Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
these parts; that after it came Tree, Phallic, Serpent-worship, &c., we may, I think, say
that this great building marks a transition of faith as from Serpent to Brahmanism or to
Boodhism, or perhaps Boodhism conquered for a time by Serpent-worshippers. Thus
we find in the:
3d Century B.C. Boodhist missionaries in China.
2d and 3d ,, ,, Chinese armies to Oxua—Yoonan annexed.
Bactrain kingdom overthrown by Skythians, and Naga races trying
2d ,, ,, {
China-Dragon-worshippers,
for domination.
try to reach India from the south,
but fail.
1st ,, ,, China embracing Boodhism.
2d ,, A.C. (166.) Marcus Aurelius sends embassy to China.
3d ,, ,, (227.) Rome sends embassy to Cochin-China, and to all these parts.
(386.) Boodhagosa establishing Boodhism in Ceylon and Barma.
4 th ,, ,, { ,, Amravati and Afgan Topes built.
Tatars, Turanians, and Skythians becoming Boodhists, but Brah-
5 manism re-asserting itself in India.
th
{ ,, ,,
Chinese vessels numerous in all eastern parts, and to the Persian Gulf.
Thus our Boodhist-Chinese missionaries of the 3d century B.C. most probably
preached their faith then in Kambodia, and five or six centuries later, Roman or Greek
artists, aided the Boodhists to build these shrines or monasteries, which a reaction to
the old faiths caused to be adorned with Serpent symbols. In China, Boodhism
closely allied itself with the ancient Serpent faith, and I inciline, therefore, to think
that Nakon-vat was a Boodhist-serpent temple.
We saw that the pious Kambodian Raja-Naga, worshipped his “deity on high places;”
as did Israel his “Grove” and Baal; and we find “high places”—the summit of lofty
or curiously shaped hills—the abode of Chinese temples to Dragons, as well as to the
philosophers Confucius and Boodha, and to Christ and Mohamed, just as these were
chosen for the worship of Lingam, Serpent, Fire and Sun. A Jesuit father, quoted by
Fergusson, writes that “the Chinese delight in mountains and high places, because
there lives the Dragon, the father of happiness (for no childless man, says the
barbarian, is happy), on whom their good fortune depends. To this Dragon they
erect temples shaded with groves.”
The Rev. S. Beal, a Chinese scholar, unearths from the imperial collection of Boodhist
standard works printed under the auspices of Keen-Lung in 1783 A.C., a writing
which he supposes to be an address of Boodha “in the great Cloud Circle-Hall of the
Naga Rajah, in which Boodha. told the Dragons (i.e. the worshippers of Serpents) how
to pray for rain.” In a plate in this book we have a Snake-temple, which in its
arrangement very closely resembles the Jewish tabernacle. The shrine is like a tent
standing in a rectangular enclosure. There is an altar with four lighted candles;
seven tables of cakes, and seven of fruits and seven lamps, and on the four aides four
woodcuts representing the deities, of which Fergusson gives one (T. and S. page 53) very
much to the purpose, and sbowing in unmistakable langunge that a greater and older even
115