r>Pant ls)ore, ]sec^e'r^j', and Ts)Ljric/. 40 1 



of 'Snkiiiitaln,' written by Kalidisa two thousand years ago, we 

 find that Kanva, the father of the heroine (who is the cliief of the 

 lierniits), offers one of these sacrifices, and exclaims : — 



" Holy flames, whose frequent food 

 Is the consecrated wood. 

 And for whose encircling bed, 

 Sacred Kusa-grass is spread ; 

 Hear, oh, hear me when I pray. 

 Purify my child this day I" 



In those times it was apparently considered no sin to apply the 

 sacred grass to private purposes, for one of 5akuntala's handmaids 

 compounds perfimies and unguents with consecrated paste and the 

 Kusa grass, to anoint the limbs of her mistress, previous to her 

 nuptials. In the Vedas, the Kusa-grass, or Darbha, is often invoked 

 as a god. According to the Atharvaveda, it is immortal, it never 

 ages, it destroys enemies, and Indra, the god of thunder, employs 



it as his weapon. The \'^edic rituals contain directions for the 



employment of Kusa-grass for various mystic purposes. To cleanse 

 butter, the priest held a small stalk of the sacred Grass, without 

 nodes, in each hand, and, turning towards the east, he invoked 

 Savitar, Vasu, and the rays of the sun. At the new moon, and at 

 the full moon, they bound and fastened together the sacrificial 

 wood and the Kusa-grass. In the third 3'ear of its age, it was 

 customary for a Hindu child to be brought by its parents to the 

 priest, that its hair might be cut. Then the father, placed to the 

 south of the mother, held in his hand twenty-one stalks of Kusa- 

 grass, which svmbolised the twenty-one winds, and an invocation 

 was made to \'ayu, the god of the winds. The father, or, in his 

 absence, a Brahman, took three stalks at a time, and inserted them 

 in the child's hair seven times, the points turned towards the 

 infant's body; at the same time devoutly murmuring, " Ma}- the 

 herb prote(fl thee ! " According to the Vedas, a house ought to be 

 erected in a locality where the Kusa-grass abounds ; the foundations 

 are sprinkled with it, and care is taken to extirpate all thorny 

 plants. When reading the sacred books, the devout Hindu should 

 be seated either on the ground or on a flooring strewn with Kusa- 

 grass, upon which once rested Brahma himself. It was customar}', 

 upon leaving a seminary, for the Vedic student to take, among 

 other things, by way of memento, and as a presage of good fortune, 

 a few blades of Kusa-grass. Anchorites employed the sacred Grass 

 as a covering to their nudity, and it was also used as a purification 

 in funeral rites. In the Buddhist ritual, the Vedic Kusa appears 

 under the name of Barkis, and serves as a kind of carpet, on which 

 come -A^gni and all the gods to seat themselves. Of such importance 

 is the sacred Grass considered, that the name Barkis is sometimes 

 even employed to signify in a general manner the sacrifice itself. 



KUSHTHA. — Wilson identifies the Indian mjthological tree 

 Kusktka with the Costus speciosus, a swamp plant bearing snow-white 



2 D 



