Comparative Religion

by J. Estlin Carpenter

But the worshipper might not only eat with the god, he might more rarely, and under special circumstances, even eat him. A more intimate union was thus effected. When the altar imparted its sanctity to the victim laid upon it, the holy food distributed to the worshipper had some kind of divine presence in it, and virtue passed through the meat into the eater. The late Prof. Robertson Smith, in his famous lectures on "the Religion of the Semites," endeavoured to show that sacrifice originally consisted in slaying the animal of the totem-group, of which members of the totem-kin partook so that they received into their own persons the divine power incarnated in the totem animal. Further research has failed to confirm this view; but a similar conception has been illustrated from another side. The agricultural usages of which Dr. Frazer has collected so many examples, show how out of the last sheaf, which had become the home of the corn-spirit, the grain was baked in human form as its embodiment, and solemnly eaten. In the East Indian archipelago, on the island of Buro, the approaching rice-harvest was welcomed by a tribal meeting when each man brought some first-fruits from the fields, and the meal of inauguration was known as "eating the soul of the rice."

Twice a year was the great Mexican deity Huitzilopochtli presented in the form of dough images to his worshippers, and with elaborate ceremonies was consumed. Tezcatlipoca, in like manner, chief god of the Aztecs, represented by a handsome and noble captive wearing the divine emblems, was slain on the great altar; the body of the victim was respectfully carried down into the court below, divided into small pieces, and distributed among priests and nobles as blessed food. It is strange to find such savagery associated with prayers of exalted fervour and devotion. But ecstasy is roused by various means, and is not affronted at the most brutal rites. There were incidents in the Orphic cult of the Thracian Dionysus grouped under the name of the "Omophagy" (literally "raw-eating") of like character. In frenzied excitement the devotees flung themselves on bull or goat, rent it asunder, and devoured the bleeding flesh. Such was the condition of securing the actual entry of the god into the believer's person, so that he became entheos, "with the god inside him." Words have strange histories, and few now remember, when they describe the welcome of a monarch by acclaiming crowds, or the excitement roused by a great orator, what was the earlier meaning of "enthusiasm."

In the "art which gods and men have of doing business with each other," Socrates associated sacrifice with prayer (p. [133]). The association is world-wide, and here religion reaches its utmost inwardness. The feeling which expresses itself in action will also prompt gesture and speech; rude rhythms mould words into chant and song; and even without a definite object of address some utterance breathes a desire. "May it be well with the buffaloes, may they not suffer from disease and die ... may there be water and grass in plenty." So runs the dairy-ritual of the Indian Todas, without the direct invocation of any gods. But there is no element here of compulsion or constraint. The distinction between prayer and spell is clear; the attitude is religious, not magical. On the other hand, sacrifices are sometimes offered to a "High God," as by the Dinkas of the Bahr-el-Ghazal in Central Africa to Deng-deet, who is described as "Ruler of the universe, Creator of mankind, the actual Father of human beings"; but, adds Captain Cummins, imagine it does not occur to them to pray. Others, by contrast, make morning and evening prayer part of their daily practice; the Nandi of East Africa concludes his devotions (addressed to Asista, the ordinary word for the sun): "I have prayed to thee, thou sleepest and thou goest, I have prayed to thee, do not say 'I am tired.'" Sometimes prayer is offered only to the powers of mischief. The Lepchas of the Himalayas told Dr. Hooker that they did not pray to the good spirits. "Why should we? They do us no harm; the evil spirits that dwell in every grove and rock and mountain, to them we must pray, for they hurt us." To the Australian it may seem foolishness to address Baiame from day to day: he knows, why weary him by repetitions, disturbing his rest after his earthly labours? But the impulse of prayer does not always take articulate form, any more than it always seeks a personal object; and after long residence among the Euahlayi in South East Australia Mrs. Langloh Parker pleaded that the man who invoked aid in his hour of danger, or the woman who crooned over her babe an incantation to keep him honest and true, shared, however dimly, the same spirit of devotion which elsewhere prompts elaborate litanies. It is with a pious reserve that the Khonds of Orissa pray: "We are ignorant of what it is good for us to ask for. You know what is good for us; give it to us."

Prayer in the lower culture is rarely individualised. It is almost always a social act. Common prayers for food or rain, for protection against danger, the removal of pestilence, victory over enemies, represent the wants of all. The group may be the family, as in the evening worship of the Samoan householder, who pours a little of his cup of ava on the ground, and prays for health, productive plantations, and plenty of fruit. On the Lower Niger Major Leonard found worship offered daily before an image or emblem believed to contain the spirits of more immediate ancestors: "Preserve our lives, O Spirit Father, who hast gone before, and make thy house fruitful, so that we thy children shall increase and multiply and so grow rich and powerful."

Such prayers may be traced through many expanding phases up to the higher petitions which seek to place the civic and moral life under the guidance of the heroic dead. The element of bargain or contract which Socrates so sarcastically emphasised, here drops away. "To what god or what hero shall we pray," inquired the people of Corcyra, weary of internal strife, at the oracle of Dodona, "in order to obtain concord, and to govern our city fairly and well?" Chinese statecraft well understood the significance of such worship as a social bond. The ancient author of the Lî Chî, or "Book of Rites," laid it down that "the prayers of the principal in the sacrifice to the spirits, and the benedictions of the representatives of the departed, are carefully framed. The object of all ceremonies is to bring down the spirits from above, even their ancestors; serving also to rectify the relations between ruler and minister, to maintain the generous feeling between father and son, and the harmony between elder and younger brother, to adjust the relations between high and low, and to give their proper places to husband and wife. The whole may be said to secure the blessing of Heaven."

