Forlong - Rivers of Life

Sun Worship.
dans call it Jagion-di-tibi—tower or hill of the Jogis, i.e., Hindoo priests. This is neither
clear nor correct. Plutarch relates of this celebrated shrine that when Porus was
assembling his army here to oppose Alexander, “the royal elephant rushed up the hill
sacred to the Sun, and in human accents exclaimed; “O great king, who art descended
from Ge-gasios, forbear all opposition to Alexander, for Ge-gasios himself was also of
the race of Jove;’ ” 1 from which we are probably to understand that this Jove and Gegasios—possibly
the same—was acknowledged by both generals as the Creator and
the Sun. It is thought that Gegasios was the Greek form of Yayati or Jajati. The
name of the hill Bil-Nāt, as pronounced by the natives, is almost the Westem Asian
word Ba-al-at, “place of the sun,” or Heliopolis. The hill is very sacred, and
historically and naturally a very remarkable one; it rises abruptly to upwards of 2,500
foot above the plain, and 3,242 above the sea, thus towering over all the hills and
plains around; and showing its sacred summit at great distances to once revering
peoples. Twice at intevals of 243-4 centuries (how much oftener we know not) it has
stood, the calm and prominent spectator of vast warring multitudes contending for the
empire of Northern India; and its slopes and ramifications have played no
inconspicuous part in the reward of victory. General Cunningham most thoroughly
identifies the plain of “Mong,” now called Chilianwála, on the east bank of the Jelum,
as that where the great Macedonian, in 326 B.C., with 50,000 men—less than one-third
of his opponent’s army (160,000 or so)—defeatcd Porus after a severe and tempestuous
night’s march, including the crossing of the Jelum breast-deep. Here also Sir Hugh
Gough won a battle over the Seiks under Shere Sing in January 1849, which, though
not a very satisfactory one, was followed up next month at Goojerat, on the same plain
but a little to the eastward, by a crushing victory, which created our Queen. Empress
of India.
To the east and south of Mooltan, where the followers of the Sun or Kasyapa ruled,
we find, as we should expect, such prominent races as Bāl-sam-eers and Jāl-sam-eers,
Bāl-nāts (Sun-gods), Bel-nāts, Bal-mers, or Jal-mers, or Jalores, with the still strong
fortress of Jalore, once probably the capital of Goorjára or Rajpootana; whilst further
south we note that the principal port of the great Delta of the Indus was founded ronnd
the site of a temple—no doubt of the sun—called DipaI, Di-Bat or Dwi-Bal, probably
from Dwipa, an island, ever a symbolical and holy object. In Jāl—“a well” “spring”
—we see the same peculiarity as in the west, where the well, eye, spring, and heart,
all signify the sun, or one of his creative functions.
Cunningham shows us that the celebrated port of Dwi-pal, a little to the east of
Karáchi, flourished up to the eighth century A.C., and was possibly destroyed by the same
earthquake as that which swallowed up the great city of Brahmānabād, at the head of
the Delta. Any movement here would in all probability spoil the navigation of the Dibali
river, which then clearly took place. Hamilton sailed up as far as Lari-bander (mark the
1 Anc. Geog. of India, I. 165.
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