Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
Sheol, or what our ordinary Egyptologists call “scenes of the dead of judgement;”
see my chapter on Egypt. The snake Bai (very like Hai or Hea of Asyria) was one
who guarded the portals of the dead, for the serpent is “all the circle of Eternity”
in opening as well as closing life. He is also the Ruach or “creating-breath” of
Genesis, and Siva the king of serpents and father of the winds.
The serpent or satan, in his own person, may be held to represent the “male and
female,” or sword and sheath (zachar and nekebah) of Genesis, under passion’s rule.
The word Pithon, “the inflated On,” is compounded of htp Pathah and On
he who expands, 1 “cleaves asunder,” “decides,” &c. In the two Sanskrit
words “Ananda,” the god of desire, and “Ananta” the serpent with tail
in mouth representing eternity, and in Mary’s emblem “the vesica piscis,” 2
we see the full force of the reptile-emblem. It is by Ananta or Sesha
that Vishnoo created all things. His vehicle was the thousand-headed
serpent resting upon the waters of life or generation, which will be fully
explained in my chapter on Hindoo Faiths.
Ananta, the serpent is said to do the neeessary, though menial work of crea-
tion, from over-zealous performance of which, he caused or created wickedness, incurring
Vishnoo’s anger. Some poems even represent him as an enemy to Vishnoo or true
religion, which must only be understood in the same sense as tha Delphic quarrels
of Apollo and the Python. No Vishnooite procession or great ceremony is complete
without the serpent, just as no great shrine of the Solar “God of Religion and Truth”
is perfect which is not abundantly adorned with the Naga. At one of Vishnoo’s
holiest shrines in Southem India—the temple of Tripaty in Tanjore—on the first day
of the procession Vishnoo comes forth, first on a great gilt Tree; on the third be is
bome aloft resting on a gilt serpent; on the fourth he a.ppears resplendent as the Sun,
and, doubtless, significant of Fire also; and on the fifth he is seen going to visit
Maiya, or the abode of mirrors, illusion, and fertility. When. he returns in state he is
seen again resting on the golden serpent, and we know how serpents overshadow him
in the greatest drama of creation.
Krishna, the eighth Avatār of Vishnoo, is a man devoured by the serpent who is
there as a demon. Vishnoo in kindness, howevert restores him as his incarnation, to
life, and enables him (Krishna) to overcome the serpent. “Eternity” is represented
as dancing upon this serpent’s “tongue of fire,” which reminds us of the Pentecostal
narrative. I shew him as Eternity in Fig. 12, and with tongue of fire in Fig.55,
as lately, if not still carried in some Roman Catholic processions.
The story of Krishna’s war with the great Nāga runs briefly thus:--When a
fair youth, called Bāsoo-deva, he was playing with a ball on the banks of the holy
Jamna at Bachban, near Basai, which, like all rivers, is represented as a fruitful
woman. Some say that, to refresh himself, he plunged into a deep pool; but others that
1 See Inman’s Anc. Faiths, I. 70, and II. 497.
2 The Vesica signifies a bladder, or purse.
145
Fig. 56.
VIRGIN AND CHILD
IN YONI.