In one of Moore's Irish Melodies is an allusion to Harpocrates: -
"Thyself shall, under some rosy bower,Sit mute, with thy finger on thy lip:Like him, the boy, who born amongThe flowers that on the Nile-stream blush,Sits over thus, his only songTo Earth and Heaven, "Hush, all, hush!"
Osiris and Isis were at one time induced to descend to the earth to bestow gifts and blessings on its inhabitants. Isis showed them first the use of wheat and barley, and Osiris made the instruments of agriculture and taught men the use of them, as well as how to harness the ox to the plough. He then gave men laws, the institution of marriage, a civil organization, and taught them how to worship the gods. After he had thus made the valley of the Nile a happy country, he assembled a host with which he went to bestow his blessings upon the rest of the world. He conquered the nations everywhere, but not with weapons, only with music and eloquence. His brother Typhon (Typhon is supposed to be the Seth of the monuments) saw this, and filled with envy and malice sought, during his absence, to usurp his throne. But Isis, who held the reins of government, frustrated his plans. Still more embittered, he now resolved to kill his brother. This he did in the following manner: Having organized a conspiracy of seventy-two members, he went with them to the feast which was celebrated in honor of the king's return. He then caused a box or chest to be brought in, which had been made to fit exactly the size of Osiris, and declared that he would give that chest of precious wood to whosoever could get into it. The rest tried in vain, but no sooner was Osiris in it than Typhon and his companions closed the lid and flung the chest into the Nile. When Isis heard of the cruel murder she wept and mourned, and then with her hair shorn, clothed in black and beating her breast, she sought diligently for the body of her husband. In this search she was assisted by Anubis, the son of Osiris and Nephthys. They sought in vain for some time; for when the chest, carried by the waves to the shores of Byblos, had become entangled in the reeds that grew at the edge of the water, the divine power that dwelt in the body of Osiris imparted such strength to the shrub that it grew into a mighty tree, enclosing in its trunk the coffin of the god. This tree, with its sacred deposit, was shortly afterward felled, and erected as a column in the palace of the king of Phoenicia. But at length, by the aid of Anubis and the sacred birds, Isis ascertained these facts, and then went to the royal city. There she offered herself at the palace as a servant, and being admitted, threw off her disguise and appeared as the goddess, surrounded with thunder and lightning. Striking the column with her wand, she caused it to split open and give up the sacred coffin. This she seized and returned with it, and concealed it in the depth of a forest, but Typhon discovered it, and cutting the body into fourteen pieces, scattered them hither and thither. After a tedious search, Isis found thirteen pieces, the fishes of the Nile having eaten the other. This she replaced by an imitation of sycamore wood, and buried the body at Philoe, which became ever after the great burying place of the nation, and the spot to which pilgrimages were made from all parts of the country. A temple of surpassing magnificence was also erected there in honor of the god, and at every place where one of his limbs had been found, minor temples and tombs were built to commemorate the event. Osiris became after that the tutelar deity of the Egyptians. His soul was supposed always to inhabit the body of the bull Apis, and at his death to transfer itself to his successor.
Apis, the Bull of Memphis, was worshipped with the greatest reverence by the Egyptians. As soon as a bull marked with the marks which have been described, was found by those sent in search of him, he was placed in a building facing the east, and was fed with milk for four months. At the expiration of this term the priests repaired at new moon with great pomp, to his habitation, and saluted him Apis. He was placed in a vessel magnificently decorated and conveyed down the Nile to Memphis, where a temple, with two chapels and a court for exercise, was assigned to him. Sacrifices were made to him, and once every year, about the time when the Nile began to rise, a golden cup was thrown into the river, and a grand festival was held to celebrate his birthday. The people believed that during this festival the crocodiles forgot their natural ferocity and became harmless. There was however one drawback to his happy lot; he was not permitted to live beyond a certain period; and if when he had attained the age of twenty-five years, he still survived, the priests drowned him in the sacred cistern, and then buried him in the temple of Serapis. On the death of this bull, whether it occurred in the course of nature or by violence, the whole land was filled with sorrow and lamentations, which lasted until his successor was found.
A new Apis was found as late as the reign of Hadrian. A mummy made from one of the Sacred Bulls may be seen in the Egyptian collection of the Historical Society, New York.
Milton, in his Hymn of the Nativity, alludes to the Egyptian deities, not as imaginary beings, but as real demons put to flight by the coming of Christ:
"The brutish gods of Nile as fast,Isis and Horus and the dog Anubis haste.Nor is Osiris seenIn Memphian grove or greenTrampling the unshowered* grass with lowings loud;Nor can he be at restWithin his sacred chest;Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud.In vain with timbrel'd anthems darkThe sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark."
*(There being no rain in Egypt, the grass is "unshowered," and the country depends for its fertility upon the overflowings of the Nile. The ark alluded to in the last line is shown by pictures still remaining on the walls of the Egyptian temples to have been borne by the priests in their religious processions. It probably represented the chest in which Osiris was placed.)
Isis was represented in statuary with the head veiled, a symbol of mystery. It is this which Tennyson alludes to in Maud, 0V.8
"For the drift of te Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil."
Oracle was the name used to denote the place where answers were supposed to be given by any of the divinities to those who consulted them respecting the future. The word was also used to signify the response which was given.
The most ancient Grecian oracle was that of Jupiter at Dodona. According to one account it was established in the following manner. Two black doves took their flight from Thebes in Egypt. One flew to Dodona in Epirus and alighting in a grove of oaks, it proclaimed in human language to the inhabitants of the district that they must establish there an oracle of Jupiter. The other dove flew to the temple of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan oasis, and delivered a similar command there. Another account is, that they were not doves, but priestesses, who were carried off from Thebes in Egypt by the Phoenicians, and set up oracles at Oasis and Dodona. The responses of the oracle were given from the trees, by the branches rustling in the wind, the sounds being interpreted by the priests.
But the most celebrated of the Grecian oracles was that of Apollo at Delphi, a city built on the slopes of Parnassus in Phocis.
It had been observed at a very early period that the goats feeding on Parnassus were thrown into convulsions when they approached a certain long deep cleft in the side of the mountain. This was owing to a peculiar vapor arising out of the cavern, and one of the goatherds was induced to try its effects upon himself. Inhaling the intoxicating air he was affected in the same manner as the cattle had been, and the inhabitants of the surrounding country, unable to explain the circumstance, imputed the convulsive ravings to which he gave utterance while under the power of the exhalations, to a divine inspiration. The fact was speedily circulated widely, and a temple was erected on the spot. The prophetic influence was at first variously attributed to the goddess Earth, to Neptune, Themis, and others, but it was at length assigned to Apollo, and to him alone. A priestess was appointed whose office it was to inhale the hallowed air, and who was named the Pythia. She was prepared for this duty by previous ablution at the fountain of Castalia, and being crowned with laurel was seated upon a tripod similarly adorned, which was placed over the chasm whence the divine afflatus proceeded. Her inspired words while thus situated were interpreted by the priests.
