TRANSFORMATION 197 



Manu. There we are told: "The husband, after 

 conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is 

 born again of her." 1 Corresponding with this de- 

 claration the ritual prescribes, among other ceremonies 

 when a boy is born, that the husband should address 

 the babe thus : " From limb by limb thou art pro- 

 duced ; and of the heart thpu art born. Thou art 

 indeed the self (atman) called son ; so live a hundred 

 autumns." In the same words he addresses the boy 

 every time he himself returns from a journey, 

 embracing his head and kissing him thrice. 2 



There is reason to think that this doctrine was held 

 by the ancient Egyptians, as applicable at all events 

 to the gods, and if to gods then probably in earlier 

 times to human beings. Each temple was dedicated 

 to a single god, but he usually had companion deities 

 who formed with him a cycle. This cycle was in 

 most cases composed of father mother and son. 

 "The son was the counterpart of the father, and 

 destined to replace him when he should grow old and 

 die, according to that law of nature to which even the 

 gods were subject. Thus the son became the father, 

 and the Egyptian texts could speak of the gods as 



1 Sacred Books, xxv. 329 ; cf. 352. Cf. also Sacred Books, xii. 

 334 ; passages from the Aitareya Brahmana cited by von Negelein, 

 Arch. Religionsw. vi. 320 ; and the remarks by Mr. Justice Markby in 

 reference to modern Hindu lawyers, quoted Hearne, 165 note. 

 A 2 Grihya-Sutra of Hiranyakesin, Sacred Books, xxx. 211; G.-S. of 

 Asvalayana, Ibid. xxix. 183. To this theory may perhaps be traced 

 the idea that a first-born son is peculiarly dangerous to his father's 

 life. A tradition concerning the rajahs of Bashahr in the Panjab 

 relates that for sixty-one generations each rajah had only one son, 

 " and it used to be the custom for the boy to be sent away to a 

 village and not be seen by his father until his hair was cut for the 

 first time," which was done with solemn rites in his sixth year 

 (Rose, Census of Ind. 1901, xvii. 141). 



