is done, it is said, with the object of removing the child’s fear, and part of the puberty rites of the Paraiyans is for the mother to strike the ground behind her son with a rice-pestle.[1] The meaning of these rites is obscure: possibly they may be fertility observances intended to arouse the Earth Mother to strengthen the boy.
The great gods, Vishnu and others, also sleep from June-July till October-November, that is to say, during the rainy season when field work is slack. The same considerations, based on the cessation of work during the rains, account for the annual Buddhist Retreat (varsika, vassa, vassavasa), during which the monks ceased to make their usual visits to their disciples.[2] The similar Retreat of the Jains (pajjusana, pachusan) should be held when the rainy season is well advanced, a time when ordinary work is interrupted, and there is danger of destruction of life, animal and vegetable, which is then abundant.[3]
Similar animistic beliefs regarding the personification of Mother Earth and the danger of destroying the life which she fosters account for the prejudice against agriculture which prevails among some tribes, castes, or religious orders. The Laws of Manu, the official manual of Brahmanical social observances, direct that a Brāhman or a Kshatriya shall carefully avoid agriculture, “which causes injury to many beings and depends on others. Some declare that agriculture is something excellent, but that means of subsistence is blamed by the virtuous: for the wooden implement with iron point injures the Earth and the beings living in the Earth.”[4] A religious sanction was thus given to the prejudice against agriculture, work which
- ↑ E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, v. 344, vi. 93.
- ↑ H. Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, 80 et seq.; C. J. F. S. Forbes, British Burma and its People, 170; Shway Yoe, The Burman, i. 263 ; L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Thibet, 223 et seq.
- ↑ Mrs. M. Stevenson, Hastings: Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, v. 675.
- ↑ Manu, Laws, x. 84, 85; cf. Sir J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, 3rd ed. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, i. 88 et seqq.