Besides the oracles of Jupiter and Apollo, at Dodona and Delphi, that of Trophonius in Boeotia was held in high estimation. Trophonius and Agamedes were brothers. They were distinguished architechts, and built the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and a treasury for King Hyrieus. In the wall of the treasury they placed a stone, in such a manner that it could be taken out; and by this means from time to time purloined the treasure. This amazed Hyrieus, for his locks and seals were untouched, and yet his wealth, continually diminished. At length he set a trap for the thief and Agamedes was caught. Trophonius unable to extricate him, and fearing that when found he would be compelled by torture to discover his accomplice, cut off his head. Trophonius himself is said to have been shortly afterwards swallowed up by the earth.
The oracle of Trophonius was at Lebadea in Boeotia. During a great drought the Boeotians, it is said, were directed by the god at Delphi to seek aid of Trophonius at Lebadea. They came thither, but could find no oracle. One of them, however, happening to see a swarm of bees, followed them to a chasm in the earth, which proved to be the place sought.
Peculiar ceremonies were to be performed by the person who came to consult the oracle. After these preliminaries, he descended into the cave by a narrow passage. This place could be entered only in the night. The person returned from the cave by the same narrow passage, but walking backwards. He appeared melancholy and dejected; and hence the proverb which was applied to a person low-spirited and gloomy, "He has been consulting the oracle of Trophonius."
There were numerous oracles of Aesculapius, but the most celebrated one was at Epidaurus. Here the sick sought responses and the recovry of their health by sleeping in the temple. It has been inferred from the accounts that have come down to us, that the treatment of the sick resembled what is now called Animal Magnetism or Mesmerism.
Serpents were sacred to Aesculapius, probably because of a superstition that those animals have a faculty of renewing their youth by a change of skin. The worship of Aesculapius was introduced into Rome in a time of great sickness, and an embassy sent to the temple of Epidaurus to entreat the aid of the god. Aesculapius was propitious, and on the return of the ship accompanied it in the form of a serpent. Arriving in the river Tiber, the serpent glided from the vessel and took possession of an island in the river, and a temple was there erected to his honor.
At Memphis the sacred bull Apis gave answer to those who consulted him, by the manner in which he received or rejected what was presented to him. If the bull refused food from the hand of the inquirer it was considered an unfavorable sign, and the contrary when he received it.
It has been a question whether oracular responses ought to be ascribed to mere human contrivance or to the agency of evil spirits. The latter opinion has been most general in past ages. A third theory has been advanced since the phenomena of Mesmerism have attracted attention, that something like the mesmeric trance was induced in the Pythoness, and the faculty of clairvoyance really called into action.
Another question is as to the time when the Pagan oracles ceased to give responses. Ancient Christian writers assert that they became silent at the birth of Christ, and were heard no more after that date. Milton adopts this view in his Hymn of the Nativity, and in lines of solemn and elevated beauty pictures the consternation of the heathen idols at the advent of the Saviour.
"The oracles are dumb;No voice or hideous humRings through the arched roof in words deceiving.Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine,With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.No nightly trance or breathed spellInspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell."
In Cowper's poem of Yardley Oak there are some beautiful mythological allusions. The former of the two following is to the fable of Castor and Pollux; the latter is more appropriate to our present subject. Addressing the acorn he says,
"Thou fell'st mature; and in the loamy clod,Swelling with vegetative force instinct,Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled TwinsNow stars; two lobes protruding, paired exact;A leaf succeeded and another leaf,And, all the elements thy puny growthFostering propitious, thou becam'st a twig.Who lived when thou was such? Oh, couldst thou speakAs in Dodona once thy kindred treesOracular, I would not curious askThe future, best unknown, but at thy mouthInquisitive, the less ambiguous past."
Tennyson in his Talking Oak alludes to the oaks of Dodona in these lines:
"And I will work in prose and rhyme,And praise thee more in bothThan bard has honored beech or lime,Or that Thessalian growthIn which the swarthy ring-dove satAnd mystic sentence spoke."
Byron alludes to the oracle of Delphi where, speaking ofRousseau, whose writings he conceives did much to bring on theFrench revolution, he says,
"For then he was inspired, and from him came,As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore,Those oracles which set the world in flame,Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more."
Origin of Mythology Statues of Gods and Goddesses Poets ofMythology
Having reached the close of our series of stories of Pagan mythology, an inquiry suggests itself. "Whence came these stories? Have they a foundation in truth, or are they simply dreams of the imagination?" Philosophers have suggested various theories on the subject of which we shall give three or four.
1. The Scriptural theory; according to which all mythological legends are derived from the narratives of Scripture, though the real facts have been disguised and altered. Thus Deucalion is only another name for Noah, Hercules for Samson, Arion for Jonah, etc. Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World, says, "Jubal, Tubal, and Tubal-Cain were Mercury, Vulcan, and Apollo, inventors of Pasturage, Smithing, and Music. The Dragon which kept the golden apples was the serpent that beguiled Eve. Nimrod's tower was the attempt of the Giants against Heaven. There are doubtless many curious coincidences like these, but the theory cannot without extravagance be pushed so far as to account for any great proportion of the stories.
2. The Historical theory; according to which all the persons mentioned in mythology were once real human beings, and the legends and fabulous traditions relating to them are merely the additions and embellishments of later times. Thus the story of AEolus, the king and god of the winds, is supposed to have risen from the fact that AEolus was the ruler of some islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, where he reigned as a just and pious king, and taught the natives the use of sails for ships, and how to tell from the signs of the atmosphere the changes of the weather and the winds. Cadmus, who, the legend says, sowed the earth with dragon's teeth, from which sprang a crop of armed men, was in fact an emigrant from Phoenicia, and brought with him into Greece the knowledge of the letters of the alphabet, which he taught to the natives. From these rudiments of learning sprung civilization, which the poets have always been prone to describe as a deterioration of man's first estate, the Golden Age of innocence and simplicity.
3. The Allegorical theory supposes that all the myths of the ancients were allegorical and symbolical, and contained some moral, religious, or philosophical truth or historical fact, under the form of an allegory, but came in process of time to be understood literally. Thus Saturn, who devours his own children, is the same power whom the Greeks called Kronos (Time), which may truly be said to destroy whatever it has brought into existence. The story of Io is interpreted in a similar manner. Io is the moon, and Argus the starry sky, which, as it were, keeps sleepless watch over her. The fabulous wanderings of Io represent the continual revolutions of the moon, which also suggested to Milton the same idea.
"To behold the wandering moonRiding near her highest noon,Like one that had been led astrayIn the heaven's wide, pathless way."Il Penseroso
4. The Astronomical theory supposes that the different stories are corrupted versions of astronomical statements, of which the true meaning was forgotten. This theory is pushed to its extreme by Dupuis, in his treatise "Sur tous les cultes."
