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Religious Conceptions and Feeling 193

profound information concerning the riddle of r-mistence.ll

Now I shall not claim that this important concept was nnmixedly mean and unspiritual. Indeed we have seen that it is not wholly so. This much, how- ever, is clear that the anxious mind of the ritual is almost entirely fastened upon Faith as the promoter of the sacrifice and its attendant gifts to the Brah- mans. In the end ogroddks, “ devoid of faith," is the typical epithet of the demons of avarice, the Panis, who withhold the cows from the gods and the Brahmans. One or two writers have the hardihood to put up a chain of four links: Faith, Consecration, Sacriﬁce, Baksheesh.“ Since consecration (dies/2d) in this connection means really nothing but ancient hocns—pocns preliminary to the sacriﬁce, where, we may ask, is there a franker avowal of shady motives that ordinarily present themselves elsewhere with a thick coat of whitewash?

But what is there in it for the sacriﬁcer, we may ask? It is all very well for him to silence those ran- cons voices of demand, and keep giving-“for a while. He must in the long run get something in return, or he will balk. Our texts, explicit if nothing else, leave no doubt in our minds as to the way in which

1 See the ﬁrst book of the Katha Upsnishad. 5‘ Atharva-Veda I 5. If). 4.1V. ; Gopatha Brahmana I. 1.39.

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