Читать книгу The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Vol. 1&2) - William Crooke - Страница 83

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In Bengal the divine force antagonistic to Sîtalâ is Shashthî, “goddess of the sixth,” who is regarded as the special guardian of children. The worship of Shashthî rests on a physiological fact, which has only recently been applied to explain this special form of worship. The most fatal disease of Indian children is a form of infantile lock-jaw, which is caused by the use of a coarse, blunt instrument, such as a sickle, for severing the umbilical cord. This disease usually makes its appearance between the sixth and twelfth day of the life of the child, and hence we have the formal rites of purification from the birth pollution performed as the Chhathî on the sixth and the Barahî on the twelfth day after delivery.

“In Bengal when small-pox rages, the gardeners are busiest. As soon as the nature of the disease is determined, the physician retires and a gardener is summoned. His first act is to forbid the introduction of meat, fish, and all food requiring oil or spices for its preparation. He then ties a lock of hair, a cowry shell, a piece of turmeric, and an article of gold on the right wrist of the patient. (The use of these articles as scarers of evil spirits will be considered later on.) The sick person is then laid on the Majhpatta, the young and unexpanded leaf of the plantain tree, and milk is prescribed as the sole article of food. He is fanned with a branch of the sacred Nîm (Azidirachta Indica), and any one entering the chamber is sprinkled with water. Should the fever become aggravated and delirium ensue, or if the child cries much and sleeps little, the gardener performs the Mâtâ Pûjâ. This consists in bathing an image of the goddess causing the disease, and giving a draught of the water to drink. To relieve the irritation of the skin, pease meal, turmeric, flour or shell sawdust is sprinkled over the body. If the eruption be copious, a piece of new cloth in the figure of eight is wrapped round the chest and shoulders. On the night between the seventh and eighth days of the eruption, the gardener has much to do. He places a water-pot in the sick-room, and puts on it rice, a cocoanut, sugar, plantains, a yellow rag, flowers, and a few Nîm leaves. Having mumbled several spells (mantra), he recites the tale (qissa) of the particular goddess, which often occupies several hours. When the pustules are mature, the gardener dips a thorn of the Karaunda (Carissa) in sesamum oil and punctures each one. The body is then anointed with oil, and cooling fruits are given. When the scabs have peeled off, another ceremony called Godâm is gone through. All the offerings on the water-pot are rolled in a cloth and fastened round the waist of the patient. The offerings are the perquisite of the gardener, who also receives a fee. Government vaccinators earn a considerable sum yearly by executing the Sîtalâ worship, and when a child is vaccinated, a portion of the service is performed”—a curious compromise between the indigenous faith and European medical science.11

The special Tirhût observance of the Jur Sîtal or “smallpox fever” feast will be more conveniently considered in connection with other usages of the same kind.