[137] _Omens and Superstitions of Southern India_, by Edgar Thurston, p. 799 _et seq._, 1912.
From the practice of sacrificing human beings arose the conception that the first act of Creation was, if not human sacrifice, at least the sacrifice of the first being with human attributes. The Universe is the giant Purusha (“man”); he is “all that hath been and shall be”. In a Rigvedic hymn, which is regarded as being of later composition than the Rigvedic period, it is set forth:
“When the gods performed a sacrifice with Purusha as the oblation, the Spring was its butter, the Summer its fuel, and the Autumn its (accompanying) offering. This victim, Purusha, born in the beginning, they immolated on the sacrificial grass.”
From this universal sacrifice issued forth all that exists. The Brahman rose from Purusha's mouth, the Rajanya (Kshatriya) from his arms, the Vaisya from his thighs, and the Sudra sprang from his feet. Indra and Agni came from his mouth, and Vayu from his breath.
“When the gods, performing sacrifice, bound Purusha as a victim, there were seven sticks (stuck up) for it (around the fire).... With sacrifice the gods performed the sacrifice. These were the earliest rites.”[138]
[138] Muir's _Original Sanskrit Texts_, vol. i, pp. 9-10.
“From his (Purusha's) navel arose the air, from his head the sky, from his ears the four quarters; in this manner (the gods) formed the worlds.” This conception resembles closely the story in Teutonic mythology of the cutting up by the gods of the body of the chaos giant Ymer; his skull became the sky, his bones the rocks, his blood the sea, and so on. One of the Chinese P'an Ku[139] myths is of similar character; the world is composed of different parts of his body. The Babylonian Merodach also divided the body of the chaos demon, Tiawath or Tiamat; her head became the sky, her body the earth, and her blood the rivers which fill the sea. Purusha, the chaos giant of India, had “a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet”; the earth was equal to the space covered by ten of his fingers; he was “the whole universe”.
[139] P'an Ku in his giant form. Like the Egyptian Ptah, he is now a dwarf and anon a giant.
The horse sacrifice was also infused, like the human sacrifice, with symbolic significance. It was probably practised in the early Iranian period by the Aryan horse tamers, who may have substituted man's fleet-footed friend for human beings. The Mongolian Buriats in the vicinity of Lake Baikal, Siberia, are the latest surviving sacrificers of the domesticated animal. Their horse sacrifice (Tailgan) was held on 2 August on a sacred hill inhabited by their gods, the Burkans, “the masters”. The horse was bound, thrown upon its back and held tightly by ropes, while the officiating person cut open its breast and pulled out the pulsating heart like the sacrificers of human beings in Ancient Mexico. The animal's bones were burned on the altars, and the flesh was cooked and devoured by the worshippers. Portions of the flesh, and some of the broth prepared, were given to the flames, which also received libations of the liquor called _tarasun_, distilled from sour milk. _Tarasun_ was the Soma of the Buriats, and their fire spirit was, like the Indian Agni, a ready drinker of it. Bits of food were also flung to aerial spirits, while oblations were poured on the hill, the belief prevailing that these offerings multiplied sufficiently to permit of the gods feeding sumptuously. As each of the worshippers of the spirits of nature accepted a portion of sacrificial food, a prayer was chanted, entreating the gods to cause increase of all things.