Dog-worship.
In the Nepâl legend which we have been discussing we find Bhairava associated with the tiger, but his prototype, the local godling Bhairon, has the dog as his sacred animal, and his is the only temple in Benares into which the dog is admitted.44
Two conflicting lines of thought seem to meet in dog-worship. As Mr. Campbell says, “There is a good house-guarding dog, and an evil scavenging and tomb-haunting dog. Some of the products of the dog are so valued in driving off spirits that they seem to be a distinct element in the feeling of respect shown to the dog. Still it seems better to consider the dog as a man-eater, and to hold that, like the tiger, this was the original reason why the dog was considered a guardian.”45 It is perhaps in this connection that the dog is associated with Yama, the god of death.
BHAIRON AND HIS DOG.
An ancient epithet of the dog is Kritajna, “he that is mindful of favours,” which is also a title of Siva. The most touching episode of the Mahâbhârata is where Yudhisthira refuses to enter the heaven of Indra without his favourite dog, which is really Yama in disguise. These dogs of Yama probably correspond to the Orthros and Kerberos of the Greeks, and Kerberos has been connected etymologically with Sarvari, which is an epithet of the night, meaning originally “dark” or “pale.”46 The same idea shows itself in the Pârsi respect for the dog, which may be traced to the belief of the early Persians. The dog’s muzzle is placed near the mouth of the dying Pârsi in order that it may receive his parting breath and bear it to the waiting angel, and the destruction of a corpse by dogs is looked on with no feeling of abhorrence. The same idea is found in Buddhism, where on the early coins “the figure of a dog in connection with a Buddhist Stûpa recalls to mind the use to which the animal was put in the bleak highlands of Asia in the preferential form of sepulchre over exposure to birds and wild beasts in the case of deceased monks or persons of position in Tibet. Strange and horrible as it may seem to us to be devoured by domestic dogs, trained and bred for the purpose, it was the most honourable form of burial among Tibetans.”47
The Kois of Central India hold in great respect the Pândava brethren Arjuna and Bhîma. The wild dogs or Dhol are regarded as the Dûtas or messengers of the heroes, and the long black beetles which appear in large numbers at the beginning of the hot weather are called the Pândavas’ goats. None of them will on any account interfere with these divine dogs, even when they attack their cattle.48