Note 2 — TABLE OF CONTENTS.

There are a number of ways in which these lower-class deities can be installed. Their images are made either of wood, stone, or metal.2 No temples or shrines are erected in their honour.3 An ordinary way of representing them is by drawing a trident, (trishūl, a weapon peculiar to god Shiva) in red-lead and oil on an upright slab of stone on a public road, on any dead wall, on the confines of a village, or a mountain side, or a hill top, in an underground cellar, or on the bank of a stream.4 Some people paint tridents in their own houses. The trishūl, or trident, may also be made of wood, in which case its three points are plastered with red-lead and oil and covered with a thin coating of tin.5 Sometimes carved wooden images in human shape, daubed over with red-lead and oil, are placed in a small wooden chariot or in a recess about a foot square. In some shrines two brooms or whisks of peacock’s feathers are placed on either side of the image.6 A slight difficulty overcome or a disease remedied by a vow in honour of any of these deities offers the occasion for an installation, and in all future emergencies of the same kind similar vows are observed. A mātā installed to protect a fortress or a street is called a Gadheri Mātā, and the worshippers of a fortress, or street, mother are known as Pothias.7 At the time of installation flags are hoisted near the dedicated places. A troop of dancers with jingling anklets recite holy verses, while the bhuva, exorcist-priest, performs the ceremonies. Generally installations are frequent during the Navarātra8 holidays when, if no human-shaped image is set up, a trishūl at least is drawn in red-lead and oil.9 Some of these evil deities require, at the time of their installation, the balidān (sacrifice or oblation) of a goat or a he-buffalo. Also, when a spirit is to be exorcised, the symbol of the familiar spirit of the exorcist is set up and invoked by him.9 After the installation, no systematic form of worship is followed in connection with them.10 Regular forms are prescribed for the real gods of the Purānas. But upon these the low-caste people are not authorised to attend.