IV. THE HARE IN THE MOON.
When the moon is waxing, from about the eighth day to the full, it requires no very vivid imagination to descry on the westward side of the lunar disk a large patch very strikingly resembling a rabbit or hare. The oriental noticing this figure, his poetical fancy developed the myth-making faculty, which in process of time elaborated the legend of the hare in the moon, which has left its marks in every quarter of the globe. In Asia it is indigenous, and is an article of religious belief. "To the common people in India the spots look like a hare,i.e.Chandras, the god of the moon, carries a hare (sasa), hence the moon is called Sasin or Sasanka, hare mark or spot."[75]Max Müller also writes, "As a curious coincidence it may be mentioned that in Sanskrit the moon is called Sasānka,i.e.'having the marks of a hare,' the black marks in the moon being taken for the likeness of the hare."[76]This allusion to the sacred language of the Hindus affords a convenient opportunity of introducing one of the most beautiful legends of the East. It is a Buddhist tract; but in the lesson which it embodies it will compare very favourably with many a tract more ostensibly Christian.
"In former days, a hare, a monkey, a coot, and a fox, became hermits, and lived in a wilderness together, after having sworn not to kill any living thing. The god Sakkria having seen this through his divine power, thought to try their faith, and accordingly took upon him the form of a brahmin, and appearing before the monkey begged of him alms, who immediately brought to him a bunch of mangoes, and presented it to him. The pretended brahmin, having left the monkey, went to the coot and made the same request, who presented him a row of fish which he had just found on the bank of a river, evidently forgotten by a fisherman. The brahmin then went to the fox, who immediately went in search of food, and soon returned with a pot of milk and a dried liguan, which he had found in a plain, where apparently they had been left by a herdsman. The brahmin at last went to the hare and begged alms of him. The hare said, 'Friend, I eat nothing but grass, which I think is of no use to you.' Then the pretended brahmin replied, 'Why, friend, if you are a true hermit, you can give me your own flesh in hope of future happiness.' The hare directly consented to it, and said to the supposed brahmin, 'I have granted your request, and you may do whatever you please with me.' The brahmin then replied, 'Since you are willing to grant my request, I will kindle a fire at the foot of the rock, from which you may jump into the fire, which will save me the trouble of killing you and dressing your flesh.' The hare readily agreed to it, and jumped from the top of the rock into the fire which the supposed brahmin had kindled; but before he reached the fire, it was extinguished; and the brahmin appearing in his natural shape of the god Sakkria, took the hare in his arms and immediately drew its figure in the moon, in order that every living thing of every part of the world might see it."[77]All will acknowledge that this is a very beautiful allegory. How many in England, as well as in Ceylon, are described by the monkey, the coot, and the fox--willing to bring their God any oblation which costs them nothing; but how few are like the hare--ready to present themselves as a living sacrifice, to be consumed as a burnt offering in the Divine service! Those, however, who lose their lives in such self-sacrifice, shall find them, and be caught up to "shine as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars for ever and ever."
Another version of this legend is slightly variant. Grimm says: "The people of Ceylon relate as follows: While Buddha the great god sojourned upon earth as a hermit, he one day lost his way in a wood. He had wandered long, when ahareaccosted him: 'Cannot I help thee? Strike into the path on thy right. I will guide thee out of the wilderness.' Buddha replied: 'Thank thee, but I am poor and hungry, and unable to repay thy kindness.' 'If thou art hungry,' said the hare, 'light a fire, and kill, roast, and eat me.' Buddha made a fire, and the hare immediately jumped in. Then did Buddha manifest his divine power; he snatched the beast out of the flames, and set him in the moon, where he may be seen to this day."[78]Francis Douce, the antiquary, relates this myth, and adds, "this is from the information of a learned and intelligent French gentleman recently arrived from Ceylon, who adds that the Cingalese would often request of him to permit them to look for the hare through his telescope, and exclaim in raptures that they saw it. It is remarkable that the Chinese represent the moon by a rabbit pounding rice in a mortar. Their mythological moon Jut-ho is figured by a beautiful young woman with a double sphere behind her head, and a rabbit at her feet. The period of this animal's gestation is thirty days; may it not therefore typify the moon's revolution round the earth."[79]
[Illustration: moon08]SÂKYAMUNI AS A HARE IN THE MOON.
[Illustration: moon08]SÂKYAMUNI AS A HARE IN THE MOON.
SÂKYAMUNI AS A HARE IN THE MOON.
Collin de Plancy's"Dictionnaire Infernal."
Collin de Plancy's"Dictionnaire Infernal."
In this same apologue we have doubtless a duplicate, the original or a copy, of another Buddhist legend found among the Kalmucks of Tartary; in which Sâkyamuni himself, in an early stage of existence, had inhabited the body of a hare. Giving himself as food to feed the hunger of a starving creature, he was immediately placed in the moon, where he is still to be seen.[80]
The Mongolian also sees a hare in the lunar shadows. We are told by a Chinese scholar that "tradition earlier than the period of the Han dynasty asserted that a hare inhabited the surface of the moon, and later Taoist fable depicted this animal, called the gemmeous hare, as the servitor of the genii, who employ it in pounding the drugs which compose the elixir of life. The connection established in Chinese legend between the hare and the moon is probably traceable to an Indian original. In Sanskrit inscriptions the moon is called Sason, from a fancied resemblance of its spots to a leveret; and pandits, to whom maps of the moon's service have been shown, have fixed onLoca Paludosa, andMons PorphyritesorKeplerusandAristarchus, for the spots which they think exhibit the similitude of a hare."[81]On another page of the same work we read: "During the T'ang dynasty it was recounted that a cassia tree grows in the moon, this notion being derived apparently from an Indian source. Thesaltree (shorea robusta), one of the sacred trees of the Buddhists, was said during the Sung dynasty to be identical with the cassia tree in the moon. The lunar hare is said to squat at the foot of the cassia tree, pounding its drugs for the genii. The cassia tree in the moon is said to be especially visible at mid-autumn, and hence to take a degree at the examinations which are held at this period is described as plucking a leaf from the cassia."[82]
This hare myth, attended with the usual transformation, has travelled to the Hottentots of South Africa. The fable which follows is entitled "From an original manuscript in English, by Mr. John Priestly, in Sir G. Grey's library." "The moon, on one occasion, sent the hare to the earth to inform men that as she (the moon) died away and rose again, so mankind should die and rise again. Instead, however, of delivering this message as given, the hare, either out of forgetfulness or malice, told mankind that as the moon rose and died away, so man should die and rise no more. The hare, having returned to the moon, was questioned as to the message delivered, and the moon, having heard the true state of the case, became so enraged with him that she took up a hatchet to split his head; falling short, however, of that, the hatchet fell upon the upper lip of the hare, and cut it severely. Hence it is that we see the 'hare-lip.' The hare, being duly incensed at having received such treatment, raised his claws, and scratched the moon's face; and the dark parts which we now see on the surface of the moon are the scars which she received on that occasion."[83]In an account of the Hottentot myth of the "Origin of Death," the angered moon heats a stone and burns the hare's mouth, causing the hare-lip.[84]Dr. Marshall may tell us, with all the authority of an eminent physiologist, that hare-lip is occasioned by an arrest in the development of certain frontal and nasal processes,[85]and we may receive his explanation as a sweetly simple solution of the question; but who that suffers from this leporine-labial deformity would not prefer a supernatural to a natural cause? Better far that the lip should be cleft by Shakespeare's "foul fiend Flibbertigibbet," than that an abnormal condition should be accounted for by science, or comprised within the reign of physical law.
