Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/286

272 Heaven to the Heaven-god. In the designation of Maa-emä, Earth-mother, given to the earth itself, there may be traced survival from the stage of direct nature-worship, while the passage to the conception of a divine being inhabiting and ruling the material substance, is marked by the use of the name Maan emo, Earth's mother, for the ancient subterranean goddess whom men would ask to make the grass shoot thick and the thousandfold ears mount high, or might even entreat to rise in person out of the earth to give them strength. The analogy of other mythologies agrees with the definition of the divine pair who reign in Finn theology: as Ukko the Grandfather is the Heaven-god, so his spouse Akka the Grandmother is the Earth-goddess. Thus in the ancient nature-worship of China, the personal Earth holds a place below the Heaven. Tien and Tu are closely associated in the national rites, and the idea of the pair as universal parents, if not an original conception in Chinese theology, is at any rate developed in Chinese classic symbolism. Heaven and Earth receive their solemn sacrifices not at the hands of common mortals but of the Son of Heaven, the Emperor, and his great vassals and mandarins. Yet their adoration is national; they are worshipped by the people who offer incense to them on the hill-tops at their autumn festival, they are adored by successful candidates in competitive examination; and, especially and appropriately, the prostration of bride and bridegroom before the father and mother of all things, the 'worshipping of Heaven and Earth,' is the all-important ceremony of a Chinese marriage.

The Vedic hymns commemorate the goddess Prithivî, the broad Earth, and in their ancient strophes the modern Brahmans still pray for benefits to mother Earth and father Heaven, side by side: —