The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1, is a collection of essays by William Crooke on the beliefs and customs of rural communities in Northern India. It describes deities, rituals, festivals, and traditions, drawing on ethnographic survey work. It is worth listening to as a survey of living folk religious practices in the region.
For teachers and schools: paste the code into your site or blog.
Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
FOLK-LORE OF NORTHERN INDIA BATHING IN THE GANGES, HARDWAR. BATHING IN THE GANGES, HARDWAR. Original Title Page. THE POPULAR RELIGION
AND FOLK-LORE OF NORTHERN INDIA BY W. CROOKE, B.A. BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ILLUSTRATED WESTMINSTER ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. 2, Whitehall Gardens, S.W. 1896
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The success of this book has been much beyond my expectations. That a considerable edition has been exhausted within a few months after publication proves that it meets a want.
I have now practically re-written the book, and have taken the opportunity of introducing a considerable amount of fresh information collected in the course of the Ethnographical Survey of the North-Western Provinces, the results of which will be separately published.
For the illustrations, which now appear for the first time, I am indebted to the photographic skill of Mr. J. O’Neal, of the Thomason Engineering College,
Rurki. I could have wished that they could have been drawn from a wider area. But Hardwar and its shrines are very fairly representative of popular
Hinduism in Northern India.
W. Crooke.
Saharanpur,
February, 1895.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Many books have been written on Brâhmanism, or the official religion of the
Hindu; but, as far as I am aware, this is the first attempt to bring together
Readnara
