The Antelope.
The black buck was in all probability the tribal totem of some of the races occupying the country anciently known as Âryâvarta. Mr. Campbell accounts for the respect paid to the animal by the use of hartshorn as a remedy for faintness, swoons, and nervous disorders.103 But this hardly explains the respect paid to it, and the use of its dung by the Bengal Parhaiyas instead of cowdung to smear their floors looks as if it were based on totemism.104 This too is shown by the regard paid its skin. As Mr. Frazer has proved, it is a custom among many savage tribes to retain the skin as an image of the deity which the animal represented.105 Hence according to the old ritual, the skin of the antelope was the prescribed dress of the student of theology, and it is still the seat of the ascetic.106
The antelope constantly appears in the folk-tales as a sort of Deus ex machinâ, which leads the hero astray in the chase and brings him to the home of the ogress or the ensorcelled maiden.107 In the Mahâbhârata, the King Parîkshit is led astray by a gazelle, and King Pându dies when he meets his wife Madrî, because he had once killed under similar circumstances a gazelle with his mate. In the Vishnu Purâna, Bharata loses the fruits of his austerities by becoming enamoured of a fawn. These fairy hinds appear throughout the whole range of folk-lore. A Nepâlese legend tells how the three gods Vishnu, Siva, and Brahma once appeared in the form of deer, whence the place where they were seen is known as Mrigasthali.108