ABLUTIONS. Bathing the whole or parts of the body. as a religious practice, has been widely practised. It is well known that man in a primitive state regards rivers, springs, and wells as being often the abodes of deities. Water seemed to be a holy element. To bathe oneself in it meant to impart to oneself something of its divine life and power. This seems to have been the original idea in religious bathing. In course of time, however, the idea of purification came to prevail, and the washing away of external impurities became symbolical of the cleansing of the heart. Sin is, perhaps. regarded too as a real contagion, a disease, a kind of substance which may be washed away by bathing. The Incas of ancient Peru, after confessing their guilt. bathed in a river. It is a Vedic belief that sin may be removed by invoking the gods of water. The water-gods Varuna and Trite have power to wash it away. The later Brahmans regarded water as the " essence (sap) of immortality," and in modern India the waters of the Ganges have power, it is thought, to cleanse the blackest sinner. The Hindus shave their heads, and plunge into sacred streams. The Hebrews used consecrated water for the cleansing of impurities, and the modern Jews in Morocco preserve a reminiscence of the practice by throwing stones into the sea on New Year's Day. The Moors think that misfortune can be removed by ablutions. Ablutions are also practised to purify persons before they perform a sacred rite or come into contact with holy things (sacrifices, etc.). The Lapp wizard washes his body before sacrificing, as did also the ancient Egyptians, the Shinto priests of Japan, the ancient Greeks and Romans. Zoroastrianism regards impurity as a physical evil to be removed as quickly as possible. Brahmans and Hindus make daily bathing an important part of their religions exercises. In Lamaism the tips of the fingers are dipped
in water before sacrifice. Jewish Rabbis wash the hands before praying. Mohammedans are commanded in the Koran to wash their faces and their hands up to the elbows, and to wipe their heads and their feet to the ankles, when they prepare for prayer (Sur. V., 8). Before reciting the liturgical form of prayer, therefore, they perform an elaborate ablution in which the acts are repeated three times. Where water is scarce, dust or sand serves as a substitute. In all such cases the idea is that any impurity might hurt the holiness of the deity and bring curses instead of blessings. Persons have been accustomed to bathe also after coming in contact with a corpse. The ablution removes the contagion of death. Sexual intercourse, again, has often (e.g. among the Babylonians, Hebrews, Arabs, Greeks) been regarded as defiling, and the defilement has been removed by bathing. Ablutions are necessary, again, after touching anything unclean (e.g. an unclean animal). Hindus and Brahmans live in constant fear of this defilement. The Hebrews dared not touch the dead carcase of a dog. If a living dog touches a Brahman, he plunges at once into water with his clothes on. It should be added that in ancient times ablutions have formed part of marriage cere monials. Even deities, when they were united, bathed or were bathed. Thus the figure of Attis was bathed to represent her union with Cybele. Aphrodite bathed after her union with Adonis, and Hera after her marriage with Zeus. See E. Westermarek; J. G. Frazer, G.B.; Adonis Attis Osiris. 1906; W. R. Smith. H.S., 1894: Monier Williams, Brahmanism; J. A. Dubois and H. K. Beau champ, Hindu Manners. etc.