpected recovery of a sick man, occurs in the neigh-
bourhood, the celebrity of the new god rapidly rises, till he
takes rank as a first-class divinity, and his sanctuary be-
comes a focus to which tens of thousands of enthusiastic
devotees annually converge.
There seems indeed to be no limit to this kind of deifi-
cation in India.
Volumes might be written in describing instances that
have occurred and are constantly occurring in all parts of
the country. And it is remarkable that the rank or import-
ance to which a canonized or deified human being may
attain in the world of spirits does not always depend, as a
matter of course, on the estimation in which he was held,
or even on the measure of divinity attributed to him while
on the earth. Any man of the lowest rank, whose influence
during life was perhaps quite insignificant, may be elevated
to the highest pinnacle of honour when severed from ter-
restrial ties, if his relatives can show that his career
worship during life, but after their decease their claim to
a position in the celestial hierarchy is pretty sure to be
fully recognized; and if their lives have been marked by
any extraordinary or miraculous occurrences, they soon be-
come objects of general adoration. It is not merely that a
niche is allotted to them among the countless gods of the
Hindu Pantheon (popularly 330,000,000 in number). A
shrine is set up and dedicated to their deified spirits upon
earth, and generally in the locality where they were best
known. There they are supposed to be objectively present—
not indeed visibly to men, and not always represented by
visible images or symbols—but as ethereal beings possessed
of ethereal frames which need the aroma or essence of food
for their support (see p. 1%). The idea seems to be that
the localizing of a deified or canonized spirit involves the
duty of its maintenance. Hence oblations are daily offered,
and if by a happy accident some miraculous event, such as
the unexpected recovery of a sick man, occurs in the neigh-
bourhood, the celebrity of the new god rapidly rises, till he
takes rank as a first-class divinity, and his sanctuary be-
comes a focus to which tens of thousands of enthusiastic
devotees annually converge.
There seems indeed to be no limit to this kind of deifi-
cation in India.
Volumes might be written in describing instances that
have occurred and are constantly occurring in all parts of
the country. And it is remarkable that the rank or import-
ance to which a canonized or deified human being may
attain in the world of spirits does not always depend, as a
matter of course, on the estimation in which he was held,
or even on the measure of divinity attributed to him while
on the earth. Any man of the lowest rank, whose influence
during life was perhaps quite insignificant, may be elevated
to the highest pinnacle of honour when severed from ter-
restrial ties, if his relatives can show that his career