Note 57 — Chapter VI · SOME RURAL FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES.

All over Northern India a piece of cowdung, known as Barhâwan, “that which gives the increase,” is laid on the piled grain, and a sacred circle is made with fire and water round it. Silence, as we have already seen, is a special element in the worship. All this rests on the idea that until the grain is measured, vagrant Bhûts will steal or destroy it. This is something like the principle of travellers, who keep a cowry or two in their purses, so that thieves may not be able to divine the contents. So, in a Talmudic legend we read, “It is very difficult for devils to obtain money, because men are careful to keep it locked or tied up; and we have no power to take anything that is measured or counted; we are permitted to take only what is free and common.”57