The Forrest City times., 1893-07-14
THE SWEEPERS OF INDIA.
A Caste Whose God Has No Form or
 HabitafiOn.


 Habitation.
 Among the great unsolved problems of Indian ethnology. and one that the census has only dealt with to make con- fusion worse confounded, is the religion Of the sweeper caste. It seems clear enough, through all the confusion, that the supreme deity of the Chuhras IS LalJura or Lalbeg, "a god without form or dwelling place." A mound of earth surmounted by piece of stick and bit of cloth for flag is this deitys shrine, and to it poojah is ma de and little sacrifice offered of ghee or grain. 1t needs no conservation, this simple shrine; and wherever the sweeper may be, if sickness comes. or gift is desired, the little shrine may be set up with its queer bit of rag and stick, and the worshiper's prayer is made. It is curious to note how this primitive faith differs from Hindooism. both ancient and modern, as well as from Buddhism.
 The sweeper will have nothing to do. for instance, with the transmigration of souls. Once a sweeper, always sweeper, and even the ideal sweeper, Pir Jhota, with his broom of gold and basket of silver, cleans now the fourth Heaven, the house of God, and sweeps the apartments of the Highest" The good sweeper goes to Heaven, how ever, after death; but in the Heaven of the sweeper there is nothing to do but bathe and sit at ease. The bad sweep CT, on the other hand. goes to hell, where he is tormented by fire and wounds till the Deity is pleased to vouchsafe relief. Between these two extremes is a kind of purgatory, where the sweeper who is not good enough for the one place and not bad enough for the other undergoes a sort of pro- bation which either kills or cures him.
 Of BalmiS, the great leader of one sect of sweepers and now himself, like Pir Jhota, a sweeper in the courts of Heaven, the accounts differ so widely that it is difficult to identify him. It seems clear. however, that with the profession of sweeper he combined the recreation of poetry, and there is some amount of evidence in favor of his having been the author of the Ramaya- ma. He is alternately represented as low-caste hunter of the Karnal Mar dal, and as Bhil highwayman who was converted by saint whom he was about to rob- There is legend, too, that he lay down his life for the sweepers of Benares. and induced the people of that city to admit sweepers into their presence, as they had never done before.
 As for Lalbeg, the other great leader. he takes us back at once into the days of Homeric myth. He was born from the coat of Balmik and suckled by hare--in proof whereof Chuhras to this day abstain from eating hares. On the other hand, Lalbeg was also born from pitcher, through the power of Abdul Nader Jilani, and when the prophet Elias was turned into a sweeper for splitting on the saints in Heaven, it was Lalbeg who relieved him. He was born also to the barren wife of Shaik Sarna of Mooltan; so that altogether there can be no doubt of his existence. Even a sweeper leader is not born thrice for nothing Maj Temple, it is true denies the personality of the man, deriving his name from "Lal bhelkh, or bhikhsa' the Red Monk-or, more properly, sat- iron -colored monk-an abstract per sonification of the priest of the sweep CTS, and generic only.-Times of lndla'