Note 44 — Chapter III · THE GODLINGS OF DISEASE.

The same religious dance of ecstasy appears in what is known as the Râs Mandala of the modern Vaishnava sects, which is supposed to represent the dance of the Gopîs with Krishna. So in Bombay among the Marâthas the worship of the chief goddess of the Dakkhin, Tuljâ Bhavânî, is celebrated by a set of dancing devotees, called Gondhalis, whose leader becomes possessed by the goddess. A high stool is covered with a black cloth. On the cloth thirty-six pinches of rice are dropped in a heap, and with them turmeric and red powder, all scarers of demons, are mixed. On the rice is set a copper vessel filled with milk and water, and in this the goddess is supposed to take her abode. Over it are laid betel leaves and a cocoanut. Five torches are carried round the vessel by five men, each shouting “Ambâ Bhavânî!” The music plays, and dancers dance before her. So at a Brâhman marriage at Pûna the boy and girl are seated on the shoulders of their maternal uncles or other relations, who perform a frantic dance, the object being, as in all these cases, to scare away the spirits of evil.44