ZABIANISM AND SERPENT-WORSHIP.

There can be no question as to the antiquity or universality of Serpent-Worship, whatever may be the difference of opinion as to its origin. According to Bryant it began in Chaldea, and was “the first variation from the purer Zabaism.” But this statement requires from us a brief preliminary explanation of that ancient form of worship.

Zabaism, or Zabism, has had its two sects,—first the Chaldean Zabians of the Kuran,—the “Parsified” Chaldee heathen, or non-Christian Gnostics,—the ancestors of the present Mendaites, or so-called Joannes Christians, who reside in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, and speak a corrupt form of Chaldee-Aramaic. And second, the Pseudo-Zabians, or Syrian Zabians, in Harran, Edessa, Rakkah, and Bagdad. It is the latter who now chiefly represent Zabism.

The first named, or Chaldean Zabians, who transferred the name to the Harranic, and greatly influenced the development of the peculiar system of the latter, are the people so designated in the Kuran, and by the Mohammedans of to-day. The Harranians, who rose about A.D. 830, profess to derive their denomination from one ZÂbi, who is variously called a son of Seth, son of Adam, or a son of Enoch or Idris, or a son of Methuselah, or of some fictitious Badi or Mari, a supposed companion of Abraham; while Mohammedan writers trace it to the word ssaba, “to turn, to move,” because its professors turned from the path of true religion, that is, Islam, or, as the Zabians say, because they have turned to the proper faith.

The Zabian creed, as professed by the Harranic Zabians, would appear to resolve itself into the following elements:—

It teaches that the Creator is, in His essence, primitivity, originality, and eternity, One; but in His numerous manifestations in bodily figures, manifold. Chiefly He is personified by the seven principal planets, and by the good, knowing, excellent earthly bodies. This, however, is without any disturbance of His unity. It is, say the Zabians, as if the seven planets were His seven limbs, and as if our seven limbs were His seven spheres in which He manifests Himself,—so that He speaks with our tongues, sees with our eyes, hears with our ears, touches with our hands, comes and goes with our feet, and acts through our members.

It teaches further, that God is too great and too sublime to occupy Himself directly with the affairs of this world; that its government He has therefore entrusted to other gods, and that it is only to the highest things of destiny He Himself devotes His attention,—an attribution of cold superiority and intellectual indifference in striking contrast to the idea of God the Father developed by Christianity, that all-loving, as well as all-powerful God, Who watches over the fall of a sparrow, and listens with tender ear to the prayer of even the meanest of His creatures. Moreover, Zabism inculcates the chilling doctrine that man is too feeble to offer his homage directly to the Supreme, and must therefore address the inferior deities to whom the regimen of the world has been handed. In this way we see that the veneration shown to the planets and the worship of idols are only a symbolism resulting from the humiliating doctrines just defined.

Zabism is a polytheistic system,—it absolutely revels in gods and goddesses. There are the spirits that direct and guide the planets, the spirits that originate or represent every action in this world,—not a natural effect, great or little, which does not emanate from a deity. Whatever appears in the air, whatever is formed near the sky or springs from the earth, must be traced to certain gods that govern these manifestations, so that every flake of snow, every drop of rain has its presiding spirit.

These spirits also “mould and shape everything bodily from one form into the other, and gradually bring all created things to the state of their highest possible perfection, and communicate their powers to all substances, beings, and things. By the movement and guidance of these spiritual beings, the different elements and natural compositions are influenced in such a way that the tenderest plant may pierce the hardest cliff. He who guides this world is called the first spirit. These gods know our most secret thoughts, and all our future is open to them. The female deities seem to have been conceived as the feeling or passive principle. These gods or intelligences emanate directly from God without His will, as rays do from the sun. They are, further, of abstract forms, free of all matter, and neither made of any substance or material. They consist chiefly of a light in which there is no darkness, which the senses cannot conceive by reason of its immense clearness, which the understanding cannot comprehend by reason of its extreme delicacy, and which fancy and imagination cannot fathom.”

