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! 267 In ancient Roman religion, we have a parallel of this custom,
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Compitum or crossroads. Here it was customary
to set up a little chapel of the Lares of the cross-
roads, Lares Compitales, open in all four directions
so that the Lar of each farm might have free egress to
742 the common shrine.
:
One notices the stress on the crossroads, perhaps symbolising the
meeting point of life and death. In the nature of the offerings to
Hekate, viz. the sweepings, one notices the similarity with those
offered to Nir峁泃i, the scum, the ill-omented, the refuse --- these
are her portion. In the ritual to Hekate, as in that to the Lares
and Nir峁泃i and also to the fathers, the sacrificer comes away
without looking back a sign of fear and foreboding of evil.
42 16
Nirrti of the Rgveda is identified with Nerthus of North
Germany and Scandinavia. Nirrti appears in the Reve膽a
as a goddess of the dawn and dancing and Unadivrtti
explains the term as Mother Earth. The evidence of
Tacitus also goes to prove that Nerthus, to whom cows
were sacred and in whose honour melee was held yearly,
was identical with the Mother Earth. The sacred dance
is a familiar phenomenon in connection with the cult, and
as Dr. Sten Konow points out, Narthus is probably to be
derived from the root n峁沬t, 'to dance', so is probably
Nritu or Nriti Konow also shows (Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, XXI, No. 7) many features that are
common to Durga-puja and the worship of Nerthus (also
known as Herthe or Hertha).
43 H.J. Rose, Ancient Roman religion, p. 38.
43 S.K. Diksit, op. cit., p. 54.
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