Forlong - Rivers of Life

490
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
as that made by the Islamic monarch of the Bosphorus when he erected the old Delphi
Tripod in an oval pit—see pages 265, 266, ante. This Lat is a very handsome one,
being thirty-seven feet in height, tapering slightly from a base ten feet four inches in
circumference. It is cylindrical, polished. and with Pali inscriptions after the manner
of all other Asoka Lats (250 B.C.), of which it is undoubtedly one, though probably a
sacred Sun-Stone or Phallus long before his day. Mahomedans say they found it standing
on the bank of the Jamna, opposite the site of the old Hindoo city which the Delhi of
Ferozshah replaced, and that it used to be covered with gold, on which account it was
called the Minar Zarin, or “column of gold.” Tamerlane has the credit of stripping
its gold off in 1398, but I doubt if any monarch or army, especially one from the
great Lingam-worshipping steppes of Tatary, would strip a “Sun-stone;” this was more
likely to be done by some sacrilegious band of mere marauders. The Mogul Empire
called it a PALLA-DIUM of monarchy, and no doubt on this account it was placed by
Ferozshah over his palace. As the palace was the only great building not levelled
on this occasion, we may conclude this Phallic column saved it. My sketch gives no
idea of the grandeur of the obelisk on its palace site, but this the reader will appreciate
if he turns to the fine engraving of it given in M. Loius Rousselet’s handsome volume,
“India and its Princes.” 1
The Iron column. of the Kootab is only twenty-two feet high, although it is
twenty-two feet in the ground. It is shown in Fig. 150, p. 337, and belongs to the
same religious idea, though the stone is likely to be the older of the two; a worshipper
of Vishnoo, King Deva (?) is said to have erected it.
No doubt the early Hindoo kings of Delhi summered in Kashmeer, and would
of course erect their greatest and most beautiful temples, as all Easterns love to do,
where nature is grandest. Alexander’s historians tell us of a temple of the Sun at
Taxila which rendered that capital especially holy; the very ancient city of Sravasti
on the Rapti in North East Oud—so celebrated long before Boodha’s day, was said by ardent
solar worshippers to have been founded by Soorya himself, before his Manifestation,
or Avatār—Rama, had started his crusade. This would be far more than 2000 years
B.C., for it would be anterior to the races who called themselves Solar and Lunar Aryans.
Pure Solar worship and Sun-temples, I expect, are very rare in Asia, and have never
been met with by me in India. The Sun-god is in most temples, and usually as a
horse with seven heads, corresponding to the days of the week. Coleman, who wrote
to this effect forty years ago, gives us a splendid drawing of Soorya as seen in the Viv-
Eswara temple at Benares, and also an elaborate picture of him taken from Rama’s
temple in Ram-nagar. 2
We have a Heliopolis in India as well as in Egypt. On two islands of the great
Rāvi, near its confluence with the Chenab, stands the once mighty city of the Sun,
1
A magnificently got up work by Chapman and Hall on the occasion of the Prince of Wales
going to India. Revised and Edited by Lt.-Col. Buckle.
2
Hindoo Myth., p. 128 and Pl. XXIV.