Indian Antiquary Vol 24

SR No.: 032516
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 390
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 16 MB

Page 327

NOVEMBER, 1895.] SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
of Kuyuk Khân, Emperor of the Târtârs in 1246, he and his wife were put in a chair and lifted.21 The king and queen of Navarre, after being anointed, were lifted.23 Among the Teutonic and Gothic tribes, the chief or king on whom the election fell was borne on a buckler by the leading men of the tribe.23 Among the Natchez of the Mississipi, at the harvest or new-fire festival, in the evening, the unleavened bread was held up and presented to the setting sun.24 Compare the elevation of the Host in Roman Catholic Churches: the Panagia or all holy, a monastic feast at which a triangle of blessed bread was elevated and shared by all in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary: the raising of the Sacramental bread by the Byzantine Christians.25 Compare also in drinking a toast the raising of the glasses and the carrying shoulder high of the chief guest or champion. In Scotland, till 1820, it was usual to lift the bride over the threshold of her husband's house.26 In Manchester, in 1784, the men used to lift the women on Easter Monday, and the women the men on Easter Tuesday. One or more took hold of each leg and one or more of each arm near the body, and thrice lifted the person in a horizontal position.27 In 1825, lifting was still common in North England.29
Liquor. Liquor is both a spirit-scarer and a spirit home. Liquor drives away weariness, cold and faintness. It heals wounds. It soothes inflammation. For these reasons liquor is a leading spirit-scarer. In East Africa, after his return from the haunted hill Kilimanjaro, Mr. New was sprinkled with a special ceremonial liquor that scared evil spirits.20 The widespread practice of libation, that is, of the spilling of drops of liquor before drinking, has its root in the scaring power of liquor.. Pârsis sprinkle liquor to scare the Evil Eye and other baneful influences. The Zend Avesta says30:-"The least offering of Haoma, the least praise of Haoma, the least mouthful of Haoma is enough to slay a thousand demons. All evil done by demons vanishes at once from the house of the man who serves Haoma, who praises Haoma the Healer." Again31:-"I am not a thief, says IIaoma, I am Haoma the holy who wards off death." So in the Sámavéda,33 Sôma is the chaser and slaughterer of enemies, the destroyer of the wicked, the helper against fiends, the demon-slayer. Though in the higher phases of the religions of Greece and Rome, the libation was believed to please rather than to scare, the earlier feeling remains in the case of thunder, when the Greek and the Roman poured cups of wine on the ground to avert the omen.33
Again, liquor inspirits. It causes gladness and laughter: as Horace34 sings:-"Wine adds horns to the man of humble means." In wine there is Truth; in wine there is Wit. So the enthusiast Brahman and Persian Sôma and Haoma worshippers held liquor a god, or, in the less extreme form, believed that in liquor dwelt a guardian or kindly ancestor. "If a man," says the Zend Avesta,35" handles Haoma tenderly like a little child, Haoma enters into his body for health. All other intoxications carry with them Aeshma or wrath of the murderous arm: the intoxication of Haoma goes with holiness and joy: the intoxication of Haoma is lightsome." Again he sings36:-"Haoma, give me thy drunkenness in exchange (for my praise). Let thy drunkenness enter into me and brighten me. Thy drunkenness is lightsome." So the Brahman priest37 drinking from the Sôma cup, says: "This is good, this is a host of goods. Here is good, here is a host of goods. In me is the good, in me is a host of goods." Sôma was a god brought from heaven by Gayatri.39 According to the Samaveda,30 Sôma was a god pressed out for gods. By Sôma Indra defeated the demons, 40
21 Jones' Crowns, p. 441; Howorth's Mongols, Part I. p. 163. 22 Op. cit. p. 415.
23 Smith's Christian Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 433. 25 Smith's Christian Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 414;
26 Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 55.
28 The Denham Tracts, Vol. II. p. 31.
31 Op. cit. xi. 3.
317
24 Frazer's Golden Bough, Vol. II. p. 333. Vol. II. p. 1550,
27 Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 182.
29 Frazer's Golden Bough, Vol. I. p. 151.
20 Yasna, x. 6.
32 Griffith's Translation, pp. 102, 109, 141, 147, 162, 167, 175.
3 Potter's Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 38. To the Greeks the stroke of wine and the stroke of the thunderbolt seemed alike. Archilochus (B. C. 700) sings:-" My mind is struck with wine as with a thunderbolt." Brown's Great Dionysiak Myth, Vol. I. p. 87.
34 Odes Book, III., Ode 21. Op. cit. III. 25; IV. 7.
37 Ait. Br. II. 27. 40 Op. cit. pp. 26, 100.
35 Yasna, 1. 8. 36 Op. cit. x. 19. 3 Griffith's Translation, p. 164.