III. Affinities with Mediterranean Cults J. H. HUDSON in his book on Caste in India, Oxford University Press, 1961, in an Appendix on Hinduism and Primitive Religions points out some of the religious beliefs and practices which show affinities with the Mediterranean region, e.g. fertility cults, phallic symbolism, the institution of hierodules, the snake cult, the cult of the bull concerning which sport there are references in the Kalittokai Anthology. The following readings are taken from pages 152 to 154, and 224 to 226 and 229 to 230 (extracts). SOME OF THE features of south Indian culture suggest not merely Asia Minor (e.g. the fire-walking ceremonies such as are common in southern India and formed a feature of the worship of Artemis in Cappadocia), but Crete. Here there was a cult of snakes,1 which, indeed, were vehicles of the soul throughout Greece, and worship of the mother goddess; here again the vogue of slender waists for males is very suggestive of medieval Indian sculpture. The popular sport among the Kallan and Maravan8 of jumping on to enraged bulls with sharpened horns to pluck off a cloth put there for the purpose and prove themselves men in the eyes of their womenfolk is also most reminiscent not only of the bull-baiting of Provence, where a rosette must be snatched from the points of the horns of an infuriated bull, but likewise of the bull-jumping scenes on Cretan vases, though in southern India the practice does not extend to somersaults nor to the fairer sex. Terracotta figurines of the mother goddess have been excavated in Crete not dissimilar, it seems, to those from Mohenjo-Daro, and to others excavated in 1926-27 at Buxar in Bihar from a site 52 feet below the present surface and 13 feet below the Maurya stratum,' which rather suggest the extension of the Indus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Madagascar, are referable to the later period of maritime expansion, about the beginning of the Christian era); Lévi, 3, pp. 55-57. 1The cult of snakes is also strong in the lower Himalayas and is found there in the significant company of Naina Devi, megalithic monuments, and marriage customs not unsuggestive of Babylop, and of fertility rites which are spoken of by Rose in Punjab Castes and Tribes as 'Paphian' but which are not described. Devi in the hills is often spoken of as Devi Mai or Devi Mata-the Mother Goddess. 2 In the case of the Kallian it is to be noticed that they include a boomerang among their wedding gifts, practise circumcision, and bury their dead and perform their Karuppan worship with the face to the north, probably indicating migration into India by land. The rite of circumcision is paid for by the boy's father's sister, mother of his potential wife. 3 Banerii-Sastri, 'Mother-Goddess cult in Magadha' in The Searchlight (anniversary number, 1929). |