Forlong - Rivers of Life

48
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
reminding us of our purely animal frame, yet no Hindoo practices of harvest times (in
all countries the principal marrying season) are so gross, as I have seen practised at
the harvest homes or midnight harvest revelries of our own country.
As I have said, Hindooism looks upon Siva worship from a purely spiritual
stand-point, and this anthropomorphising of the god is peculiarly hateful to all good
holders of the Vedic creed. Oriental scholars will remember how strongly Sir William
Jones writes in support of what I here say:—“Sivaik rites or services do not seem in the
eyes of the people in any way immodest or connected with the passions;” in fact, “the
congregations” take no more notice of what is said and goes on in their “churches”
than those of Europe do when the indecent parts of the Bible are read out, or the purposes
of marriage proclaimed to large adult assemblies, who one might think could dispense
with the information as much as the Sivaite with some of his pictures and ceremonies.
Of Shrub or Flower worship, the most important in the East ancl South has been
that of the Lily species. The lily of October—the saffron—was very sacred to the
Karnean, or horned Apollo—that is, the sun—for horns usuaIly stand for rays of
glory, as in the case of the horned Moses of our poets, artists, and ecclesiastics, who
make him like an Apis of Egypt, because of the text which says “his face shone”
when he came down from the mountain. All lilies have more or less to do with the
female or fecundating energics, and so even in Europe we have many stories of the
crocus species, because it is said “of their irradiating light, having peculiar-looking
bells, three-headed and crested capillaments, three cells, and reddish seeds, &c. The
Jews placed such flowers on the vestments of their priests; see Josephus, here very
full; 2 Chron. iv. 5; Ex. xxv. 31; and some parts of Canticles and elsewbere. I
shall hereafter enlarge on this feature of faiths. A study of fire worship and Apollo-
IOnic rites is ahaolutely necessary to the underntanding of these matters, as well as
the mysteries of candlestick, lavers, &c.—
not to mention that of the never-dying fires,
of all nations, and of Lev. vi. 13, and elsewhere;
but I must pass on to the queen of
ilowers, the sacred Lotus and loved Kamal
—god of love and fertility. The Lotus is
the seat of most deities, but notably so of
the creator Brahma, who, thus enthroned, is
called the Kamāl-a-yoni, or the great androgynous
god. The Lotus is the womb of
all creation. It is said to originate from
the great fertiliser, water, alone; and
dropping its great leaves on this fertiliser
Fig 11.—SINGLE LOTUS
as on a bed, it springs upwards with a
slender, elegant stalk, and spreads forth in a. lovely flower. Even the grave and mighty