Forlong - Rivers of Life

396
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
and emulation, to retain the distinction both in times of war and peace, a kind of
esprit de corps which we still keep up in a modified form, especially in our Highland
and Welsh Regiments. Roman as well as Jewish law made each select its Tribune,
and the Tribune represented the patriarchs of the peoplc. Still no fire or altar-place
was extinguished; all remained as in the days of family isolation.; and no attempt to
have only one altar—like Solomon, when he built a place for his Jahveh in Jerusalem,
and denied to the Samaritans their own holy mounts—ever long succeeded. Rome
found that though she had agglutinated many tribes into one city, yet that she dared
not shake the social basis. The several districts had no objection to subscribe and
form one fire temple, and each to contribute towards this public fire altar two Vestales;
yet no tribune or patrician was foolish enough tor equire that there should be no
sacrifice “except at Jerusalem.” The Eumol-pidæ worshipped Demeter in Eleusis;
the Kekropidre, Poseidon and Athene on the Akropolis, and Ares, their guardian deity
on the Areopagus, and so on; and although in time a few gods and holy places fell
off, and the great ones had still a larger gathering, yet the principle remained the same
up to the latest days of both Greek and Roman dominion. 1 All Greeee agreed to
worship at the Prutaneum of Athene Polias, though never to set aside the local
Prutanes. The same secrecy was kept up at the public hearth. No stranger dared
appear before the public city-fire either in Greece or Rome, “indeed the mere look of
a person foreign to the worship would profane a sacred act, 2 and disturb the auspices.
The very name for stranger was hostis, 3 or enemy to the gods. When the Roman
Pontiff had to sacrifice out-of-doors, he veiled his face so that the chance sight of
strangers might be thus atoned for to the gods, who were supposed to dislike
foreigners so much, that the most laborious ceremonies were undertaken if any of these
passed near, not to say handled any holy object. Every sacred fire had to be extinguished
and re-lit if a stranger entered a temple; and so in India, every sacred place must be
carefully purified if a foreigner (ruler and highly respected though he may be) pass
too close to a Hindoo shrine. I have seen Government servants under me, and Sepoys,
who meant no disrespect, throw away the whole of a day’s food, and dig up the little
fire-places they had prepared before cooking and eating, because by accident or oversight,
my shadow had passed over it; though sometimes, if there were no onlookers,
this extreme measure was not carried out, partly out of regard for me.
The Rev. Mr Barker assures us 4 that in the case of Roman and Greek rites, as at
a sacrifice, “it was death for a stranger to enter the sacred place marked out by the
priest far the assembly.” So the right of entering sacred places in India is a delicate
matter, in regard to which most Englishmen are very careless and indifferent, considering
it an insult that they cannot go where others tread, and enter shrines with the crowd
of Hindoo worshippers. The expulsion is thought to carry with it an idea of unclean-
1
Aryan Civil., 77.
3
Macrob. i. 17. Virgil calls a strange face, hostilis facies.
2
Ovid, Fas. ii., 16.
4
Aryan Civil., 131.