Even Europe is somewhat hare-brained: for Caesar tells us that the Britons did not regard it lawful to eat the hare, though he does not say why; and in Swabia still, children are forbidden to make shadows on the wall to represent the sacred hare of the moon.
We may pursue this matter even in Mexico, whose deities and myths a recent Hibbert lecturer brought into clearer light, showing that the Mexicans "possessed beliefs, institutions, and a developed mythology which would bear comparison with anything known to antiquity in the old world."[86]The Tezcucans, as they are usually called, are described by Prescott as "a nation of the same great family with the Aztecs, whom they rivalled in power, and surpassed in intellectual culture and the arts of social refinement."[87]Their account of the creation is that "the sun and moon came out equally bright, but this not seeming good to the gods, one of them took a rabbit by the heels and slung it into the face of the moon, dimming its lustre with a blotch, whose mark may be seen to this day."[88]
We have now seen that the fancy of a hare in the moon is universal; but not so much importance is to be attached to this, as to some other aspects of moon mythology. The hare-like patch is visible in every land, and suggested the animal to all observers. That the rabbit's period of gestation is thirty days is a singular coincidence; but that is all--nay, it is not even that, for "the moon's revolution round the earth," which Douce supposed the Chinese myth to typify, is accomplished in a little more thantwenty-sevendays. Neither is much weight due to the fanciful comparison of Gubernatis: "The moon is the watcher of the sky, that is to say, she sleeps with her eyes open; so also does the hare, whence thesomnus leporinusbecame a proverb."[89]The same author says on another page, and here we follow him: "The mythical hare is undoubtedly the moon. In the first story of the third book of thePancatantram, the hares dwell upon the shore of the lake Candrasaras, or lake of the moon, and their king has for his palace the lunar disk."[90]It is this story, which Mr. Baring-Gould relates in outline; and which we are compelled still further to condense. In a certain forest there once lived a herd of elephants. Long drought having dried up the lakes and swamps, an exploring party was sent out in search of a fresh supply of water. An extensive lake was discovered, called the moon lake. The elephants with their king eagerly marched to the spot, and found their thirsty hopes fully realized. All round the lake were in numerable hare warrens, which the tread of the mighty monsters crushed unmercifully, maiming and mangling the helpless inhabitants. When the elephants had withdrawn, the poor hares met together in terrible plight, to consult upon the course which they should take when their enemies returned. One wise hare undertook the task of driving the ponderous herd away. This he did by going alone to the elephant king, and representing himself as the hare which lived in the moon. He stated that he was deputed by his excellency the moon to say that if the elephants came any more to the lake, the beams of night would be withheld, and their bodies would be burned up with perpetual sunshine. The king of the elephants thinking that "the better part of valour is discretion," decided to offer an apology for his offence. He was conducted to the lake, where the moon was reflected in the water, apparently meditating his revenge. The elephant thrust his proboscis into the lake, which disturbed the reflection. Whereupon the elephant, judging the moon to be enraged, hurried with his apology, and then went off vowing never to return. The wise hare had proven that "wisdom is better than strength"; and the hares suffered no more molestation. "We may also remark, in this event, the truth of that saying of Euripides, 'that one wise counsel is better than the strength of many'" (Polybius, i. 35).
V. THE TOAD IN THE MOON.
We owe an immense debt of gratitude and honour to the many enterprising and cultivated men who have gone into all parts of the earth and among all peoples to investigate human history and habit, mythology and religion, and thus enrich the stores of our national literature. With such a host of travellers gathering up the fragments, nothing of value is likely to be lost. We have to thank intelligent explorers for all we know of the mythical frog or toad in the moon: an addition to our information which is not unworthy of thoughtful notice.
The Selish race of North-west American Indians, who inhabit the country between the Cascade and Rocky Mountains, have a tradition, which Captain Wilson relates as follows: "The expression of 'a toad in the moon,' equivalent to our 'man in the moon,' is explained by a very pretty story relating how the little wolf, being desperately in love with the toad, went a-wooing one night and prayed that the moon might shine brightly on his adventure; his prayer was granted, and by the clear light of a full moon he was pursuing the toad, and had nearly caught her, when, as a last chance of escape, she made a desperate spring on to the face of the moon, where she remains to this day."[91]Another writer says that "the Cowichan tribes think that the moon has a frog in it."[92]
From the Great Western we turn to the Great Eastern world, and in China find the frog in the moon. "The famous astronomer Chang Hêng was avowedly a disciple of Indian teachers. The statement given by Chang Hêng is to the effect that 'How I, the fabled inventor of arrows in the days of Yao and Shun,[*] obtained the drug of immortality from Si Wang Mu (the fairy 'Royal Mother' of the West); and Chang Ngo (his wife) having stolen it, fled to the moon, and became the frog--Chang-chu--which is seen there.' The ladyChang-ngois still pointed out among the shadows in the surface of the Moon."[93]Dr. Wells Williams also tells us that in China "the sun is symbolized by the figure of a raven in a circle, and the moon by a rabbit on his hind legs pounding rice in a mortar, or by a three-legged toad. The last refers to the legend of an ancient beauty, Chang-ngo, who drank the liquor of immortality, and straightway ascended to the moon, where she was transformed into a toad, still to be traced in its face. It is a special object of worship in autumn, and moon cakes dedicated to it are sold at this season."[94]We have little doubt that what the Chinese look for they see. We in the West characterize and colour objects which we behold, as we see them through the painted windows of our predisposition or prejudice. As a great novelist writes: "From the same object different conclusions are drawn; the most common externals of nature, the wind and the wave, the stars and the heavens, the very earth on which we tread, never excite in different bosoms the same ideas; and it is from our own hearts, and not from an outward source, that we draw the hues which colour the web of our existence. It is true, answered Clarence. You remember that in two specks of the moon the enamoured maiden perceived two unfortunate lovers, while the ambitious curate conjectured that they were the spires of a cathedral."[95]Besides, it must be confessed that the particular moon-patch that has awakened so much interest in every age and nation is quite as much like a frog or toad as it is like a rabbit or hare.
[*] Mr. Herbert A. Giles says that How I was a legendary chieftain, who "flourished about 2,500 B.C."Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, London, 1880, i. 19,note.
