MURLI. MAIM. A girl devoted to the Hindu gods, being married to some idol, to a knife, a dagger, a tree, and who may remain a virgin, but is usually common in India. Hereditary pro stitutes are married to the plants togore, Lund, goluncha or kulka, and sephalika, which are male. All other plants are female. The Murli of the Mahratta people is identical in character with the Jogini and the Basavi of the Teling people. Basava is a name of the vahan bull or conveyance of the god Siva. The Linga Basavi arc women who have been dedicated to the lingam. The Garuda Basavi have been dedicated to Garuda, the eagle vahan of Vishnu, but they are alike common. There are few instances of the Brahman, the Kshatriya, Vaisya, or Sudra races so devoting their children, but amongst the non-Aryan races in the large towns it is commonly done as a means of prostitution without shame. The Dhangar, Mhar, Dher or Pariah, Mang or Chakili, Koli, and Manurwara, and occasionally even the higher Hindu castes, under various vows, devote their girls to the gods. The deity to whom the girl is more frequently vowed is some incarnation of Siva and his consorts. On the western side of India, Kandoba is the usual Siva avatar to whom the girls are devoted, and his chief shrines are at Jejuri, Khanapur, near Beder, and at Malligaon. The ordinary people believe that from time to time the shadow of the god comes on the devotee (deo ki chaya ati ang par), and possesses the devotee's person (Murli ki ang ko bhar deta). These devotees are called Murli in Mahratta, Jogni or Jognidani in Cauarese, and Basava in Telugu. They at times affect to be possessed, perhaps are really hysterical, during which they rock the body, and people occasionally make offerings to them as to an oracle or soothsayer, laying money at their feet, and await the pos sessing, to hear a decision enunciated. The female deity to whom those near the Bhima river are devoted is Yellamah ; the Bhui-koli race devote their Murli to Mats, ; boys also are devoted, and styled Waghia, from Wag, a tiger. Near Amraoti it is to Amba and to Kandoba that the Murli and the Waghia are devoted`, The Waghia does not associate with the Murli. Occasionally the girl is taken to the idol, in some parts to a dagger, to whom she is married by a ceremony, and the deity is supposed to take possession of her. In Berar, at Amraoti, the people say that Kandoba particularly moves on Sunday, and selects a clean tree (clean Murli), whose body he fills. This idea of the visits of the gods pervades
Hindu society. It is not the belief that their visits are restricted to these 'devoted women, but that all women are liable to be selected by the deity, the visitor assuming the appearance of the husband. A comely Hindu woman is married, but without offspring, is supposed to be the subject of such supernatural visitation. So of old, when Demaratus, says Herodotus, had spoken to his mother, the mother answered him in this manner : `Son, because you so earnestly desire me to speak the truth, I shall conceal nothing from you. The third night after Aristou had conducted me home to his house, a phantom, entirely like him in shape, entered my chamber, and, having lain with me, put a crown on my head, and went out again.' Similarly in the Bacchm of Euripides, the hero says, ` For that the sisters of my mother (least Becomes it them) declared that not from Jove I sprung, but pregnant by some mortal's love ; That Semele on Jove had falsely charged Her fault, the poor device of In British history, Merlin and Arthur himself were both the sons of bhoots (Vide Geoffrey's History, book vi. chap. xviii., and book viii. chap. xix.), to the former of which cases Spenser thus alludes,— ' And soothe men say that he was not the Bonne Of mortal sire or other living wighte, But wondrously begotten and begonne, By false illusion of a guileful sprite On a faire ladye nun.
In Scotland, the story of the Lady of Drum melziar and the Spirit of the Tweed is related in Note M., Lay of the Last Minstrel. In India, the of Sheeladitya, of Usa and Anirud, and of Karnak Kunwari are similar ; and Captain West macott relates another in an article on Chardwai in Assam, in the Journal Bengal Asiatic Society, iv. p. 187 et seq. Butler thus satirically alludes to these stories,— Not as the ancient heroes did, Who, that their base births might be hid (Knowing that they were of doubtful gender, And that they came in at a windore), Made Jupiter himself, and others 0' th' gods, gallants to their own mothers, To get on them a race of champions, Of which old Homer first made lampoons.' But this satirist's scornful remarks, however applicable to a civilised people, are not so to race: like those of India, whose belief in spirits is theh chief cult.—Hudibras, v. 211-218 ; Rasamala.