Forlong - Rivers of Life

146
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
his ball fell into the sacred stream then infested by the Nāgac—called here Kāliya
or “black one”—who, afraid of the eagle, the great god’s vehicle, had fled from
the regions assigned him by Vishnoo, and troubled and even rendered poison-
ous the holy river. The youth’s ball, and his plunge into the troubled water to
recover it, awoke the Naga who enveloped him in his coils, and seized him with his
poisonous fangs. We are then told that his foster parents Nanda and Jasooda, and
his brother Baliram, found him in the coils still and motionless, but smiling and in no
pain; and it is said the Naga’s attack poisoned Bāsoo-deva’s blood, rendering him what
he was then, and for ever after represented and called, Krishna, or the Black One. In
this fight we may perhaps consider parabled, with other matter, the Aryan war with
the dark Nāga Dynasties of the aborigines. Krishna, says the tale, jumped and danced
on the head of the snake, and would have killed him; but on the presenrotion of his
(the Nāga’s) wives, who represented their lost condition if deprived of their lord, he
merely put him under subjection, making him leave the sacred river, and go to the
Island of Rāwana, where he assured him that the eagle of Vishnoo would no longer
molest him. Of course my readcrs will see the parable which runs through all this,
as well, I believe, as glimpses at the early history and faiths of ancient India. The
story runs on to say, somewhat parallel to that of Genesis, that God set his mark
upon this Cain, so that no one might molest him. Though punished, the serpent of
Eden as well as that of Hindoo story was let go free; surely a good God should
have destroyed the demon.
In Numbers xxi. 6, we find that the Lord sent fiery serpents or seraphim
(corresponding to scorpions in Deut. viii. 15), which, with the assurance in Isaiah vi.
that “to Thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry,” informs us that these
creatures lived in close companionahip with the Jewish Jhavh, just as the serpent
did with Jupiter, Amon, and Osiris, and still does with Siva.
I know it is quite unnecessary to take so much pains to establish in the eyes of
well-read men, a distinct, universal, and long-enduring Serpent faith; but I have met
with such ignorance and unbelief on the part of many who profess to have looked
into such matters, that I write this chapter to heap proof upon proof.
Europe seems to have satisfied itself that ophiolatry was a sort of rude Paganism
which probably sprang up in the days of those—to all ordinary readers—most incomprehensible
people, known as Koothites or Kyklop, &c.; who also dealt in cists or
boxes, which ignorant, sceptical men presumed to call “arks,” as if such boxes had
some connection with that ineffable divine mystery and poetic abstraction “the Ark of
(or for) the Testimony”—a box, which with the Jews was used for keeping two stones,
an “Eduth” or Testimony (which I shall shew to be a lingam), a baton or rod, and
sundry other articles used by Diviners but which with most peoples was commonly
used as a crib or coop for their sacred serpents. I will therefore here try to clear
up this idea of ancient peoples, and especially Jews, speaking clearly, though I fear
very unpleasantly in the opinion of many who call us “blind leaders of the blind.”