VI. OTHER MOON MYTHS.
It is almost time that we should leave this lunar zoology; we will therefore merely present a few creatures which may be of service in a comparative anatomy of the whole subject, and then close the account. There is a story told in the Fiji Islands which so nearly approaches the Hottentot legend of the hare, that they both seem but variations of a common original. In the one case the opponent of the moon's benevolent purpose affecting man's hereafter was a hare, in the other a rat. The story thus runs: There was "a contest between two gods as to how man should die. Ra Vula (the moon) contended that man should be like himself--disappear awhile, and then live again. Ra Kalavo (the rat) would not listen to this kind proposal, but said, 'Let man die as a rat dies.' And he prevailed."[96]Mr. Tylor, who quotes this rat story, adds: "The dates of the versions seem to show that the presence of these myths among the Hottentots and Fijians, at the two opposite sides of the globe, is at any rate not due to transmission in modern times."[97]
From the rat to one of its mortal enemies is an easy transition. The Australian story is that Mityan, the moon, was a native cat, who fell in love with another's wife, and while trying to induce her to run away with him, was discovered by the husband, when a fight took place. Mityan was beaten and ran away, and has been wandering ever since.[98]We are indebted for another suggestion to Bishop Wilkins, who wrote over two centuries ago: "As for the form of those spots,Albertusthinks that it represents a lion, with his tail towards the east, and his head the west; and some others have thought it to be very much like a fox, and certainly 'tis as much like a lion as that in thezodiac, or asursa majoris like a bear."[99]This last remark of the old mathematician is "a hit, a very palpable hit," at those unpoetical people who catalogue the constellations under all sorts of living creatures' names, implying resemblances, and then "sap with solemn sneer" our myths of the moon.
We have now seen that the moon is populated with men, women, and children,--hares and rabbits, toads and frogs, cats and dogs, and sundry small "cattle"; we observe in making our exit that it is also planted with a variety of trees; in short, is a zoological garden of a high order. Even among the ancients some said the lunar spots were forests where Diana hunted, and that the bright patches were plains. Captain Cook tells us that in the South Pacific "the spots observed in the moon are supposed to be groves of a sort of trees which once grew in Otaheite, and, being destroyed by some accident, their seeds were carried up thither by doves, where they now flourish."[100]Ellis also tells of these Tahitians that "their ideas of the moon, which they calledavaeormarama, were as fabulous as those they entertained of the sun. Some supposed the moon was the wife of the sun; others that it was a beautiful country in which the aoa grew."[101]These arborary fancies derive additional interest, if not a species of verisimilitude, from the record of a missionary that "a stately tree, clothed with dark shining leaves, and loaded with many hundreds of large green or yellowish-coloured fruit, is one of the most splendid and beautiful objects to be met with among the rich and diversified scenery of a Tahitian landscape."
Our collection of lunar legends is now on exhibition. No thoughtful person will be likely to dispute the dictum of Sir John Lubbock that "traditions and myths are of great importance, and indirectly throw much light on the condition of man in ancient times."[102]But they serve far more purposes than this. They are the raw material, out of which many of our goodly garments of modern science and religion are made up. The illiterate negroes on the cotton plantation, and the rude hunters in the jungle or seal fishery, produce the staple, or procure the skins, which after long labour afford comfort and adornment to proud philosophers and peers. The golden cross on the saintly bosom and the glittering crown on the sovereign brow were embedded as rough ore in primeval rocks ages before their wearers were born to boast of them. We shall esteem our treasures none the less because their origin is known, as we love "the Best of men" none the less because he was born of a woman. We closed our series of moon myths with a vision of a beautiful country, ornamented with groves of fruitful trees, whose seeds had been carried thither by white-winged doves; and carried thither because "some accident" had destroyed the trees in their native isles on earth. Thus the lunar world had become a desirable scene of superior and surpassing loveliness. Who can reflect upon this dream of human childhood, and not recall some dreams of later years? Who can fail to discern slight touches of the same hand which we see displayed in other designs? "Happily for historic truth," says Mr. Tylor, "mythic tradition tells its tales without expurgating the episodes which betray its real character to more critical observation."[103]Who is not led on from Tahiti to Greece, and to the Isles of the Blessed, the Elysium which abounds in every charm of life, and to the garden of the Hesperides, with its apples of gold; thence to the Meru of the Hindoos, the sacred mountain which is perpetually clothed in the rays of the sun, and adorned with every variety of plants and trees; thence again to the Heden of the Persians, of matchless beauty, where ever flourishes the tree Hom with its wonderful fruit; on to the Chinese garden, near the gate of heaven, whose noblest spring is the fountain of life, and whose delightful trees bear fruits which preserve and prolong the existence of man?[104]Thence an easy entrance is gained to the Hebrew Paradise, with its abounding trees "pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden"; and finally arises a sight of the "better land" of the Christian poetess, the incorruptible and undefiled inheritance of the Christian preacher, the prospect which is "ever vernal and blooming,--and, best of all, amid those trees of life there lurks no serpent to destroy,--the country, through whose vast region we shall traverse with untired footsteps, while every fresh revelation of beauty will augment our knowledge, and holiness, and joy."[105]Who will travel on such a pilgrimage of enlarged thought, and not come to the conclusion that if one course of development has been followed by all scientific and spiritual truth, then "almost the whole of the mythology and theology of civilized nations maybe traced, without arrangement or co-ordination, and in forms that are undeveloped and original rather than degenerate, in the traditions and ideas of savages"?[106]Such a conclusion may diminish our self-esteem, if we have supposed ourselves the sole depositaries of Divine knowledge; but it will exalt our conception of the generosity of the Father of all men, who never left a human soul without a witness of His invisible presence and ineffable love.
MOON WORSHIP.
MOON WORSHIP.
