Indian Antiquary Vol 26

SR No.: 032518
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 360
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 107

APRIL, 1897.]
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
103
Beashore, throw clarified butter into the fire, and sugared milk into the sea. 10 On the third of November 1886, Rai Pannálál, the minister of Udaipur in Rajputânâ, gave a feast to twenty-five thousand people in memory of his mother. The Mahâjâns or Banias, in Udaipur and eighty villages round, gte over thirty-one thousand pounds (three hundred mans) of sugar in sweetmeats. The Holi or spring festival on the March-April fall-moon is a great time for sweetmeats. In Bombay, shops are full of necklaces of sugar medals stamped with the lucky face of Singhmnkh or Old Horny 13 The Indian Musalman pours some drops of sugared water into the mouth of the dying 13 The sweetened juice of the homa (Asclepias ascida) is dropped into the mouth of the new.born Parsi. In honour of a Parsi girl's first pregnancy, both her own and her husband's families distribute sweetmeats.15
When the Egyptian Muslim bridegroom comes to the bride's room he sprinkles sagar and almonds on the bride's head and on the heads of the women with her. 16 In Italy, in A. D. 1590, on Christmas Eve, sweetmeats were given to the Fathers in the Vatican.17 At Milan, during the Carnival, strings of carriages and wagons pass laden with small sugar knobs about the size of peas. The balconies are crowded with people with large stores of these pellets. And between the people in the wagons and those in the verandahs such quantities of comfits are thrown that, when the procession has passed, the street is as white as after a smart shower of snow. 18 In November 1657, at the wedding of his danghter, Oliver Cromwell threw sack posset of wet sweetmeats among the ladies, and daubed with wet sweetmeats the stools where they were to sit.10 In West Scotland (1830), when a babe is taken to a strange house for the first time, the head of the house must pat sugar into its mouth and wish it well.20 In North Hants, on St. Andrew's day, a bell called Tandrew is rung and sweet toffee is eaten.31
Sulphur. -Sulphur as a healer, a disinfectant, and a fire-maker, is the dread of spirits. Among the ancient Jews the wedding crown was of salt and sulphur.22 In Egypt, at the procession of Isis, a boat was carried which had been parified with a lighted torch, an egg, and sulphur. At a Greek sacrifice the vessels were purified by rubbing them with brimstone 24 Those who took part in the Bacchic mysteries were purified with fire, sulphur and air.25 Theocritas (B. C. 200) advises the herdsman to purify his house with sulphur, and then rain upon it innocuous water and the accustomed salt.28 Before Medea began her rites for renewing Jason's father's youth, she thrice purified him with fire, water and sulphur.27 The Romans, in their early shepherd-festival of the Palilia (21st April), to purify them, rubbed sheep with salphur or made them pass through the smoke of sulphur, rosemary, firewood, and incense.29 Pliny (4. D. 70), apparently referring to the practice described by Theocritus, says that the Romans burnt sulphur to hallow houses, because its smell drove off fiends and spirits.29 He also mentions sulphur as a care for leprosy, cough and scorpion bite.30 Tibullus (B. O. 40) speaks of purifying with sulphur,31 and Amertius Nemesianus recommends the shepherd who is worried with a love charm to lustrate himself thrice with chaplets,
10 Vaikuntram's Element Worship, MS. 11 Times of India, 11th November 1886. 19 From M3. notes: 15 Herklot's Quanun-i-Islam, p. 409. 2From MS, notes.
15 From MS. notes. 16 Lane's Arabs in the Middle Ages, p. 237; Eber (Egyptian Princess, Vol. II. pp. 233, 362) Ascribes the same practice to the Greeks of Egypt in B. C. 500.
11 Gentleman's Magazine Library, "Popular Superstitions," p. 4.
18 From MS. note, 1883. In Rome plastered peas bave taken the place of the old comfits. Ency. Brit., "Carnival." 19 Hone's Table Book, Vol. I. p. 20.
3. Napier's Folk-Lore, p. 33. 21 Notes and Qreries, Fifth Series, Vol. VII. p. 29. 22 Basnage's History of the Jews, p. 472.
19 Brown's Great Dionysiak Myth, Vol. I. p. 195. 24 Potter's Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 368.
28 Smith's Greek and Roman Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 103. Calverley's Translation, Ilyul XXIV. p. 139. 11 Ovid's Metamorphosis, Vol. VII. p. 261.
+ Ovid's Fasti, Lib. IV. 730-750, Quoted in Smith's Greek and Roman Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 817; Aubrey's Remains of Gentilism, p. 16; Napier's Folk-Lore, p. 166.
29 Pliny's Natural History, Book xxxv. Chap. 15. Op. cit. Book IIXV. Chap. 15. 91 Quoted in Story's Castle of St. Angelo, p. 207.