Note 142 — Chapter III · TOTEMISM AND FETISHISM.

So, among the Muhammadans in the time of Akbar, “at noon of the day when the sun enters the 19th degree of Aries, the whole world being surrounded by the light, they expose a round piece of a white shining stone, called in Hindi Sûrajkrant.142 A piece of cotton is then held near it, which catches fire from the heat of the stone. The celestial fire is committed to the care of proper persons.”143 Perhaps the best example of the Muhammadan sacred fire is that at the Imâmbâra at Gorakhpur. There it was first started by a renowned Shiah Faqîr, named Roshan ’Ali, and has been maintained unquenched for more than a hundred years, a special body of attendants and supplies of wood being provided for it. There seems little reason to believe that the fire is a regular Muhammadan institution; it has probably arisen from an imitation of the customs of the Hindu Jogis.