The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV | Page 6

descent into the lower world; and as no image of
Proserpine appears to have been thrown in, we may infer that the
descent of the pigs was not so much an accompaniment of her descent

as the descent itself, in short, that the pigs were Proserpine. Afterwards,
when Proserpine or Demeter (for the two are equivalent) became
anthropomorphic, a reason had to be found for the custom of throwing
pigs into caverns at her festival; and this was done by saying that when
Pluto carried off Proserpine, there happened to be some swine browsing
near, which were swallowed up along with her. The story is obviously a
forced and awkward attempt to bridge over the gulf between the old
conception of the corn-spirit as a pig and the new conception of her as
an anthropomorphic goddess. A trace of the older conception survived
in the legend that when the sad mother was searching for traces of the
vanished Proserpine, the footprints of the lost one were obliterated by
the footprints of a pig; originally, we may conjecture, the footprints of
the pig were the footprints of Proserpine and of Demeter herself. A
consciousness of the intimate connection of the pig with the corn lurks
in the legend that the swineherd Eubuleus was a brother of Triptolemus,
to whom Demeter first imparted the secret of the corn. Indeed,
according to one version of the story, Eubuleus himself received,
jointly with his brother Triptolemus, the gift of the corn from Demeter
as a reward for revealing to her the fate of Proserpine. Further, it is to
be noted that at the Thesmophoria the women appear to have eaten
swine's flesh. The meal, if I am right, must have been a solemn
sacrament or communion, the worshippers partaking of the body of the
god."

8. Estimation of the pig in India
We thus see how the pig in ancient Greece was worshipped as a
corn-deity because it damaged the crops and subsequently became an
anthropomorphic goddess. It is suggested that pigs are offered to
Bhainsasur by the Hindus for the same reason. But there is no Hindu
deity representing the pig, this animal on the contrary being regarded as
impure. It seems doubtful, however, whether this was always so. In
Rajputana on the stone which the Regent of Kotah set up to
commemorate the abolition of forced taxes were carved the effigies of
the sun, the moon, the cow and the hog, with an imprecation on
whoever should revoke the edict. [8] Colonel Tod says that the pig was

included as being execrated by all classes, but this seems very doubtful.
It would scarcely occur to any Hindu nowadays to associate the image
of the impure pig with those of the sun, moon and cow, the
representations of three of his greatest deities. Rather it gives some
reason for supposing that the pig was once worshipped, and the Rajputs
still do not hold the wild boar impure, as they hunt it and eat its flesh.
Moreover, Vishnu in his fourth incarnation was a boar. The Gonds
regularly offer pigs to their great god Bura Deo, and though they now
offer goats as well, this seems to be a later innovation. The principal
sacrifice of the early Romans was the Suovetaurilia or the sacrifice of a
pig, a ram and a bull. The order of the words, M. Reinach remarks, [9]
is significant as showing the importance formerly attached to the pig or
boar. Since the pig was the principal sacrificial animal of the primitive
tribes, the Gonds and Baigas, its connection with the ritual of an alien
and at one time hostile religion may have strengthened the feeling of
aversion for it among the Hindus, which would naturally be engendered
by its own dirty habits.

9. The buffalo as a corn-god
It seems possible then that the Hindus reverenced the wild boar in the
past as one of the strongest and fiercest animals of the forest and also as
a destroyer of the crops. And they still make sacrifices of the pig to
guard their fields from his ravages. These sacrifices, however, are not
offered to any deity who can represent a deified pig but to Bhainsasur,
the deified buffalo. The explanation seems to be that in former times,
when forests extended over most of the country, the cultivator had in
the wild buffalo a direr foe than the wild pig. And one can well
understand how the peasant, winning a scanty subsistence from his
poor fields near the forest, and seeing his harvest destroyed in a night
by the trampling of a herd of these great brutes against whom his puny
weapons were powerless, looked on them as terrible and malignant
deities. The sacrifice of a buffalo would be beyond the means