550 WORSHIP PAID TO WATER
was indispensable to the production and reproduction of all secondary bodies.
This is not a theory of my own invented merely for the purpose of explaining the original idolatry of the Hindus; it is their own peculiar doctrine, observed by them in daily practice. It is even one of the fundamental tenets of the religion of the Brahmins. To convince themselves of this, let my readers reperuse the chapter about san & hya, which
so formally enjoins the special and direct worship of the three elements, while the two others, air and ether, are
almost forgotten.
The Brahmins offer worship and address mystical prayers
to the seven inferior worlds, of which the first and the most
' important is the earth. Glory to thee, earth, mother most great,' are the words of the Yajur-Veda; and immediately after is added, Glory ' to thee, fire, who art god.'
There is no surer proof that they attach to fire itself the
idea of divine essence than their perpetual sacrifices of homam and of yagnam, in which no other object of worship
than this element is observable.
The divinity of water is also incontestably recognized as an article of their belief. The Brahmins worship it and offer prayers to it when they make their daily ablutions.
It is then that they invoke the holy rivers, among others the Ganges, and all its sacred branches. Often too they offer oblations to water by casting into the rivers and tanks, especially at the places where they bathe, small pieces of gold and silver, and sometimes pearls and other valuable jewels. Furthermore, sailors, fishermen, and all who frequent the sea, visit the shore from time to time to pay their worship
and to offer up their sacrifices to it.
When, after a long drought, an abundant rain brings
hope to the despairing husbandman by filling the great reservoirs for the irrigation of the rice-fields, the inhabitants at once flock to them and with signs of joy exclaim, The '
lady is arrived; ' and they bow with their hands clasped towards the water which fills the reservoirs, while he-goats or rams are sacrificed in its honour.
At the season of the year when the Cauvery inundates