Forlong - Rivers of Life

492
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
A.C., when Arabians considered it the greatest city in the East. Alexander knew it as
the strong capital of the Malli or Malloi, which his historians say had 50,000 able male
defenders. It is clear that there were in this Solar kingdom the usual Right and Lefthand
sects; for all the Bagers of Bikaneer, the Batis of Jesalmere, and the Johiyas along
the Indus south of Mooltan, were Lunars, whom Cunningham classes under the general
term of Sabagræ. There is no doubt that here as elsewhere the faith of the people
had been grossly Phallic, for we are told that Krishna destroyed or supplanted a dynasty
called the Asoors, himself driving out king “Bana, the Asur,” whose name (very Kaldiak)
denotes that he was a Lingam-worshipper, although it may also refer to the
Asooras of India.
In the Ramāyana, Rāvana is told to worship “the rising Vivasvat—the radiant
Sun adored by the gods and Asooras, the lord of the world, possessing the essence of
all gods, being fiery, the producer of rays; by his beams he sustains the gods, the
Asooras, and the worlds; is both Brahma and Vishnoo, Siva and Skanda, Prajāpati,
Indra Koovēra, Kala (Time), Yāma (Death), Soma, and “the Lord of Waters” (Varoona.).
. . . . Manoo Vāyoo, Agni, “the breath of creatures” . . . . “the producer of light,”
Adity, Savatri, Soorya moving in the sky; Pushan (one of Siva’s names), “he of
the golden seed, the maker of day,” &c. 1
In all the stories of the Solar and Lunar Aryan races of India, we find them,
though good Sabeans, also worshipping the grosser forms of male and female energies, it
being explained that the heavenly orbs were in themselves thought to represent or manifest
these. All around Taxila—the first Aryan capital in and before the days of Manikyala’s
Sun temples—there were poor but proud and powerful chieftains, who claimed solar
lineage or Soorāj-vansi, but southwards towards Mooltan the Lunar race would appear
to have been more dominant. Mooltan at one time was evidently the .solar capital of
the royal family of Jalandāra and Kángra, and they say that the head of their house,
Soosarma-Chandra, fought with Daryoodāns against the five Pandoo brothers who were
Soma Vansees. Of the Jalander chief it is related, that for a long time he resisted all the
persuasions of Brahmanism, and had to be at last finally crushed out by Siva. himself,
who “called down the mountains (that is their tribes) upon him.” He was very
austere and correct in life, which means that he was a good moral man, true to his
solar faith; the Brahmans had to overcome him by fraud. In falling—crushed by
Siva’s mountains, flames sprung from him, which probably means that as many Sunworshippers
as were able escaped from Brahmanism. The ancient Gakars—whom I
show as occupying the Lower Panjab, and whose descendants are now Mahomedans—
were no doubt Lunar worshippers long before the Christian era, and probably erected the
very ancient and lofty Sun-temple of Bal-Nāt, around which Gakars still congregate.
This great shrine has naturally changed its name to the Brahman sun-god, Siva,
who is now worshipped here under the name of Gorak-Nāt, though ignorant Mahome-
1 Muir’s Sanskrit Texts, IV. 405.