5. The Physical theory, according to which the elements of air, fire, and water, were originally the objects of religious adoration, and the principal deities were personifications of the powers of nature. The transition was easy from a personification of the elements to the notion of supernatural beings presiding over and governing the different objects of nature. The Greeks, whose imagination was lively, peopled all nature with invisible beings, and supposed that every object, from the sun and sea to the smallest fountain and rivulet, was under the care of some particular divinity. Wordsworth, in his Excursion, has beautifully developed this view of Grecian mythology.
"In that fair clime the lonely herdsman, stretchedOn the soft grass through half a summer's day,With music lulled his indolent repose;And, in some fit of weariness, if he,When his own breath was silent, chanced to hearA distant strain far sweeter than the soundsWhich his poor skill could make, his fancy fetchedEven from the blazing chariot of the sunA beardless youth who touched a golden lute,And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.The mighty hunter, lifting up his eyesToward the crescent Moon, with grateful heartCalled on the lovely Wanderer who bestowedThat timely light to share his joyous sport;And hence a beaming goddess with her nymphsAcross the lawn and through the darksome grove(Not unaccompanied with tuneful notesBy echo multiplied from rock or cave)Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and starsGlance rapidly along the clouded heavenWhen winds are blowing strong. The traveller slakedHis thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thankedThe Naiad. Sunbeams upon distant hillsGliding apace with shadows in their train,Might with small help from fancy, be transformedInto fleet Oreads sporting visibly.The Zephyrs, fanning, as they passed, their wings,Lacked not for love fair objects whom they wooedWith gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque,Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,From depth of shaggy covert peeping forthIn the low vale, or on steep mountain side;And sometimes intermixed with stirring hornsOf the live deer, or goat's depending beard;These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild broodOf gamesome deities; or Pan himself,The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god."
All the theories which have bene mentioned are true to a certain extent. It would therefore be more correct to say that the mythology of a nation has sprung from all these sources combined than from any one in particular. We may add also that there are many myths which have risen from the desire of man to account for those natural phenomena which he cannot understand; and not a few have had their rise from a similar desire of giving a reason for the names of places and persons.
Adequately to represent to the eye the ideas intended to be conveyed to the mind under the several names of deities, was a task which called into exercise the highest powers of genius and art. Of the many attempts FOUR have been most celebrated, the first two known to us only by the descriptions of the ancients, and by copies on gems, which are still preserved; the other two still extant and the acknowledged masterpieces of the sculptor's art.
The statue of the Olympian Jupiter by Phidias was considered the highest achievement of this department of Grecian art. It was of colossal dimensions, and was what the ancients called "chryselephantine;" that is, composed of ivory and gold; the parts representing flesh being of ivory laid on a core of wood or stone, while the drapery and other ornaments were of gold. The height of the figure was forty feet, on a pedestal twelve feet high. The god was represented seated on this throne. His brows were crowned with a wreath of olive, and he held in his right hand a sceptre, and in his left a statue of Victory. The throne was of cedar, adorned with gold and precious stones.
The idea which the artist essayed to embody was that of the supreme deity of the Hellenic (Grecian) nation, enthroned as a conqueror, in perfect majesty and repose, and ruling with a nod the subject world. Phidias avowed that he took his idea from the representation which Homer gives in the first book of the Iliad, in the passage thus translated by Pope:
"He spoke and awful bends his sable brows,Shakes his ambrosial curls and gives the nod,The stamp of fate and sanction of the god.High heaven with reverence the dread signal took,A nd all Olympus to the centre shook."
(Cowper's version is less elegant, but truer to the original.
"He ceased, and under his dark brows the nodVouchsafed of confirmation. All aroundThe sovereign's everlasting head his curlsAmbrosial shook, and the huge mountain reeled."
It may interest our readers to see how this passage appears in another famous version, that which was issued under the name of Tickell, contemporaneously with Pope's, and which, being by many attributed to Addison, led to the quarrel which ensued between Addison and Pope.
"This said, his kingly brow the sire inclined;The large black curls fell awful from behind,Thick shadowing the stern forehead of the god;Olympus trembled at the almighty nod.")
This was also the work of Phidias. It stood in the Parthenon, or temple of Minera at Athens. The goddess was represented standing. In one hand she held a spear, in the other a statue of Victory. Her helmet, highly decorated, was surmounted by a Sphinx. The statue was forty feet in height, and, like the Jupiter, composed of ivory and gold. The eyes were of marble, and probably painted to represent the iris and pupil. The Parthenon in which this statue stood was also constructed under the direction and superintendence of Phidias. Its exterior was enriched with sculptures, many of them from the hand of Phidias. The Elgin marbles now in the British Museum are a part of them.
Both the Jupiter and Minerva of Phidias are lost, but there is good ground to believe that we have, in several extant statues and busts, the artist's conceptions of the countenances of both. They are characterized by grave and dignified beauty, and freedom from any transient expression, which in the language of art is called REPOSE.
The Venus of the Medici is so called from its having been in the possession of the princes of that name in Rome when it first attracted attention, about two hundred years ago. An inscription on the base records it to be the work of Cleomenes, an Athenian sculptor of 200 B.C., but the authenticity of the inscription is doubtful. There is a story that the artist was employed by public authority to make a statue exhibiting the perfection of female beauty, and to aid him in his task, the most perfect forms the city could supply were furnished him for models. It is this which Thomson alludes to in his Summer.
"So stands the statue that enchants the world;So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,The mingled beauties of exulting Greece."
Byron also alludes to this statue. Speaking of the FlorenceMuseum, he says:
"There too the goddess loves in stone, and fillsThe air around with beauty;"
And in the next stanza,
"Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan shepherd's prize."
This last allusion is explained in Chapter XX.
The most highly esteemed of all the remains of ancient sculpture is the statue of Apollo, called the Belvedere, from the name of the apartment of the Pope's palace at Rome, in which it is placed. The artist is unknown. It is supposed to be a work of Roman art, of about the first century of our era. It is a standing figure, in marble, more than seven feet high, naked except for the cloak which is fastened around the neck and hangs over the extended left arm. It is supposed to represent the god in the moment when he has shot the arrow to destroy the monster Python (See Chapter II). The victorious divinity is in the act of stepping forward. The left arm which seems to have held the bow is outstretched, and the head is turned in the same direction. In attitude and proportion the graceful majesty of the figure is unsurpassed. The effect is completed by the countenance, where, on the perfection of youthful godlike beauty there dwells the consciousness of triumphant power.
The Diana of the hind, in the palace of the Louvre, may be considered the counterpart to the Apollo Belvedere. The attitude much resembles that of the Apollo, the sizes correspond and also the style of execution. It is a work of the highest order, though by no means equal to the Apollo. The attitude is that of hurried and eager motion, the face that of a huntress in the excitement of the chase. The left hand is extended over the forehead of the Hind which runs by her side, the right arm reaches backward over the shoulder to draw an arrow from the quiver.
