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Abstract
‘India has been described as a land of contrast, and nothing are the contrast more marked in Hinduism, in which difference between the beliefs and practices of cultured classes and those of the masses, mostly unlettered villagers, are so great that they almost seem to be differences of kind rather than of degree. The religion of the later has few of the higher spiritual conceptions of Hinduism and represents in the main its lower side. A mixture of orthodox Hinduism and of that primitive form of religion which is known as animism, it combines Brahmanical rites and observances with the fetishism of lower cults. Offerings are made both to the great gods of Brahmanical pantheon, whose name is legion, for different villages have special local deities of their own. As might be expected in country with so large an area and so vast population, a country, moreover, in which different sections of the people are at widely different stages of intellectual development, there are great variations of belief and practice, but there are also certain common characteristics’[1]. The religion of masses can be noticed in the form of sects and cults (a form of religion within religion). Over the period these cults grows as spiritual centres, on the other side become centres of different socio-economic activities. The cult of Baba BalakNath is of great fame in the Shivalik hills.