Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
Zohak, has a wreath of two serpents round his head. The great Ormazd is seen
crowning the new dynasty of Fire-worshippers, wbich probably then—226 A.C.
was after long centuries of war and bloodshed, established in these wilds of ancient
Karmania.
The Greeks knew all ancient Persia for several centuries before Christ, and we have
abundant notices by them of serpent, Phallic, and Zoroastrian faiths as there existing.
In the well known ancient name, called differently Zohak Or Azhi-dahatka, (the destructive
serpent of Zend literature, who was conquered by the Zoroastrian hero Thrætona)
or short, Ajdahak—pronounced by the Persian Dehak (ten evils), the Arabian
Dechak, or “the laugher,” or Azdehak, he with a. shoulder disease (thought to be serpents
which destroy men, we can see much that points to a more ancient faith than even
archaic Magianism. Müller says, that “possibly Dehak was an ancestor of that Median
dynasty which came to an end in Astyages” the reptuted grandfather of Cyrus, and
if so, then the serpent dynasty probably fell when Boodha was rising in India and
Lao-tsee in China. Burnouf makes it clear that Thrætona was the Firdoon of Firdusi’s
Shah-nāme, and that Firidoon slew Zohak a King of Persia—“the biting serpent,” and
this accords with what the Avesta says of Thrætona slaying the serpent Azhi-dahaka.
The demon who opposes the gods of the Zend-Avesta is always Ahi, the serpent, and
the particular reigning King of the serpent worshippers has here only his own name
appended to Ahi or Azh: Zohak, say most writers, came from Arabia or Ethiopia of
ancient days, or even further S.W. as from the serpent lands of Africa where the Faith
ever flourished, nor has yet ceased to do so; he was called Bivarsp, “because
always accompanied by a bodyguard of 10,000 men,” and was said to have been descended
from Tazi or Taj and to have been the son of a herdsman. He conquered all
central Asia, and fixed his own residence at Babel, and his dynaaty lasted 1000 years,
so that if we plaee Thrætona or Firidoon, as I do in my Chart, about the time of
Christ, then Zohak’s convulsion in western Asia corresponds with a similar great convulsion
which was being effected by Rāma from Oud through all central and southern India,
also with the foundation of the Hindoo capital of Indraprestha, and the consolidation
of the little Jewish kingdom under David. We see in Zohak’s faith the usual accompaniment
of all Phallic faiths; every day, say Mahomedan writers, two young men
had to be sacrificed to satisfy the two snakes, and these were fed upon their brains.
The Zendavesta speaks of Zohak having three snakes, meaning possibly his head as the
Solar Python between two snakes. All Naga women in the east are repreaented as with
one snake between their shouIders, and men with three, five, or seven. The throne of
Kābol long after Firidoon, was filled by a descendant of Zohak’s, and a descendant of
the Zoroastrian married Koodabeh, the lovely daughter of this serpent dynasty, and
from the union sprang Roostum, about whom cling the most thrilling romances of the
east. This Kābol dynasty only gave way apparently to Boodhism so eaaily grafted on
Serpent worship. In Kashmere we have this last worship everywhere, and the records
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