Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
foregoing, and was such a scene as I bad not noticed for some dozen or more years back.
I witnessed the roads crowded with earnest, pious souls who, with fatigued., and in
many caseas lacerated bodies, were gradually nearing one of Maha Deva’s shrines, by
measuring every inch of the weary way, from their far distant homes, by the length of
their bodies stretched on the dry, scorching, and dusty way. Affectionate relatives or
friends were kindly washing the devoted pilgrims. some of whom seemed half dead
with fatigue and excitement of mind and body, whilst ‘pious stranger’ were also cheering
them on their way, and pouring water into their parched mouths as they rolled
along in the dust and heat. When coming across the devotees we were taking our
usual evening drive in the European portion of one of the largest cities in Hindoostan,
and some of the company, though ten years in the East, gazed in astonishment at the
road-side scene, as what they had never before witnessed! So apt are the daily
occurences of even, as in this case, the most fervid faith, to escape those who live
in its midst, ay, and have carefully thought of all around them all that time.
Fergusson seems to think that Lingam Worship may be new, because he does not
find it so early and as distinctly as Serpent Worship; but he should remember what
he himself says of this great faith of China (T. and S., 52)—“If this be so, that the
Serpent is the Chinaman’s great god of happiness,” why has not everybody seen it and
told us of it? Yes, why? Things strike different people differently, and some walk
about with eyes and ears closed. If we read only the works of our great writers or
philosophers, whether Plato or Aristotle, Demosthenes or Cicero, we would scarcely
evolve the gross faiths which we now know to have existed in their midst. Do we
indeed realise those in our midst in England or even in London! When we read the
treasures which have been poured into our laps from all the mighty minds that have
blessed the world during the last two hundred years, ending in the Revelations of our
still living philosophers, can we imagine that the great mass of our thoughtful ones, and
many thousands of leamed men, still look upon such rude Syrian Sheks as Abrarn and
Moses as demi-gods, not to say such weak and immoral charlacters as a Jacob, Samuel,
David, and Solomon? ay, and who woship as gods, a Jewish matron and her babe,
and consider as special supernatural acts of the great and immutable ruler of the
universe, all those writings, miracles, prodigies, and myths which have come down to
us unverified by a particle of extraneous evidence that would bear a moment’s crossquestioning
or sifting in any court of law in our land. There are times when we must
speak out, and I here only speak, though slightingly, yet seriously and solemnly,
of those characters and tales which Europe holds sacred, as Europeans speak, and as I
shall by-and-by also mention the sacred characters and writings of all other nations;
with what measure we mete, let it be meted to us again.
Brahmanism, no doubt, at times disliked the Serpent, and drove it, as a veritable
Snake, though never as a symbol, out from the midst of her more civilised parts
towards the northern. mountains, or, at least to the ophite cradle of Taxila, and to its