BOOK
doctrine. Nor, indeed, is it supposed that the character of the
' • Hellenic mysteries was less dramatic than those of Egypt or Hindustan.
Every act of the great Eleusinian festival reproduced the incidents of
the myth of Demeter, and the processions of Athene and Dionysos
exhibited precisely the same symbols which marked the worship of
Vishnu and Sacti, of the Egyptian Isis and the Teutonic Hertha.
The substantial identity of the rites justifies the inference of a sub-
stantial identity of doctrines.^ It is no accident which has given to
Iswara Arghanautha, the Hindu Dionysos, an epithet which makes
him the lord of that divine ship which bore the Achaian warriors
from the land of darkness to the land of the morning. The testimony
of Theodoret, Arnobios, and Clement of Alexandria, that an emblem
similar to the Yoni was worshipped in the mysteries of Eleusis needs
no confirmation, when we remember that the same emblem was
openly carried in procession at Athens. The vases in the Hamiltonian
collection at the British I^Iuseum leave us as little in doubt that
the purification of women in the Hellenic mysteries agreed closely
with that of the Sacti in the mysteries of the Hindus. That ornaments
in the shape of a vesica have been popular in all countries as pre-
servatives against dangers, and especially from evil spirits, can as little
be questioned as the fact that they still retain some measure of their
ancient popularity in England, where horse-shoes are nailed to walls as
a safeguard against unknown perils, where a shoe is thrown by way
of good luck after newly married couples, and where the villagers
have not yet ceased to dance round the Maypole on the green.
Real It may be confidently said that the facts now stated furnish a clue tree and °^ which will explain all the phenomena of tree and serpent worship. serpent 'p^e whole question is indeed one of fact, and it is useless to build on worship, ^ hypothesis. If there is any one pomt more certain than another, it is that, wherever tree and serpent worship has been found, the cultus of the Phallos and the Ship, of the Linga and the Yoni, in connexion with the worship of the sun, has been found also. It is impossible to dispute the fact ; and no explanation can be accepted for one part of the cultus which fails to explain the other. It is unnecessary, therefore, to analyse theories which profess to see in it the worship of
• " In den Eleusinischen Mysterien mann also to hph dflnvvcrOai nannte. •wurde ein Phallus entblosst und den Vgl. Lobck. Aglaoph. p. 49." — Nork, Eingeweihten gezeigt (Tert. ad Valent. iv. 53. The form of dismissal at the p. 289): und Uemeter wird dadurch. Eleusinian mysteries, nhy^ ofina^, has dass Baubo ihre Kreh entblosst, zur been identified by some with the Ileiterkeit gestimmt. Clem. Al. Protr. " Cansha Om Pacsha," with which the p. 16; Arnob. adv. Gent. v. p. 218. Brahmans close their religious services. Dies lasst voraussetzen, dassdesgleichen —Nork, i. vii. in den Eleusinien wirklich geschah, was