Of the Venus of Melos, perhaps the most famous of our statues of mythology, very little is known. There are many indeed who believe that it is not a statue of Venus at all.
It was found in the year 1820 in the Island of Melos by a peasant, who sold it to the French consul at the place. The statue was standing in the theatre, which had been filled up with rubbish in the course of centuries, and when discovered was broken in several places, and some of the pieces were gone. These missing pieces, notably the two arms, have been restored in various ways by modern artists. As has been said above, there is a controversy as to whether the statue represents Venus or some other goddess. Much has been written on each side, but the question still remains unsettled. The general opinion of those who contend that it is not Venus is that it is a statue or Nike or Victory.
Homer, from whose poems of the Iliad and Odyssey we have taken the chief part of our chapters of the Trojan war and the return of the Grecians, is almost as mythical a personage as the heroes he celebrates. The traditionary story is that he was a wandering minstrel, blind and old, who travelled from place to place singing his lays to the music of his harp, in the courts of princes or the cottages of peasants, and dependent upon the voluntary offerings of his hearers for support. Byron calls him "The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle," and a well-known epigram, alluding to the uncertainty of the fact of his birthplace, says,
"Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,Through which the living Homer begged his bread."
An older version is,
"Seven cities warred for Homer being dead,Who living had no roof to shroud his head."
These lines are by Thomas Heywood; the others are ascribed toThomas Seward.
These seven cities were Smyrna, Scio, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis,Argos, and Athens.
Modern scholars have doubted whether the Homeric poems are the work of any single mind. This arises from the difficulty of believing that poems of such length could have been committed to writing at so early an age as that usually assigned to these, an age earlier than the date of any remaining inscriptions or coins, and when no materials, capable of containing such long productions were yet introduced into use. On the other hand it is asked how poems of such length could have been handed down from age to age by means of the memory alone. This is answered by the statement that there was a professional body of men, called Rhapsodists, who recited the poems of others, and whose business it was to commit to memory and rehearse for pay the national and patriotic legends.
The prevailing opinion of the learned, at this time, seems to be that the framework and much of the structure of the poems belong to Homer, but that there are numerous interpolations and additions by other hands.
The date assigned to Homer, on the authority of Herodotus, is 850 B.C., but a range of two or three centuries must be given for the various conjectures of critics.
Virgil, called also by his surname, Maro, from whose poem of the AEneid we have taken the story of AEneas, was one of the great poets who made the reign of the Roman emperor, Augustus, so celebrated, under the name of the Augustan age. Virgil was born in Mantua in the year 70 B.C. His great poem is ranked next to those of Homer, in the highest class of poetical composition, the Epic. Virgil is far inferior to Homer in originality and invention, but superior to him in correctness and elegance. To critics of English lineage Milton alone of modern poets seems worthy to be classed with these illustrious ancients. His poem of Paradise Lost, from which we have borrowed so many illustrations, is in many respects equal, in some superior, to either of the great works of antiquity. The following epigram of Dryden characterizes the three poets with as much truth as it is usual to find in such pointed criticism:
"Three poets in three different ages born.Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.The first in loftiness of soul surpassed,The next in majesty, in both the last.The force of nature could no further go;To make a third she joined the other two."
From Cowper's Table Talk:
"Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared,And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard.To carry nature lengths unknown before,To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.Thus genius rose and set at ordered times,And shot a dayspring into distant climes,Ennobling every region that he chose;He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose,And, tedious years of Gothic darkness past,Emerged all splendor in our isle at last.Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main,Then show far off their shining plumes again."
Often alluded to in poetry by his other name of Naso, was born in the year 43 B.C. He was educated for public life and held some offices of considerable dignity, but poetry was his delight, and he early resolved to devote himself to it. He accordingly sought the society of the contemporary poets, and was acquainted with Horace and saw Virgil, though the latter died when Ovid was yet too young and undistinguished to have formed his acquaintance. Ovid spent an easy life at Rome in the enjoyment of a competent income. He was intimate with the family of Augustus, the emperor, and it is supposed that some serious offence given to some member of that family was the cause of an event which reversed the poet's happy circumstances and clouded all the latter portion of his life. At the age of fifty he was banished from Rome, and ordered to betake himself to Tomi, on the borders of the Black Sea. Here, among the barbarous people and in a severe climate, the poet, who had been accustomed to all the pleasures of a luxurious capital and the society of his most distinguished contemporaries, spent the last ten years of his life, worn out with grief and anxiety. His only consolation in exile was to address his wife and absent friends, and his letters were all poetical. Though these poems (The Tristia and Letters from Pontus) have no other topic than the poet's sorrows, his exquisite taste and fruitful invention have redeemed them from the charge of being tedious, and they are read with pleasure and even with sympathy.
The two great works of Ovid are his Metamorphoses and his Fasti. They are both mythological poems, and from the former we have taken most of our stories of Grecian and Roman mythology. A late writer thus characterizes these poems:
"The rich mythology of Greece furnished Ovid, as it may still furnish the poet, the painter, and the sculptor, with materials for his art. With exquisite taste, simplicity, and pathos he has narrated the fabulous traditions of early ages, and given to them that appearance of reality which only a master-hand could impart. His pictures of nature are striking and true; he selects with care that which is appropriate; he rejects the superfluous; and when he has completed his work, it is neither defective nor redundant. The Metamorphoses are read with pleasure by youth, and are re-read in more advanced age with still greater delight. The poet ventured to predict that his poem would survive him, and be read wherever the Roman name was known."
The prediction above alluded to is contained in the closing lines of the Metamorphoses, of which we give a literal translation below:
"And now I close my work, which not the ireOf Jove, nor tooth of time, nor sword, nor fireShall bring to nought. Come when it will that dayWhich o'er the body, not the mind, has sway,A nd snatch the remnant of my life away,My better part above the stars shall soar,And my renown endure for evermore.Where'er the Roman arms and arts shall spread,There by the people shall my book be read;And, if aught true in poet's visions be,My name and fame have immortality."
Modern Monsters: The Phoenix Basilisk Unicorn Salamander
There is a set of imaginary beings which seem to have been the successors of the "Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimeras dire" of the old superstitions, and, having no connection with the false gods of Paganism, to have continued to enjoy an existence in the popular belief after Paganism was superseded by Christianity. They are mentioned perhaps by the classical writers, but their chief popularity and currency seem to have been in more modern times. We seek our accounts of them not so much in the poetry of the ancients, as in the old natural history books and narrations of travellers. The accounts which we are about to give are taken chiefly from the Penny Cyclopedia.
