placed in the earthen pot in which the rice and pulse were cooked, and one of the worshippers dives into the water and leaves it at the bottom of the stream. When he rises to the surface he is found to be insensible ; but his friends lay him before the god Rudradeva, and he revives.
On the occasion of one of these celebrations it is said that the idol disappeared ;[1] but subsequently it was found in the Mayurâkshi river, and then it was taken over by the people of Uddhanpur, in the Bardwân district, who refused to give it up, and keep it to this day.
There is a remarkable rite to procure rain performed in connection with this image. When the rain fails, all the outlets of the temple are closed, and some hundred or more Brâhmans pour water over the idol till it is immersed up to the chin. When the water reaches this point, it is said that rain always falls. At a recent drought this rite was performed, and in addition some Brâhmans stood in the river and recited prayers to the god Varuna. When the idol was submerged, copious rain followed. On a more recent occasion only a slight shower followed on the performance of the rite. Though water was poured into the temple, it continued to leak out ; and the failure was by some attributed to the want of piety of the officiant Brâhmans.[2]
In Vedic times, prayers for rain were made to the god Parganya, whose name being interpreted means "he who gives rain." The hymn recited on such occasions has been preserved in the Rig Veda (v. 83), and has been translated by Professor Max Müller, who quotes a similar song addressed to the Lithuanian
- ↑ For similar Indian legends of idols lost and miraculously found, see Crooke, Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, vol. i., p. 224, seqq.
- ↑ The Brâhmans stand in the river to excite by their sufferings the compassion of the rain-god. Crooke, loc. cit., vol. i. , p. 73. For the connection of sacred stones and rainfall. Ibid., vol. i., p. 75. According to Turkomân legends, Noah gave his son Japhet a stone inscribed with the Greatest Name, and it had the power of bringing on or driving off rain. Burton, Arabian Nights (ed. Smithers), vol. v., p. 242 (orig. cd., vol. vii., p. 41). In Scotland, rain could be produced by touching the Runic Cross at Brora. Rogers, Social Life in Scotland from Early to Recent Times, vol. iii., p. 227. For the Samoa stone, Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 347 ; Samoa, p. 45. In Persia, Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxxvii., 54. The stone called Chelonitis calms storms and tempests. Ibid., xxxvii. 56.