I. INTRODUCTION.
We have now to show that the moon has been in every age, and remains still, one of the principal objects of human worship. Even among certain nations credited with pure monotheism, it will be manifested that there was the practice of that primitive polytheism which adored the hosts of heaven. And, however humiliating or disappointing the disclosure may prove, it will be established that some of the foremost Christian peoples of the world maintain luniolatry to this day, notwithstanding that they have the reproving light of the latest civilization. We are so prone to talk of heathenism as abroad, that we forget or neglect the gross heathenism which abounds at home; and while we complacently speak of the march of the world's progress with which we identify ourselves, we are oblivious of the fact that much ancient falsehood survives and blends with the truth in which our superior minds, or minds with superior facilities, have been trained. How few of us reflect that the signs and symbols of rejected theories have passed into the nomenclature of received systems! Nay, we plume ourselves upon the new translation or revision as if we were the favoured recipients of some fresh revelation. Not only in the names of our days and months, but also in some of our most cherished dogmas, we are but the "liberal-conservatives" in religion, who retain the old, while we congratulate ourselves upon being the apostles of the new. That the past must always run into the present, and the present proceed from the past, we readily enough allow as a natural and necessary law; yet baptized heathenism is often heathenism still, under another name. Again, we are sometimes so short-sighted that we deny to former periods the paternity of their own more fortunate offspring, and behave like prosperous children who ungratefully ignore their poorer parents, to whom they owe their breath and being. Such treatment of history is to be emphatically deprecated, whether it arises from ignorance or ingratitude. We ought to know, if we do not, and we ought also to acknowledge, that our perfect day grew out of primeval darkness, and that the progress was a lingering dawn. This we hold to be the clearest view of the Divine causation. Our modern method in philosophy, largely owing to theNovum Organumof Bacon, is evolution, thenovum organumof the nineteenth century; and this process recognises no abrupt or interruptive creations, but gradual transformations from pre-existent types, "variations under domestication," and the passing away of the old by its absorption into the new. Our religion, like our language, is a garden not only for indigenous vegetation, but also for acclimatisation, in which we improve under cultivation exotic plants whose roots are drawn from every soil on the earth. And, as Paul preached in Athens the God whom the Greeks worshipped in ignorance, so our missionaries carry back to less enlightened peoples the fruit of that life-giving tree whose germs exist among themselves, undeveloped and often unknown. No religion has fallen from heaven, like the fabled image of Athene, in full-grown beauty. All spiritual life is primordially an inspiration or intuition from the Father of spirits, whose offspring all men are, and who is not far from every one of them. This intuition prompts men to "seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him." Thus prayer becomes an instinct; and to worship is as natural as to breathe. But man is a being with five senses, and as his contact with his fellow-creatures and with the whole creation is at one or other of those five points, he is necessarily sensuous. Endowed with native intelligence, theintellectus ipseof Leibnitz, he nevertheless receives his impressions onsensitivenerves, his emotions aresentiments, his words becomesentences, and his stock of wisdom is his commonsense. A few, very few, words express his sensations, a few more his perceptions, and so on; but he is conscious ofobjectsat first, he deals withsubjectsafterwards. Soon the sun, moon, and stars, as bright lights attract his eyes, as we have all seen an infant of a few days fix its gaze upon a candle or lamp. These heavenly orbs are found to be in motion, to be far away, to be the glory of day and night: what wonder ifideasof theseimagesare formed in the religious mind, if the worshipper imagines the sun and moon to be reflections of the God of light, and pays homage to the creature which renders the Creator visible? Thus in the childhood of man religion grows, and with the multiplication of intellect and sensation, endless diversity of language, conception and faith is the result. Another result, of course, is the endless diversity of deities. Every race, every nation, every tribe, every household, every heart, has had its own God. And yet, with all this multiplicity in religious literature and dogma, subject and object, a unity co-exists which the student of the science notes with profound interest. All nations of men are of one blood; and all forms of God embody the one Eternal Spirit. To this unity mythology tends. As one writer says: "We must ever bear in mind that the course of mythology is from many gods toward one, that it is a synthesis, not an analysis, and that in this process the tendency is to blend in one the traits and stories of originally separate divinities."[107]The ancient Hebrew worshipped God as "the Eternal, our righteousness"; the Greek worshipped Him as wisdom and beauty; the Roman as power and government; the Persian as light and goodness; and so forth. Few hymns have surpassed the beauty of Pope'sUniversal Prayer. It is theTe Deum laudamusof that catholic Church which embraces God-loved humanity.
"Father of all! in every age,In every clime, adored,By saint, by savage, and by sage,Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!"
The Christian, believing his to be the "One Religion," as a recent Bampton Lecturer termed it, too often forgets that his system is a recomposition of rays of a religious light which was decomposed in the prismatic minds of earlier men. And further, with a change of metaphor, if Christianity has flourished and fructified through eighteen centuries, it must not be denied that it is a graft upon an old stock which through fifteen previous centuries had borne abundant fruit. The same course must be adopted still. We find men everywhere holding some truth; we add further truth; until, as a chemist would say, we saturate the solution, which upon evaporation produces a crystallized life of entirely new colour and quality and form. Thus Professor Nilsson writes: "Every religiouschangein a people is, in fact, only an intermixture of religions; because the new religion, whether received by means of convincing arguments, or enforced by the eloquence of fire and sword, cannotat oncetear up all the wide-spreading roots by which its forerunner has grown in the heart of the people; this must be the work of many years, perhaps of many generations."[108]We cannot better close this lengthy introduction than by reminding Christians of the saying of their Great and Good Teacher, "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
II. THE MOON MOSTLY A MALE DEITY.
We have already in part pointed out that the moon has been considered as of the masculine gender; and have therefore but to travel a little farther afield to show that in the Aryan of India, in Egyptian, Arabian, Slavonian, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, Teutonic, Swedish, Anglo-Saxon, and South American, the moon is a male god. To do this, in addition to former quotations, it will be sufficient to adduce a few authorities. "Moon," says Max Müller, "is a very old word. It wasmónain Anglo-Saxon, and was used there, not as a feminine, but as a masculine for the moon was originally a masculine, and the sun a feminine, in all Teutonic languages; and it is only through the influence of classical models that in English moon has been changed into a feminine, and sun into a masculine. It was a most unlucky assertion which Mr. Harris made in hisHermes, that all nations ascribe to the sun a masculine, and to the moon a feminine gender."[109]Grimm says, "Down to recent times, our people were fond of calling the sun and moonfrau sonneandherr mond."[110]Sir Gardner Wilkinson writes: "Another reason that the moon in the Egyptian mythology could not be related to Bubastis is, that it was a male and not a female deity, personified in the god Thoth. This was also the case in some religions of the West. The Romans recognised the god Lunus; and the Germans, like the Arabs, to this day, consider the moon masculine, and not feminine, as were the Selênê and Luna of the Greeks and Latins."[111]Again, "The Egyptians represented their moon as a male deity, like the Germanmondandmonat, or theLunusof the Latins; and it is worthy of remark, that the same custom of calling it male is retained in the East to the present day, while the sun is considered female, as in the language of the Germans."[112]"In Slavonic," Sir George Cox tells us, "as in the Teutonic mythology, the moon is male. His wedding with the sun brings on him the wrath of Perkunas [the thunder-god], as the song tells us
'The moon wedded the sunIn the first spring.The sun rose earlyThe moon departed from her.The moon wandered alone;Courted the morning star.Perkunas, greatly wroth,Cleft him with a sword.'Wherefore dost thou depart from the sun,Wandering by night alone,Courting the morning star?'"[113]
"In a Servian song a girl cries to the sun--
'O brilliant sun! I am fairer than thouThan thy brother, the bright moon.'"
In South Slavonian poetry the sun often figures as a radiant youth. But among the northern Slavonians, as well as the Lithuanians, the sun was regarded as a female being, the bride of the moon. 'Thou askest me of what race, of what family I am,' says the fair maiden of a song preserved in the Tambof Government--
'My mother is--the beauteous Sun,And my father--the bright Moon.'"[114]
"Among the Mbocobis of South America the moon is a man and the sun his wife."[115]The Ahts of North America take the same view; and we know that in Sanskrit and in Hebrew the word for moon is masculine.
