Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/332

 24 Pi'esideniial Address.

twice-born. This idea of rebirth is especially associated with the upanayana rite which forms part of the ceremony of initiation into the study of the Vedas. It seems to be especially prominent in the rites attendant upon accession to the kingly office. Thus, the first formula of the ritual given in the Taittiriya-Brdhmana speaks of the prince being reborn as the son of the sacrificial priests/ while in Travancore the new ruler passes through the body of a golden cow or through a golden lotus as a preliminary to his entrance upon the responsibilities and privileges of his rank. 2

A similar rite has been recorded as having been practised on the persons of two Brahman ambassadors who had been defiled by a visit to England.^ They had to be reborn symbolically by being dragged through a golden image of a Yoni which took the place of one in the shape of a woman or a cow. Moreover, rites of this kind are not limited to persons of high rank. My friend and pupil, Mr. G. S. Ghurje, tells me that in the Konkan, the district of Bombay Presidency bordering upon the Canara country, a child born under an unlucky star is placed in a bamboo vessel and reborn symbolically by being placed for a moment within the mouth of a cow. Here we have definite examples of the belief in rebirth and in the efiicacy of its symbolic representation, but there is little, if any, evidence that water is used in these rites as a symbol of rebirth. In the long and complex ceremonial of initiation of the young Brahman bathing takes a prominent place as in every other Hindu rite, and it is possibly significant that, after the investiture with the sacred thread which forms the most

1 Narendra Nath Law, Ind. Antiquary, 1919, vol. xlviii. p. 84.

^ J. Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, London, 1834, i- 240 : S. Mateer, The Land of Charity, 169 ff. ; North Indian Notes and Queries, iii. 215.

^ Asiatick Researches, Calcutta, 4° ed., 1799, vol. vi. p. 535. The two Brahmans had crossed the Indus, which had aggravated their offence.