Free from all animal desires, these spirits are created wholly for love and harmony, for friendship and unity. They are unaffected by local and temporal changes, and control the planetary spheres, without finding the motion of the heaviest too heavy, or of the lightest too light. Their never-ending existence is a prolonged happiness, owing to their nearness to the Supreme God; whom they praise day and night, like the Angels, with no sense of fatigue or satiety, and whose will they ever obey with the keenest joy. Free agents, they are never inclined towards the evil. They turn towards the good as readily as the flower towards the light.

Passing on to the cosmogonical part of the Zabian system, we find that it is based on the existence of five primÆval principles,—the Creator, Reason, the Soul, Space, and the Void. These are the constituents of all creation. But apart from these, or comprehending these, the Zabians seem to have regarded two principles, God and the Soul, as specially active and ever-living. Some writers represent them as believing also in a passive principle, Matter; and in two principles which are neither living nor passive, Time and Space. They appear to have regarded Matter as primeval and everlasting, and to have ascribed to it the origin and duration of Evil. God Himself created only the spheres, and the heavenly bodies which they contain. These spheres (fathers) convey the types or ideas to the elementary substances (mothers), and out of the combination, conjunction, and motion of these spheres and elements are produced the various earthly things (children). According to the Zabians, the world is renewed with every “world-year,” or cycle, that is once every 36,425 ordinary years. And at the close of each cycle, the life, vegetable, animal, and human that had flourished within it cease to multiply, and new forms or types spring into existence.

The vacillating and contending nature of man is due to the contradictory elements of which he is composed. The desires and passions which sway him to and fro, depress him to the low standard of the brute creation, and his fall would be complete but for such religious rites as purifications, sacrifices, and other means of grace. Through these he is able again to draw near to the great gods, and to attain a resemblance unto them. The human soul is dual, that is, it consists partly of the nature of the animal soul and partly of that of the angelic soul. It is immortal, and subject to future recompense and punishment, but not for ever, nor in any world but this, though at different epochs of existence. Hence, our present happiness is a reward for the good deeds done by us in an earlier stage of existence; and our present suffering the just chastisement for evil actions committed in the past. In its nature they hold that the soul is primitive, because otherwise it must be material, and a material soul is an impossibility.

“The soul,” says Kathibi, one of the Zabian teachers, “is thus immaterial, and exists from eternity; is the involuntary reason of the first types, as God is the First Cause of the Intelligences. Once on a time the soul beheld matter and loved it. Glowing with the desire of assuming a bodily shape, it would not again separate itself from that matter of which the world was created. Since that time, the soul forgot itself, its everlasting existence, its original abode, and knew nothing more of what it had formerly known. But God, who converts all things to the best, united it to matter, which it loved, and out of this union the heavens, the elements, and other composite things arose. In order that the soul might not wholly perish within matter, He endowed it with intelligence, whereby it conceived its high origin, the spiritual world, and itself. It further conceived through it that it was but a stranger in this world, in which it was subject to many sufferings, and that even the joys of this world are but the sources of new sufferings. As soon as the soul had perceived all this, it began to yearn again for its spiritual home, as a man who is away from his birthplace pines for his homestead. It then also learned, that, in order to return to its primitive state, it had to shake off the fetters of sensuous desires, and liberate itself from all materialistic tendencies. Far from them all, it would once more regain its heavenly sphere, and enjoy the bliss of the spiritual world.”[44]

Such is an outline of the religious system which flourished from the middle of the ninth to the middle of the eleventh century, under the name of Zabism.

Evidently, out of this Zabaism Serpent-worship could not spring, because it is of much greater antiquity. What then is the Zabism to which Bryant alludes? A purely imaginary creed, which the mediÆval, Jewish, Arabic, and Persian writers identified with star-worship. The Mohammedan and other writers of the twelfth century bestowed the name of Zabians indifferently upon the ancient Chaldeans, the Buddhists, even the ante-Zoroastrian Persians; and Bryant has followed their mistaken example. As a matter of fact, Serpent-worship is a relic of nature-worship,—more particularly of the old solar worship,—and the Serpent at first was unquestionably an emblem of the Sun.

