Forlong - Rivers of Life

Sun Worship.
connected with Solo-phallic cult, though this was possibly not in such an advanced
state as in India. Nevertheless we must remember that Bela may have been so named
by the Sun-worshippers whom Cyrus Hystaspes doubtless placed here to rule, when he
conquered the country in the sixth century B.C. Nominally, at least, the land must
have been subject to Persian rulers, or Iranians, for some twelve centuries, who would
much sooner and more forcibly impress their Fire and Solar faiths on the conquered,
than was the habit of Greek and Roman rulers. Pure Phallic faith, like that of Apis,
would not have been permitted by a dynasty whose distinguished scion slew the
Egyptian Apis and threw the flesh to his Zoroastrian soldiers, which we are told
Artaxerxes III., son of Memnon, did in 338, but for which, says tradition, he was in
turn slain, his body flung to cats, and his bones made into knives. Fetish, Serpent,
and Phallic worship of different kinds was no doubt, then as now, common in Beloochistan,
and Fire in every household; but from old names we learn that Solar faith
must have dominated. Alexander halted at a city Rambakia or Ram’s bāgh (garden),
and saw mud jets in a river which went by the name of “Ram-Chander’s Wells,” a
common India name at this day; and we know of caves dedicated to Káli, under
the name of Hingoolaj or Hingoola-Devi—“the Red Goddess.” There could be no
Rama unconnected with Solar faith. All the principal objects of pilgrimage in the
Aghor or Oritæ Valley are connected with the history of Rama, and it was from Rambagh
that he and Sita set out for the West. They were obliged to turn back after
reaching Tonga-bhera, apparently on account of the “Barbarian king” Hingoolāj,
whom the Tibetan Tara-nāt calls a Rakshasa or Demon.
General Cmmingham truly remarks that it is highly improbable that such names
with attendant pilgrimages could have been imposed on tbis coast after the decay of
Hindooism, which confirms what I have advanced elsewhere as to Rama’s solar
faith having been widely propagated from the Ganges to the Nile, long before the
earliest times of Ramayana story. The Persian Empire, and before it the kingdoms
on the Tigris, would be points to which Indian solar chiefs and propagandists might
reasonably be thought to gravitate, and mountain lords always soon follow the leaders
of civilisation on the plains. When these succumb, as did in this case the Persian
Empire, the Beloochies reverted to a cult more congenial to their backward state; for
Hwen Tsang tells us that in the seventh century A.C. their capital was called Su-neuli-Shifalo,
which Cunningham translates into Soorya-Eswāra or Sambur-Eswāra,
Siva’s title as “God of Gods;” he says that in the midst of the city was a magnifi-
cent Sivaik temple, and to the whole country the pilgrim gives the name Langkis, which
Julen renders Langala (country of the Ling ?), but which we may grant to M. de St.
Martin was only the name of the portion he passed over.
Still going west, we must remember that the grandest sight on the plains of Shimar
(and if we could only believe the narrativ—“in the world”) was that Phallic Sun-ray
—“the image ofgold,” whose height was threescore cubits and the breadth thereof six
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