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350
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1895.
Egyptians held a feast of lamps at Sais in honour of the goddess Neith.18 The ancient Cha.l. deans, under the mystic name of lao, adored the physical and intellectual light. The Yezedis. or modern Sabeans, bold a festival of lights in honour of Sheikh the Sun at Midsummer, when the men and women pass their right hands through the lights carried by the priests, rub their brows, and touch their lips. Both the Chinese and the Japanese have their feasts of Lanterns." Tibetans hold a light-feast in early December.60 The Canton river gods are worshipped with an accompaniment of hundreds of fire crackers.51 The Hindu worships light with wise wonder and with thankful heart. His holiest gayatrí prayer is : "Let us think the worshipful Light, may it lighten our souls." According to another text Fire comes as a dear friend : in his presence men sit as in a parent's house. The palas-fed fire, kept in a strict Brâhman's inner room, is the Garhapatya or House-guardian,52 Besides his Diwali or lamp-feast, the Hindu dances and sings at Dasahra (September October) round a garbu or lamp housed in a clay or wooden case drilled with holes. On many great religions nights, both Hindus and Muhammadans lighten their temples and shrines. In India, the evening twilight, dreaded by Hindu gods, is male safe and pure from the approach of the evil Yoginis or Fire-fiends by the arti or waving of Jumps and flaming camphor.63 Similarly, the Shâns of Southern China, once a year, with gongs and trumpets and with flaming torches, drive out the twilight fire-fiends.54 At it Rajpût court, at lamp light, all rise and salute, a practice which was adopted by the Emperor Akbar.56 In the early Christian Church, lamp-lighting was the occasion of a service of prayers and praise. The rosy-fingered dawn drives away evil spirits and bringe health.66 "Demons." says the Tibetan proverb, “cannot move except in darkness."57 In Western India, lamps are waved round the sick, and flaming camphor is held in front of the faces of the possessed. The lighted candles of the Christian altar, for which the Greek, the Roman, and the Jewish ritual furnish precedents, find a further parallel in the lighted candles on the altar table of the Chinese emperor.68 Of gaardian lights at child-birth, an example is given in the chapel of the Bologna University, where, in the fresco of the birth of the Virgin Mary, a woman holds a lighted candle close to the mother's face. Pericles mourns that his wife died in child-birth at se without fire and without light.co In Ireland, no fire should be given out of a house in which a woman has been lately confined.61 The poet Herrick (1650) refers to "the tapers five that shew the womb shall thrive."62 In eighteenth century Scotland, women in child-birth were. purified or sained by being crossed by a fir-candle.63 In Brazil, when a girl comes of age, and has to loave her hammock, she rides on the back of a female relation, carrying a live coal to keep evil influences from entering her body,64 In rural Scotland, Rosses describes how --
"A clear burnt coal in the hot tonga was talon Frae out the ingle-mids for clear and clean, And through the corsy-belly 6 latten fa
For fear the weeane should be ta'en awa." In the Scottish Highlands, & live peat was carried sun-wiso round the mother and unbatised child to keep off evil spirits. And the newly baptised child was handed thrice across the
46 Herodotus, Vol. II. p. 62; Wilkinson's Egyptians, 2nd Series, Vol. II. p. 308. 47 Brown's Great Dionysiak Myth, Vol. I. p. 56.
48 Hislop's Two Babylons, pp. 171-173. 49 Kidd's China, p. 302; Japanese Manners, p. 67.
se Waddell's Buddhism in Tibet, p. 511. 61 Mrs. Gray's Fourteen Months in Canton, p. 120. 62 Mrs. Manning's Ancient India, Vol. I. pp. 13, 86 (n. 3), 90. 48 The Golden Bough, Vol. II. p. 179. 84 Tarikh-i Badaunt in Elliot's Musalman Hintory of India, Vol. V. p. 631. 55 Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 226. 06 Rig Veda, 1. 48, Wilson's Works, Vol. I. pp. 129, 298 (note). 07 Waddell's Buddhism in Tibet, p. 495.
68 Compare Middleton's Conformity between Popery and Paganism, PP. 144, 145; Howorth's Mongels, Vol. I. p. 635. 59 From MS, Notes.
60 Pericles, III, 1. 61 Folk-Lore Record, Vol. IV. p. 108.
~ Poems, Vol. I. p. 56, Ed. 1869. 63 Dalyoll's Darker Superstition of Scotland, p. 184. 4 The Golden Bough, Vol. II. p. 231. 66 Ross's Helenore.
66 Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, k. v., Corsy-belly = the infant's first shirt folded across the belly : Napice's Folk-Lore, p. 30.
