Volume 1

Faiths of man : a cyclopædia of religions / by Major-General J. G. R. Forlong.

  • Forlong, James George Roche, -1904.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Faiths of man : a cyclopædia of religions / by Major-General J. G. R. Forlong. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    real ethical system. The accusations brought against them by Christians, and Moslems, are as incapable of proof as those once levelled against Gnostics, and Templars, and others who in various ages have secretly renounced accepted creeds.—Ed.] Dudaim. Hebrew : “ love apples.” The Antropa Mandragora or Mandrake (see Gen. xxx, 14-16). The Rabbis say it was like a banana (see Song Sol. vii. 13). The Greeks said that the Mandragora was a “ wolf, a dweller in dark or secret places.” In the middle ages also it was a magic plant, torn up by tying a dog’s tail to it, when it shrieked, and sometimes caused the death of the dog. According to Lejard (Culte de Venus) it was used in the licentious rites of the Dea Syria, as an aphrodisiak. It belongs to the potato family of plants, like the deadly nightshade. Duhitar. See Daughter. Duma. Aramaik : “ silence.” The winged angel of death. In the Babylonian legend of the descent of Istar into Hades, Duma is also the guardian of the 14th gate. Dumzi. Akkadian : “ child spirit; ” the infant sun. See Tammuz. Durga. The fierce Sakti, or female power, of Siva: otherwise Kali, “ death,” “ fate,” or “ time.” [In Akkadian also durga is “ fixed,” “fate” (Turkish tur “ remain ”), and gal is “ to die ” (Turkish khal, Finnic kuol, “ die ”). This godess is thus probably Turanian.—Ed.] Durga is usually explained to mean “vibrating” or “brandishing.” The Durga-puja, or “ worship of Durga,” is very ancient; and, till quite recently, the rites included many tortures—men mangling their bodies, swinging from hooks passed through their backs, or arms, and otherwise symbolising the human sacrifices of pre-Aryan times. Durga is the Aryan Bhavdni (“living”), or Bhairavi (“terrible”); and her bloody rites survive, when British authority is lax, in both spring and autumn (see Sakta and Tantra), especially among sects in hill districts and remote coast regions about Larike. At oidinaiy fetes Durga is a rude figure of “ Plenty,” sometimes with an accom- panying figure of a phallik god, which renders it necessary to send notice to villagers at Durga and Holi festivities, if European ladies are likely to be present, when the gaily adorned pole is removed from the figure. Durga is depicted as a full-breasted female (see Rivers of Life, i, p. 251, fig. 119), clothed in yellow, and riding the tiger: often on the banks of a canal, whence “ Plenty ” comes. She holds in