STOXE-WORSII IP. Stones have been objects of worship of all nations, and are largely so by the Hindus, generally smeared with red lead.
Amongst the earliest mention of this form of devotion will be found notices in several parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, under the appellations of images and groves, but these are very obscure. The Phamicians worshipped a deity under the form of an unshaped stone. The Arabs, down to the thne of 3lahomed, worshipped a black stone, which is now let into the wall of the Kaba. There was a sacred stone in Jura, round which the people used to move deasil, i.e. sunwise. In some of the II ebrides the people attributed oracular power to a large black stone.
Haber in his Memoirs, p. 450, describes how, in the battle of Jam, at sunrise, tlie magicians set to work with their magic stone to create confusion amongst the Persians. In spite of three centuries of Muhammadan teaching, the magic stone still keeps up its reputation among the nomades of Central Asia. The sirclar (chief) of a razzia of Turkomans, or the leader of a Kirghiz baranti, to this day carries it carefully with him, and in case of the deadly bite of a viper or a scorpion, its efficiency is valued as highly as that of a fatiha prayer from the Koran.
Stonehenge is a circle of stones in England, of Buddhist architecture, and is ovvn brother to the circle of upright stones at Amravati on the Kistna, and to many others in the south of India. The Stone of Destiny, on which the kings of Ireland were crowned, was afterwards taken to Scone, and thence carried to Westminster, and placed under the old coronation chair, where it still remaius. Seating a king on a stone seems to have prevailed throughout-Europe on inauguration. Monarchs of .Sweden were seated upon a stone placed in the centre of twelve lesser ones, and the kings of Denmark were crowned in a similar kind of circle. The use of the Inaugural Stone is of Canaanitish origin. Ablatetech was niade king by the plain of the pillar of Shechem. Jelloash was anointed as lie stood by the pillar, as the manner was. The Gael used the standing stone, which was tradi tionally considered a supernatural sacred witness of any solemn covenant, and especially of that between an elected king and his people. jack Cade touched London stone, and exclaimed, Now is Mortimer lord of London city!' Amongst the Irish, the inauguration of a ohief was celebrated at a stone vvith the impression of two feet, be lieved to be the size of the feet of the patriarch chieftain who first acquired the territory. Every great tribe had its installation stone and other specialities, such as sacred trees, and rath-hills or entrenched places of meeting, dedicated to the inaugural rite. Herodotus shows that the practice of carving the impression of the feet of mighty heroes on huge stones was older than his time, as he mentions that the Scythians showed the mark of the foot of Hercules upon a rock. Spenser, the poet, writes that some of the stones on which the crief lords or captains of the clan were placed had a foot engraven, which was regarded as the ineasure of their first captain's foot. On inauguration, the new chief stood thereon, and took oath to preserve all the former customs of the country inviolable.
His feet were placed in the impression while the heads of law relating to the clan were read to him.
Stones from the beds of Indian rivers are the usual gramma devata or Village deities of the Hindus, and also of the non-Aryan castes, who are not perniitted to enter the Hindu temples. The salap,Taina, a fossil ammonite from the Gan dak river, is worshipped by all Vaishnava Hindus.
Stone monoliths are erected as memorials by the Kol and Khassya races. In Kanawar villages in the Himalaya, a stone is set up as a pillar in the fields, its centre and top smeared with whitewash, and the top marked with five finger marks of red ochre; on this flowers are offered for the prosperity of the field. In S. India, white lime-washed splinters of stme, tipped with red, are placed under the trees in a garden or field. The Asaga of Mysore worship a god called Bhuma Delta, literally earth-god, who is repre sented by a shapeless stone. The worship of stones is spread over all parts of the district from Berar to the extreme east of Bustar, and that not merely among the Hinduized aborigines, who have begun to honour Kandoba, etc., but among the rudest and most savage tribes. Ile is generally adored in the form of an unshapely stone covered with vermilion. Two rude slave castes in Tulava, in Southern India, the Bakadara and Betadara, worship a benevolent deity named Buta, represented by a stone kept in every house. Indeed, in every part of Southern India, four or five stones may often be seen in the ryot's field, placed in a row and daubed with red paint, which they consider as guardians of the field, and call the five Pandit. Colonel Forbes Leslie supposes that this red paint is intended to represent blood. The god of each Klioncl village is represented by three stones. Aerolites are worshipped by Hindus.
Stones are reverenced by the Karen ; their selection of them is fanciful. At Benkunat in the Lampong country, there is a long stone, standing on a flat One, supposed by the people to possess extraordinary power of virtue. It is reported to have been once thrown down into the water and to have raised itself again into its original position, agitating" the elements at the same time with a prodigious storm. To approach it without respect, they believe to be the source of misfortune to the offender..
The shape of the Polynesian stones, the rever ence paid to them, their decoration, and the results expected from their worship, are quite in accord ance with a widely-spread superstition. Turner had in his possession several smooth stones from the New IIebrides. He says that some of the Poly nesian stone gods were supposed to cause fecundity in pigs. Two large stones, lying at the bottom of a moat, are said to have given birth to Hegel, the supreme god of Fiji. In all instances, an addition to objects already existing was expected from the Fiji monoliths. A stone near Baw existed, which, whenever a lady of rank at the Fiji capital was confined, was fabled also to give birth to a little stone.—Galton's Vacation Tourists, p. 273 ; Vant berg, Bukhara, p. 299 ; Lubbock's Origin of Civil. pp. 207-210, 24-4.