Ovid tells the story of the Phoenix as follows: "Most beings spring from other individuals; but there is a certain kind which reproduces itself. The Assyrians call it the Phoenix. It does not live on fruit or flowers, but on frankincense and odoriferous gums. When it has lived five hundred years, it builds itself a nest in the branches of an oak, or on the top of a palm-tree. In this it collects cinnamon, and spikenard, and myrrh, and of these materials builds a pile on which it deposits itself, and dying, breathes out its last breath amidst odors. From the body of the parent bird a young Phoenix issues forth, destined to live as long a life as its predecessor. When this has grown up and gained sufficient strength, it lifts its nest from the tree (its own cradle and its parent's sepulchre) and carries it to the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun."
Such is the account given by a poet. Now let us see that of a philosophic historian. Tacitus says, "In the consulship of Paulus Fabius (A.D. 34), the miraculous bird known to the world by the name of Phoenix, after disappearing for a series of ages, revisited Egypt. It was attended in its flight by a group of various birds, all attracted by the novelty, and gazing with wonder at so beautiful an appearance." He then gives an account of the bird, not varying materially from the preceding, but adding some details. "The first care of the young bird as soon as fledged and able to trust to his wings is to perform the obsequies of his father. But this duty is not undertaken rashly. He collects a quantity of myrrh, and to try his strength makes frequent excursions with a load on his back. When he has gained sufficient confidence in his own vigor, he takes up the body of his father and flies with it to the altar of the Sun, where he leaves it to be consumed in flames of fragrance." Other writers add a few particulars. The myrrh is compacted in the form of an egg, in which the dead Phoenix is enclosed. From the mouldering flesh of the dead bird a worm springs, and this worm, when grown large, is transformed into a bird. Herodotus DESCRIBES the bird, though he says, "I have not seen it myself, except in a picture. Part of his plumage is gold-colored, and part crimson; and he is for the most part very much like an eagle in outline and bulk."
The first writer who disclaimed a belief in the existence of the Phoenix was Sir Thomas Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, published in 1646. He was replied to a few years later by Alexander Ross, who says, in answer to the objection of the Phoenix so seldom making his appearance, "His instinct teaches him to keep out of the way of the tyrant of the creation, MAN, for if he were to be got at some wealthy glutton would surely devour him, though there were no more in the world."
Dryden, in one of his early poems, has this allusion to thePhoenix:
"So when the new-born Phoenix first is seen,Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,And while she makes her progress through the East,From every grove her numerous train's increased;Each poet of the air her glory sings,And round him the pleased audience clap their wings."
Milton, in Paradise lost, Book V, compares the angel Raphael descending to earth to a Phoenix:
"Down thither, prone in flightHe speeds, and through the vast ethereal skySails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing,Now on the polar winds, then with quick fanWinnows the buxom air; till within soarOf towering eagles, to all the fowls he seemsA Phoenix, gazed by all; as that sole birdWhen, to enshrine his relics in the Sun'sBright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies."
This animal was called the king of the serpents. In confirmation of his royalty, he was said to be endowed with a crest or comb upon the head, constituting a crown. He was supposed to be produced from the egg of a cock hatched under toads or serpents. There were several species of this animal. One species burned up whatever they approached; a second were a kind of wandering Medusa's heads, and their look caused an instant horror, which was immediately followed by death. In Shakespeare's play of Richard the Third, Lady Anne, in answer to Richard's compliment on her eyes, says, "Would they were basilisk's, to strike thee dead!"
The basilisks were called kings of serpents because all other serpents and snakes, behaving like good subjects, and wisely not wishing to be burned up or struck dead, fled the moment they heard the distant hiss of their king, although they might be in full feed upon the most delicious prey, leaving the sole enjoyment of the banquet to the royal monster.
The Roman naturalist Pliny thus describes him: "He does not impel his body like other serpents, by a multiplied flexion, but advances lofty and upright. He kills the shrubs, not only by contact but by breathing on them, and splits the rocks, such power of evil is there in him. It was formally believed that if killed by a spear from on horseback the power of the poison conducted through the weapon killed not only the rider but the horse also. To this Lucan alludes in these lines:
"What though the Moor the basilisk hath slain,And pinned him lifeless to the sandy plain,Up through the spear the subtle venom flies,The hand imbibes it, and the victor dies."
Such a prodigy was not likely to be passed over in the legends of the saints. Accordingly we find it recorded that a certain holy man going to a fountain in the desert suddenly beheld a basilisk. He immediately raised his eyes to heaven, and with a pious appeal to the Deity, laid the monster dead at his feet.
These wonderful powers of the basilisk are attested by a host of learned persons, such as Galen, Avicenna, Scaliger, and others. Occasionally one would demur to some part of the tale while he admitted the rest. Jonston, a learned physician, sagely remarks, "I would scarcely believe that it kills with its look, for who could have seen it and lived to tell the story?" The worthy sage was not aware that those who went to hunt the basilisk of this sort, took with them a mirror, which reflected back the deadly glare upon its author, and by a kind of poetical justice slew the basilisk with his own weapon.
But what was to attack this terrible and unapproachable monster? There is an old saying that "everything has its enemy," and the cockatrice quailed before the weasel. The basilisk might look daggers, the weasel cared not, but advanced boldly to the conflict. When bitten, the weasel retired for a moment to eat some rue, which was the only plant the basilisks could not wither, returned with renewed strength and soundness to the charge, and never left the enemy till he was stretched dead on the plain. The monster, too, as if conscious of the irregular way in which he came into the world, was supposed to have a great antipathy to a cock; and well he might, for as soon as he heard the cock crow he expired.
The basilisk was of some use after death. Thus we read that its carcass was suspended in the temple of Apollo, and in private houses, as a sovereign remedy against spiders, and that it was also hung up in the temple of Diana, for which reason no swallow ever dared enter the sacred place.
The reader will, we apprehend, by this time have had enough of absurdities, but still he may be interested to know that these details come from the work of one who was considered in his time an able and valuable writer on Natural History. Ulysses Aldrovandus was a celebrated naturalist of the sixteenth century, and his work on natural history, in thirteen folio volumes, contains with much that is valuable a large proportion of fables and inutilities. In particular he is so ample on the subject of the cock and the bull, that from his practice all rambling, gossiping tales of doubtful credibility are called COCK AND BULL STORIES. Still he is to be remembered with respect as the founder of a botanic garden, and one of the leaders in the modern habit of making scientific collections for research and inquiry.
Shelley, in his Ode to Naples, full of the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples, in 1820, thus uses an allusion to the basilisk:
"What though Cimmerian anarchs dare blasphemeFreedom and thee? A new Actaeon's errorShall theirs have been, devoured by their own bounds!Be thou like the imperial basilisk,Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk,Aghast she pass from the earth's disk.Fear not, but gaze, for freemen mightier grow,And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe."
Pliny, the Roman naturalist, out of whose account of the unicorn most of the modern unicorns have been described and figured, records it as "a very ferocious beast, similar in the rest of its body to a horse, with the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, a deep bellowing voice, and a single black horn, two cubits in length, standing out in the middle of its forehead." He adds that "it cannot be taken alive;" and some such excuse may have been necessary in those days for not producing the living animal upon the arena of the amphitheatre.
