Читать книгу The Religion and Folklore of Northern India - William Crooke - Страница 53

Table of Contents

All over the world people say that if when a meteor or falling star darts across the sky they can utter a wish before it disappears, that wish will be granted. The old Norsemen believed that it implied that a dragon was flashing through the air. In Italy206 the sight of such a body is a cure for blear eyes. In India it is believed that the residence of a soul in heaven is proportionate to the charities done by him on earth, and when his allotted period is over he falls as an aerolite. A falling star means that the soul of some great man is passing through the air, and when people see one of these stars they thrust their five fingers into their mouths to prevent their own souls from joining his company. Many of these aerolites are worshipped as lingams in Saiva shrines. One which fell at Sîtâmarhi in Bengal in 1880, has now been deified, and is worshipped as Adbhût-nâtha, or “the miraculous god.”207