DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0405
Religious Services. 393
partly offered in the sacrificial fire. At the end of each cere-
mony a supplementary sacrifice (called Avabhrita) was insti-
tuted with the sole object of atoning for mistakes, defects,
or omissions in carrying out the detail of the preceding
ritual. The supposed aim of all these elaborate and ex-
pensive ceremonies was to secure the sacrificers' admission
into heaven (svarga) after death.
But such Vedic sacrifices are everywhere either obsolete
or obsolescent, and animals are now seldom killed in India,
except as offerings to the bloody goddess Kali—a goddess
unknown in Vedic times—who is supposed, as we have
already seen (p. 190), to delight in drinking blood, and, if
if not satiated with the blood of animals, will take that of
men; this kind of sacrifice (bali) being quite distinct from
the old Vedic YajSa, Homa, and Soma sacrificial rites.
But although the daily ritual acts of a modern Brahman
are founded on the teaching of the later sacred works, called
Puranas and Tantras, yet it is remarkable that the repetition
of Vedic texts (mantras) is still retained and is still essential
to the due performance of every modern religious service.
And let no one suppose that a pious Brahman's daily
services in the present day are less irksome or tedious
than they were in olden times. If he was then fettered, he
is now enchained. A modern Brahman of the orthodox
school will sometimes devote four or five hours a day to a
laborious routine of religious forms1. Every faculty and
function of his nature is bound by an iron chain of traditional
observance. For example, his daily duties now comprise—
1. Religious bathing; 2. Worship of the Supreme Being
by meditation and repetition of prayers etc. at two out of the
three Sandhyas, or morning, midday, and evening services;
3. Brahma-yajfia, or worship of the Supreme Being by a
formal repetition of the first words of every sacred book
1 The amount of time still wasted on superstitious observances,
even since the spread of education, is lamentable.
partly offered in the sacrificial fire. At the end of each cere-
mony a supplementary sacrifice (called Avabhrita) was insti-
tuted with the sole object of atoning for mistakes, defects,
or omissions in carrying out the detail of the preceding
ritual. The supposed aim of all these elaborate and ex-
pensive ceremonies was to secure the sacrificers' admission
into heaven (svarga) after death.
But such Vedic sacrifices are everywhere either obsolete
or obsolescent, and animals are now seldom killed in India,
except as offerings to the bloody goddess Kali—a goddess
unknown in Vedic times—who is supposed, as we have
already seen (p. 190), to delight in drinking blood, and, if
if not satiated with the blood of animals, will take that of
men; this kind of sacrifice (bali) being quite distinct from
the old Vedic YajSa, Homa, and Soma sacrificial rites.
But although the daily ritual acts of a modern Brahman
are founded on the teaching of the later sacred works, called
Puranas and Tantras, yet it is remarkable that the repetition
of Vedic texts (mantras) is still retained and is still essential
to the due performance of every modern religious service.
And let no one suppose that a pious Brahman's daily
services in the present day are less irksome or tedious
than they were in olden times. If he was then fettered, he
is now enchained. A modern Brahman of the orthodox
school will sometimes devote four or five hours a day to a
laborious routine of religious forms1. Every faculty and
function of his nature is bound by an iron chain of traditional
observance. For example, his daily duties now comprise—
1. Religious bathing; 2. Worship of the Supreme Being
by meditation and repetition of prayers etc. at two out of the
three Sandhyas, or morning, midday, and evening services;
3. Brahma-yajfia, or worship of the Supreme Being by a
formal repetition of the first words of every sacred book
1 The amount of time still wasted on superstitious observances,
even since the spread of education, is lamentable.