Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
absence. Generally, however, the features or ideas of the cult are fully and generally
depicted, and without as well as within; for the vessels of the inner sanctuary—the
lights, the lavers, the spoons, &c. &c., must all be constructed with a view to the symbolism,
as well as the gilt spires, poles; and trappings of the outer tabernacle. In many
temples the actual public emblem of the Deity is only an emblem of an emblem; the
real “God” being secreted deep away down in the foundations of the vast structure, in a
crypt or cave (see p. 39, Fig. 4) where only the most devoted of initiated worshippers may
occasionally see him. His presence there is to signify that he is the centre strong foundations
of the world, and its navel also, as was Delphi. All faiths have more or less
acted thus: Priests in constructing their shrines, whether temple, cathedral, or mosk,
have aimed also at elaborating the ideas of their god or gods, and their sacred books
and lore; thus most Christians insist on a church which is cruciform. in plan, a spire .,
“reaching into the heavens,” a navis or Ark, and a risen or dying Saviour in the
eastem window; so the Moslem must have his vast dome or globe borrowed from the
older solar fable, and with Luna's crescent over all, and Minarets or Phallic-looking
candlesticks, such as the Christian puts on his altar: Of course, both deny the symbolism
which we impute to them.
I give here a simple little Maha Deva which embraces in itself many of these
features I am endeavouring to describe. It is a. drawing of a copperplate which l
discovered very many years ago deep under grounds when engaged in an engineering
operation in southern India: The natives were so enthusiastic about it, saying that
it was so ineffably holy by reason of its long interment in mother earth, and assembled
in such numbers from all the neighbouring country,
that I was compelled, in face of the multitudes, and
in case of an assault upon my small camp of workmen,
to give it up; and I heard a few years afterwards,
that a fine temple had been built for this object and
others which we had disinterred. The Brahmans informed
me that the object I here illustrate, was a
very peculiar Lingam, “in whole as well as in part,”
and in much else besides, and that there should have
been an Argha as I here show by dotted lines; but
although we searched diligently for this, we never
Fig. 41.—SIVA AS GOD OF FIRE—AGNI.
discovered it. We found, however, many other images
which had led the priests to consider, that it had been
in a temple dedicated to Siva, under the form of the god Agni who is here entering “the
door of Life” holding two writhing Cobras, whose heads like Agni’s, are emitting sparks
of fire; so that here we have an Apollo with his bow and arrows passing the portal of
creation, an exactly similar idea to that which the artistic Greek gives us in my
illustration, Fig. 44, p. 127. The porch itself irradiates Fire as we see in the Asyrian