Lehal Library

CHAP. I THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE 9 official business, although the Kshattriya and the Aroras are the ordinary accountants and farmers of revenue. In 'Malwa' alone, that is, about Bhatinda and Sunam, vniage can the Sikh population be found unmixed, and there it population ^^^' has passed into a saying, that the priest, the soldier, ^^^ the mechanic, the shopkeeper, and the ploughman are purely sikh. all equally Sikh. There are, moreover, in the Punjab, as throughout The debased and India, several poor and contemned races, to Brahmans will not administer the consolations of '^e'^i"^^'^ religion, and who have not been sought as converts by shippers the Muhammadans. These worship village or forest of locai gods, or family progenitors, or they invoke a stone as gods and whom typical of the great mother of mankind; or some have oracular '^^^^'^^*^^^become acquainted with the writings of the later Hindu reformers, and regard themselves as inferior members In the remote Himalayas, of the Sikh community. again, where neither Mulla, nor Lam.a, nor Brahman, has yet cared to establish himself, the people are equally without instructed priests and a determinate faith; they worship the Spirit of each lofty peak, they erect temples to the limitary god of each snow-clad summit, and believe that from time to time the attendant servitor is inspired to utter the divine will in oracular sentences, or that when the image of the Daitya or Titan is borne in solemn procession on their shoulders, a pressure to the right or left denotes good or evil fortune.^ The characteristics of race and religion are every- characterwhere of greater importance than the accidents of ^^" °^ ^^ position or the achievements of contemporary genius; ^^" religion. but the influences of descent and manners, of origin and worship, need not be dwelt upon in all their ramifications. The systems of Buddha, of Brahma, and of Muhammad are extensively diffused in the Eastern world, and they intimately affect the daily conduct of millions of men. But, for the most part, these creeds no longer inspire their votaries with enthusiasm; the ^ In the Lower Himalayas of the Punjab there are many shrines to Guga or Goga, and the poorer classes of the plains likewise reverence the memory of the ancient hero. His birth or appearance is variously related. One account makes him the chief of Ghazni, and causes him to war with his brothers Arjun and Surjan. He was slain by them, but behold a rock opened and Guga again sprang forth armed and mounted. Another account makes him the lord of Durd-Durehra. in the ! wastes of Rajwara, and this corresponds in some degree with what Tod (Rajasthan, ii. 447) says of the same champion, who died fighting against the armies of Mahmud.