Note 34 — V THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH. THE BAPTISM

Thus in ancient India the holy fire was kindled anew each morning, and honoured with ritualistic observances (Agnihotra). This took place, however, with special ceremony at the time of the winter solstice, when the days began again to increase (Agnistoma). They then celebrated the end of the time “of darkness,” the Pitryana, or time of the Manes, during which the worship of the Gods had been at a standstill. Then the Angiras, the priestly singers, summoned the Gods to be present, greeting with loud song the beginning of the “holy” season, the Devayana, with which the new light arose. Agni and the other Gods again returned to men, and the priests announced to the people the “joyful tidings” (Evangelium) that the Light God had been born again. As Hillebrand has shown, this festival also indicates the memory of an earlier home in the North whence the Aryan tribes had migrated, since in India, where the shortest and longest days only differ by about four hours, no reason exists for celebrating the “return” of the light.34 Indeed, it appears that we have to do here with a rite which reaches back into the very origins of all human civilisation, and preserves the memory of the discovery of fire in the midst of the horrors of the Stone Age.