Forlong - Rivers of Life

28
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
the myths of time: many great Hindoo chiefs claim descent from him, notably so one
of the greatest in this land from which I at present write, the Maha Rana of Oodepore.
For the benefit of students of Professor Darwin, I may here state that all the races of
Europe are said by the Hindoos to be the descendents of Hanoomān, who is very commonly
called after his father’s clan, Marooti. He asked a favour of Sita when restoring
her to the arms of Rām, and added that “he would beget a very powerful race of men who
would eventually conquer most of the world;” thus, says the Hindoo, have we lost in
the east the powerful race of monkeys who fought for the gods, and there, says the
African explorer, stand the few remnants of that race in the Gorilla of Africa; but the
Hindoo knows not that he is still there, and says the European is his offspring, and
like him of old, more powerful than all men.
Everywhere we find beasts and birds the helpers or opponents of gods as also
men; from the eternal snows of the north to the south pole it is the same tale. The
story of the ravens who assisted the Hebrew prophet, the “man of God,” who could
call upon God and all the winds of heaven (the Maroots) to assist him, is but a
similar tale to this man of god, Rām, who claimed supernatural aid from the monkeys
of ancient India. The eagle of the banners of Persia and Europe is the chariot of
Vishnoo (Garooda), “the great God of Gods,” and is represented in the sacred bird of
Jupiter and in the outspread eagle of Christian churches as the fitting carrier of “the
book of life.” It is as a charm and as a battle cry that it appeared at the head of
every Roman legion, and became the symbol of so many other nations and potentates:
in all this we find relics of a sort of bird worship, similar to that of the stork and
vulture veneration of Egypt.
The peacock on the banners of so many Asiatic kings and princes is generally a
symbol of a past or present faith in the Sun. Barmese mythology exhibits it with a
Hare, symbolising the moon; both adore the canopies of great Boodha’s temples,
although the wise and severe ascetic thought he had blotted out this old cultus. On
the Phallic pole beside his temples sits Brahma’s vehicle the goose, on which Vishnoo
winged his flight to awaken the drowsy Creator.
The sceptre of the Pharaohs had for handle the head of Athor, the bird of love,
or Egyptian Venus, resembling the eastern Hoopoo: all other sceptres of our days, and
the shields of all earth’s nobles hand down to us the Totem adoration of our ancestors:
still does the ancient banner of one of the most powerful of our Indian princes, Sindia,
display the Cobra de Capello, or holy hooded snake, and over all the walls of his holy
places, and the sculptured rocks of his fortresses, have I traced this great old symbol
of this wide faith. The serpent sometimes shares a sculpture with the fertile fish and
sun as the fecundating Ba-al god, although these two more abound along Sindia’s
western frontier, amidst the Chiefs of Rajpootana. Even the iconoclastic ruler of
Oud, ancient Ayoodya, could not, however he abhorred the Serpent, shake off Maya’s