This may seem to many a matter of no importance; but if mythology throws much light upon ancient history and religion, its importance may be considerable, especially as it lies at the root of that sexuality which has been the most prolific parent of both good and evil in human life. The sexual relation has existed from the very birth of animated nature; and it is remarkable that a man of learning and piety in Germany has made the strange if not absurd statement that in the beginning "Adam was externally sexless."[116]Another idea, more excusable, but equally preposterous, is, that grammatical gender has been the cause of the male and female personation of deities, when really it has been the result. The cause, no doubt, was inherent in man's constitution; and was the inevitable effect of thought and expression. The same necessity of natural language which led the Hebrew prophets to speak of their land as married, of their nation as a wife in prosperity and a widow in calamity, of their Maker as their husband, who rejoices over them as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride:[117]this same necessity, becoming a habit like that of our own country folks in Hampshire, of whom Cobbett speaks, who call almost everythingheorshe; led the sensuous and imaginative ancients, as it leads simple and poetical peoples still, to call the moon a man and to worship him as a god. Objects of fear and reverence would be usually masculines; and objects of love and desire feminines. We may thus find light thrown upon the honours paid to such goddesses as Astarte and Aphrodite: which will also help us to understand the deification by a celibate priesthood of the Virgin Mary. We may, moreover, account partly for the fact that to the sailor his ship is always she; to the swain the flowers which resemble his idol, as the lily and the rose, are always feminine, and used as female names; while to the patriot the mother country is nearly always of the tender sex.[118]Prof. Max Müller thinks that the distinction between males and females began, "not with the introduction of masculine nouns, but with the introduction of feminines,i.e.with the setting apart of certain derivative suffixes for females. By this all other words became masculine."[119]Thus the sexual emotions of men created that grammatical gender which has contributed so powerfully to our later mythology, and has therefore been mistaken for the author of our male and female personations. What beside sexuality suggested the thought of the Chevalier Marini? "He introduces the godPan, who boasts that the spots which are seen in the moon are impressions of the kisses he gave it."[120]That grammar is very much younger than sexual relations is proven by the curious fact mentioned by Max Müller thatpateris not a masculine, normatera feminine. Gender, we must not forget, is fromgenus, a kind or class; and that the classification in various languages has been arranged on no fixed plan. We in our modern English, with much still to do, have improved in this respect, since, in Anglo-Saxon,wif= wife, was neuter, andwif-mann= woman, was masculine. In German stilldie frau, the woman, is feminine; butdas weib, the wife, is neuter.[121]Dr. Farrar finds the root of gender in the imagination: which we admit if associated with sex. Otherwise, we cannot understand how anunfeltdistinction of this sort could be mentallyseen. But Dr. Farrar means more than imagination, for he says, "from this source is derived the whole system of genders for inanimate things, which was perhaps inevitable at that early childish stage of the human intelligence, when the actively working soul attributed to everything around it some portion of its own life. Hence, well-nigh everything is spoken of as masculine or feminine."[122]We are surprised that Dr. Farrar seems to think German an exception, in making a masculine noun of the moon. He has failed to apply to this point his usual learned and laborious investigation.[123]
Diogenes Laertius describes the theology of the Jews as an offshoot from that of the Chaldees, and says that the former affirm of the latter "that they condemn images, and especially those persons who say that the gods are male and female."[124]Which condemnation implies the prevalence of this sexual distinction between their deities.
In concluding this chapter we think that it will be granted that gender in the personification of inanimate objects was the result of sex in the animate subject: that primitive men saw the moon as a most conspicuous object, whose spots at periods had the semblance of a man's face, whose waxing and waning increased their wonder: whose coming and going amid the still and solemn night added to the mystery: until from being viewed as a man, it was feared, especially when apparently angry in a mist or an eclipse, and so reverenced and worshipped as the heaven-man, the monthly god.
III. THE MOON A WORLD-WIDE DEITY.
Anthropomorphism, or the representation of outward objects in theformofman, wrought largely, as we have seen, in the manufacture of the man in the moon; it entered no less into the composition of the moon-god. The twenty-first verse of the fiftieth Psalm contains its recognition and rebuke. "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself"; or, still more literally, "Thou hast thought that being, I shall be like thee." As Dr. Delitzsch says, "Because man in God's likeness has a bodily form, some have presumed to infer backwards therefrom that God also has a bodily form like to man, which is related by way of prototype to the human form."[125]As well might we say that because a watchmaker constructs a chronometer with a movement somewhat like that of his own heart, therefore he is mechanical, metallic, and round. Against this anthropomorphic materialism science lifts up its voice; for what modern philosopher, worthy of the name, fails to distinguish between phenomenon and fact, inert matter and active force? Says a recent writer, "We infer that as our own master of the mint is neither a sovereign nor a half-sovereign, so the force which coins and recoins thisυλη,or matter, must be altogether in the god-part and none of it in the metal or paste in which it works."[126]With the progress of man's intelligence we shall observe improvement in this anthropomorphism, but it will still survive. As Mr. Baring-Gould tells us: "The savage invests God with bodily attributes; in a more civilized state man withdraws the bodily attributes, but imposes the limitations of his own mental nature; and in his philosophic elevation he recognises in God intelligence only, though still with anthropomorphic conditions."[127]
Xenophanes said that if horses, oxen, and lions could paint, they would make gods like themselves. And Ralph Waldo Emerson says: "The gods of fable are the shining moments of great men. We run all our vessels into one mould. Our colossal theologies of Judaism, Christism, Buddhism, Mahometism, are the necessary and structural action of the human mind. The student of history is like a man going into a warehouse to buy clothes or carpets. He fancies he has a new article. If he go to the factory, he shall find that his new stuff still repeats the scrolls and rosettes which are found on the interior walls of the pyramids of Thebes. Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought. And our philosophy finds one essence collected or distributed."[128]And a devout author, whose orthodoxy--whatever that may mean--is unquestioned, acknowledges that man adored the unknown power in the sun, and "in the moon, which bathes the night with its serene splendours. Under this latter form, completed by a very simple anthropomorphism which applies to the gods the law of the sexes, the religions of nature weighed during long ages upon Western Asia."[129]A volume might be written upon this subject; but we have other work in hand.
It seems to be generally admitted that no form of idolatry is older than the worship of the moon. Lord Kames says, "It is probable that the sun and moon were early held to be deities, and that they were the first visible objects of worship."[130]Dr. Inman says, "That the sun and moon were at a very early period worshipped, none who has studied antiquity can deny."[131]And Goldziher maintains that "the lunar worship is older than the solar."[132]Maimonides, "the light of Israel," says that the Zabaists not only worshipped the moon themselves, but they also asserted that Adam led mankind to that species of worship. No doubt luniolatry is as old as the human race. In some parts the moon is still the superior god. Mr. Tylor writes: "Moon worship, naturally ranking below sun worship in importance, ranges through nearly the same district of culture. There are remarkable cases in which the moon is recognised as a great deity by tribes who take less account, or none at all, of the sun. An old account of the Caribs describes them as esteeming the moon more than the sun, and at new moon coming out of their houses crying, Behold the moon!"[133]This deity, then, is ancient and modern: also a chief of the gods: let us now show that he is a god whose empire is the world.
