The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.58.2

v1.c11.58.2

We are there told that “Meschia and Meschiané, the first man and woman, were seduced by Ahriman under the form of a serpent, and they then committed in thought, word, and action the carnal sin, and thus tainted with original sin all their descendants.” ²² On the other hand the Semites and the Turanians looked upon it with feelings of veneration, and gave great prominence to sexual ideas. The Semites indulged in the idea very largely, and Egypt was its stronghold for a long period. All the Egyptian gods had their feminine counterparts, and the emblems of their faith were mostly of a sexual character. “There is reason to believe,” says Inman, ‘that the Vedic, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and the Christian, were pure in their conception of the Almighty and of man's duty in this world. Some faiths seem to have been founded, we may say, upon the complete abnegation of all bodily propensities ; and amongst the Buddhist, Essenes, Christians, and others, the absolute celibacy of both sexes was regarded as the highest act and fruit of “a [ **143** ] saving faith.” ²³ This was, however, but temporary, for at one time or another the sexual theory got a footing in almost all ancient forms of religion, and it is difficult to notice a cult of former times in which traces of it may not be noticed. The early Aryans were free from it, and in the *Ṛgveda Saṃhitā* the gods are described mostly without reference to their wives ;