The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c28.s3.22

v1.c28.s3.22

When the student is performing his period of studentship,⁷ he is forbidden intercourse, and a high bed : when he has been admitted to study ⁸ by the solemn offering, he must stand silent for the rest of the day, and eat no salted food for the day. When he comes to a specially sacred part of his work of learning, then he must shut his eyes, and in silence for a day and a night or three days eat nothing, the shutting of the eyes being no doubt in order not to be blinded by the excessive majesty of the work, which he has studied. Before he imparts such important knowledge to his pupil, the teacher himself for a day and a night must practise chastity, and eat no flesh.¹ In the offering of the Çabalihoma it is provided that the offerer must lie on the ground for twelve nights, speak as little as possible, observe chastity, and take only sweet milk.² The fasts are deemed by the Brāhmaṇas to be the essence of Tapas,³ or again the fasting before an offering is deemed courtesy to the gods, just as one does not eat before one's guests.⁴ The former motive is very probably a real one : the use of hunger to produce states of ecstasy is well attested, but other reasons are possible : the motive of refraining from eating flesh is doubtless connected with the spirit, which is in the dead animal, and which may be dangerous, especially to a man undertaking a solemn rite. The refraining from salt, which is even extended by some authorities to cover the offering of any salted food to the gods, is a strange taboo which is very well known in many parts of the earth, and which in some way seems to stand in connexion with fertility : Oldenberg⁵ suggests that if it is not an inheritance from a time which knew no salt, as is very possible, the unfruitfulness of salt ground and of sea water suggested its evil character, but of that we have no adequate proof, and in point of fact salt passes in some measure as a sign of prosperity,⁶ through its use for animals to lick. Other motives may be the danger of evil spirits entering the man who eats, seeing that at a festival such spirits will be present in large numbers ; the desire to secure that there will be enough food for the gods—which is paralleled by the Vedic politeness theory ; or the desire not to interfere with the full benefit to be obtained by the holy food, which is not expressed in any Vedic passage, but with which may be compared fasts ordered after consuming forbidden food until all trace of it has disappeared.⁷ In the case of sexual intercourse probably the same idea is at work as in the case of the loss of seed generally : the horse for the horse sacrifice is kept away from mares as well as from the water, and the motive appears clearly enough in the ritual and the formulae :⁸ it is undesirable in this case as in the case of the Brahman student and the consecrated man to lose any strength whatever. Even laughter⁹ is regarded as loss of strength : the consecrated man must put his hand before his mouth to prevent the loss of his laughter, which is compared with light on the strength of the Rigveda,¹⁰ by which laughter and lightning are already closely connected.