Polytheists among the Hindus do not confine their homage to the Hindu gods. No Hindu hesitates to worship a Muslim Pir or a Christian goddess. Thousands of Hindus go to a Muslim Pir and make offerings. Actually there are in some places Brahmins who own the office of a hereditary priesthood of a Muslim Pir and wear a Muslim Pir’s dress. Thousands of Hindus go to make offerings to the Christian Goddess Mant Mauli, near Bombay.
The worship of the Christian or Muslim gods is only on occasions. But there are more permanent transfer of religious allegiance. There are many so-called Hindus whose religion has a strong Muhammadan content. Notable amongst these are the followers of the strange Panchpiriya cult, who worship five Muhammadan saints, of uncertain name and identity, and sacrifice cocks to them, employing for the purpose as their priest a Muhammadan Dafali fakir. Throughout India many Hindus make pilgrimages to Muhammadan shrines, such as that of Sakhi Sarwar in the Punjab.
Speaking of the Malkanas, Mr. Blunt says that they are converted Hindus of various castes belonging to Agra and the adjoining districts, chiefly Muttra, Ettah and Mainpuri. They are of Rajput, Jat and Bania descent. They are reluctant to describe themselves as Musalmans, and generally give their original caste name and scarcely recognize the name Malkana. Their names are Hindu; they mostly worship in Hindu temples, they use the salutation Ram-Ram; they intermarry amongst themselves only. On the other hand, they sometimes frequent a mosque, practice circumcision and bury their dead; they will eat with Muhammadans if they are particular friends.
In Gujarat there are several similar communities-such as the Matia Kunbis, who call in Brahmans for their chief ceremonies, but are followers of the Pirana saint Imam Shah and his successors, and bury their dead as do the Muhammadans; the Sheikhadas at their weddings employ both Hindu and a Muhamadan priest, and the Momans who practise circumcision, bury their dead and read the Gujarati Koran, but in other respects follow Hindu custom and ceremonial.
If he says that “I am a Hindu because I hold to the beliefs of the Hindus his answer cannot be right for here one is confronted with the fact that Hinduism has no definite creed. The beliefs of persons who are by all admitted to be Hindus often differ more widely from each other than do those of Christians and Muhammadans Limiting the issue to cardinal beliefs the Hindus differ among themselves as to the beliefs which are cardinal importance. Some say that all the Hindu scriptures must be accepted, but some would exclude the Tantras, while others would regard only the Vedas as of primary importance; some again think that the sole essential is belief in the doctrine of karma and metempsychosis.
A complex congeries of creeds and doctrines is Hinduism. It shelters within its portals monotheists, polytheists and pantheists, worshippers of the great gods Shiva and Vishnu or of their female counterparts, as well as worshippers of the divine mothers or their spirits of trees, rocks and streams and the tutelary village deities; persons who propitiate their deity by all manner of bloody sacrifices, and persons who will not only kill no living creature but who must not even use the word cut, those whose ritual consists mainly of prayers and hymns, and those who indulge in unspeakable orgies in the name of religion; and a host of more or less heterodox sectaries, many of whom deny the supremacy of the Brahmans, or at least have non- Brahminical religious leaders.
If he says that he is a Hindu because he observes the same customs as other Hindus do his answer cannot be true. For all Hindus do not observe the same customs.
In the north, near relatives are forbidden to marry; but in the south cousin marriage is prescribed, and even close alliances are sometimes permitted. As a rule female chastity is highly valued but some communities set little store by it, at any rate prior to marriage, and others make it a rule to dedicate one daughter to a life of religious prostitution. In some parts the women move about freely, in others they are kept secluded. In some parts they wear skirts, in others trousers.
