DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0362
350 Worship of Mountains, Rocks, and Stones.
river, and in the Bana-linga found in the Narbada (see p. 69).
A great deal of fraud is practised in selling these stones. If
they come from other rivers they enjoy no special presence of
the deity. A simple Bilva-leaf offered on a true Bana-linga
brought from the Narbada is an act of enormous merit
(punya)^ but if offered on a spurious pebble is inefficacious.
I might continue the enumeration of sacred objects almost
indefinitely, but enough has been said to make it clear that
there is not an object in heaven or earth which a Hindu is
not prepared to worship—sun, moon, and stars; rocks, stocks,
and stones ; trees, shrubs, and grass; sea, pools, and rivers ;
his own implements of trade; the animals he finds most
useful, the noxious reptiles he fears; men remarkable for any
extraordinary qualities—for great valour, sanctity, virtue, or
even vice; good and evil demons, ghosts and goblins, the
spirits of departed ancestors; an infinite number of semi-
human and semi-divine existences ; inhabitants of the seven
upper and the seven lower worlds—each and all come in
for a share of divine honour or a tribute of more or less
adoration.
river, and in the Bana-linga found in the Narbada (see p. 69).
A great deal of fraud is practised in selling these stones. If
they come from other rivers they enjoy no special presence of
the deity. A simple Bilva-leaf offered on a true Bana-linga
brought from the Narbada is an act of enormous merit
(punya)^ but if offered on a spurious pebble is inefficacious.
I might continue the enumeration of sacred objects almost
indefinitely, but enough has been said to make it clear that
there is not an object in heaven or earth which a Hindu is
not prepared to worship—sun, moon, and stars; rocks, stocks,
and stones ; trees, shrubs, and grass; sea, pools, and rivers ;
his own implements of trade; the animals he finds most
useful, the noxious reptiles he fears; men remarkable for any
extraordinary qualities—for great valour, sanctity, virtue, or
even vice; good and evil demons, ghosts and goblins, the
spirits of departed ancestors; an infinite number of semi-
human and semi-divine existences ; inhabitants of the seven
upper and the seven lower worlds—each and all come in
for a share of divine honour or a tribute of more or less
adoration.