Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/77

 THE ANAL-EROTIC FACTOR IN HINDU RELIGION 331

jangud, a village situated about ten leagues south of Seringapatam, there is a temple famous throughout Mysore. Among the numerous votaries who flock to it are many women, who go to implore the help of the idol in curing their sterility. Offerings and prayers are not the only ceremonies which have to be gone through. On leaving the temple the woman, accompanied by her husband has to go to a place where all the pilgrims are accustomed to resort to answer the calls of nature. There the husband and the wife collect with their hands a certain quantity of ordure and form it into a small pyramid, which they are careful to mark with a sign that will enable them to recognize it. Then they go to the neigh- bouring tank and mix in the hollow of their hands the filth which has soiled their fingers. After having performed their ablutions they retire. Two or three days afterwards they visit their pyramid, and, still using their hands, turn the filtliy mass over and over and examine it as carefully and as seriously as the Roman augurs scrutinized the entrails of sacrificed animals, in order to see if any insects have been engendered in it. In this case it would be a very good omen, showing that the woman would soon be pregnant. But if, after careful search, not even the smallest insect is visible, the poor couple, sad and discouraged, return home in the full con- viction that the expenses they have been put to and the pains they have taken have been of no availA

The chief reaction-formation of the retaining tendency is the trait which loves orderliness, the third of Freud's triad. How this trait expresses itself to an extraordinary degree in the pedantic ceremonial of Hindu worship has already been alluded to. Simil- arly in the field oi thought reference has been made (p. 313) to the expression of the same tendency through the Hindu passion for definitions, especially in the realm of metaphysics. Probably the intense attraction which the study and practice of law has for Hindus is conditioned by their fondness for that particular form of intellectual exercise which is often termed 'hair-splitting'. In this same category we find the opposite of parsimony — extreme generosity and extravagance. The history of India teems with stories illustrating the extravagance of her princes, nobles and plutocrats. Dubois ^ states that immense fortunes! seldom sur- vive the second generation of Hindus, owing to the manner in

• Dubois and Beauchamp: op. cit. ' Dubois and Beauchamp: op. cit.