Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
what Orientalists have so often said in regard. to the full significance of every line
or even dot in these great national religious figures. Here every line and curve and
dot has a name and a distinct meaning, all of which are recorded in countless holy writings,
and not the least is the kneeling attitude of the Nanda., a position not common
to bulls, and which for a long time I could not discover and cannot here speak of.
In the drawing of “the Asyrian Tree of Life,” page 73, Fig. 25, which some
4000 years ago was sculptured on Asyria’s buried palaces, we have the same idea.
The Asyrian Ark is shut, and the Bull stands erect with the reptile encircling his neck,
as we occasionally still see in India. A veritahle “budding rod” or tree of the High
Priest, separates him from the door of the fire ark; which he is seen approaching with
fruit and knife. All these sculpturings, however, betoken a, time far in advance
of that which aboriginal tribes have even now attained to, or to which Romans
reached till about the third century B.C., for statuary was slow in appearing in
Europe. The: more usual Eastern Maha Deva takes the form of a simple “conical
stone on a mound of earth,” such as we see the African calls his Legba; or the
“whitened tree stump” which he denominates Ajar-ama, and quaintly considers a
fit representative of the white foreigner. The ordinary Maha Deva of Northern India is,
however, this very simple but complete arrangement in which we see what was, I suspect,
the first Delphic Tripod supporting a vase of water over the Linga-in-Yoni. Such may
be counted by scores, in a day’s march over Northern India, and especially at ghats or
river ferries, or crossings of any streams, or roads; for are they not Hermes? The vessel
of water is pierced at foot, and into the little holes straws are thrust so as to direct a
constant trickle of water on to the symbol. It is a pious act to constantly renew this
water from the most holy springs, or better from the
Ganges. It is not necessary to have a carved Argha and
polished Maha Deva; the poor can equally please the
Creator by clearing a little spot under any holy tree, or if
none holy enough exist, by planting a slip from a holy one;
or if this even is not possible, by merely setting up a stone
of almost any unhewn shape, describing a circle around it,
and then cleaning and keeping tidy all about it; for the
great Creator loves as much the widow’s mite as the
magnificent shrine and priestly rites which the rich
establish in his name.
Fig. 40.
RURAL LINGAM AND VASE.
Probably no religion is more persistent than all forms of Phallic faith in again
and again repeating every hidden meaning in its symbolism. This is so by design, in
order to impress them thoroughly on the mind of the most illiterate. Thus the aid of
the architect, the sculptor, and the painter, are all brought to bear on the eye and feeling.
Hindoo temples, therefore, as a whole, as well as in every part, must depict the
Deity in all his forms or ideas, snd this is variously accomplished, sometimes in ornamentation,
wild, extravagent, and profuse; and elsewhere only conspicuous by its
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