Note 69 — Chapter II · THE HEROIC AND VILLAGE GODLINGS.

We now come to consider some divinities special to the Drâvidian races, who touch on the North-Western Provinces to the south, across the Kaimûr and Vindhyan ranges, the physical as well as the ethnical frontier between the valleys of the Ganges and Jumnâ and the mountain country of Central India. The chief Gond deity is Gansâm Deo. Some vague attempt has been made to elevate him into the pantheon of Brâhmanism, and his name has been corrupted into Ghanasyâma, which means in Sanskrit, “black like the heavy rain clouds of the rainy season,” and is an epithet of Râma and of Krishna. One legend derives him from an actual Gond chieftain, just as many of the local godlings whom we shall consider afterwards have sprung from real living persons of eminence, or those who have lost their lives in some exceptional way. It is said that this chieftain was devoured by a tiger soon after his marriage. As might have been expected, his spirit was restless, and one year after his death he visited his wife and she conceived by him. Instances of such miraculous conceptions are common in folk-lore.69 “The descendants of this ghostly embrace are, it is said, living to this day at Amoda, in the Central Provinces. He, about the same time, appeared to many of his old friends, and persuaded them that he could save them from the maws of tigers and other calamities, if his worship were duly inaugurated and regularly performed; and in consequence of this, two festivals in the year were established in his honour; but he may be worshipped at any time, and in all sickness and misfortunes his votaries confidently appeal to him.”70