The custom of leaping over the fire is, then, partly due to the belief that it is purgative; partly, that it promotes conception in women; partly, that the higher the leapers jump, the higher the crops are believed to grow. In the Greek rite of the Amphidromia the object is in part purificatory, and in part the object is to present the child duly to the sacred hearth.[1] The two fires which in one of the Indian cases are lighted, one communal and the other domestic, may perhaps be compared with the Prytaneum and the family hearth respectively.[2]
In the case recorded from the Mathura District, the Panda or Kherapati is induced or forced to pass through the fire. The word Panda is a later title of this official; the more primitive name, Kherapati, means "Lord of the mound on which the village is built," the non-Brahmanical medicine-man, ghost-scarer, exorcist, who acts as priest, not to the orthodox deities, but of the village gods, the change of name indicating the gradual absorption of these gods into official Hinduism. He acts as the surrogate or representative of the community, and is provided with a glebe as remuneration for his services. This pretence of putting a man on the fire does not necessarily imply human sacrifice, though this may have been at one time part of the rite: the primary intention is that of purgation.
The drenching with water is usually interpreted as a magical rain-charm, as in the case of the dousing with water of the Oraon priest at the Sarhūl, or spring festival.[3] But it seems also to be a fertility rite. Among the Krishnanvakkar caste in Travancore, the maternal uncle pours water into a palm leaf held by bride and bridegroom.[4]
- ↑ L. R. Farnell, The Higher Aspects of Greek Religion, Hibbert Lectures (1912), p. 28; Cults of the Greek States, vol. v. (1909), p. 356.
- ↑ J. G. Frazer, Journal of Philology, vol. xiv. (1885), p. 147; L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, vol. v. (1909), p. 350; J. G. Frazer, Pansanias, vol. iv. (1898), p. 441 et seq.
- ↑ E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (1872), p. 261.
- ↑ Travancore Census Report (1901), vol. i., p. 336.
