The legends of the Panjâb

No. XVII.
THE GENEALOGIES OF LAL BEG,
As RECORDED IN THE PRIVATE GrRMUKHf MSS., KEPT FOR
THEIR OWN INFORMATION BY VARIOUS SCAVENGERS
OF THE Ambala. and Karnal Districts.
[L&l Beg, whose subsidiary names are LSI GurA, LAI KhSn, S&mali Beg, L4l
Sh&b, MirSn Sh&h, Ldl-o-lal, and many another honorific title, is the
tutelary saint of the scavenger castes of the Eastern Panjfib, and the
pivot on which all their notions of religion turn. Owing to the state of
complete ignorance in which the scavenger classes of India live, it is only
with the utmost difficulty that anything can be elicited with certainty
about him. The wildest and most contradictory stories as to his origin are
told, bnt I have long been of opinion that the name should be Lfil Bhekh
(hhikshu) or the Ked (saffron-clothed) Monk, and stories I have recently
unearthed confirm this view : (See Panj&b Notes arial Queries, vol. I.,
1883-4). He is probably merely the personification of the priest of the
scavengers, who is a " saffron-clothed monk," and all the legends about
him emphatically point to this conclusion.]
[Baimik, W41mlk, Bdlnlk, BMmlg, BSia Sh4h and NAri ShAh Bai4 are the
variations of the name of a sacred personage in the scavengers' hagiology
who occupies the place next to LAI Beg, and who is very frequently inextricably
mixed up with him. He is without difficulty and beyond all doubt
to be indentified with Valmiki, the low-caste author of the Sanskrit Bdmd-
T/a»a.]
[It is well known that the scavengers, or at any rate a large proportion of
them in Northern India, are Ldlbegis or followers of LSI Beg, and that
they have a religion of their own, neither Hindd nor Musalmfln, but with
a priesthood and a ritual peculiar to itself. This religion may be best
styled hagiolatry pure and simple, as it consists merely of a confused
veneration for anything and everything its followers, or rather their
teachers, may have found
to be considered sacred by their neighbours,
whatever be its origin. Thus we find in the PanjAb that in the religion
of the scavenger castes the tenets of the Hindis, the Musalm4ns and
the Sikhs are thrown together in the most hopeless confusion, and that
the monotheism taught by the mediaeval reformers underlies all their
superstitions.]
[After repeated enquiries extending over several years all that I have been
able, besides fragmentary tales related verbally, to obtaiu from tha
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