We begin in Asia, and with the Assyrian monuments, which display many religious types and emblems. "Representations of the heavenly bodies, as sacred symbols, are of constant occurrence in the most ancient sculptures. In the bas-reliefs we find figures of the sun, moon, and stars, suspended round the neck of the king when engaged in the performance of religious ceremonies."[134]In Chaldaea "the moon was named Sin and Hur. Hurki, Hur, and Ur was the chief place of his worship, for the satellite was then considered as being masculine. The name for the moon in Armenian wasKhaldi, which has been considered by some to be the origin of the word Chaldee, as signifying moon worshippers."[135]With this Chaldaean deity may be connected "the Akkadian moon god, who corresponds with the Semitic Sin," and who "is Aku, 'the seated-father,' as chief supporter of kosmic order, styled 'the maker of brightness,' En-zuna, 'the lord of growth,' and Idu, 'the measuring lord,' the Aïdês of Hesychios."[136]
"With respect to the name of Chaldaean, perhaps the most probable account of the origin of the word is, that it designates properly the inhabitants of the ancient capital, Ur or Hur,--Kkaldibeing in the Burbur dialect the exact equivalent ofHur, which was the proper name of the moon god, and Chaldaeans being thus either 'moon worshippers,' or simply, inhabitants of the town dedicated to, and called after, the moon."[137]Again: "The first god of the second triad is Sin or Hurki, the moon deity. It is in condescension to Greek notions that Berosus inverts the true Chaldaean order, and places the sun before the moon in his enumeration of the heavenly bodies. Chaldaean mythology gives a very decided preference to the lesser luminary, perhaps because the nights are more pleasant than the clays in hot countries. With respect to the names of the god, we may observe that Sin, the Assyrian or Semitic term, is a word of quite uncertain etymology, which, however, is found applied to the moon in many Semitic languages."[138]"Sinis used for the moon in Mendaean and Syriac at the present day. It is the name given to the moon god in St. James of Seruj's list of the idols of Harran; and it was the term used for Monday by the Sabaeans as late as the ninth century."[139]Another author writes: "The Babylonian and Assyrian moon god is Sin, whose name probably appears in Sinai. The expression, 'from the origin of the god Sin,' was used by the Assyrians to mark remote antiquity; because, as chaos preceded order, so night preceded day, and the enthronement of the moon as the night-king marks the commencement of the annals of kosmic order."[140]
When we search the Hebrew Scriptures, we find too many allusions to the Queen of Heaven, to Astarte and the groves, for us to doubt that the Israelites adored
"--moonèd Ashtaroth,Heaven's queen and mother both." (Milton'sOdes.)
Dr. Goldziher is an incontestable authority, and thus writes: "Queen or Princess of Heaven is a very frequent name for the moon."[141]Again, "Even in the latest times the Hebrews called the moon the 'Queen of Heaven' (Jer. vii. 18), and paid her Divine honours in this character at the time of the captivity."[142]And, to complete this author's witness, he again says: "What was the antiquity of this lunar worship among the Hebrews, is testified (as has long been known) by the part played by Mount Sinai in the history of Hebrew religion. For this geographical name is doubtless related toSin, one of the Semitic names of the moon. The mountain must in ancient times have been consecrated to the moon. The beginning of the Hebrew religion, which was connected with the phenomena of the night-sky, germinated first during the residence in Egypt on the foundation of an ancient myth. The recollection of this occasioned them to call the part of Egypt which they had long inhabited, eres Sînîm, 'moonland' (Isa. xlix. 12)."[143]It is but just that we should hear the other side, when there is a difference of opinion. The above mentioned 'Queen of Heaven' is beyond question the Ashtoreth or Astarte (identical with ourstar), which was the principal goddess of the Phoenicians; and we believe she was originally the goddess of the moon. This is doubted by a modern writer, who says, "Baal is constantly coupled with Astarte; and the more philosophical opinion is that this national god and goddess were the lord and lady of Phoenicia, rather than the sun and moon: for to a people full of political life the sun and moon would have been themselves representatives, while a Divine king and queen were the realities. And if so, the habitual inclination of the Israelites, an essentially political people, for this worship becomes the more easily understood."[144]Professor F. D. Maurice, in hisMoral and Metaphysical Philosophy, also takes this view. The question here is not whether the Jews worshipped Astarte, but whether Astarte was the moon. This we cannot hesitate to answer in the affirmative. Kenrick writes: "Ashtoreth or Astarte appears physically to represent the moon. She was the chief local deity of Sidon; but her worship must have been extensively diffused, not only in Palestine, but in the countries east of the Jordan, as we find Ashtaroth-Karnaim (Ashtaroth of two horns) mentioned in the book of Genesis (xiv. 5). This goddess, like other lunar deities, appears to have been symbolized by a heifer, or a figure with a heifer's head, whose horns resembled the crescent moon. The children of Israel renounced her worship at the persuasion of Samuel; and we do not read again of her idolatry till the reign of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 5), after which it appears never to have been permanently banished, though put down for a time by Josiah (2 Kings xxiii. 13). She is the Queen of Heaven, to whom, according to the reproaches of Jeremiah (vii. 18, xliv. 25), the women of Israel poured out their drink-offerings, and burnt incense, and offered cakes, regarding her as the author of their national prosperity. This epithet accords well with the supposition that she represented the moon, as some ancient authors inform us."[145]Dr. Gotch, an eminent Hebrew scholar, says that there is no doubt that the moon is the symbol of productive power and must be identified with Astarte. "That this goddess was so typified can scarcely be doubted. The ancient name of the city, Ashtaroth-Karnaim, already referred to, seems to indicate a horned Astarte, that is an image with a crescent moon on her head like the Egyptian Athor. At any rate, it is certain that she was by some ancient writers identified with the moon, as Lucian and Herodian. On these grounds Movers, Winer, Keil, and others maintain that originally Ashtoreth was the moon goddess."[146]Clearly, then, the Hebrews worshipped the moon. But, even apart from Astarte, this worship may be proven on other evidence. Dr. Jamieson says that the wordmena(moon: Anglo-Saxon,mona) "approaches most nearly to a word used by the prophet Isaiah, which has been understood by the most learned interpreters as denoting the moon. 'Ye are they that prepare a table forGad, and that furnish the offering untoMeni.' (Isa. lxv. 11). AsGadis understood of thesun, we learn from Diodor Sicul thatMeniis to be viewed as a designation of themoon."[147]This is Bishop Lowth's view. "The disquisitions and conjectures of the learned concerning Gad and Meni are infinite and uncertain: perhaps the most probable may be, that Gad means good fortune, and Meni the moon."[148]One point is worthy of notice. In our English versionMeniis rendered "number"; and we know very well that by the courses of the moon ancient months and years were numbered. In Isaiah iii. 18 we find the daughters of Zion ornamented with feet-rings, and networks, andcrescents: or, as our translation reads, "round tires like the moon." And, once more, in Ezekiel xlvi., we read that the gate of the inner court of the sanctuary that "looketh toward the east, shall be opened on the day of the new moon"; and the meat offering on "the day of the new moon shall be a young bullock without blemish, and six lambs, and a ram." If there was no sacred significance in the observance of these lunar changes, why did the writer of the New Testament Epistle to the Colossians say, "Let no man judge you in respect of the new moon"? A competent scholar, in recognising this consociation of Hebrew religion with the moon's phases, rightly ascribes to it an earlier origin. Says Ewald: "To connect the annual festivals with the full moon, and to commence them in the evening, as though greeting her with a glad shout, was certainly a primitive custom, both among other races and in the circle of nations from which in the earliest times Israel sprang."[149]And the Bishop of Derry remarks: "To a religious Hebrew it was rather the moon than the sun which marked the seasons, as the calendar of the Church was regulated by it."[150]We have sought to place this Hebrew luniolatry beyond dispute, because so many Christians have supposed that "the chosen people" lived in unclouded light, and "the uncovenanted heathen" in outer and utter darkness.