Attention is thus concentrated upon common sentiments and universal relationships, and prayer acquires a deeper ethical meaning. It then comes to rest upon devout experience, which seeks to interpret life in relation to the permanent forces of justice which are believed to rule the world. The hymns of Egypt celebrate in lofty terms the majesty and beneficence of the gods, and the psalmists of the Nile sang of the divine love encompassing all lands, setting every man in his place, and amid diversities of colour and speech supplying all human needs. The Babylonian poets addressed Shamash or Sin, sun or moon, as the symbols of the universal order of nature, the witnesses of thought and deed over the wide earth, the rulers on whom man could place unchanging reliance. The Vedic singer found a similar figure of moral sovereignty in Varuna (p. [106]). Out of the depths of her distress Hecuba (in the "Trojan Women") appeals to the mysterious Power whom she can still glorify in her anguish: "Thou deep base of the world, and thou high throne above the world, whoe'er thou art, unknown and hard of surmise, chain of things to be, or reason of our reason, God, to thee I lift my praise, seeing the silent road that bringeth justice ere the end be trod to all that breathes and dies." With a yet firmer confidence could the Peruvian in the sixteenth century record this prayer to the "World-animating Spirit": "O Pāchacāmac, thou who hast existed from the beginning, and shalt exist unto the end, who createst man by saying "Let man be," who defendest us from evil, and preservest our life and health, art thou in the sky or in the earth, in the clouds or in the depths? Hear the voice of him who implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give us life everlasting; preserve us, and accept this our sacrifice."

Two or three thousand years before, the pious Egyptian had been bidden to enter quietly into the sanctuary of God, to whom clamour is abhorrent. "Pray to him with a longing heart in which all thy words are hidden, so will he grant thy request, and hear that which thou sayest and accept thy offering." Dear was this silent worship to the higher teachers. A hymn to Thoth (p. [8]) addresses him as "Thou sweet spring for the thirsty in the desert," adding, "It is closed for those who speak there, it is open for those who keep silence there. When the silent man cometh, he findeth the spring."

Petitions such as these, rooted in ethical sentiment, demand as their moral condition purity of heart and concentration of thought. The prophets of all ages have protested against formalism and insincerity. The Japanese god of learning, Temmangu, was once a distinguished statesman. But he fell into unmerited disgrace (A.D. 901), and was banished. Posthumously vindicated, he was promoted to the rank of deity, and declared through his oracle, "All ye who come before me hoping to attain the accomplishment of your desires, pray with hearts pure from falsehood, clean within and without, reflecting the truth like a mirror." The disposition of prayer must be that of life also. It was with reference to similar slander to that from which Temmangu had suffered, that Pindar cried, "Never be this mind in me, O Father Zeus, but to the paths of simplicity let me cleave throughout my life, that when dead I may set upon my children a name that shall be of no ill repute." And Socrates prays, as he and Phædrus rise from the shade of the plane-tree where they have been talking, "Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods that haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward and the inward man be at one": to which Phædrus adds, "Ask the same for me, for friends should have all things in common."

The need of righteousness begets penitence and confession. A Buddhist liturgy issued in China in 1412 with a preface by the Emperor Yung Loh of the Ming dynasty, after the opening invocations, proceeded thus: "We and all men from the very first, by reason of the grievous sins we have committed in thought, word, and deed, have lived in ignorance of all the Buddhas, and of any way of escape from the consequences of our conduct. We have followed only the course of this evil world, nor have we known aught of Supreme Wisdom, and even now, though enlightened as to our duty, yet with others we still commit heavy sins, which prevent us from advancing in true knowledge. Therefore in the presence of Kwan Yin [the Chinese form of Avalokiteçvara, p. 131], and the Buddhas of the ten regions, we would humble ourselves, and repent of our sins.... For the sake of all sentient creatures in whatever capacity they be, would that all obstacles may be removed, we confess our sins and repent."

A higher note is sounded here than in the famous penitential psalms of ancient Babylon, where the poet, smitten with various distresses, laments the unknown sins which have roused the anger of his god, and passes into fierce incantations against the demonic powers which are the instruments of the divine wrath. Here prayer makes a close alliance with magic: and its formulæ are always in danger of this degeneration. In the old Italian ritual of a guild at Iguvium the exact titles of the deity must be rehearsed, and the proper words recited. The slightest slip invalidated the entire rite, and the officiating priest was required to repeat the whole over again. To this rigid adhesion to consecrated forms we owe the preservation of antique liturgical expressions left stranded in priestly usage. Such phrases acquired a semi-magical power. The Honover (Ahuna Vairya), or most sacred verse of the ancient Persian scriptures, became a charm against evil in the fight with Ahriman and his hosts. Passages from the Koran are used by Mohammedans as amulets against danger. The Buddhist formula Om mani padme hum is a protection from mischievous influences, like the Lord's Prayer in the Middle Ages; and the prayer-wheels and prayer-mills of Mongolia, in endeavouring to enlist the aid of Nature, and harness wind and water in the service of religion, have only turned devotion into a mechanical device.