Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
latest discovered shrine—Bharahut; that it “is placed at intervals in the long necklaces
of the ladies.” Lingams, Ankooses, and such like, are to be found on the arms or necks of
most gently brought-up Hindoo children, and we see it on the state collar of the Asyrian
kings. The Ankoos, like the Serpent, sometimes denotes a Basileus, as well as the faith
of the wearer, just as does the priapic cap or helmet of Mars, and Mitre of Dionysus and
ancient Bishops. We must not here overlook the Queen of Heaven in the Sky, from
whence our baby-boy really sprang, though through an earthly maid. She is here the Cup
or Chalice pouring down riches on her child, as Ceres often does upon the thirsty
earth. At times she is the Chalice d’Amertume, and like the heart, surrounded
by her Lord—the king or crown of thorns; but the Aureole of refulgent light proceeding
from Apollo’s cradle is here dimming all around it, and the Cup and its own
nimbus is sinking into mere lunar glory, of which it is the almost universally accepted
symbol. It is surpassingly strange that the designers of this beautiful picture, of which
my woodcut merely pretends to give the prominent outlines, were in all probability
entirely ignorant of the old, old truths which are here pourtrayed; for the picture, even
as we may pick it up in any Roman Catholic book-shop, is one of great beauty, and
when worked up in color with artistic skill—as it has been a thouaand times, and
will no doubt ever continue to be—is artistically, mythologically, and as many of
our brethren would add, religiously grand. It is an idea the Churches are never
tired of elaborating, and probably never will be. But a word more regarding holy or
sacramental cups, chalices, bowls, or vases, and from the learned and orthodox Christian
writer of Idolomania rather than myself. At pages 39, 40 he says: “Whatever has
the property of receiving, containing, and producing (the adhara sakti, or literally the
Mouth-power of the Sanskrit) is symbolie.al throughout Asia (aye the world) of the
female nature . . . . . . hence cups, chalices, vases, helmets, and hollow things in general,
are found with interpreting devices, upon coins. In the Doorgapooja (worship of the
earth-goddess), the sacred chalice is marked with triangles, and a cup or vase is held
in the hand of the Trimoorti or three-faced, but one God—the Hindoo Trinity. When
the priest of Mithra converted the Haum into the material substance of the invisible
God (that is, consecracted ‘the elements’), he held the consecrated chalice in his hand,
and asssured the people that whoever should eat of it, would receive new life, because
he would then be eating the god of life. . . . . . Much the same takes place in the
Hindoo rites of Agni—God of Fire, in his form of Jivani or Lord of Life. In this case
the Soma is the subject of the priestly conjuration,” so that Protestants must appreciate
at its due worth the mysterious cup, which I fear they fancy may be any cup, and their
bread be any bread. The Romish Church knows better, and its southem and eastern
leaders probably better also, the baselessness of that fiction which fancies the bread is
merely to typify that supper which the poor Gallileans are thought to have partaken
of for the last time, ere the Sanhedrim pronounced their doom. At page 196 we have
seen that the Monstrance, in which the holy bread is kept is a solar circle of white in
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