In Babylon large serpents of silver supported the image of the goddess Rhea, in the temple of Bel, or Belus; and the name Bel itself is thought by some writers to be an abbreviation of Ob-el, “the Serpent-God.” In the Apocryphal book of Bel and the Dragon, we read: “In that same place there was a great Dragon, which they of Babylon worshipped. And the king said unto Daniel: Wilt thou say that this is of brass? lo, he eateth and drinketh: thou canst not say he is no living god: therefore worship him.”

Speaking of the earlier stage of the Persian religion, Eusebius remarks that all the Persians worshipped the First Principles under the form of Serpents, having dedicated to them temples in which they performed sacrifices, and held festivals and orgies, esteeming them the greatest of Gods, and governors of the Universe.

These first principles were the principles of Good and Evil, or Ormuzd and Ahriman, whose terrible struggle for the supremacy of the universe was symbolised in Persian mythology by two serpents contending for the mundane egg. They are represented as standing upon their tails, and each of them has fastened its teeth upon the disputed prize. But, more generally, the Evil Principle alone was represented by the serpent, and a fable in the Zendavesta recalls to our recollection the opening of the Book of Genesis; for it says that Ahriman assumed a serpent’s form in order to destroy the first of the human race, whom he accordingly poisoned.

In the Saddu, or Suddu, it is said: “When you kill serpents, you shall repeat the Zendavesta, whereby you will obtain great merit; for it is the same as if you had killed so many devils.”

Mithras, the Persian sun-god, was represented encircled by a serpent; and in his rites a custom was observed similar to that practised in the mysteries of Sebazius: a serpent was cast into the bosom of the neophyte, and taken out at the lower part of his garments.[45]

The hierogram of the winged circle and serpent is a remarkable and significant emblem of Ophiolatreia, and is found in almost every country where Serpent-worship prevailed. It is to be traced in the Egyptian, the Persian, and even the Aztec hieroglyphics; and on the monuments of China, Greece, Italy, Asia Minor, and India. Enthusiasts allege that it has been discovered in Britain. It seems to have been a general symbol of consecration, and as such mention is made of it by the poet Persius:

“Pinge duos angues; pueri sacer est locus.”
Satir. i. 113.

Reference is here made to two snakes, which, as we have seen, is the hierogram of the worshippers of the Two Principles, each being represented by a serpent. Generally, however, it is one serpent only that issues from the winged circle, and sometimes the circle is without wings. As a consecrating symbol, the ophite hierogram was inscribed upon the massive portals of the Egyptian temples. Mr. Deane contends that the Druids “with the consistent magnificence which characterised their religion,” transferred the symbol from the portal to the temple; and instead of placing the circle and serpent over the entrance into their sanctuaries, erected the whole building in the form of the ophite hierogram, as at Abury in Wiltshire, and Stanton Drew in Somersetshire. The former represents the ophite hierogram with one serpent, the latter is double; in both cases the circle has no wings.

In Argyllshire, near Oban, exists a huge serpent-shaped mound, discovered by Mr. PhenÉ in 1871, which must be mentioned in this connection. Looking down upon it from the high ground to the westward, you see it rising conspicuously from the flat grassy plain, which extends for some distance on either side, with scarcely an undulation, save two artificial circular mounds, in one of which lie several large stones forming a cromlech. A recent visitor writes:

“Finding ourselves in the very presence of the Great Dragon, we hastened to improve our acquaintance, and in a couple of minutes had scrambled on to the ridge which forms his backbone, and thence perceived that we were standing on an artificial mound three hundred feet in length, forming a double curve like a huge letter S, and wonderfully perfect in anatomical outline. This we perceived the more perfectly on reaching the head, which lies at the western end, whence diverge small ridges, which may have represented the paws of the reptile. On the head rests a circle of stones, supposed to be emblematic of the solar disc, and exactly corresponding with the solar circle as represented on the head of the mystic serpents of Egypt and Phoenicia, and in the great American Serpent Mound. At the time of Mr. PhenÉ’s first visit to this spot there still remained in the centre of this circle some traces of an altar, which, thanks to the depredations of cattle and herd-boys, have since wholly disappeared....

