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Rama: Yataha Soumitrihi |
Shramanaaha: Anugrihitasmi |
14 Worship of Zeus Katharsios: “The usual placular victim was a young pig,
which was held over the head of the guilty, as we see Apollo holding it over Orestes
in a vase painting that represents his purification. And the blood of the slaughtered
animal was then poured over his hands, with invocation to Zeus Katharsios.
In some accounts bathing in water of a river or the sea appears to have been a
necessary part of the ceremony"
(Farnell, L. R., Cults of the Greek States, Vol. 1, Oxford, 1896, p. 69).
15 Oath Personified: “The strength of this belief in the religious character of
the oath is shown by passages in Homer which speak of the punishment of
oath-breaker after death, and by the lines of Hesiod's 'Theogony' where the oath is
already personified as a child of the lower world, born to be 'the scourge of men':
while in Sophocles he is spoken of as all-seeing child of Zeus. Farnell, p. 70.
16 Of the horrible curses in Greek drama some glaring examples are: Tirestas's
curse upon Oedipos; Theseus's upon his son Hippolytos; Polymestor's upon
Hekabe that she shall drown in the sea and become a dog before she submerges
and so shall Kassandra and Agemmemnon be killed.
17 Also in Satapatha Brahmana: “In the beginning it was all water. They the
waters wished to be reproduced. They fermented and got heated with devotion. At
this point a golden egg came into being which floated on waters for a whole year.
In a year's time a man, a Prajapati, was produced therefrom. He broke open this
golden egg" (XI.1.6.1).
18 Graves, Vol. I, p. 18.
19 Graves, Vol. I, p. 30.
20 Says J. Filliozat, “That is why there are between Indian and Greek medicines
so very particular and precise similarities which are not easy to ascribe to change".
The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine, Pondicherry, 1949, Chap. X.
Ayurveda, which can be traced back to as early as Atharva Samhita, recognizes
air, fire and water as three elements that make up the human body (vata, pitta
and kapha). The Greek medicine followed the same and recognized three as the
elements of body. This is evident from the Hippocratic manuals and the great similarities
are given in detail by Filliozat. The Greek medicine taken up by Arabs was
got into India where it still survives as a sister system to Ayurveda and is known as
Unani (Greek) medicine.
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