on one foot only, and to note how the two
distinct ideas of central stability and rotation influenced the making of
pagan divinities. The idea of stability was perpetuated in the house-pole
which sustained Aman, the roof of primitive dwellings in the column an,
which supported the temple roof and in time was transformed into a hermes,
or, in Egypt, into a statue of Amen-ra, and in the mythical mountain of
the North, Sama, which supported the heaven (Sama). Dhruva's turning round
on one foot, which implies the use of the other, reappears in the
Hephaistos of Greek mythology, who was, as Hewitt tells us (p. 504), "the
fire-drill and its driver, and was called Amphi-Gueeis, or he who halts on
both legs, ... was cast from heaven by Zeus, and was the husband of the
fire-socket, the first form of the Greek goddess Aphrodite."

For information regarding the cult of the fire-socket, the construction of
the Hindu fire-altars in the form of a woman, representing "mother-earth"
or "the primaeval mother," Aditi, I refer the reader to Hewitt's work, and
also to p. 323 of the present publication, where the description of the
Jiddah sanctuary proves the existence of the same ancient form of cult in
Arabia. Hewitt relates on page 170 that, on the fire-altar, the central
fire called Agni jatavedas is kindled when the officiating priest
addresses in the words of Rig-Veda III, 29, 4: "We place thee, O
Jatavedas, in the place of Ida (the mountain daughter of Manu) in the
navel (nabha) of the altar, to carry our offerings." In Rig-Veda, X, 61,
we are also told how Nabha-Nedishtha (that which is nearest to the navel)
was born from the union of celestial lightning flash with the earth, and
how, on his birth, he claimed to be the supreme god, saying: "This, our
navel, is the highest. I am his son.... I am the twice-born son of the law
(of nature)...." Hewitt (p. 171) regards, moreover, the image of the
goddess of the earth altar found by Schliemann in the second city from the
bottom of the six cities, built one over another on the site of Troy, a
counterpart of the Hindu fire-altar. It is significant that the Trojan
image exhibits a triangle surrounded by seven disks, and containing the
swastika, which Hewitt designates as "the holy fire, the sun of the
revolving year," a view curiously, though indistinctly, analogous and
parallel to that I have formulated in the present research.

"In the Brahmanas the Try-Ambika offering, a very ancient form