DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

2.4] THE PASTORAL GODS 39
that beyond a radius of about 50 metres from the Vetala. Quite clearly,
the spot has late stone age associations. My guess is that it was a cultspot
even in the stone age, when herds were pastured on the hilltop
(also, cf. IAR. 1955, p. 59, connection between temple and stone tools
ignored) as they are now, and when agriculture first began with digging
stick or light plough. In the valley, the only fertile soil is very heavy,
resembling the Chernozem of the Ukraine, impossible to plough without
six or eight oxen, even when a modern steel plough is used ; so the
first agriculture must have been on the long, narrow plateau which
crowns the hill.
About a mile away is a considerable red-daubed boulder which
represents Mhasoba, the patron god of Kotharud village over two
miles away in the valley. The legend is that the god came with the
cowherd lads from the village of Wakad (where he still has a temple,
the only other to this particular god within my knowledge), but rested
on the hilltop. This contains the last memories of some pastoral
migration, and the villagers of Kotharud still take out their annual
palkhi procession up the, long and difficult ascent. Another representative
stone for this god has been set up within the village, with a consort
which he does not possess on the hill-top. The pastoral gods are rather
rare, but always male. The principal one is Bapuji Baba, of which
three or four specimens can be found within forty miles of Poona. He
is specially a god of the cattle, but not to be approached by women, to
whom he is dangerous. For that matter, even the -shadow of a woman
must not fall on the Vetala, and the devout worshipper takes care not to
hear the sound of a woman’s bangles on the morning’of worship.
Clearly, the hilltop people did not have the same type of cult that
characterizes the average valley settlement. In some cases, later cults
changed the name, ritual and perhaps even the sex of the older.
This was supported by the next similar hump (altitude 2404 ft.)
about five miles away on the same meandering hilltop plateau, with a
little shrine of Bhairava built in feudal times. The main Bhairava
shrine has moved down to the lower level of the present village of
Bavadhan, though it is recognized that the hilltop god is the original.