Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
corteges: I merely explain and expostulate regarding what, if they only knew it, they
themselves would esteem most odious.
In Sanskrit we have Pal or Pala, protection, and in colloquial Hindustani, Palna,
to nourish; hence the nourisher, protector, or Parent. In the Pallium we have the
symbol of spiritual or ghostly protection, as when the Pope presents to the Bishop his
sacred pallium, and of old when we threw a. pall over a corpse. So also the Palla-
Dium gave protection to the city whicb possessed it; and to this hour the Maha-Deva
of every Indian city casts a strong and impervious shield around it, such as no monarch
would presume to ignore, as none durst slight the god’s temple. Colonel Forbes Leslie
speaks thus truly in regard to the Pales and Palilia of Kelts and ancient Italians: 1
“We may also remember the Keltic element in the earliest Italian population, and that
Pales appears to have been a deity of the race previous to the foundations of the city
and the origin of the Roman name.” Yea, truly, for Italy had Northern and Eastern
nations abundantly poured into her.
In Italy, flag-staffs, especially when carrying serpent pennants, are still called
Pali; and in heraldry Pall is a cross, and a Pale or Pal, “one of the eight honourable
Ordinaries, representing a stake placed upright.” 2 A Pale or Palisade is an upright
stake, or the holy stauros on which sacrifices to the Lingam were affixed, and on which
Christ was crucified. The Pall bestowed by the Pope “should be made of the wool of
those two lambs, which, being on St. Agne’s Day (21st January) offered up on the high
altar, are, after the hallowing of them, committed to the sub-deacons of that church
and kept by them in a particularly appointed pasturage. The whol garment is not
made of that wool, but only that list of plait of it which falls down before and behind,
and encompasses the neck about,” 3 which is clearly the same idea as that which only
gives a woollen fringe to the rods and base of the Phallic eaps of the priests of the Roman
Republic and earlier empires. 4 English Monarchs have a similar sort of coronation
robe also called Palla, and the cloth of a Christian altar (ark?) is so named.
Let us look for a moment at the great demi-god known as Pallas, for he, like the
Elm, was often female, and very serpentish. Pallas, as a female, is representative
Virgin-Light, pure and unmixed. As a male energy, he has horses to his car, exactly
as had the Sun and Apollo, to denote strength, and a fiery, swift nature. These
“vehicles” of the gods denote a great deal; thus the oldest form of the Sun, which is
Saturn in Europe, is Passion, and Desire, and he is then drawn by serpents. The
later idea was less animal, and more intellectual; so Pallas or Saturn had horses
yoked in his car; Jupiter has eagles; Venus doves—Peleiaiai, IOnim or IOnis;
Mercury cocks; and Luna stags, denoting swiftness and timidity. Pallas enters into
a trinity with Apollo and Herakles, and these formed a~ trinity of Light-Gods who led
in tha great array of the Titan. war. Here we are to understand that
APOLLO is solar light in general;
HERAKLES, solar light in special glory and strength;
PALLAS, virgin-solar light.
1 “Early Races,” Note to I. 133.
2 Bailey’s Eng. Dic.
3 Ibid.
4 See p. 185, fig. 66, II.