Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/136

124 M Y S M Y S the wodeyar ("lord ") of Mysore, who in 1610 seized the fort of Seringapatam, and so laid the foundation of the present state, His fourth successor, Chikka Deva Raj, during a reign of thirty- four years, made his kingdom one of the most powerful in southern India. In the 18th century the famous Haidar All usurped the throne, and by his military prowess made himself one of the most powerful princes of India. His dynasty, however, was as brief as it was brilliant, and ended with the defeat and death of his son Tipu at Seringapatam in 1799. A representative of the ancient Hindu line was then replaced on the throne. Owing to his career of misgovernment, the British administration assumed the authority in his name in 1831. He died in 1868, leaving an adopted son, Chikka Krishna Arasu, a minor, during whose pupilage and train ing the state management was conducted by British officers. The full sovereignty of the state was handed over to him in March 1881. MYSORE, the ancient capital of the above state, is situated 10 miles south-west of Seringapatam, in 12 18 X. lat. and 76 41 E. long., with a population of 60,292 in 1881. The town, Avhich is spread over an area of about 3 square miles, lies at the foot of the Chamundi hill, in a valley formed by two parallel ridges running north and south. The streets generally are broad and regular, except in the fort. The majority of the houses are tiled, and some of them are substantial buildings two or three stories high. Altogether, the town has a clean and prosperous look, and its sanitary condition has been greatly improved of late years. The fort stands in the south of the town, forming a quarter by itself ; the ground- plan is quadrangular, each of the sides being about 450 yards long. In the interior is the palace of the maharajd, built in an extravagant style of Hindu architecture, and adorned inside with a few paintings by a European artist, the principal object of interest being the throne, which is said to have been presented to Chikka Deva Raj by the emperor Aurangzeb. A new palace has been erected at Bangalore for the young maharaja. Opposite the western gate of the fort is a lofty and handsome building known as the Mohan Mahal, erected by the late maharaja for the entertainment of the European officers. The houses of the European residents are, for the most part, to the east of the town. The residency was built by Colonel Wilks in the beginning of this century. It has a handsome portico; and a room at the back, added by Sir John Malcolm, is said to be the largest in India. The building now used for the district offices was originally built by Colonel Wellesley (duke of Wellington) for his own occupation. Mysore was the capital of the state up till 1831, when on the British occupation the seat of adminis tration was removed to Bangalore. (w. w. H.) MYSTERIES. This name was applied to certain cere monies in Greek religion which were esteemed peculiarly sacred and might not be freely spoken about. The sub ject is one of great difficulty on account of the absolute silence maintained with regard to it by many writers, and the guarded terms in which the few references to it are couched. The obligation to silence was not felt by the Christian writers, and it is to them that we owe most of our knowledge. Their testimony is of doubtful value, and it has been keenly debated whether any trust can be placed in it ; but it is in such perfect accord with the few refer ences in pagan authors that this scepticism is unjustifiable. The Christian writers on whom we have to depend were arguing against pagan opponents, and their arguments would have lost all force if it had been possible to retort that the descriptions and facts were inaccurate. The Mysteries were the chief stronghold of those pagan con troversialists who maintained that all the truths and the morality advocated by the Christian writers were contained in the Greek religion, and therefore the Christians directed their arguments chiefly against this strongest part of their opponents case. It results from a study of the evidence that, on the whole, they stated the case in favour of the Mysteries with much clearness and fairness, admitting the good points, but directing their polemic against the weak side. Of the many Mysteries which existed in different parts of Greece, the Eleusinian were the most famous, the most widely popular, the most representative in every way. In several parts of Greece e.g., at Phlius there were Mys teries directly adopted from Eleusis ; in other places, such as Lerna, Andania, &c., a genuine old mystic cultus was greatly modified by the same example. 1 The Christian writers therefore direct their polemic mainly against the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the material for study is far less scanty in their case than in any other. The following remarks, accordingly, will be almost entirely confined to them. Any discussion of the subject must be founded on Lobeck s great work Aglaophamus (1829), in which, with equal learning and acuteness, he destroyed once for all the a priori theories current before his time, that the Mysteries enshrined a primitive revelation of divine truth made to mankind, or contained a philosophic doctrine borrowed by the Greeks from the wisdom of the East and handed down unmodified from generation to generation. 2 As a con structive work, Lobeck s treatise is not so perfect. What we are in search of is not so much the objective facts of the Mysteries as the place which they held in the Greek mind. The effect of a religious institution like the Mys teries depends chiefly on subjective considerations ; actions and rites in themselves quite commonplace may bear to the eye of faith the most sacred and impressive character. This point of view is not taken into account by Lobeck. Again, the polemical character detracts from the value of his work as a final statement of the question ; he is some times satisfied with proving that ancient evidence does not bear out the theories which he combats, but he does not estimate duly its actual worth. Finally, additional evi dence has been accumulated since his time ; inscriptions and works of art have afforded important corroborative evidence, and it is certain that statements which Lobeck set aside as not referring to the Eleusinian religion do really relate to it. 3 There is no ancient authority to show that the ritual of the Mysteries differed essentially from that of the general religion of Greece. All ancient testimony tends to prove that the ritual was based on religious myths, similar to those which were common in Greece, and that the difference between mystic and exoteric rites lay chiefly in the accompaniments. Athenseus 4 says that the Mysteries were distinguished from the ordinary festivals by their peculiar magnificence and expense, and by the "mystic paradosis " which took place at them, i.e., certain sacred things were exposed in a peculiarly impressive manner to the worship of the participants. Their magni ficence must have been very great. Painting, sculpture, 1 The contrast between the account given by Pausauias of the Mysteries of Andania in the 2d century after Christ and the account given in the great inscription 91 B.C. shows how the example of Eleusis had worked in the interval. 2 The chief older theories of the Mysteries were those of Warburton, St Croix, and Creuzer. 3 The principal special authorities on the Mysteries si-ice Lobeck are : Sauppe, Mysterieninschr. von Andania ; Foucart s commentary on this inscription in Le Bas, Voyage Archeol. (1847-77), Inscr. de la Peloponn.; Foucart, " Inscr. d Eleus. " in Butt. Corr. Hell, 1880 ; id., Associations Relig. chez les Gre.cs ; C. Lenormant in Mem. de VAcad. d Inscr. et de Belles Lettres, xxiv. 343 ; Guignaut, " Myst. de Cer. et de Pros.," ibid., xxi. 68 ; K. 0. M tiller in Ersch and Gruber s Ally. Encyk., art. "Eleusinia ;" id. in Orchomenos, p. 453 ; Preller in Pauli s Realencyklop. , arts. "Eleusinia," "Mysteria," " Orpheus," the best statement of the subject ; id. , Demet. und Perseph. ; Gerhard, Oriech. Mysterienbilder ; id., Ueber d. Bilderkreis von El. (1863-65) ; Stephani in Compte Rendu, St Petersb., 1859 ; Millingen in Annali Inst. Arch., vol. xv. ; A. Mommsen, Heortologie (1864) ; F. Lenormant, Rech. Archeol. d El.; id., La Voie Sacree Eleus. ; id., "Eleus. Myst." in Nineteenth Century, 1881, May, July, September. 4 Athen., ii. p. 40 D.