ELEPHANT, WHITE. One of the seven royal treasures which the ideal king, the king of kings, of the Buddhists (or rather of the pre-Buddhists), is supposed to It is able to carry its master across the earth and to bring him back in time for the morning meal. Rhys Davids connects it with the mythical elephant Airiivata ("the Fertilizer "), " on which the sun-god Indra rides, the personification of the great, white, fertilizing rain-cloud, so rapid in its passage before the winds of the monsoon over the vault of heaven." See T. W. Rhys Davids.
ELEUSINIAlsT MYSTERIES. Greek initiation cere monies, so called because according to legend they were first performed at Eleusis in Attica. L. R. Farrell (Greek Rel.) thinks that their expansion must have taken place before the composition of the Homeric hymn to Demeter, in whose honour they were celebrated, that is to say, not later than GOO B.C. In the mysteries the catechumens sought to enter into intimate personal rela tions with the Mother and the Maid. " An elaborate ritual of purification was prescribed whereby the candi date was spiritually prepared for this communion. And it has been supposed that the means of grace included a form of sacrament, the drinking of the sacred cup into which the personality of the goddess might be infused by transubstantiation; but the evidence does not allow us to interpret this part of the ritual with cer tainty. What is clear is that the fully initiated were
privileged to see holy and mystic things, and that the revelation of these established between the individual and the great goddesses of life and death a close and personal tie, whereby his happiness after death was assured. By the time when these great mysteries of Eleusis became pan-Hellenic, this was probably their sole appeal to the peoples outside Attica—namely, their pro mise of posthumous salvation: and the craving for this grew ever stronger in the Hellenic world from the sixth century till the end of paganism." After the candidate had fasted and bathed in the sea with a young pig which was to be sacrificed, he entered the sacred place and drank of the sacred cup. " For a time his head and shoulders were covered by a cloth, so that he could not see what was happening about him " (Donald A. Mac kenzie, Crete). Prof. G. Elliot Smith (Dr.) thinks the pig was bathed in the sea because it was "a surrogate of the cowry, which lived in the sea, and of the Great Mother, who was sprung from the cowry and hence born of the sea."