his stupor, but the tipsy Saurian snapped at her hand and bit it so severely as to draw a stream of blood. This excited the anger of the people who had also partaken of the Diang and were the worse for it. They came out with heavy bludgeons and other weapons that were handy and made a clean job of it, killing the poor crocodile on the spot.

The Adventures of a Prince.

Once upon a time a royal prince fell out with his parents, and, mounting his pony one morning, he left the palace in high dudgeon. As he rode on he met a jackal who was eating the figs of a Peepul tree (Ficus religiosa) which had dropped on the ground. The jackal accosted the prince and asked him how far he was going and finally proposed a loan of the pony. He was laughed to scorn by the prince, who observed that it was too much to expect a little quadruped to mount a horse. The prince rode off without further ado. He arrived at the end of the day at a town where he proposed to pass the night. He searched all over the place, but he found no better lodgings for himself and stabling for his pony than the mill-shed of an oilman. He slept in a part of the secured to the wooden mill-post. prepared to leave the place, but he man who set up a claim to the pony. remove the animal." said the man; "it by my own oilmill; it is therefore mine by right." The dispute was referred to the elders of the town, and the oilman, who was wealthy, got a number of false witnesses to swear to his ownership, while the prince who was a stranger in a strange land, failed to substantiate his claim by the evidence of a single witness. The upshot of it was that the prince had to give up his pony and there was nothing for him but to walk back homewards in a state of dispair. As he walked along he came to the old Peepul tree and once more met the jackal. " Hullo, man!" said the jackal, "what has become of your blooming horse? Why are you trudging along like a common tramp ?"

shed, while the pony was Next morning the prince was obstructed by the oil"You have no right to has been brought forth

The prince told him all about his sad experiences in the town he was returning from and asked the jackal if he would take the trouble to go to the place and support his claim. The jackal readily consented and the prince took him along to the town. Before presenting himself before the townsfolk, the jackal blackened his face with soot which gave him a hideous look. The prince demanded a fresh trial of his claim by a Panchayat (a committee of elders) and tendered the jackal as his sole witness. The elders who assembled to adjudicate the matter were struck by the strange appearance of the claimant's witness and they wanted to know why his face was so black. The jackal explained that the sea had been on fire overnight and he had an opportunity of dining on roast fish to his heart's content, with the sad result noticed by the learned judges. All the people laughed at the silly story and the oilman said: "Who has ever heard of water being on fire? What a lying witness we have bere !" The jackal quickly retorted : "Who has ever heard of a mill-post bringing forth a live horse, yea, the very animal on which I saw the royal prince, our future king, ride past only two days ago ?" The testimony of the jackal was held to be conclusive and the matter was finally decided in favour of the prince, who thus recovered possession of his pony. The oilman and his false witnesses received condign punishment for having perjured themselves in an attempt to establish a spurious claim. The jackal then counselled the prince to avoid the risk of further scrapes by continuing his peregrinations. The prince accepted this friendly advice and retraced his way home, where he was in due course crowned king to rule over his people.

VI.-Studies in the Cults of the District of Champaran in North Bihar. No. I.— The Cult of the Godling Birchhe Deo. By Sarat Chandra Mitra, M.A., Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of Calcutta.

Sir Herbert Risley has very truly said that " Hinduism may fairly be described as Animism more or less transformed by philosophy, or, to condense the epigram still further, as magic tempered by metaphysics. The fact is that, within the enormous range of beliefs and practices which are included in the term Hinduism, there are comprised entirely different sets of ideas, or, one may say, widely different conceptions of the world and of life. At one end, at the lower end of the scale is Animism, an essentially materialistic theory of things which seeks by means of magic to ward off or to forestall physical disasters, which looks no further than the world of sense, and seeks to make that as tolerable as the conditions will permit, At the other end is the Pantheism combined with a system of transcendental metaphysics ".1

If we examine the religious beliefs and practices of the Hindu population of the district of Champaran in North Bihar, we all come across a striking illustration of the truth of the foregoing dictum of Sir Herbert Risley. The greater mass of this Hindu population comprises illiterate people-men innocent of any education whatever-who are almost ignorant of the higher or metaphysical aspect of Hinduism, and to whom the Devas or the High Gods of the orthodox Hindu Pantheon, such as Brahma, Vishnu and Śiva and their kith and kin, are little more than names. Of course, the Hindu residents of the district of Champaran reverence the Brahmanas and pay their devoirs to the aforementioned High Gods of the Hindu Pantheon. But, as a matter of every-day practice, as part and parcel of their religious observances, they pay their worship to the Grama Devatas or the local village-godlings, such as the The People of India. By Sir Herbert Risley. Second Edition. Calcutta and Simla Thacker, Srink and Co 1915. Page 233.

deifications and personifications of the Powers and Forces of Nature; the Heavenly Bodies such as the Sun, the Moon and the Earth; and of such other natural objects as Rivers and Waters. Then again, they adore and propitiate the local godlings-the godlings of disease, the sainted dead, the evil and malevolent spirits of deceased men, all of whom constitute, to quote Dr. Crooke's apposite description of them, "a mob of divinities".

Now, the reverence shown by the Hindu villagers of Champaran to the Brahmanas, and the worship paid by them to Vishņu, Śiva and their kindred-the High Gods of the Hindu Pantheon-are mere factors of the metaphysical or the higher side of the religious beliefs.

But the animistic or the lower aspect of their religious beliefs and practices is illustrated and represented by the worships paid by them to the aforementioned Gṛāma Devatās or village-godlings who, in many cases, have no regularly-constructed shrines for their local habitations, who have no priests to conduct their pūjā, and who are not represented by anthropomorphic images or idols, but who are symbolised by little mounds of clay, or by unhewn blocks of stone, or by trees.

So far as the district of Champaran is concerned, these two aspects of Hinduism-the animistic and the metaphysical sides thereof-exist side by side. The same town or village has its temple dedicated to the worship of Vishnu, Śiva and the other "High Gods" with Brāhmaṇa priests to conduct their worship, as also the shrines of the local village-godlings who, in many cases, have no priests to carry on their worship, who are not represented by any images, but are symbolized by small mounds of earth or rough unhewn blocks of stone daubed with vermilion, or who are believed to haunt or reside in some neighbouring trees which constitute their tree-shrines. The same Hindu rustic will, at one and the same time, propitiate the aforementioned "High Gods" of the orthodox Hindu Pantheon by presenting offerings to them, and will also adore and pray to the village-godlings of his locality.

The principal among the aforementioned Grama Devatās or the village-deities of the district of Champaran in North-Bihar is the godling Birchhe Deo (fax). The shrine of this godling is situated on the western side of the town of Motiharithe headquarters of the district of Champaran It is located almost on the north bank of the lake and is situated at the southern end of a lane which leads off to the south of the main road which is called the Club Road.

On Saturday the 26th May 1923, I visited it in the company of Mr. P. K. Mitra, M.Sc., Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector of Motihari. The shrine or temple consists of a pucca brick structure facing the east. Ascending the short flight of steps, we step on to a veranda in the western extremity of which is the holy of the holies-the room-almost rectangular in dimensions--which contains the mound of clay which constitutes the symbol of the godling Birchhe Deo The following rough sketch represents the front and side views of the aforesaid mound of earth