The unicorn seems to have been a sad puzzle to the hunters, who hardly knew how to come at so valuable a piece of game. Some described the horn as moveable at the will of the animal, a kind of small sword in short, with which ho hunter who was not exceedingly cunning in fence could have a chance. Others maintained that all the animal's strength lay in its horn, and that when hard pressed in pursuit, it would throw itself from the pinnacle of the highest rocks horn foremost, so as to pitch upon it, and then quietly march off not a whit the worse for its fall.
But it seems they found out how to circumvent the poor unicorn at last. They discovered that it was a great lover of purity and innocence, so they took the field with a young VIRGIN, who was placed in the unsuspecting admirer's way. When the unicorn spied her, he approached with all reverence, couched beside her, and laying his head in her lap, fell asleep. The treacherous virgin then gave a signal, and the hunters made in and captured the simple beast.
Modern zoologists, disgusted as they well may be with such fables as these, disbelieve generally the existence of the unicorn. Yet there are animals bearing on their heads a bony protuberance more or less like a horn, which may have given rise to the story. The rhinoceros horn, as it is called, is such a protuberance, though it does not exceed a few inches in height, and is far from agreeing with the descriptions of the horn of the unicorn. The nearest approach to a horn in the middle of the forehead is exhibited in the bony protuberance on the forehead of the giraffe; but this also is short and blunt, and is not the only horn of the animal, but a third horn standing in front of the two others. In fine, though it would be presumptuous to deny the existence of a one-horned quadruped other than the rhinoceros, it may be safely stated that the insertion of a long and solid horn in the living forehead of a horse-like or deer-like animal, is as near an impossibility as any thing can be.
The following is from the Life of Benvenuto Cellini, an Italian artist of the sixteenth century, written by himself, "When I was about five years of age, my father happening to be in a little room in which they had been washing, and where there was a good fire of oak burning, looked into the flames and saw a little animal resembling a lizard, which could live in the hottest part of that element. Instantly perceiving what it was he called for my sister and me, and after he had shown us the creature, he gave me a box on the ear. I fell a crying, while he, soothing me with caresses, spoke these words: 'My dear child, I do not give you that blow for any fault you have committed, but that you may recollect that the little creature you see in the fire is a salamander; such a one as never was beheld before to my knowledge.' So saying he embraced me, and gave me some money."
It seems unreasonable to doubt a story of which signor Cellini was both an eye and ear witness. Add to which the authority of numerous sage philosophers, at the head of whom are Aristotle and Pliny, affirms this power of the salamander. According to them, the animal not only resists fire, but extinguishes it, and when he sees the flame, charges it as an enemy which he well knows how to vanquish.
That the skin of an animal which could resist the action of fire should be considered proof against that element, is not to be wondered at. We accordingly find that a cloth made of the skins of salamanders (for there really is such an animal, a kind of lizard) was incombustible, and very valuable for wrapping up such articles as were too precious to be intrusted to any other envelopes. These fire-proof cloths were actually produced, said to be made of salamander's wool, though the knowing ones detected that the substance of which they were composed was Asbestos, a mineral, which is in fine filaments capable of being woven into a flexible cloth.
The foundation of the above fables is supposed to be the fact that the salamander really does secrete from the pores of his body a milky juice, which, when he is irritated, is produced in considerable quantity, and would doubtless, for a few moments, defend the body from fire. Then it is a hibernating animal, and in winter retires to some hollow tree or other cavity, where it coils itself up and remains in a torpid state till the spring again calls it forth. It may therefore sometimes be carried with the fuel to the fire, and wake up only time enough to put forth all its faculties for its defence. Its viscous juice would do good service, and all who profess to have seen it acknowledge that it got out of the fire as fast as its legs could carry it; indeed too fast for them ever to make prize of one, except in one instance, and in that one, the animal's feet and some parts of its body were badly burned.
Dr. Young, in the Night Thoughts, with more quaintness than good taste, compares the sceptic who can remain unmoved in the contemplation of the starry heavens, to a salamander unwarmed in the fire:
"An undevout astronomer is mad!* * * * * *Oh, what a genius must inform the skies!And is Lorenzo's salamander-heartCold and untouched amid these sacred fires?"
Eastern Mythology Zoroaster Hindu Mythology Castes BuddhaGrand Lama
During the last fifty years new attention has been paid to the systems of religion of the Eastern world, especially to that of Zoroaster among the Persians, and that which is called Brahmanism and the rival system known as Buddhism in the nations farther east. Especial interest belongs to these inquiries for us, because these religions are religions of the great Aryan race to which we belong. The people among whom they were introduced all used some dialect of the family of language to which our own belongs. Even young readers will take an interest in such books as Clarke's Great Religions and Johnson's Oriental Religions, which are devoted to careful studies of them.
Our knowledge of the religion of the ancient Persians is principally derived from the Zendavesta, or sacred books of that people. Zoroaster was the founder of their religion, or rather the reformer of the religion which preceded him. The time when he lived is doubtful, but it is certain that his system became the dominant religion of Western Asia from the time of Cyrus (550 B.C.) to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. Under the Macedonian monarchy the doctrines of Zoroaster appear to have been considerably corrupted by the introduction of foreign opinions, but they afterwards recovered their ascendancy.
Zoroaster taught the existence of a supreme being, who created two other mighty beings, and imparted to them so much of his own nature as seemed good to him. Of these, Ormuzd (called by the Greeks Oromasdes) remained faithful to his creator, and was regarded as the source of all good, while Ahriman (Arimanes) rebelled, and became the author of all evil upon the earth. Ormuzd created man, and supplied him with all the materials of happiness; but Ahriman marred this happiness by introducing evil into the world, and creating savage beasts and poisonous reptiles and plants. In consequence of this, evil and good are now mingled together in every part of the world, and the followers of good and evil the adherents of Ormuzd and Ahriman carry on incessant war. But this state of things will not last forever. The time will come when the adherents of Ormuzd shall everywhere be victorious, and Ahriman and his followers be consigned to darkness forever.
The religious rites of the ancient Persians were exceedingly simple. They used neither temples, altars, nor statues, and performed their sacrifices on the tops of mountains. They adored fire, light, and the sun, as emblems of Ormuzd, the source of all light and purity, but did not regard them as independent deities. The religious rites and ceremonies were regulated by the priests, who were called Magi. The learning of the Magi was connected with astrology and enchantment, in which they were so celebrated that their name was applied to all orders of magicians and enchanters.
