The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c13.s2.4

v1.c13.s2.4

In other cases the purely temporary nature of the divine character of the fetish is quite obvious. Thus in the household ritual, during the nights after marriage in which the newly wedded pair are bidden to observe chastity, there is placed between them a staff clad in a garment and made fragrant, which is traditionally asserted to be the Gandharva Viçvāvasu, and the tradition is confirmed by the fact that the ritual prescribes for the taking away of the staff a formula addressed to that spirit.² Another fetish is the wheel which represents the sun:³ in the Vājapeya sacrifice a wheel-shaped cake of grain is placed on the top of the post, to which the animal victim is tied: a ladder is brought: the sacrificer mounts upon it saying to his wife: ‘Come, let us two mount to the sun.’ He then mounts and seizes the wheel, saying, ‘We have attained the sun, O gods.’⁴ At the Mahāvrata festival of the winter solstice an Aryan and a Çūdra strove over a white round skin, which is stated to be a symbol of the sun: the Aryan conquers and strikes down the Çūdra with the skin.⁵ There can be no doubt of the solar nature of the wheel, and the existence of this sun symbol among the Celts and the Germans suggests that possibly the symbolism may be Indo-European. A torch can also serve to represent the sun; if the offerer has forgotten to perform a libation before sunset, he can perform it to the light of a torch which brings back the light, or he can use gold in place of the sun.⁶ This motive is of constant occurrence: in the piling of the fire altar a gold plate is set down to be an image of the sun.⁷ Agni, as fire, is closely connected with gold: it is forbidden to study the Veda in a place where there is neither fire nor gold: gold is the seed of Agni, and in the piling of the fire altar⁸ there is placed in the erection the gold figure of a man, who seems to be intended to represent Agni: while butter is poured over the figure, prayers are offered to Agni, and that fire is latent in the figure is shown by the warning to the priests not to pass before it, lest it consume them with fire. A similar rule forbids the priest to carry the Soma before the altars allotted to each priest, as they are the symbols of the guardians of the Soma, and would therefore be inclined to take the Soma away from the priests that were bearing it.¹ In the case of the Pravargya ceremony, milk is made hot for the Açvins in a great jar, the Mahāvīra, ‘great hero’, pot: according to one authority the pot was given some semblance of a human face, and it is difficult to doubt that this pot was intended as a symbol of the sun.² Equally symbolic would be its use if we were to accept a suggestion made with all circumspection by Oldenberg³ that we may have here a trace of the myth of the cutting off of the head of Makha, who is a demon of quite unknown nature, by Indra, and the drinking of milk from this ghastly relic, just as it seems from the body of Namuci, a demon with which Makha may have had associations, sweetness is said to have come.