man. The bridegroom prays to Agni and Gandharva to cede the bride to him, and afterwards declares that Agni has given up his right of possession. These singular expressions are explained by Gobhilaputra, the author of the Grihyasamgraha, Samvarta, and Atri as allegorical. The girl is said to fall into the power of Soma when inguen pube contegitur, into the power of Gandharva when mammae ejus intumescunt, and into that of Agni when she has her (
Greek characters).
This explanation, which is confirmed by modern researches on Vedic mythology, proves beyond doubt that, at least when these mantras were composed and introduced into the Bráhmanic liturgy, every bride must have attained puberty. Hence it is evident that in the Vedic age, and perhaps even later, the custom of early marriages was unknown[1]. Dr. Bühler concluded his paper by pointing out that according to the best authorities on Smârta subjects, a law given by Smârta writers which is contrary to the words of the Veda Çruti, is not absolutely binding, and that either the Smṛti or Çruti rule may be followed.
III.—The unprimitiveness of the Hindu veneration of Cows.
WE take the following passages from the second volume M. Pictet's Origines Indo-Européennes. Paris 1863, pp. 45, 46, 62. In Sanskrit the guest is called goghna 'he who kills the ox or cow,' or according to Páṇini, 'he for whom they kill a cow (yasmai gáṃ ghnanti, Böhtlingk—Roth. II. 794) which answers to the biblical expression 'to kill the fatted calf.' It is doubtless to this usage that allusion is made in a passage of the Rigveda (I. 31. 15) Svâdukshadmâ yô vasatau syonak ṛjjîvayâjram yajate sopamâ divaḥ, i.e., according to Rosen, Dulci cibo instructus, qui domi (hospitibus) oblectamenta parans, vivam hostiam mactat, is est similis coelo. It is evident that this custom could only have prevailed in India in the most remote periods, and that the cow
- ↑ This note (the greater part of which is taken from the Bombay Saturday Review) only shows that the marriage of girls before puberty has not the sanction of antiquity. As to the male sex consider the following passage from H. H. Wilson's Essays II, 58, 59. "The Vedas then did not sanction the marriage of children. In fact, it was impossible for a man to marry before maturity, as nine years are specified as the shortest term of his studentship, until the expiration of which he was not allowed to marry. He did not enter his studentship till he was seven or eight:, and therefore at the earliest, he could not have been married before seventeen; an early age enough, in our estimation, but absolute manhood, as compared with the age of nine or ten, at which Hindu boys are, according to the present practice, husbands."—Ed.
