Forlong - Rivers of Life

36
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
that there it has stood for over 2200 years, the oldest and best worshipped idol of man,
and after all, what is it? Only a beautiful tree; yet in its sweet shade, says tradition,
were matured by the good young Prophet, those high principles, generous and pious
resolves, which overthrew all the great faiths of India in the ahort space of a genera-
tion or two, and indeed of all the East in a very few centuries, and which have
stamped more or less on every succeeding faith the highest ideas of an exalted virtue
and self-abnegation, of good works, and noble-mindedness.
This wonderful Idol has furnished shoots to half Asia, and every shoot is
trained as much as possible like the parent and like it also enclosed and tended.
Men watch and listen for signs and sounds from this holy tree just as the Priests of
Dodona did beneath their rustling oaks, and as many peoples even of these somewhat
sceptical days still do, beneath the pulpits of their Popc, Priest, or other oraclc.
The worship of this Tree was as complete in all its parts as even the organised
theocracies of our day. Where the Roman Catholic Bishop put a cross (tree of Life)
before his signature, the High Priests of Ceylon affixed the image of one of the trefoil
leaves, and that sign eonstituted every document or other objeet on which it was
affixed at once holy, 1 set apart or consecrated, and so “royal” like our “broad arrow.”
It has been customary to attribute the worship of this, and indeed from it of all trees
to Gotama Boodha, and to say that this celebrated tree sprang from the parent branch
which the. Prophet tarried under at Gaya, and that “it planted itself in a golden vase;”
that it is “always green, never growing; and never decaying; none of which traditions
we care. to dispute, yet this I must in toto dissent from, that it is the parent of
Tree Worship. On the contrary I hold that its birth and worahip is but a. thing of
yesterday in comparison with the adoration of Trees. Tree worship was, I think, very
old and all over the world, long before Gotama Boodha’s day; sixth century B.C., and I
cannot think that in this isle of lovely trees, the “Eden of the Eastern Wave,” and of
every kind of spirit, amd demon, and elemental worship, that the Bo tree was anything
more than the worship of a tree which the holy ascetics of Boodha Gaya, as persons
1 I very much incline to think that this word
holy comes form a physical base in connection with
passion. The virgin is the one specially set apart,
or the Holy One, and ¡giÕj is that which is holy or
chaste as Diana, or goddess Ana (Dia-ana) to
whom the Agnus-castus is scred, because it does
not permit of the “bite of the serpent.” The
Agnus-castus is also a fish, that is a nun, and
woman generally, as well as “a chaste tree.”
The word requires probing down to the root, as to
Ag, fire in Sanskrit and its analogues; love, goodness,
and compassion are all the most holy of passions,
whether in male or female. Thus we have the
Serpent god of love, Agatho Daimon, ¢gaqoda…mon,
whom Easterns occasionally call the demon or
fierce god of love. We have the female in Latin
as Bona-dea; and elsewhere Agatha Belus &c.
In Hebrew we have the important word Kadesh,
cdq, to which Inamn gives full attention at II.
168, and as a not uncommon Indian word, Kadeem,
that which is sacred as from custom, also “revered.”
The result appears to be virginity and sacred or
hot-fire. Sanskrit quite bears out all Dr. Inman
says as to Kadesh, and shows in Katāksha and its
roots Kati and As, from whence Asher, more than
I can here mention. Fürst’s Heb. Dict. shows us
that the Kadesh might be a temple-male as well
as female, also that Kadesh means a place or seat
of holiness and a well or font. The original meaning
of Holy Ghost was thus only Hot air or Breath.