“The circle was excavated on the 12th of October, 1871, and within it were found three large stones, forming a chamber, which contained burnt human bones, charcoal, and charred hazel-nuts. Surely the spirits of our Pagan ancestors must rejoice to see how faithfully we, their descendants, continue to burn our hazel-nuts on Hallow-e’en, their old autumnal Fire Festival, though our modern divination is practised only with reference to such a trivial matter as the faith of sweethearts! A flint was also found, beautifully and minutely serrated at the edge; nevertheless, it was at once evident, on opening the cairn, that the place had already been ransacked, probably in secret, by treasure-seekers, as there is no tradition of any excavation for scientific purposes having ever been made here.

“On the removal of the peat-moss and heather from the ridge of the serpent’s back, it was found that the whole length of the spine was carefully constructed with regularly and symmetrically placed stones, at such an angle as to throw off rain; an adjustment to which we doubtless owe the preservation, or at least the perfection, of this most remarkable relic. To those who know how slow is the growth of peat-moss, even in damp and undrained places, the depth to which it has here attained, though in a dry and thoroughly exposed situation and raised from seventeen to twenty feet above the level of the surrounding moss, tells of many a long century of silent undisturbed growth, since the days when the serpent’s spine was the well-worn path daily trodden by reverent feet. The spine is, in fact, a long narrow causeway, made of large stones, set like the vertebrÆ of some huge animal. They form a ridge sloping off in an angle at each side, which is continued downwards with an arrangement of smaller stones, suggestive of ribs.”

This strange memorial of a departed age and a vanished faith, lying in the silence and solitude of the lonely shore of Loch Nell, recalls to mind the eloquent lines of an American poet:[46]

“All desolate their ruins rest,
Like bark that in mid-ocean rolls,
Her name effaced, her masts o’erthrown,
And none remaining of the souls
That once sailed in her, to relate
From what far distant port she came;
Whither she sailed and what her fate,
And what her nation and her name.
But only may conjecture guess
The fancied story of this place,
And from these crumbling ruins gain
Some knowledge of the vanished race.”

It must be noticed that the serpent-mound has been so disposed that the worshipper standing at the altar would naturally look eastward, directly along the whole length of the great reptile, and across the dark lake, to the threefold peaks of Ben Cruachan. That this position was intentionally selected is evident from the fact that the three peaks are visible from no other point.

And hence arises the not wholly fanciful conjecture that the people who erected the great mound had some dim idea of the Triune character of God. The serpent was the emblem of His wisdom, as the solar circle was of His Eternal Unity; and this marked reverence for the triple-peaked mountain seems to indicate that with a knowledge of His unity was combined a recognition of His threefold manifestation.

The writer whom we have already quoted remarks that, whatever doubts may arise on speculative points, the clearly defined outlines of the great Serpent-mound of Oban are beyond dispute; though it may long prove a fertile subject for discussion, whether its serpentine, or rather, Saurian form is to be accepted as direct evidence of ophiolatry in this land, or whether we should regard it as simply the representative of some tribe,—as, in short, a Totem of some extinct British race answering to the Nagas, or snake-tribes of the East. The former supposition seems the more reasonable, when we remember that the serpent and the serpent’s egg were held sacred by the Druids. Serpent-worship prevailed in every nation of antiquity. It flourished in Greece and Rome, in Egypt and Chaldea, in Arabia and Central Asia; it extended throughout the Indian peninsula from Cape Comorin to Kashmir; it was practised in Ceylon and the islands of the eastern seas; in Mexico and Peru; throughout the whole of Africa. Passing northward, we find that it existed in Scythia and Scandinavia, as also among vast tribes near the Oural mountains and throughout Northern Europe, and particularly among the tribes on the Ob or Obi river, which owes its name, it is said, to the veneration paid to the reptile. Until the end of the fourteenth century, when Christianity was introduced, the people of Poland worshipped domestic serpents, which were allowed to run free in every house, and carefully tended, every mishap that occurred being attributed to some negligence in their service. The Lapps, the Finns, the Norwegians, the Swedes, the Danes, all fostered these strange household gods, and shared with them the children’s milk. The Vandals also kept them; some lived in hollow trees, and thither repaired the women, with their offerings of milk, as is common at the present day in Ceylon and many parts of India. Long after they had accepted the faith of Christ, the Lombards continued a form of serpent-worship, adoring, or paying homage to, a golden viper and a tree. In 663, Barbatus, Bishop of Benevento, finding the custom still observed, made a successful appeal to the worshippers to cut down the tree, and allow him to melt the golden viper into a sacramental chalice.

