dical renewal and loss of virginity after a ritual marriage. At any rate, the cult of the Virgins side by side with that of the Mothers is not uncommon. In southern India seven Virgins are worshipped, and in the Panjab some rugged rocks are called Kunwārī, or the Virgins, to commemorate, it is said, a party of maidens who were killed to save their honour, and deified after death.[1] We also meet, from the Vedic age down to modern times, the cult of pairs of twins, often brother and sister.[2]
As we have seen, the Mother, exhausted by her labours, needs periodical rest to renew her strength. The same result is also provided by two methods: the sacred marriage, the ἱερὸς γάμος of Greek ritual, and by blood sacrifice.
As regards the sacred marriage—we must be on our guard in accepting the numerous cases in which the Mother is regarded as the consort of some deity, unless we can actually prove a ritualistic marriage. The Brahmanical craze for uniformity usually leads them to class the divine pair as wife and her consort. Among the Dravidians, who are less exposed to Brāhman influence, we have many cases of the sacred marriage. The Malayālīs annually marry their god Sevarāyan to the goddess who is the presiding deity of the Kāvērī river.[3] Though there is no direct evidence of a ritual marriage, some goddesses are closely connected with a male, as in the case of Orasandiammā and Samalammā, tutelary goddesses of the Vāda fishermen, associated, the former with Rāmasondī, who is her brother, and the latter, curiously enough, with the image of a Bengali Babu on horseback.[4] In many parts of Madras, Poturāzū is at once husband, brother, and
- ↑ Bishop Whitehead, op. cit. 101; Rose, op. cit. i. 131.
- ↑ E. W. Hopkins, The Religious of India, 83 note. “Incest was recognised in Vedic times, as appears from the legend of the marriage of Yama and Yamī, brother and sister” (A. A. Macdonell, A. B. Keith, Vedic Index, i. 397).
- ↑ Thurston, op. cit. iv. 415 et seqq.
- ↑ Ibid. vii. 261 et seq., 264.
