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The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Note 46 — Chapter I · THE GODLINGS OF NATURE.

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By a curious process of anthropomorphism, another legend makes Râh or Râhu, the Dusâdh godling, to have been not an eclipse demon, but the ghost of an ancient leader of the tribe who was killed in battle.46 A still grosser theory of eclipses is found in the belief held by the Ghasiyas of Mirzapur that the sun and moon once borrowed money from some of the Dom tribe and did not pay it back. Now in revenge a Dom occasionally devours them and vomits them up again when the eclipse is over.

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