Sun

The produce from public lands was split between the king and the priests of the Sun.

The priests of the Sun used their share to support the temples, provide free education, care for the sick, and maintain the elderly.

The Peruvian religion was centered around the worship of the Sun, viewed as the source of all life and power.

Their rituals and beliefs emphasized joy and gratitude, with death seen as a transition to a closer communion with the Sun Spirit.

The produce from public land was split between the king and the priests of the Sun.

The priests of the Sun provided for all sick individuals, who became 'guests of the Sun' and received free care.

Any one who had so failed would have been regarded as an uncivilised being, unworthy of the high privilege of citizenship in this great Empire of 'The Children of the Sun,' as these early Peruvians called themselves; he would have been looked upon with something of the same horror and pity as was an excommunicated person in mediaeval Europe.

This public land was itself divided into two equal parts (each of which therefore represented a quarter of the whole arable land of the country), one of which was called the land of the King, the other the land of the Sun.

And the law was that the land of the Sun must first be tilled, before any man turned a sod of his own private land ; when that was done, each man was expected to cultivate his own piece of land, and only after all the rest of the work was safely over was he required to do his share towards tilling the land of the King — so that if unexpected bad weather delayed the harvest the loss would fall first upon the King, and except in an exceedingly inclement season could scarcely affect the people's private share ; while that of the Sun would be safeguarded in almost any possible contingency short of absolute failure of the crops.

Until the lands of the Sun were fully watered, no drop of the precious fluid was directed elsewhere; until every man's private field had all that it needed, there was no water for the lands of the King.

Thus it will be seen that a quarter of the entire wealth of the country went directly into the hands of the King; for in the case of money derived from manufactures or mining industries the division was stil) tlio same — first one-fourth to the Sun, then onehalt7 to the worker, and then the remaining fourth to the King.

It will be better not to pause now to describe the special work of the army, but rather to fill in the remainder of our rough outline of the polity of this ancient State by indicating the place held in it by the great Guild of the Priests of the Sun, so far as the civil side of the work of that priesthood is concerned.

First, they kept up the splendid temples of the Sun all over the land — kept them up on such a scale that many a small village shrine had golden ornaments and decorations that would now represent many thousands of pounds, while the great cathedrals of the larger cities blazed with a magnificence which hap never since been approached anywhere upon earth.

It is not meant that they were merely the physicians of the period (though that they were also), but that the moment a man, woiLan or child fell ill in any way, he at once came under the charge of the priests, or, as they more gracefully put it, became the 'guest of the Sun'.

The sick person was immediately and entirely absolved from all his duties to the State, and, until his recovery, not only the necessary morlioiTipp, but also his food, were supplied to him free of all charge from the nearest temple of the Sun, while in any serious case he was usually taken to that temple as to a hospital, in order to receive more careful nursing.

If the sick man were the breadwinner of the family, his wife and children also became ' guests of the Sun' until he recovered.

Fourthly — and perhaps this statement will be considered even more astonishing than the last — the entire population over the age of forty-five (except the official class) were also ' guests of the Sun/ It was considered that a man who had worked for twenty-five years from the age of twenty — when he was first expected to begin to take his share of the burdens of the State — had earned rest and comfort for the remainder of his life, whatever that might be.

But in any case he was absolved from all work for the State, and his maintenance was provided by the priesthood of the Sun.

It will now be obvious why the work of the priests was considered the most important, and why, whatever else failed, the contributions to the treasury of the Sun must not fall short, for on them deponded not only the religion of the people, but the education of the young and the care of the sick and the aged.

If we had to classify their faith among those with which we are now acquainted, we should be obliged to call it a kind of Sun-worship, though of course they never thought for a moment of worshipping the physical sun.

They regarded it, however, as something much more than a mere symbol; if we endeavour to express their feeling in Theosophical terminology, we shall perhaps come nearest to it by saying that they looked upon the sun as the physical body of the LOGOS, though that attributes to them a precision of idea which they would probably have considered irreverent.

They would have told an enquirer that they worshipped the Spirit of the Sun, from whom everything came, and to whom everything must re* turn — by no means an unsatisfactory presentment of a mighty truth.

They were quite certain that man was immortal, and they held that his eventual destiny was to go to the Spirit of the Sun perhaps to become one with Him, though this was not clearly defined in their teachings.

Praise was offered daily to the Spirit of the Sun, but never prayer; because they were taught that the Deity knew better than they what was required for their welfare — a doctrine which one would like to see more fully comprehended at the present day.

Fruit and flowers were offered in their temples, not from any idea that the Sun-God desired such service, but simply as a token that they owed all to Him; for one of the most prominent theories of their faith was that all light and life and power came from the Sun — a theory which is fully borne out by the discoveries of modern science.

He spoke to them of their Lord the Sun, calling upon them to remember how everything that they needed for their physical well-being was brought into existence by Him; how without His glorious light and heat the world would be cold and dead, and all life would be impossible ; how to His action was due the growth of the fruits and grains which formed the staple of their food, and even the fresh water, which was the most precious and necessary of all.

Then he explained to them how the wise men of old had taught that behind this action which all could see, there was always another and still grander action which was invisible, but could yet be felt by those whose lives were in harmony with their Lord's; how what the Sun in one aspect did for the life of their bodies, that same office He also performed, in another and even more wonderful aspect, for the life of their souls.

He pointed out that both these actions were absolutely continuous — that though sometimes the Sun was hidden from the sight of His child the earth, yet the cause of such temporary obscuration was to be found in the earth and not in the Sun, for one had only to climb far enough up the mountains in order to rise above the overshadowing clouds, and discover that their Lord was shining on in glory all the time, entirely unaffected by the veil which seemed so dense when seen from below.

The full benefit of the Sun's action, continued the priest, could be experienced only by those who were themselves in perfect health.

Now the sign of perfect health on all levels was that men should resemble their Lord the Sun.

The man who was in the enjoyment of full physical health was himself a kind of minor sun, pouring out strength and life upon all around, so that by his very presence the weak became stronger, the sick and the suffering were helped.

In exactly the same way, he insisted, the man who was in perfect moral health was also a spiritual sun, radiating love and purity and holiness on all who were happy enough to come into contact with him.

And both these objects together could be attained in one way, and in one way only — by that constant imitation of the benevolence of the Spirit of the Sun, which alone drew His children ever nearer and nearer to Him.

It will be remembered that, besides what we may call their purely religious work, the priests of the Sun had entire charge of the education of the country.

Every child, for example, was taught how to prepare and cook certain simple kinds of food, how to distinguish poisonous fruits from wholesome ones, how to find food and shelter if lost in the forest, how to use the simpler tools required in carpentering, in building, or in agriculture, how to make his way from place to place by the positions of the sun and stars, how to manage a canoe, as well as to.

They understood that the planets differed from the rest of the stars, and spoke of them as the sisters of the earth — for they recognised that the earth was one of them — or sometimes 'the elder children of the Sun.

' They knew that the earth was globular in shape, that day and night were due to its rotation on its axis, and the seasons to its annual revolution round the sun.

They were aware also that the fixed stars were outside the solar system, and they regarded comets as messengers from these other great Beings to their Lord, the Sun; but it is doubtful whether they had anything like an adequate conception of the real size of any of the bodies involved.

They were able to predict eclipses both of the sun and moon with perfect accuracy, but this was not done by observation, but by use of a traditional formula; they understood their nature, and do not seem to have attached much importance to them.