"As to the age of the books of the Zendavesta, and the period at which Zoroaster lived, there is the greatest difference of opinion. He is mentioned by Plato, who speaks of 'the magic (or religious doctrines) of Zoroaster the Ormazdian.' As Plato speaks of his religion as something established in the form of Magism, or the system of the Medes in West Iran, which the Avesta appears to have originated in Bactria, or East Iran, this already carries the age of Zoroaster back to at least the sixth or seventh century before Christ.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Professor Whitney of New Haven places the epoch of Zoroaster at 'least B.C. 1000,' and adds that all attempts to reconstruct Persian chronology or history prior to the reign of the first Sassanid have been relinquished as futile. Dollinger thinks he may have been 'somewhat later than Moses, perhaps about B.C. 1300,' but says 'it is impossible to fix precisely' when he lived. Rawlinson merely remarks that Berosus places him anterior to B.C. 2234. Haug is inclined to date the Gathas, the oldest songs of the Avesta, as early as the time of Moses. Rapp, after a thorough comparison of ancient writers, concludes that Zoroaster lived B.C. 1200 or 1300. In this he agrees with Duncker, who, as we have seen, decided upon the same date. It is not far from the period given by the oldest Greek writer who speaks of Zoroaster, Xanthus of Sardis, a contemporary of Darius. It is the period given by Cephalion, a writer of the second century, who takes it from three independent sources. We have no sources now open to us which enable us to come nearer than this to the time in which he lived.
"Nor is anything known with certainty of the place where he lived, or the events of his life. Most modern writers suppose that he resided in Bactria. Haug maintains that the language of the Zend books is Bactrian. A highly mythological and fabulous life of Zoroaster, translated by Anquetil du Perron, called the Zartrisht-Namah, describes him as going to Iran in his thirtieth year, spending twenty years in the desert, working miracles during ten years, and giving lessons of philosophy in Babylon, with Pythagoras as his pupil. All this is based on the theory (now proved to be false) of his living in the time of Darius. 'The language of the Avesta,' says Max Muller, 'is so much more primitive than the inscriptions of Darius, that many centuries must have passed between the two periods represented by these two strata of language. These inscriptions are in the Achaemenian dialect, which is the Zend in a later stage of linguistic growth.;"
J. Freeman Clarke - Ten Great Religions
Wordsworth thus alludes to the worship of the Persians:
"the Persian, zealous to rejectAltar and Image, and the inclusive wallsAnd roofs of temples built by human hands,The loftiest heights ascending from their tops,With myrtle-wreathed Tiara on his brows,Presented sacrifice to Moon and StarsAnd to the Winds and mother Elements,And the whole circle of the Heavens, for himA sensitive existence and a God."Excursion, Book IV
In Childe Harold, Byron speaks thus of the Persian worship:
"Not gainly did the early Persian makeHis altar the high places and the peakOf earth o'ergazing mountains, and thus takeA fit and unwalled temple, there to seekThe Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak,Upreared of human hands. Come and compareColumns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer."III., 91.
The religion of Zoroaster continued to flourish even after the introduction of Christianity, and in the third century was the dominant faith of the East, till the rise of the Mahometan power and the conquest of Persia by the Arabs in the seventh century, who compelled the greater number of the Persians to renounce their ancient faith. Those who refused to abandon the religion of their ancestors fled to the deserts of Kerman and to Hindustan, where they still exist under the name of Parsees, a name derived from Pars, the ancient name of Persia. The Arabs call them Guebers, from an Arabic word signifying unbelievers. At Bombay the Parsees are at this day a very active, intelligent, and wealthy class. For purity of life, honesty, and conciliatory manners, they are favorably distinguished. They have numerous temples to Fire, which they adore as the symbol of the divinity.
The Persian religion makes the subject of the finest tale in Moore's Lalla Rookh, the Fire Worshippers. The Gueber chief says:
"Yes! I am of that impious race,Those slaves of Fire, that moan and evenHail their creator's dwelling placeAmong the living lights of heaven;Yes! I am of that outcast crewTo lean and to vengeance true,Who curse the hour your Arabs cameTo desecrate our shrines of flame,And swear before God's burning eye,To break our country's chains or die."
The religion of the Hindus is professedly founded on the Vedas. To these books of their scripture they attach the greatest sanctity, and state that Brahma himself composed them at the creation. But the present arrangement of the Vedas is attributed to the sage Vyasa, about five thousand years ago.
The Vedas undoubtedly teach the belief of one supreme God. The name of this deity is Brahma. His attributes are represented by the three personified powers of CREATION, PRESERVATION, and DESTRUCTION, which, under the respective names of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, form the TRIMURTI or triad of principal Hindu gods. Of the inferior gods the most important are, 1. Indra, the god of heaven, of thunder, lightning, storm, and rain; 2. Agni, the god of fire; 3. Yana, the god of the infernal regions; 4. Surya, the god of the sun.
Brahma is the creator of the universe, and the source from which all the individual deities have sprung, and into which all will ultimately be absorbed. "As milk changes to curd, and water to ice, so is Brahma variously transformed and diversified, without aid of exterior means of any sort. The human soul, according to the Vedas, is a portion of the supreme ruler, as a spark is of the fire.
"BRAHMA, at first a word meaning prayer and devotion, becomes in the laws of Manu the primal God, first-born of the creation, from the self-existent being, in the form of a golden egg. He became the creator of all things by the power of prayer. In the struggle for ascendancy, which took place between the priests and the warriors, Brahma naturally became the deity of the former. But, meantime, as we have seen, the worship or Vishnu had been extending itself in one region, and that of Siva in another. Then took place those mysterious wars between the kings of the Solar and Lunar races, of which the great epics contain all that we know. And at the close of these wars a compromise was apparently accepted, by which Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva were united in one supreme God, as creator, preserver, and destroyer, all in one.
It is almost certain that this Hindoo Triad was the result of an ingenious and successful attempt, on the part of the Brahmans, to unite all classes of worshippers in India against the Buddhists. In this sense the Brahmans edited anew the Mahabharata, inserting in that epic passages extolling Vishnu in the form of Krishna. The Greek accounts of India which followed the invasion of Alexander speak of the worship of Hercules as prevalent in the East, and by Hercules they apparently mean the god Krishna. The struggle between the Brahmans and Buddhists lasted during nine centuries (from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1400), ending with the total expulsion of Buddhism and the triumphant establishment of the Triad as the worship of India.
"Before this Triad or Trimurti (of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva) there seems to have been another, consisting of Agni, Indra, and Surya. This may have given the hint of the second Triad, which distributed among the three gods the attributes or Creation, Destruction, and Renovation. Of these Brahma, the creator, ceased soon to be popular, and the worship of Siva and Vishnu as Krishna remain as the popular religion of India. . . ..
