ancestor will bring thee, O Prince, much good!' — 'Ancestors and fathers will abandon you and give you up, and come not to help, and ye will die.' If no help comes in time of need, the Chinese will reproach his ancestor, or even come to doubt his existence. Thus in a Chinese ode the sufferers in a dreadful drought cry, 'Heu-tsi cannot or will not help. ... Our ancestors have surely perished. ... Father, mother, ancestors, how could you calmly bear this?' Nor does manes-worship stop short with direct family ties; it is naturally developed to produce, by deification of the heroic dead, a series of superior gods to whom worship is given by the public at large. Thus, according to legend, the War-god or Military Sage was once in human life a distinguished soldier, the Mechanics' god was a skilful workman and inventor of tools, the Swine-god was a hog-breeder who lost his pigs and died of sorrow, and the Gamblers' god, a desperate gamester who lost his all and died of want, is represented by a hideous image called a 'devil gambling for cash,' and in this shape receives the prayers and offerings of confirmed gamblers, his votaries. The spirits of San-kea Ta-te, and Chang-yuen-sze go to partake of the offerings set out in their temples, returning flushed and florid from their meal; and the spirit of Confucius is present in the temple, where twice a year the Emperor does sacrifice to him.[1]
The Hindu unites in some degree with the Chinese as to ancestor-worship, and especially as to the necessity of having a son by blood or adoption, who shall offer the proper sacrifices to him after death. 'May there be born in our lineage,' the manes are supposed to say, 'a man to offer to us, on the thirteenth day of the moon, rice boiled in milk, honey and ghee.' Offerings made to the divine manes, the 'pitaras' (patres, fathers) as they are called, preceded and followed by offerings to the greater deities, give to the worshipper merit
- ↑ Plath, 'Religion der alten Chinesen,' part i. p. 65, part ii. p. 89; Doolittle, 'Chinese,' vol. i. pp. vi. viii.; vol. ii. p. 373; 'Journ. Ind. Archip.' New Ser. vol. ii. p. 363; Legge, 'Confucius,' p. 92.
