Forlong - Rivers of Life

Preface. xv
cliffs, beside secret caves or in vales where, by a dark pool, sacred tree or holy well,
there is often only found a solitary pious man, but one mayhap full of the tales and
traditions of a faith which, in his opinion, is passing or has passed away. He who
rests but for a day or two at such Indian shrines, and knows merely Brâhmanas and
Purânas, or even Vedas, will hear only of those higher gods. Siva will be the peaked
mountain or dark stream, and Vishnu or Lakshmi the ovicular cliff or mound or deep
gorge; but these places had gods and rites and symbolisms before the earliest deities
of any literature were known, and to such points the careful student must address
himself if he would learn the roots of faiths, and from whom Purânik or Vedik gods
sprang. This requires some experience, much study and time, and the writer looks
back with much pleasure to the many enjoyable holidays he often spent, encamped
beside strange shrines or sacred groves, even when he could not get within them, for many
have laws forbidding “the unclean” to approach. By selecting, however, a suitable time,
and showing a respectful and real interest in the faith and its god-ideas, and having a
practical acquaintance with its literature and the vernacular languages, one can often
acquire much substantial knowledge, as well as hints of an important kind, such as
no writings on Eastern faiths impart. Priests and devotees also readily return visits,
and thus many evenings of friendly talk can be arranged, when all the past and
present faiths of the land can be freely discussed. In these matters there is often an
unspoken meaning, born of trne sympathy, which can only spring from such friendly
intercourse, when this is continued long enough and whilst priests and people are
engaged in the daily round of their religious rites and duties. And this knowledge
will be all the more complete if we know the people administratively and socially.
It will utterly fail if a breath of proselytizing feeling is thought to exist, or even if we
cannnot show that we fully appreciate the pious yearnings of the worshipers.
If we can do this, and what earnest thoughtful man cannot so sympathize with the
longings of his fellows as they pass through their various stnges of civilization? then
we can read as it were between the lines, and find a clue to many divine ideas,
symbolisms, rites and words which no writings have yet made clear; but the problems
must be read backwards as described at page 409, and from tho living Religions—well
and practically grasped—we must try to get at the original inceptions and radical
emblems now separated. from us by a vast mental chasm.
Faiths are linked together by symbolisms and a nomenclature which has proved
all but indestructible as this work will abundantly show, and these the more religions
and advanced thinkers seized from the rudest nature worshipers and used as pious