196 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
many generations of men, with whose lives such flowers 
as those were twined, and of whose acts, and thoughts, 
and impulses, those very flowers can repeat the history. 
It was one of the redeeming traits of the old mytho¬ 
logies, that floral ornaments, sacrifices of herbs, and 
allegorical combinations of fruits and flowers were re¬ 
garded as aids to worship, or as symbols of the Divine 
idea, or even as mediators between humanity kneeling in 
the dust, and the Supreme Being, throned upon a million 
worlds. India, with its memorials of blood, and tyranny, 
and fanaticism, looks even less fearful when its rites are 
seen to be surrounded with these mute poetic forms. 
The mighty Bhyroe, the Assura or evil spirit, gains some¬ 
thing in the midst of his enormities, when his granite 
idol is seen adorned with flowers, - * the offerings of the 
kneeling children of Brahma. The sacrifice of fire to all 
the gods, the third of the five great Hindoo sacrifices, 
with its impressive solemnity, becomes still more solemn 
when the priest, after many prayers and holy services, 
places the vessel containing the sacred fire on the spot 
consecrated to it; and then sprinkles around it the green 
blades of the cusa grass,t and sitting on the ground, 
pronounces the name of the earth inaudibly. Then, 
after reciting a sacred mantra, more blades of cusa are 
placed around the fire, the sacred butter is poured upon 
the flame, and he sits down with his face towards the 
east, and meditates on Brahma, the Lord of the Creation.J 
* Jablouski, “Egyptian Pantheon.’ 1 
+ Poa Cynosuroides. 
I Colebrooke on the Religion of the Hindoos.—“ Asiatic Re¬ 
searches,” Vol. vii., No. 8. 
