Forlong - Rivers of Life

136
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
the Britisb Government have now made into a fortified citadel, and to a great extent
cleared. These tables are for voluntary offerings towards the support of the temple, its
priests and schools, which last are, or were, very extensive and very excellent; for
Boodha, like Confucius, was a warm supporter of education such as is not known to
Western prophets, nor until a oontury or so, to Christiall churches, except in the way
of teaching matters connected with their own interests. “Wisdom and learning” with
churches, signified only that which proved their own faith and doctrines to be correct
—all else was but folly and ignorance, nay worse, wickedness. The various buildings
seen in this illustration are covered with leaf-gold from base to summit. There are open
sheds about for prayer and shelter, in some of which are sacred bells, the requisite
of every faith, and the symbolism of which I have elsewhere tried to make clear. All
Boodhist countries have shewn us much Drakonic sculpturing and pictures, and I see
here also the Serpent at his old ways; it is he who moves these “Henzas” who moved
Brahma, the creator. The Henza was sent to him for this purpose by Vishnoo, and is therefore
his Incarnation, though Boodhists will dissent. The word Dragon has come down to
our own day in many ways, and I suspect even in the corrupted word Dragoman or
Spokesman, for the Drako was the special Speaker, the Word, and the Oracle; so
Targem, \grt “to explain,” }mgrwt Turgeman “a translator,” and our Indian Tarjama
“a translation,” seem to have originally sprung from Draka or Trako. To ophiolatry
we also owe the name of the body-guards of our sovereign—Dragoons; a word
which, though coming to us from Gaul, was borrowed from Imperial Rome, whose
choicest troops were those fighting under the Dragon’s standard carried by select men
—Draconarii; the standard was quite “au naturel,”—a bonâ fide serpent on a pole.
From the very earliest pre-historic times all the people of the Roman Campania were
Pitāns, as we would say in India, and Pitanatæ or Ophitæ here; and their earliest
kings had on their standard this genuine figure of a Serpent.
The Hebrew who carried the same God called him also }tp Peten, so that this term
we may say ruled from Italy to India. Hesychius says that the Greeks called their
infantry brigades pit£n£tai, Pitanatia. Even in the days of Marcus Aurelius every
cohort of the Roman army had the actual image of a serpent on a standard, and therefore
every legion had ten serpents. And these also were real and not pictures,
painted, worked, or woven into cloth; and we may therefore be sure that neither
would the “Jehovah Nissi” nor “the Lord my Banner” be a flag or picture, but a real
pole of standard, bearing the symbol of the tribe, that is a club, baton, or pillar, for
they had not risen above our second faith until they got their serpent-pole, and,
therefore, up to that time would have a genuine baton, or Lingam. It would be
easy to give abundant instances of serpent or dragon standards as still existing.
Our own kings, the Danes, Livonians, and Normans had all along fought under, and
worshipped such standards. We hear of Skythians in desolating hordes sweeping
from frozen to torrid ocean and back and forward through every land, and
always under their sacred dragon insignia; their cradle, we may say, was a serpent—