Forlong - Rivers of Life

98
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
element, by having his Egyptian type, the Apis (Op-is), behind him—a position
quite similar to that of the Sivaik Nanda in front of the Yoni. On the reverse of the
coin is generally the well-known Cista Mystica, half open, and from which a Serpent
is seen issuing; and around which are Bacchic-looking objects, grapes, vine-leaves
formed like Phalli, &c.; this will be seen further on.
The cist is often shown below the. other figures, as in the coin, Fig. 11, Plate IV.;
sometimes it is the ark or the altar, now altar-table with Christians, but still the ark
with our Jewish friends; the shank shell, or koncha veneris, represents it with our
Indian brethren, as this is seen in coins 1 and 10 of this same plate. This altar feature
is very varied, and always very holy even to the touch; that is equally a holy altar or
ark on which the holy fire is burning, and from the base of which spring two
Serpents, and that conical-like cist believed to represent the Paphian Venus, whose
symbol was ovate, such as is sin in Fig. 3, Plate V., which is taken from one of
Lajard’s drawings of a bronze coin of Vespasian struck in Cyprus: Here two lighted
candles (highly Phallic symbols) are seen burning by the sides of this altar of Love,
and passion is springing from the two altar-pillars and wreathing over the altar itself,
which here serves to cover the scene supposed to be enacted below, as in the case of
a remarkable Pompeian painting which follows.
In Fig. 4, Plate IV., we have a great gem originally also from Lajard’s Recheches
sur le Culte de Venus, which embraces more ideas than most. “It is a white agate
stone shaped like a cone (therefore Sivaic), and this cutting is on the lower face,” so
that the shape of the whole is either a Lingam or the Paphian cone. The central
rudder-like column is highly mystic, and may represent either the general idea of all
great gods being bi-sexual, or, as Dr. Inman thinks, “the Androgyne deity, as Balaam,
Ashtaroth, Elohim, Jupiter Genitor, or the bearded Venus Mylitta;” 1 for on the right
we have a bare female face, and on the left a bearded face, an inverted triangle, and
radiating solar corona connecting the two heads. Female symbols preponderate on
the right; even the Serpent on that side seems to be denoted as feminine, having a
large round head aud very prominent eye, and Isis’ crescent moon over-head and cup
below, and a six-rayed star in the centre; whilst on the left we have a bearded man,
the usual pointed serpent-head, and this in the solar aureol, which is generally a male
sign; but on the other hand, we have a Yoni here; below is shown a cup over a
phallic-shaped vase, such as is still the favourite form for all oil and water vessels in
Sivaic temples; over the whole are three stars. The grand embodied idea is no doubt
passion, or creation. The Caduceus idea of Fig. 11, Plate V., is again given as usually
worn by men of authority in Fig. 9, Plate IV., or else it is here to denote that this
Serpent on the rigbt is the male, a. fact often thus empbasized in Phallic lore.
It is only, I think, the shores of the Mediterranean, about India and the banks of
1 Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient Names, I.
Descriptive Plates, xiii. I am greatly indebted to
this bold and earnest writer for all the figures in
Plates IV. and V., and very much else.