Forlong - Rivers of Life

326
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
done before the eyes of the parents, as I have witnessed in Boodhist Barma, but it is
also occasionally done secretly by the maiden holding the taper out of her window
when she sees her lover’s torch or light approaching at nightfall. If she does this, it is
held to be as binding as our secret marriages, or the plighting of troth before a magistrate,
and has been often upheld by the sword, though the lovers separated then and
there, and never met again. In the language of India, Fire is still called Aish or Esh,
as it was when Saul called his son Esh-baal—Lord of Fire (1 Chron. viii. 33). It still
signifies desire or passion, so that Esh-bal may mean “child of my desires,” or “of my
heart,” for we prefer to speak of this organ as the source of all such emotion.
The Heavenly god Uranos or Varoona, who was the supreme god of the early
Vedic Age, and supplanted, or at least followed Indra, is often represented as Agni,
or Sivi, and as such he is called Prajāpati or Fire, or the Creating Father.
In the Fire-ceremony of the Vasta-Yaga, or rite of consecration of all domiciles,
temples, tanks, &c. (for with the religious Hindoo all these require consecration)
Prajāpati is specially worshipped, but here note, figuring prominently with the ancient
serpent god, and connecting us, perhaps, with far-back pre-Vedic ages; for these ceremonies
are supposed to have been offerings of the ancient Aryans, to appease the aborigines
or Nagas—the serpent dynasty, whom they warred with, and have at last mostly
supplanted. Like Israel of old, however, and not a few of us still, these Aryans also
took to the gods of the nations amongst which they dwelt; nay, objected not to mingle
blood with faith, which will be made clear when I come to speak of central Indian
aborigines. The Vasta-Yaga is held to be the oldest Aryan rite, and Vasta is considered
an early Aryan deity. The ancient Aryans, after they settled down in India,
and had begun to consider Northem India as their own, worshipped two gods of night;
the Asvins, which they said appeared from midnight to dawn, and following them in the
heavenly procession the Ushas or Dawn, a god of long red streaks; after these
came Agni, who was called “the messenger of the gods,” because sent to summon
all the Gods, when Soorya or the Sun appears. Perhaps we may call the days of
Asvins and Ushas times of impersonal faiths, and that of Serpents, Fire, and Soorya,
personified faiths, both gods and abodes being real earthly objects.
It is customary to specify the Parsis as the great Fire-worshipping race of these
times, but the truth is, that Parsis in this respect only exceed the other Indian tribes, as
the Catholics of England exceed some of her ritualistic communities in ornate altars and
candles. I have shown that no Hindoo rite is complete without fire, yet the Hindoo does
not now, like the Parsi or Zoroastrian, keep holy fire ever burning in one sacred spot.
The Parsi calls this hearth or recess the Atash-bairam, where the fire must be ever
bright by day, and banked up with its own sacred ashes, and left to smoulder at night.
Before covering it up, bits of sandal-wood are thrown upon it—I scarcely like to say
offered to it, lest I displease my Parsi friends—but there is no doubt that if not now
considered so by the enlightened Parais of India, it is so by the ignorant, and is a