Forlong - Rivers of Life

46
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
sailors borrowed their lion pillars. We know that the great Tope of Sanchi had one
or two such monuments in front of each of its gate-ways.
As time rolled on, the pillar ornament became still more prominent, and the
pillars much more numerous. Fergusson gives a pretty picture (vol. I. 42) of the
Thuparamya tope in Ceylon, which one writer states “has 184 handsome monoliths
twenty-six feet in height round the centre holy mound.”
Evidently, mound, pillars, domes, drums, lions, elephants, dagobas or sacred arks;
with relics, were all of the utmost importance in this faith, which in the sixth century
B.C. had determined to reform India. It vigorously, purely, and successfully set about
to do this; but not so easily was our first faith to be here wiped out, and more than it
was firmly located in this “Eden of the eastern wave,” before Boodha’s day. Ceylon
was not only par excellence the land of tree worshippers, but possibly even then of all
our earlier streams. We know from many sources that the Cingalese specially
believed in spirits good and bad of the woods, and of particular trees, as the Barmese
and most races do to this day, reverencing, fearing, and making offering to these Spirits
or Nats. Fergusson says that “Serpent and Devil worship harmoniously blended,”
but this was rather an after falling away from the Faith of the great Ascetic, for
Boodhism ever tried to abolish not only Serpent but Ancestral worships, substituting
Sepulchral Tumuli as depositaries for saintly relics, and elevating as the faith
degenerated, the sanctity if not worship of groves of trees, amidst the deepest and
most beautiful of which Boodhists love to pass their days “on holy thoughts intent.”
It has been said that the great impetus which Boodhism gave to Relic worship
was owing to the careful distribution of Godama’s remains. This was no doubt a
politic movement on the part of the new missionaries, and one which all after-
proseIytisers adopted, for man is naturaily a worshipper of relics, hair, clothes, crosses,
pictures, book, images, and such like. Eight great cities had this Prophet’s most
valued remains distributed to them, and went mad with excitement over them, just as
Europe would do to this hour, if any good authority could show to it a. bit of a robe
or shoe, &c., which Christ or Mary, or even an apostle wore. The most celebrated
relic of Godama is his Tooth which, till within the last few years the British government
guarded as the PalIadiurn of Sovereignty over the Island of Ceylon.
It is of importance to note, in regard to the original purity of Boodha’s faith, tbat
Mr. Fergusson, as an architect, affirms that “on no Boodhist architecture of Asoka’s
days can he discover either Tree or Serpent worship, nor even the worship of Boodh
bimself.” In the Prophet’s teachings he sees the very highest purity, morals, and
goodnesa such as had never before been heard of, and which has never been surpassed
though mixed with many errors—three comparatively venial, one of which is that
“asceticism was the path to salvation.” This primal purity has been common to
most faiths, and so also humility to Prophets, although never as severely so as in the
case of Godama-Boodha. I cannot find that any prophets said they were gods, or