Forlong - Rivers of Life

Tree Worship.
We can recognise the early worship of trees in the reverence of thought which
attaches to the two in the centre of man’s first small world, or garden of fruits and
shade. All unhistorical though the tales may be, there is a deep poetry underlying
the story of the sacred garden. We naturally picture it as a “grove,” for man was
not yet a cultivator of the ground; amidst the deep shades of Eden, we are told,
walked the great Elohim, with the man and woman—naked—as created by Him
through his Logos, Ruach, Spirit or Spouse, but yet “without the knowledge,” which
“the sacred tree of knowledge” was soon to impart. Here, as in all Eastern faiths,
this last is accomplished under the instigation of the serpent—symbol of male
virility. The Hebrew writer makes him address himself to the Virgin Mother of man,
called Eva, Yuna, or Yoni; but other Eastern legends perhaps more correctly put it,
as the serpent in man, tempting him to forget his Creator and all that he had been
taught of purity and holiness. We must remember that the very names, Adam and
Eve, or A-dām and A-dāma, are purely terms denoting gender, and to this hour, one
at least is so retained by the Mohamedan races around me, who know no other
name for the symbol of Siva and Mahādeva, in the temples of India, but “the A-dām,”
for ancient words denoted purposes. 1
These gender-ic names, if I may coin a useful word, pass through every faith,
as with
JEWS. HINDOOS. ASYRIANS.
Adam.
Eve.
Mahādeva.
Pārvati.
Asher, the “red digger.”
Beltes, “the field.”
These are details, however, for which I must refer the inquiring reader to special
books like Dr Inman’s valuable
volumes, “Ancient Faith embodied
in Ancient Names.” 2 From
it, by his kind permission, I here
give what is called “the Temptation,”
with the tree and serpent,
and dogs of passion, all in lustrous
symbolism, as we shall hereafter
more fully understand. The idea
is the Eastern one, and the
original is by Colonel Coombe,
from a cave in South India. Fig. 2—THE TEMPTATION, AS UNDERSTOOD IN THE EAST
It reverses the Jewish idea of
1 As Penates and such words from pen-penetro,
a penetrator. The representative gods are called
Penates. We have also the Hinostāni word,
Chināl, an harlot, from China—perforata, root,
ched (a cave). See also the Vedic name for the
wife of the gods, Sita—symbol, a field furrow;
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her sister in the Ramayan is Urmila, “the waving
seed field,” and their father’s banner is a plough.
2 Trübner, London, second edition, 1872.
3 [Forlong mis-sources the figure, which inter alia
refers to the legend of Herakles; Inman (Symbolism,
p. 55 ed. 1874) thinks it is of Greek origin. — T.S.]