Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/349

Rh ancient doctrine of the eclipse has not indeed lost its whole interest. To trace it upward from its early savage stages to the period when astronomy claimed it, and to follow the course of the ensuing conflict over it between theology and science — ended among ourselves but still being sluggishly fought out among less cultured nations — this is to lay open a chapter of the history of opinion, from which the student who looks forward as well as back may learn grave lessons.

There is reason to consider most or all civilized nations to have started from the myth of the Eclipse-monster in forms as savage as those of the New World. It prevails still among the great Asiatic nations. The Hindus say that the demon Râhu insinuated himself among the gods, and obtained a portion of the amrita, the drink of immortality; Vishnu smote off the now immortal head, which still pursues the Sun and Moon whose watchful gaze detected his presence in the divine assembly. Another version of the myth is that there are two demons, Râhu and Ketu, who devour Sun and Moon respectively, and who are described in conformity with the phenomena of eclipses Râhu being black, and Ketu red; the usual charivari is raised by the populace to drive them off, though indeed, as their bodies have been cut off at the neck, their prey must of natural course slip out as soon as swallowed. Or Râhu and Ketu are the head and body of the dissevered demon, by which conception the Eclipse-monster is most ingeniously adapted to advanced astronomy, the head and tail being identified with the ascending and descending nodes. The following remarks on the eclipse-controversy, made by Mr. Samuel Davis a century ago in the Asiatick Researches, are still full of interest. 'It is evident, from what has been explained, that the Pŭndits, learned in the Jyotish shastrŭ, have truer notions of the form of earth and the economy of the universe than are ascribed to the Hindoos in general: and that they must reject the ridiculous belief of the common Brahmŭns, that