The Spirits of the Air.
“Aerial spirits or devils are such as keep quarter in the air, cause many tempests, thunder and lightnings, tear oaks, fire steeples, houses, strike men and beasts, make it rain wool, frogs, etc. They cause whirlwinds on a sudden, and tempestuous storms, which though our meteorologists refer to natural causes, yet I am of Bodin’s mind that they are more often caused by those aerial devils in their several quarters.”153 This statement of Burton is a good summary of current Hindu opinion on this subject; and it is just this class of physical phenomena which civilized man admits to be beyond his control, that primitive races profess to be able to regulate. As Dr. Taylor puts it—“The rainfall is passing from the region of the supernatural to join the tides and seasons in the realm of physical science.”154
The old weather god was Indra, who wars with Vritra or Ahi, the dragon demon of drought, whom he compels to dispense the rain. He was revered as the causer of fertility, and feared as the lord of the lightning and the thunder. He has now been deposed from his pre-eminence, and is little more than a roi fainéant, who lives in a luxurious heaven of his own, solaced by the dances of the fairies who form his court, one of whom he occasionally bestows on some favoured mortal who wins his kindness or forces him to obey his orders. But his status is at present decidedly low, and it is remarkable in what a contemptuous way even so orthodox a poet as Tulasî Dâs speaks of him.155 Mr. Wheeler156 suggests that this degradation of Indra may possibly be due to the fact that he was a tribal god notoriously hostile to Brâhmans; and it is certainly very suggestive from this point of view that he has come to be regarded as the great deity of the Burman Buddhists. It is still further remarkable that at Benares, the headquarters of Brâhmanism, he has been replaced by a special rain god, Dalbhyeswara, who perhaps takes his name from Dalbhya, an ancient Rishi, who must be worshipped and kept properly dressed if the seasons are not to become unfavourable.157