Читать книгу Folklore of Wells: Being a Study of Water-Worship in East and West онлайн

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It was natural that my interest in the subject should grow as I proceeded. What struck me most during my studies and inquiries was the striking resemblance in the traditions, customs, rites and ceremonies prevailing in India and those in vogue in European countries. It was clear, moreover, that until recently the cult of water flourished in the West in a more primitive and much ruder form than in India. I was, therefore, tempted to read before the Society a second paper on the subject and this was followed by another on the rituals of water-worship and the sundry offerings to water-spirits in East and West.

It was impossible to bring within the range of these papers all the materials I had collected. As the series was primarily intended to expound the lore of wells only, a good deal remained unsaid concerning the divine seas and springs and tanks and cataracts. I, therefore, thought of completing the series and publishing a volume embodying the varied water-cults, localising and classifying them, and tracing, as far as possible, their genealogy with a view to elucidating the early life of the people who lived in the different localities from time to time and their relationship with the ancestors of the long-forgotten races of other climes in which such ideas and customs also prevailed. It was a very ambitious project, but I was tempted to set about it as in the bibliography of anthropological literature I could not find a single volume specially devoted to the subject. I was, however, unable to make much progress for some months owing to other engagements.