Note 48 — Chapter III · THE GODLINGS OF DISEASE.

In one instance which came under my own notice, the Nâya of the village had been an aboriginal Kol, and he before his death announced that “the god had sat on the head” of a Brâhman candidate for the office, who was duly initiated, and is now the recognized village Ojha. This is a good example of the way in which Brâhmanism annexes and absorbs the demonolatry of the lower races. This, too, enables us to correct a statement which has been made even by such a careful inquirer as Mr. Sherring when he says48—“Formerly the Ojha was always a Brâhman; but his profession has become so lucrative that sharp, clever, shrewd men in all the Hindu castes have taken to it.” There can be no question that the process has been the very reverse of this, and that the early Ojhas were aboriginal sorcerers, and that their trade was taken over by the Brâhman as the land became Hinduized.