Forlong - Rivers of Life

186
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
of Good Friday, that . . . the buns known by that identical name were used in the
worship of the Queen of Heaven, the Goddesa Easter (Ishtar or Astarti) as early as the
days of Kekrops, the founder of Athens, 1600 years B.C. . . . . . the dyed eggs of
Pasch or Easter Sunday figured also in the Kaldean rites just as they do now.”
CaptainWilford in “Asiatic Researches,” VIII. p. 365, says that when the people
of Syracuse were sacrificing to goddesses, they offered cakes called Mulloi, shaped like
the female organ; and Dulare tells us that the male organ was similarly symbolised in
pyramidal cakes at Easter by tha pious Christiam of Saintonge, near Rochelle, and
handed about from house to houae; that even in his day the festival of Palm Sunday
was called Le Fête des Pinnes, sbowing tbat this fête was held to be on account of
both organs, although, of course, principally because the day was sacred to the Palm,
the ancient tree-Phallus. The proession was one of women and children carrying
Pinnes at the end of thin palm-branches (highly Bacchic), which, it appears, were
then taken home and carefully presuved all the year. This is exactly as still
practised in India with household Lingams, and reminds us of the Sacred Fire, and
Lares, and Penates, which were all renewed or reinstated annually. Clermont in
Auvergne preferred the female organ, but in Lower Limousin and Brives the cakes
were Phalli. We may believe that the Jewish cakes and show-bread were also
emblematic, somewhat as I show in the table of “show-bread,” Fig.76, p. 194. The
Omphic Navel, Neb, or Nabis bn idea figures conspicuously in Vishnoo’s grandest
Avatar. From it all creation issues as he rests with his consort on the serpent Sesha—
the Ark of Life on the “sea of milk;”—Vishnoo is here
as in most instances, the Sun; and the Nabi is here the
Umbilicus or Olympus of the gods, from which the
whole world proceeds. It is different from Siva’s Argha,
which, when shown separate from him, is, as in these
two figures, a sort of Patera, corresponding to the
Hebrew cups: and bowls—mistranslated “spoons” in
Exodus xxv. 29. 1 The real word is tpk Kapoth, meaning
cups for holding the oils and unguents sprinkled
Fig. 71.—THE BOAT-ARGHA OR YONI.
over all Lingam-gods, and which we can still see in
Indian Sivaik Temples. Of course, all such vessels, like
everything else here, from the foundation-stone and
Lingam—buried under ground, to the Tri-sool on the high summit of a Sivaik temple,
and again on the high side-pole where there is also a fire-cup and serpent-streamer,
are all, and every, made strictly symbolic. Every line and figure is so, as well as
the colour and even the quality of the material if practicable.
We must here return a little to the Syrian, Arkite, and other Phallic worship, and
to Jews, as those regarding whom we probably have most detaila. I think it is established
that the Ark was at first merely a simple box, made up in a hurried manner at
1 [i.e. in the King James vn. NIV has “plates and dishes.” — T.S.]