History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.189

v6.c82.189

⁷⁴⁸ Vide Breasted in 'Ancient Times' p. 175, Cambridge Ancient History vol. I p 409 This lore called 'Hepatoscopy' does not appear to (*Continued from last page*) have been developed in India Vide 'Hepatoscopy and Astrology in Babylonia and Assyria', a paper in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. XLVII, pp. 646-676 Divination is either voluntary or involuntary In the former marked arrows were used (apparently referred to in Ezekiel 21. 21) or birds were sent out and the directions in which they flew were noted and interpreted or such things as dipping buds or flowers in water and placing them at the feet of the images of gods in India and noting whether the flowers on the right or left side fell down first. Involuntary divination depends on all kinds of signs, phenomena and happenings that force themselves on one's attention such as aspects of the sun, the moon, planets, lightning and clouds, dreams, chirping of birds and falling of lizards on one's body and the like The Babylonian and Assyrian priests attached to temples made very extensive collections of omens and portents, but the interpretations almost exclusively concerned general welfare (viz. crops, pestilence, war, famine, plenty &c.) and if an individual was referred to it was only the king. The theory underlying hepatoscopy was that the animal offered was assimilated to the deity and the soul of the animal entered into the inner being of the god. The seat of life and of the soul was supposed to be the liver The chief parts of the liver were the right and left lower lobes Among the Romans the heart and lungs also were examined, the right representing the favourable side and left the unfavourable side. The priests did not hesitate to announce to the king unfavourable results and applied their systems consistently. Astrology represented a comparatively more scientific view of the universe The planets came to be regarded as gods even in the oldest astrological texts in which the five planets were identified with the chief gods of the Babylonian pantheon, viz Jupiter with Marduk, Venus with Ishtar, Saturn with Ninib, Mercury with Nebo and Mars with Nergal, Jupiter (= Marduk p 654) being always mentioned first. It was believed that through the planets and stars one can see gods at work. Prognostications varied according to the season or month of the year and the day The Greek astrology offered a great contrast to the Babylonian, since in the former the individual came to be all in all The Greek astronomers obtained from the Babylonians the names for the constellations of the ecliptic, which are used even now in Europe. Vide Jastrow's 'Religion of Babylon and Assyria' p 370 for identification of Marduk, Ishtar and other Babylonian gods with planets and p. 371 for the fact that Ishtar (Venus) figures most prominently among the preserved astrological texts and 'Babylonian and Assyrian Religion' by S. H. Hooke pp. 24-30.