"But all the efforts of Brahmanism could not arrest the natural development of the system. It passed on into polytheism and idolatry. The worship of India for many centuries has been divided into a multitude of sects. While the majority of the Brahmans still profess to recognize the equal divinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the mass of the people worship Krishna, Rama, the Singam, and many other gods and idols. There are Hindoo Atheists, who revile the Vedas; there are the Kabirs, who are a sort of Hindoo Quakers, and oppose all worship; the RAMANUJAS, an ancient sect of Vishnu worshippers; the RAMAVATS, living in monasteries; the PANTHIS, who oppose all austerities; the MAHARAJAS, whose religion consists with great licentiousness. Most of these are worshippers of Vishnu or of Siva, for Brahma- worship has wholly disappeared." J. Freeman Clarke. TEN GREAT RELIGIONS.
Vishnu occupies the second place in the triad of the Hindus, and is the personification of the preserving principle. To protect the world in various epochs of danger, Vishnu descended to the earth in different incarnations, or bodily forms, which descents are called Avatars. They are very numerous, but ten are more particularly specified. The first Avatar was as Matsya, the Fish, under which form Vishnu preserved Manu, the ancestor of the human race, during a universal deluge. The second Avatar was in the form of a Tortoise, which form he assumed to support the earth when the gods were churning the sea for the beverage of immortality, Amrita.
We may omit the other Avatars, which were of the same general character, that is, interpositions to protect the right or to punish wrong-doers, and come to the ninth, which is the most celebrated of the Avatars of Vishnu, in which he appeared in the human form of Krishna, an invincible warrior, who by his exploits relieved the earth from the tyrants who oppressed it.
Buddha is by the followers of the Brahmanical religion regarded as a delusive incarnation of Vishnu, assumed by him in order to induce the Asuras, opponents of the gods, to abandon the sacred ordinances of the Vedas, by which means they lost their strength and supremacy.
Kalki is the name of the TENTH Avatar, in which Vishnu will appear at the end of the present age of the world to destroy all vice and wickedness, and to restore mankind to virtue and purity.
Siva is the third person of the Hindu triad. He is the personification of the destroying principle. Though the third named, he is, in respect to the number of his worshippers and the extension of his worship, before either of the others. In the Puranas (the scriptures of the modern Hindu religion) no allusion is made to the original power of this god as a destroyer; as that power is not to be called into exercise till after the expiration of twelve millions of years, or when the universe will come to an end; and Mahadeva (another name for Siva) is rather the representative of regeneration than of destruction.
The worshippers of Vishnu and Siva form two sects, each of which proclaims the superiority of its favorite deity, denying the claims of the other, and Brahma, the creator, having finished his work, seems to be regarded as no longer active, and has now only one temple in India, while Mahadeva and Vishnu have many. The worshippers of Vishnu are generally distinguished by a greater tenderness for life and consequent abstinence from animal food, and a worship less cruel than that of the followers of Siva.
Whether the worshippers of Juggernaut are to be reckoned among the followers of Vishnu or Siva, our authorities differ. The temple stands near the shore, about three hundred miles southwest of Calcutta. The idol is a carved block of wood, with a hideous face, painted black, and a distended blood-red mouth. On festival days the throne of the image is placed on a tower sixty feet high, moving on wheels. Six long ropes are attached to the tower, by which the people draw it along. The priests and their attendants stand round the throne on the tower, and occasionally turn to the worshippers with songs and gestures. While the tower moves along numbers of the devout worshippers throw themselves on the ground, in order to be crushed by the wheels, and the multitude shout in approbation of the act, as a pleasing sacrifice to the idol. Every year, particularly at two great festivals in March and July, pilgrims flock in crowds to the temple. Not less than seventy or eighty thousand people are said to visit the place on these occasions, when all castes eat together.
The division of the Hindus into classes or castes, with fixed occupations, existed from the earliest times. It is supposed by some to have been founded upon conquest, the first three castes being composed of a foreign race, who subdued the natives of the country and reduced them to an inferior caste. Others trace it to the fondness of perpetuating, by descent from father to son, certain offices or occupations.
The Hindu tradition gives the following account of the origin of the various castes. At the creation Brahma resolved to give the earth inhabitants who should be direct emanations from his own body. Accordingly from his mouth came forth the eldest born, Brahma (the priest), to whom he confided the four Vedas; from his right arm issued Shatriya (the warrior), and from his left, the warrior's wife. His thighs produced Vaissyas, male and female (agriculturists and traders), and lastly from his feet sprang Sudras (mechanics and laborers).
The four sons of Brahma, so significantly brought into the world, became the fathers of the human race, and heads of their respective castes. They were commanded to regard the four Vedas as containing all the rules of their faith, and all that was necessary to guide them in their religious ceremonies. They were also commanded to take rank in the order of their birth, the Brahmans uppermost, as having sprung from the head of Brahma.
A strong line of demarcation is drawn between the first three castes and the Sudras. The former are allowed to receive instruction from the Vedas, which is not permitted to the Sudras. The Brahmans possess the privilege of teaching the Vedas, and were in former times in exclusive possession of all knowledge. Though the sovereign of the country was chosen from the Shatriya class, also called Rajputs, the Brahmans possessed the real power, and were the royal counsellors, the judges and magistrates of the country; their persons and property were inviolable; and though they committed the greatest crimes, they could only be banished from the kingdom. They were to be treated by sovereigns with the greatest respect, for "a Brahman, whether learned or ignorant, is a powerful divinity."
When the Brahman arrives at years of maturity it becomes his duty to marry. He ought to be supported by the contributions of the rich, and not to be obliged to gain his subsistence by any laborious or productive occupation. But as all the Brahmans could not he maintained by the working classes of the community, it was found necessary to allow them to engage in productive employments.
We need say little of the two intermediate classes, whose rank and privileges may be readily inferred from their occupations. The Sudras or fourth class are bound to servile attendance on the higher classes, especially the Brahmans, but they may follow mechanical occupations and practical arts, as painting and writing, or become traders or husbandmen. Consequently they sometimes grow rich, and it will also sometimes happen that Brahmans become poor. That fact works its usual consequence, and rich Sudras sometimes employ poor Brahmans in menial occupations.
There is another class lower even than the Sudras, for it is not one of the original pure classes, but springs from an unauthorized union of individuals of different castes. These are the Pariahs, who are employed in the lowest services and treated with the utmost severity. They are compelled to do what no one else can do without pollution. They are not only considered unclean themselves, but they render unclean every thing they touch. They are deprived of all civil rights, and stigmatized by particular laws, regulating their mode of life, their houses and their furniture. They are not allowed to visit the pagodas or temples of the other castes, but have their own pagodas and religious exercises. They are not suffered to enter the houses of the other castes; if it is done incautiously or from necessity, the place must be purified by religious ceremonies. They must not appear at public markets, and are confined to the use of particular wells, which they are obliged to surround with bones of animals, to warn others against using them. They dwell in miserable hovels, distant from cities and villages, and are under no restrictions in regard to food, which last is not a privilege, but a mark of ignominy, as if they were so degraded that nothing could pollute them. The three higher castes are prohibited entirely the use of flesh. The fourth is allowed to eat all kinds except beef, but only the lowest caste is allowed every kind of food without restrictions.