Forlong - Rivers of Life

500
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
The original “stem,” says Professor Curtius, 1 of the word Heart is KARD, Kard,
from the root KRAD, to swing, to quiver. The Sanskrit is H-r-d (hard), which the
Professor thinks may have been altered through an intermediate Khard; the Latin is
Cor; Gothic Hairt-o, stem hairtan; O.H. German hirza; old Irish Cride, Cor. Now
it is a curious fact that this organ, which is so constantly identified with the phallus,
should be here shown to have also the signification of the hanger and quiverer, as already
noticed, especially on page 173. The Ain of Egypt is more correctly “the eye;” 2
which it signifies in the sixteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet (}yo, Oin), but it is
also the Sun, the great eye of the universe, as well as Ishtar—representative woman,
the Ain-Omphe, see page 272 ante, and Fig. 24, page 72. Great licence has been used
with this very emblematic word and organ. The Sun was a “Darter” and “Destroyer”
in Egypt, as Siva was and is in the East, and his name Shamabad 3 signified this; but
he was also Bela, or “he who swallows up,” as Jeremiah recognises in saying, “I have
finished Bel in Babel, and have made him eject his Bela (‘what be has swallowed’)
from his mouth.”
The Sun’s enemy, Scorpio, was called by the Hebrews, Skorboa, awbrkc, which
means “a creeping creature” with many parts, a beetle, which they called Iskorbe—
brqc; by which, say some, was meant a creature with a tail of thirteen joints. It is
curious that the beetle, under these circumstances, should have been esteemed so sacred.
Can this point to a far-back period when this constellation was in the place of Taurus
or Aries? Isis is often seen carrying a scorpion an her head, and the symbol seems to
be a female one, as we see it represented by two women. Scorpio used anciently to
occupy Libra’s place with one of her claws, which the Greeks named –Onyx, 4 and Kaldians
hka, “a kind of vessel.” It was only in Cesar’s time that a pair of Scales took
the place of Scorpio’s claw, as I have stated elsewhere when speaking of Libra.
I must now try and make clear to my readers the much misunderstood worship of
“Serapis,” the later great solar deity of Egypt, who, though sharing in name, yet somewhat
supplanted the Southern Apis. Serapis doubtless came from India, and not
improbably from Oud, as Pococke urges, for the first part of his name is clearly the Indian
word Soor or Soorya, or Mesopotamian Sar (as correctly spelt by good Greeks), 5 and
Ap-Is or Ab-Is, of course, always in connection with Taurus—the Bull Deity. This is
still universally worshipped in India, and was especially so by Rama, the great monarch
of Ayoodyans—chief of all the solar races of India, and Vishnoo’s (the Sun’s) seventh
Avatār. From Rama, it is said, came the dynasty of the Rameses of Egypt, and many
a more powerful kingly Indian race. Pococke sees in Ram “the great Gulkopos, or
Gok-la Prince—the Sun, represent by Oo’sras (Osiris), who warred with Typhon or
Typhoo” . . . . . . the Lunar races of India. 6 He traces the inhabitants of Goshen
1 2
Principles of Greek Etym., by Prof. Curtius, Leipzig. Drummond’s Œdipus Jud., p. 27.
3 4
Œdipus Jud., p. 52. Is this word not connected with the Kongx of the Elusinian inscription?
5
[The usual deriviation is as a contraction of wsir (Osiris) + op (Apis), which is confirmed by the
hieroglyphic caption on the figure on the next page. — T.S.]
6
India in Greece, p. 200 and thereabouts, by E. Pococke. Lon., Griffin & Co., 1856.