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The Tale of the Horse An oral story from the Pavri Bhili language of the Pavra Bhils of North Maharashtra. "The Tale of the Horse" is translated by Aruna Joshi, editor of Dhol, a journal in eight tribal languages, sponsored by the Sahitya Akademi Project on Tribal Literatures and Oral Traditions. The original Pavri account was published in Dhol (Pavri version) August 1998, p. 11. The translation is posted by permission of Aruna Joshi. Any further use also requires her permission. Many many years ago, it was the reign of gods. They used to ride horses to far-off lands for inspections. They used horses at the time of battles/war. In those days, horses had wings. The [god] kings used to ride the winged horses through the celestial paths. Wherever they wanted to reach, they could reach immediately. At that time, Raja Phanta, Gada Thakur, Kubhay, Kudu Rana, Khatya were the [human] kings. They were all nobles and mighty warriors. No gods could ever confront them. They also had the horses with wings. These horses were their strength. In any battle with some king over the kingdoms, in any difficult times, they could flee, riding these horses. The gods were all vexed and perplexed. The goddesses were also bothered by these [human] kings. All the gods got annoyed. To care for the horses, one Havlya Pandar was appointed. He used to give the horses their food--fodder and water--and served them in every manner. The gods made several efforts to cut off the wings of the horses, all in vain. The anguished gods at last bribed Havlya Pandar. He prepared a fine sword. With the sword, he chopped off the horses' wings in the night and then fled away in the hills and hid himself. From that day the horses lost their power to fly. Since then the horses started galloping on the earth. A horse has an eddy of hairgrowth at each of its two front legs. These are said to be the reminiscents of the wings. As the horses no more had wings, the mighty nobles could no more travel by the celestial path. Their strength was diminished. They started losing the battles. Now the gods and the goddesses were somewhat relieved.
The Rajput Adivasi community has mud-horses among their godheads/icons of gods. On the day of worshipping the tiger god Vaghdeva, they erect two logs of teakwood and hang five small bundles of fodder as offering for these gods. Before worshipping the gods, they first offer a tilak of vermilion to the horse and worship it. After this they worship the other gods. In this community, whoever has a horse in his household decorates it, offers the tilak of vermilion to it and worships it on the day of Dussehra. They also bathe the horse on this day. ...... |