Passing on we find that "in Pontus and Phrygia were temples toMeen, and Homer saysMeenpresides over the months, whilst in the SanskritMina, we see her connected with the Fish and Virgin. It is not improbable that the great Akaimenian race, as worshipping and upholding sun and moon faiths, were called afterMeni, the moon."[151]Among the Arabians the moon was the great divinity, as may be learned from Pocock'sSpecimen Historiae Arabum; Prideaux'sConnection; Gibbon'sDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire; and Sale'sPreliminary Discourseto his translation of theKoran. Tiele says: "The ancient religion of the Arabs rises little higher than animistic polydaemonism. The names Itah and Shamsh, the sun god, occur among all the Semitic peoples; Allât, or Alilât, and Al-Uzza, as well as the triad of moon goddesses to which these last belong, are common to several, and the deities which bear them are reckoned among the chief."[152]The Saracens called the moonCabar, the great; and its crescent is the religious symbol of the Turks to this day. Tradition says that "Philip, the father of Alexander, meeting with great difficulties in the siege of Byzantium, set the workmen to undermine the walls, but a crescent moon discovered the design, which miscarried; consequently the Byzantines erected a statue to Diana, and the crescent became the symbol of the state." Dr. Brewer, who cites this story, adds: "Another legend is that Othman, the sultan, saw in a vision a crescent moon, which kept increasing till its horns extended from east to west, and he adopted the crescent of his dream for his standard, adding the motto,Donec repleat orbem."[153]Schlegel mentions the story that Mahomet "wished to pass with his disciples as a person transfigured in a supernatural light, and that the credulity of his followers saw the moon, or the moon's light, descend upon him, pierce his garments, and replenish him. That veneration for the moon which still forms a national or rather religious characteristic of the Mahometans, may perhaps have its foundation in the elder superstition, or pagan idolatry of the Arabs."[154]No doubt this last sentence contains the true elucidation of the crescent. For astrolatry lives in the east still. TheKoranmay expressly forbid the practice, saying: "Bend not in adoration to the sun or moon";[155]yet, "monotheist as he is, the Moslem still claps his hands at sight of the new moon, and says a prayer."[156]
We come next to the Persians, whom Herodotus accuses of adoring the sun and moon. But, as Gibbon says, "the Persians of every age have denied the charge, and explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear to give colour to it."[157]It will certainly require considerable explanation to free from lunar idolatry the following passage, which we find in theZend Avesta: "We sacrifice unto the new moon, the holy and master of holiness: we sacrifice unto the full moon, the holy and master of holiness."[158]Unquestionably the Persian recognised the Lord of Lightinthe ordinances of heaven; and therefore his was superior to many forms of blind idol-worship. So far we may accept Hegel's interpretation of theZenddoctrine. "Light is thebody of Ormuzd; thence the worship of fire, because Ormuzd is present in all light; but he is not the sun or moon itself In these the Persians venerate only the light, which is Ormuzd."[159]In fact, we owe to the Persians a valuable testimony to the God in whom is no darkness at all. "The prayer of Ajax was for light"; and we too little feel the Fire which burns and shines beyond the stars.
In Central India the sun and moon are worshipped by many tribes, as the Khonds, Korkús, Tunguses, and Buraets. The Korkús adore the powers of nature, as the gods of the tiger, bison, the hill, the cholera, etc., "but these are all secondary to the sun and the moon, which among this branch of the Kolarian stock, as among the Kols in the far east, are the principal objects of adoration."[160a]"Although the Tongusy in general worship the sun and moon, there are many exceptions to this observation. I have found intelligent people among them, who believed that there was a being superior to both sun and moon; and who created them and all the world."[160b]This last sentence we read with gratitude, but not with surprise. There is some good in all, if there seem to be all good in some.
"The aboriginal tribes in the Dekkan of India also acknowledge the presence of the sun and moon by an act of reverence."[161]
The inhabitants of the island of Celebes, in the East Indian Archipelago, "formerly acknowledged no gods but the sun and the moon, which were held to be eternal. Ambition for superiority made them fall out."[162]According to Milton, ambition created unpleasantness in the Hebrew heaven.
In Northern Asia the moon had adoring admirers among the Samoyedes, the Morduans, the Tschuwasches, and other tribes. This is stated by Sir John Lubbock.[163]Lord Kames says: "The people of Borneo worship the sun and moon as real divinities. The Samoides worship both, bowing to them morning and evening in the Persian manner."[164]TheSamoidesare the "salmon-eaters" of Asia.
