Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
produce; hence Phalla, Bhala, or Bala, is a name of Siva as the strong producer, the
plougher and ploughshare, which is also the Nishān or “mark” of man, such as
Greeks used to put on Hermi when they feared the sex would otherwise not be clear.
So the great kings and chiefs of the East used to affix the ploughshare to their
mandates, in those days when it and the sword were better understood than the pen.
I give in page 233 Fig. 105, II.-4, among a number of very common and significant
hieroglyphs, the sign-manual of the ploughshare, and beg attention to other figures
here as the old church bell and fleur-de-lis device, so common in church architecture;
the crosses, crescents, and pillars over them; the so little disgued Greek
Alpha and Phi; the phallic helmet with, as in India. the faces of a Triad of Gods on,
as it were, the glans; the sun or orifice in the triangle; the double triangle with the
reduplicated yoni-idea. in the Omega-like re-entrance; the vase; the full acorn,
and plan and section of the orthodox Roman clerical hat, which is also that of
the Bouns or sacred cales, see foot of cols. I. and II., and figures page 185 : all these
are speakingly illustrative of the ancient faiths, and the proclivities of modern ones
which adopt these symbols.
Bāla, as in Bāla-Rāma, is in these days generally translated as only the “strong
Lord,” but Bala-Rama signifies the strong fertilizing sun; Phool is a variant of
Bāl, and is a child, a flower or blosoom. Pale-mon or Pale-on was Dio-nysus, and
Herakles and Neptune; children were sacrificed to Palemon (Holwell, p. 319), which
shows us that he was Siva or creative energy. Neptune as Poseidon was also P’oseidon
or P’osiris, the sun. Let us look further at names connected with Pator, Pador,
Fader or Phader, Petre, &c. Petah was an Amonian or solar term of honour, as in
Peti-phra, and Pete-Sukus, the builder of the solar labyrinth. The priests of the oracle of
Amon were perhaps the first who were called Pateræ, because, said after ages, they each
carried a silver basin, which Bryant shows was a complete error (I. 307). The oracle
had 80 Pateræ who supported the image and boat in which it was carried; “they
only moved as the Divine inspiration led them,” which probably gave to the Jews the
idea of leaving their ark to itself, or rather to the milch kine, as stated in 1 Sam. vi 8.
The Petipharæ were also called Patertæ, Sacerdotes Apollinis, and the high priest
got gradually eallecl the Peter and Pator; the “most famous oracle of Apollo in.
Lukia was called Patara;” and the “Patra of Achaia had the same import,” continues
the far-seeing Bryant, who only lately began to be understood, and whose value
is still little known, for the ancient cultus is hidden even yet from Europe. Bryant
here justly remarks: “I should imagine that the place where the false prophet resided
was of the same nature,” which it was; for Pethor, Peor, or Pethora was indeed, as we
now all so well know, a veritable Priapus (Num. xxii. 5). “Baalam had by the king
of Moab been appointed chief Petora” or high priest, and his rocky cone so sacred to
the Venus of Arabia, was by Romans called Petra, though by the natives Rath-Alilat
(Bryant I. 311). Pe-teus the father of the great Athenian king—Menestheus (god-man)
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