Forlong - Rivers of Life

358
Fig. 157.—THE SHAFT AND ARK IDEA OF
TEMPLES AND THE ANCIENT CRUX ANSATA.
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
Hindoo, and Pelasgic race, which appears to have been Apa-Mea in Phyrgia, that kingdom
of Friga or Woman, the Kibotos or Ark. Apa-Mea was such a spot as Samaritans
and Indians describe their Al-a-lats—viz., Ark-shaped, and surrounded by three rivers.
Alalat, said the Irish, means in Keltic the moon, Laban or Luban, 1 a very
female and Arkite name. Liban is the Irish Lunar Mermaid, as she of Clonfert,
County Galway, which I give elsewhere. All these peoples likewise laboured to
throw their religious ideas into their Architecture, and I entirely agree with Leslie 2
in what he says as to the Doric Capital being the pillar and ark idea. Indeed I have
long seen the same also in the IOnic and Corinthian columns and capitals. The pediment
raised upon pillars carrying Urns, or the pediment as a pyramid carrying Arks,
is quite the same idea as that seen at Som-nat where Siva carries on his head Soma
the Moon, or where Osiris carries Luna, as seen in Plates X.-10, XIII.-13. Millions
of men still perpetuate these ideas in their Temples,
as this fig., taken principally from Mr. Leslie, shows.
No architecture which did not embody the features of
pillars carrying an Ark or a Pallas-Athene did
apparently satisfy Greece, or convey the idea of
Man and Woman.
But not in architecture alone were these ideas
perpetuated. We have them abundantly in the furni-
ture and garniture of our dwellings, for we love to
perpetuate old forms, though the ideas are lost; nay,
even in our gaming-table; for the very ancient symbols on cards, which have not in
course of long ages materially changed, are unmistakeably phallic. What else could
have given us the dark spear-head and trefoil, which we call the “spade” and “club,” 3
in connection with the mystic female symbols of the crimson diamond and heart?
The Egyptians, Kyklops, Kooths, and Phenicians, all had a very marked
architectural symbolism. The Koothites called Saturn Bar, and the Egyptian
symbolised him in stone, as an obelisk and pyramid, calling this last BR-BR,
which the Greeks made PR, PR, or Pur, Fire; and the Asyrians, Bar;
Saturn became Nin, 4 their Lingam God—Nin-rad being a Lingam or conical
hill, or hill with a. Nin or Ling. Bar, in both Hebrew and Irish, is a
Male or Son, and in the latter Bar-en-Dee, is “the Son of one God.” Barindeus
is an Irish Saint, and Ban is white, the characteristic of the Sivaik Ling. Ben-ar is a
woman, so that the sexual difference, the Zakar and Nekeba, consists of only an R
and N or M; that is, Ra is the male, and Ma the female root or organ; and for M we
may usually substitute N or L, as in Sul, the Sun; Suir, a Mermaid, etc. The Irish De
or Da—God, and Latin Deus, are allied to Deva, and Da-naus—“the boat of God,”
1 2
Bryant, III. 320-2; IV.28.
Origin of Man, Chap. Arkites.
3
The club is of course the Baton or “Standard”; for the meaning of Spade see 33, ante.
4
Anc. Mons., I. 166. Nin = Dagon, the Fish God, the Begetter, and God of Fertility.