Moon-worship in China is of ancient origin, and exists in our own time. Professor Legge tells us that the primitiveshih"is the symbol for manifestation and revelation. The upper part of it is the same as that in the older form of Tî, indicating 'what is above'; but of the three lines below I have not found a satisfactory account. Hsü Shănsays they represent 'the sun, moon, and stars,' and that the whole symbolizes 'the indications by these bodies of the will of Heaven! Shih therefore tells us that the Chinese fathers believed that there was communication between heaven and men. The idea of revelation did not shock them. The special interpretation of the strokes below, however, if it were established, would lead us to think that even then, so far back, there was the commencement of astrological superstition, and also, perhaps, of Sabian worship."[165]Sabianism, as most readers are aware, is the adoration of the armies of heaven: the word being derived from the Hebrewtzaba, a host. Dr. Legge leaves Chinese Sabianism in some doubt, in the above quotation; but later on he speaks of the spirits associated with the solstitial worship, whose intercession was thus secured, "I, the emperor of the Great Illustrious dynasty, have respectfully prepared this paper, to inform the spirit of the sun, the spirit of the moon, the spirits of the five planets, of the constellations of the zodiac, and of all the stars in all the sky," and so on: and the professor adds: "This paper shows how there had grown up around the primitive monotheism of China the recognition and worship of a multitude of celestial and terrestrial spirits."[166]This is ample evidence to prove moon-worship. True, these celestial beings were "but ministering spirits," and the "monotheism remained." There was nohenotheism, no worship of severalsinglesupreme deities:One onlywas supreme. So among the Hebrews, Persians, Hindoos, there was one only God; and yet they offered prayers and sacrifices to heaven's visible and innumerable host. When we come to modern China we shall find some very remarkable celebrations taking place, which throw sunlight upon these ancient mists. Meanwhile to strengthen our position, we may draw additional support from each of the three great stages reached in the progress of Chinese religion: namely, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Dr. Edkins describes them as the moral, materialistic, and metaphysical systems, standing at the three corners of a great triangle.[167]The god of Confucianism isShang-tîorShang-te. And with the universal anthropomorphism "Shang-te is the great father of gods and men: Shang-te is a gigantic man."[168]Again "Heaven is a great man, and man is a little heaven."[169]And now what does Confucianism say of moon-worship? "The sun and moon being the chief objects of veneration to the most ancient ancestors of the Chinese, they translated the soul of their great father heaven or the first man (Shang-te) to the sun, and the soul of their great mother earth or the first woman (the female half of the first man) to the moon."[170]In Taoism there is no room for question. Dr. Legge says that it had its Chang and Liû, and "many more gods, supreme gods, celestial gods, great gods, and divine rulers."[171]And Dr. Edkins writes: "The Taouist mythology resembles, in several points, that of many heathen nations. Some of its divinities personate those beings that are supposed to reside in the various departments of nature. Many of the stars are worshipped as gods."[172]Buddhism not only supplies further evidence, it also furnishes a noteworthy instance of mythic transformation. Sakchi or Sasi, the moon, is literally one who made a sacrifice. This refers to the legend of the hare who gave himself to feed the god. The wife of Indra adopted the hare's name, and was herself called Sasi. "The Tantra school gave every deity its Sakti or consort, and speculation enlarged the meaning of the term still further, making it designate female energy or the female principle."[173]Buddhism, then, the popular religion in China at the present day, the religion which Dr. Farrar ventures to call "atheism fast merging into idolatry,"[174]is not free from the nature worship which deifies the moon. But Buddhism, like most other imperfect systems, has precious gold mixed with its dross; and at the expense of a digression we delight to quote the statement of a recent writer, who says: "There is no record, known to me, in the whole of the long history of Buddhism, throughout the many countries where its followers have been for such lengthened periods supreme, of any persecution by the Buddhists of the followers of any other faith."[175]How glad we should feel if we could assert the same of the Christian Church!
We come at once to those celebrations which still take place in China, and illustrate the worship of the moon. The festival ofYuĕ-Ping--which is held annually during the eighth month, from the first day when the moon is new, to the fifteenth, when it is full--is of high antiquity and of deep interest. Dr. Morrison says that "the custom of civil and military officers going on the first and fifteenth of every moon to the civil and military temples to burn incense, began in the time of the Lŭh Chaon," which would be not far from A.D. 550. Also that the "eighth month, fifteenth day, is called Chung-tsew-tsëë. It is said that the Emperor Ming-hwang, of the dynasty Tang, was one night led to the palace of the moon, where he saw a large assembly of Chang-go-sëën-neu--female divinities playing on instruments of music. Persons now, from the first to the fifteenth, make cakes like the moon, of various sizes, and paint figures upon them: these are called Yuĕ-ping, 'mooncakes.' Friends and relations pay visits, purchase and present the cakes to each other, and give entertainments. At full moon they spread out oblations and make prostrations to the moon."[176]Dennys writes: "The fifteenth day of the eighth month is a day on which a ceremony is performed by the Chinese, which of all others we should least expect to find imitated among ourselves. Most people resident in China have seen the moon-cakes which so delight the heart of the Chinese during the eighth month of every year. These are made for an autumnal festival often described as 'congratulating' or 'rewarding' the moon. The moon, it is well known, represents the female principle in Chinese celestial cosmogony, and she is further supposed to be inhabited by a multitude of beautiful females; the cakes made in her honour are therefore veritable offerings to the Queen of the Heavens. Now in a part of Lancashire, on the banks of the Ribble, there exists a precisely similar custom of making cakes in honour of the 'Queen of Heaven,'--a relic, in all probability, of the old heathen worship which was the common fount of the two customs."[177]Witness is also borne to this ceremony by a well-known traveller. "We arrived at Chaborté on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, the anniversary of great rejoicings among the Chinese. This festival, known as theYuĕ-Ping(loaves of the moon), dates from the remotest antiquity. Its original purpose was to honour the moon with superstitious rites. On this solemn day, all labour is suspended; the workmen receive from their employers a present of money, every person puts on his best clothes; and there is merry-making in every family. Relations and friends interchange cakes of various sizes, on which is stamped the image of the moon; that is to say, a hare crouching amid a small group of trees."[178]And Doolittle says: "It is always full moon on the fifteenth of every Chinese month; and, therefore, for several days previous, the evenings are bright, unless it happens to be cloudy, which is not often the case. The moon is a prominent object of attention and congratulation at this time. At Canton, it is said, offerings are made to the moon on the fifteenth. On the following day, young people amuse themselves by playing what is called'pursuing,' or 'congratulating' the moon. At this city [Fuhchau], in the observance of this festival, the expression 'rewarding the moon' is more frequently used than 'congratulating the moon.' It is a common saying that there is 'a white rabbit in the moon pounding out rice.' The dark and the white spots on the moon's face suggest the idea of that animal engaged in the useful employment of shelling rice. The notion is prevalent that the moon is inhabited by a multitude of beautiful females, who are called by the name of an ancient beauty who once visited that planet; but how they live, and what they do, is not a matter of knowledge or of common fame. To the question, 'Is the moon inhabited?' discussed by some Western philosophers, the Chinese would answer in the affirmative. Several species of trees and flowers are supposed to flourish in the moon. Some say that, one night in ancient times, one of the three souls of the originator of theatrical plays rambled away to the moon and paid a visit to the Lunar Palace. He found it filled with Lunarians engaged in theatrical performances. He is said to have remembered the manner of conducting fashionable theatres in the moon, and to have imitated them after his return to this earth. About the time of the festival of the middle of autumn, the bake shops provide an immense amount and variety of cakes: many of them are circular, in imitation of the shape of the moon at that time, and are from six to twelve inches in diameter. Some are in the form of a pagoda, or of a horse and rider, or of a fish, or other animals which please and cause the cake to be readily sold. Some of these 'moon-cakes' have a white rabbit, engaged with his pounder, painted on one side, together with a lunar beauty, and some trees or shrubs; on others are painted gods or goddesses, animals, flowers, or persons, according to fancy."[179]