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The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2) cover

The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Chapter 131: Ramâsa Pîr.
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About This Book

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.

Ramâsa Pîr.

So, the godling invoked by the Pindhâri women when their husbands went on marauding expeditions, was Ramâsa Pîr. He was a well-known warrior killed in a battle at Ranuja, near Pushkar. Saturday is his day for prayer, on which occasions small images of horses in clay or stone are offered at his shrine. The figure of a man on horseback, stamped in gold or silver, representing the godling, was found on the necks of many of the Pindhâris killed in the great campaign of 1817–18. It was worn by them as an amulet. He is now known as Deva Dharma Râja, which is one of the titles of Yama, the god of death, and Yudhisthira, his putative son.