Mist ClX. ed. Gen. ii, 6) signifies a rising vapor, a fog, or cloud, which again distils upon the ground (Job xxxvi, 27). The Chaldee paraphrase renders it X"", tlie cloud.
Mistletoe (Anglo-Sax. misteltan, Ger. 7nistil; the tan of the Anglo-Saxim name means a tine or prong, a shoot of a tree; mist, I is of uncertain etymology, but probably the same, in meaning at least, as the Latin riscus), a genus {]'i<cum) of small parasitical shrubs of the natural order Loranthacece. This order is exoge-
MITAKSHARA
383
MITCHELL
Mistletoe (Viscum album).
nons, and contains more than four hundred Icnown spe- cies, mostly tropical and parasites. The leaves are en- tire, almost nerveless, thick and tleshy, and without stipules. The flowers of many spe- cies are showy. The calyx arises from a tube or rim, which sometimes assumes the appearance of a calyx, and is so re- garded by many bot- anists ; what others deem the coloreil calyx being viewed by them as a corolla of four or eight petals or segments. Within this are the stamens, as numerous as its di- visions, and opposite to them. The ovary is one - celled, with a solitary ovule ; the fruit one-seeded, gen- erally succulent. The stems are dichoto- mous (i. e. divide by forking) ; the leaves are opposite, of a yellowish-green color, obovate-lanceolate, obtuse. The flowers are inconspicuous, and grow in small heads at the ends and in the divisions of the branches, the male and the female flowers on separate plants. The berries are about the size of currants, white, translucent, and full of a very viscid juice, which serves to attach the seeds to branches, where they take root when they germinate, the radicle always turning towards the branch, whether on its upper or under side. The mis- tletoe derives its nourishment from the living tissue of the tree on which it grows, and from which it seems to spring as if it were one of its branches.
Superstitious Use. — The mistletoe was intimately connected with many of the superstitions of the dif- ferent branches of the Aryan race. In the Northern mythology, Baldur is said to have been slain with a mistletoe. Among the Celts the mistletoe which grew on the oak was in peculiar esteem for magical virtues. Traces of the ancient regard for the mistletoe still re- main in some old English and German customs, as kiss- ing under the mistletoe at Christmas. The British Dru- ids are said to have had an extraordinary veneration for it, and that mainlj^ because its berries as well as its leaves grow in clusters of three united to one stock, and, as is well known, they had a special veneration for the number three (comp. Vallancey, Grammar of the Irish Language^. Stukeley {Medallic History of Carausius, ii, 163 sq.), speaking of the Druids' festival, the Jul (q. v.), and the use of the mistletoe, relates as follows : " This was the most respectable festival of our Druids, called Yule-tide, when mistletoe, which they called all-heal (because used to cure disease), was carried in their hands, and laid on their altars, as an emblem of the salutifer- ous advent of Messiah. . . . The custom is still pre- served in the north, and was lately at York. On the eve of Christmas-day they carry mistletoe to the high altar of the cathedral, and proclaim a public and universal liberty, pardon, and freedom to all sorts of inferior and even wicked people at the gates of the city, towards the four quarters of heaven." See Brand, Popul. A ntiquities of Great Britain, i, 521-4.
Mitakshara is the name of several Sanscrit com- mentatorial works of the Hindus. One of these is a commentary on the text-book of the Vedanta philoso- phy; another, a commentary on the Mimiinsa work of Kumarila; a third, a commentary on the Brihadaran- yaka, etc. See Veda. The most renowned work, how- ever, bearing this title is a detailed commentary by
Vijnaneswara (also called Vijnananatha) on the law- book of Yajnavalkya (q. v.) ; and its authority and in- fluence are so great that " it is received in all the schools of Hindi! law from Benares to the southern extremity of the peninsula of India as the chief groundwork of the doctrines which they follow, and as an authority from which they rarely dissent" (comp. Tu-o Treatises on the IJindu Law of Inheritance, translated by H. T. Cole- brooke, Calcutta, 1810). Most of the other renowned- law-books of recent date, such as the Smriti-Chan- drika, which prevails in the south of India, the Chinta- mani, Viramitrodaya, and Mayukha, which are author- itative severally in jMitliila, Benares, and with the Mah- rattas, generally defer to the decisions of the Mitakshara ; the DAyabhaga of Jimiitavahana alone, which is adopt- ed by the Bengal school, diifers on almost ever^' dis- puted point from the Mitakshara, and does not acknowl- edge its authority.
The INlitakshara, following the arrangement of its text-work, the code of Yajnavalkya, treats in its first part of duties in general ; in its second, of private and administrative law; in its third, of purification, pen- ance, devotion, and so forth ; but, since it frequently quotes other legislators, expounding their texts, and contrasting them with those of Yajnavalkya, it is not merel}' a commentary, but supplies the place of a regu- lar digest. The text of the Mitakshara has been edited several times in India. An excellent translation of its chapter On Inheritance was published by Colebrooke in the work above referred to ; and its explanation of Yaj- navalkya is also followed by the same celebrated scholar in his Digest of Hindu Law (Calcutta and London, 1801, 3 vols.). — Chambers, Ct/clopwdia, s. v.