134 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



as a consecration of the powers of the -world, as visible emblems of 

 the Lord of all things. 



Thus, through all the mythologies and symbol images of the old 

 world, the green things continually peep out, adding to the wild 

 beauty of these aboriginal forms, which, begot in the infancy of the 

 world, are full of that freshness of feeling, that love of allegory and 

 symbol which characterises infancy in the individual man. In these 

 devotions there is a largeness of character which shames the contracted 

 piety of our own day and generation, and much as we may dread the 

 features of those ancient faiths, and shrink, horror struck, from their 

 details of barbarity and absurdity, we must at least confess that faith 

 had there a home. The legend of Rawana the good Brahmin, exhibits, 

 in a powerful light, the sincerity of that age of idols. It was the 

 wont of Eawana to offer daily one hundred flowers to the god Ixora ; 

 and once, to prove his zeal, the god secretly took from the sacrifice 

 one of the flowers, and then complained that the gift was too small. 

 Eawana counted the flowers, and finding only ninety-nine, offered one 

 of his eyes to supply its place, when the god, convinced of his piety, 

 restored the flower, and blessed him for his confiding faith. 



Soma, the moon, is, in the Indian mythology, as in those of the 

 northern nations of Europe, a male deity ; he is " born of the sun ; " 

 and is the king of herbs and flowers. " Rain is produced from the 

 Moon," says the Rigveda ; * and a Hindoo commentator on this 

 passage says, " Rain enters the lunar orb, which consists of water." 

 This connection of the moon with the changes of the weather is recog- 

 nised by Shakspere, who calls her the " Governess of the floods," f 

 and is a meteorological tradition. The Hindoos represent Soma as the 

 god of showers and green things ; when he descends in his car drawn 

 by antelopes, bearing in his bosom a sleeping fawn, he typifies the 

 irregular motion of the moon itself, and the dependence of vegetation 

 upon it for the necessary fluctuations of the weather. Barbarous as 

 were the old Hindoo rites, the laws of hospitality were sacred among 

 them ; and he who planted a tope or grove, or opened a well and 

 surrounded it with trees for the shade and refreshment of the tra- 

 veller, was held for ever after a descendant of the gods. Timul Naik 

 Ruja of Tanjora, became a deity for having built a choultry or rest- 



* Asiatic Researches, vol viii. p. 406. 

 t Midsummer Night's Dream. 



