Harshu is now worshipped as a Brahm with the fire sacrifice and offerings of Brâhmanical cords and sweetmeats. If any one obtains his desires through his intercession, he makes an offering of a golden sacred cord and a silken waist-string, and feeds Brâhmans in his honour. Harshu's speciality is exorcising evil spirits which attack people and cause disease. Such spirits are usually of low caste and cannot withstand the influence of this deified Brâhman.
Another worthy, whose legend much resembles that of Harshu, is Ratan Pânrê, who is venerated by the Kalhans Râjputs of Oudh. The last of the race, Râja Achal Nârâyan Sinh, ravished the daughter of Ratan Pânrê. He pleaded in vain to the wicked Râja for reparation, and at last he and his wife starved themselves to death at the gate of the fort. He too, like Harshu, spared a princess of the Râja's house, but he cursed the rest of his family with ruin. After he died his ghost went to the river Sarjû and claimed her assistance in revenging himself on the Râja. She at last consented to help him, provided he could get the Râja into his power by inducing him to accept some present from him. So he went to the Râja's family priest and induced him to take from him a sacred cord with which he was to invest the Râja. When Achal Nârâyan Sinh heard to whom he was indebted for the gift he flung it away in terror. But soon after an angry wave rushed from the Sarjû, and on its crest sat the wraith of Ratan Pânrê. It swept away his palace and left not a soul of his household alive. [397]
There is a similar case among the Hayobans Râjputs of Ghâzipur. In 1528 A.D. their Râja Bhopat Deva, or perhaps one of his sons, seduced Mahenî, a Brâhman girl, a relation of their family priest. She burned herself to death, and in dying, imprecated the most fearful curses on the Hayobans sept. In consequence of a succession of disasters which followed, the tribe completely abandoned their family settlement at Baliya, where the woman's tomb is worshipped to this day. Even now none of the sept dares to enter the precincts of their former home. In the same way, in the case of Harshu Pânrê no pilgrim will eat or drink near his tomb, as the place is accursed through the murder of a Brâhman. [398]