The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1893-07-22
THE sWEEPERS OF INDIA.
a Caste Whose God Has No Form or
Habitation.

II caste whose Tod HAS No Form or
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. 1t 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 moand of
earth ~surmounted by a piece Of stick
and a bit of cloth for a flag is this
deity's shrine, and to it poojah is made
and a little sacrifice offered of ghee or
grain. 1t needs no conservation, this
simple shrine; and wherever the
sweeper may be, if sickness comes, or
a 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. 1t 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 TRANSPORTATION
of souls. Once a sweeper, always a
sweeper, and even the ideal sweeper,
Pr Jhota, with his broom of gold and
a basket of silver. 'eleans now the
fourth Heaven, the house of God. and
sweeps the apartments of the Highest"
The good sweepergoes to Heaven, how
ever, after death; but in the Heaven of
the sweeper there is nothing to do but
battle and sit at ease. The bad sweep
! err, on the other hand, goes to hell,
where he is tormented by fire and
wounds till the Deity is pleased to
v~ouchsafe relief. Between these two
extremes is a kind of purgatory, where
the sweeper who is not good enough
for the n place and not bad enough
for the other undergoes a sort of pro-
baton which either kills or cures him.
OF Balmil, the great leader of one
sect of sweepers, and now himself, like
Pr Jhota. a sweeper in the courts of
Heaven. the accounts differ so widely
that it is difficult to identify him. 1t
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 a
low-caste hunter of the karnal Mar
dak, and as a Bill ~highwayman who
was converted by a saint whom he
was about to rob. There is a legend,
too, hat 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 sucked by a
hare-in proof whereof Chuhras to this
day abstain from eating hares. On the
other hand, Lalbeg was also born from
a pitcher, through the power of Abdul
Kader 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 LA bhekh,'' or bhikhsa,
the Red Monk-or, more properly, SAT-
~fron-colored monk-an abstract per-
sonifcation of the priest of the sweep
ers, and generic only.-Times of India.