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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.
Hence it is very dangerous to yawn, as two kinds of danger are to be apprehended—either a Bhût may go down your throat, or part of your soul may escape, and you will be hard set to recover it. So if you chance to yawn, you should put your hand to your mouth and say Nârâyan—“Great God!” afterwards, or you should crack your fingers, which scares the evil spirit. This idea is the common property of folk-lore.18