Note 51 — Chapter II · THE HEROIC AND VILLAGE GODLINGS.

But in his original character as a simple village godling Bhairon is worshipped with milk and sweetmeats as the protector of fields, cattle and homestead. Some worship him by pouring spirits at his shrine and drinking there; and on a new house being built, he is propitiated to expel the local ghosts. He is respected even by Muhammadans as the minister of the great saint Sakhi Sarwar, and in this connection is usually known as Bhairon Jati or “Bhairon the chaste.”51 But as we have seen, he is becoming rapidly promoted into the more respectable cabinet of the gods, and his apotheosis will possibly finally take place at the great Saiva shrine of Mandhâta on the Narmadâ, with which a local legend closely connects him.52 All over Northern India his stone fetish is found in close connection with the images of the greater gods, to whom he acts the part of guardian, and this, as we have already seen, probably marks a stage in his promotion.