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A systematic survey of popular religious beliefs and folk traditions across northern India, tracing how nature spirits, village and heroic godlings, disease deities, and cults of the sainted and malevolent dead shape rural practice. The author compiles customs, legends, rituals and local cultic forms, highlights the assimilation of major deities with indigenous practices, and documents magical usages and everyday superstitions. Organized in thematic chapters, the study blends ethnographic observation with citations and examples to reveal patterns of worship, the roles of ritual specialists, and the social functions of these popular cults.
Similar is the case of Bhairwanand, the tribal deity of the Râikwâr Râjputs of Oudh. He was pushed into a well in order to fulfil a prophecy, and has since been deified.38
So with the queen of Ganor, who killed herself by means of a poisoned robe when she was obliged to surrender her honour to her Mughal conqueror. He died in extreme torture, and was buried on the road to Bhopâl. A visit to his grave is believed to cure tertian ague.39