One of the most interesting of the supposed Serpent-temples, or dracontia, is that of Karnak. It is situated half a mile from the village of that name, in the department of the Morbihan in Brittany, and about nine miles from the picturesque town of Auray. It is also within a mile of the Bay of Quiberon.

The whole length of “the Stones of Karnak,” as the temple is called, measures, if we include its sinuosities, eight miles. The width varies from 250 to 350 feet. The highest stones are as much as seventeen feet high, and from thirty to forty feet in circumference. Vacant spaces have unfortunately been cleared by ruthless spoliators for the erection of the adjacent villages of Ploermel and Karnak, and the boundary walls of the neighbouring fields. But what toil and time must have been originally expended on its construction, we may infer from the fact that it consisted of eleven rows of stones, about ten thousand in number, of which upwards of three hundred averaged from fifteen to seventeen feet in height, and from sixteen to twenty or thirty feet in girth; one stone even measuring the huge circumference of forty-two feet.

A glance at any engraving of this famous antiquity will show that the course of the avenues is distinctly sinuous, and that it defines the figure of an enormous serpent undulating over the ground. Necessarily, however, the resemblance is more striking to one who views the original in situ. To such, the alternations of the high and low stones, regularly disposed, may seem to mark with sufficient accuracy “the swelling of the serpent’s muscles as he moves along,” though this seems rather a flight of imagination. But at all events the spectator will acknowledge the evidence of design which clearly appears in the construction of the avenues.

The Dracontium contains ten regularly defined areas; one near the village of Karnak, which is shaped like a bell or horse-shoe; the other, towards the eastern extremity, which approaches the figure of a rude circle, and is in reality a parallelogram with rounded corners.

The circle and the horse-shoe were both sacred figures in the Druidical religion, as may be seen in Stonehenge, where they are united, the outer circles enclosing inner horse-shoes. The connection between the latter symbol and the Celtic faith is not very clear, unless it be intended as a representation of the moon. It has been conjectured that from this symbol, whatever may have been its signification, arose the superstition—even not now wholly defunct—of nailing a horse-shoe over a door as a protection against evil spirits.

It is curious that at Erdeven, where the temple begins, an annual dance, descriptive of the Ophite hierogram of the circle and serpent, is still celebrated by the peasants at the Carnival. But the only tradition which survives respecting the stones is one which lingers in various parts of England where similar memorials are found, that they were originally endowed with life, and were petrified as they stand. Some of the Bretons believe they were the Roman army who pursued the centurion Cornelius on account of his conversion to Christianity, and were stricken into stone through his prayers. Others imagine that certain supernatural dwarfs erected them in a single night, and that each still inhabits the stone he reared.

Mr. Deane tells us that near the Karnak side of the dracontium rises a singular mound of great elevation, which has once been conical, and the upper portion of which is evidently artificial.[47] He regards it as analogous to the remarkable hill of Silbury, which occupies much the same position towards the Albury dracontium. Probably these mounds served as altars, on which, in conformity with the practices of the Solar worship, was kept burning the perpetual fire kindled by the sun. They are of common occurrence in Persia, and seem to be identical with “the high places” of Scripture where the priests of Baal celebrated their sacrifices. The conical mound near Karnak—which may be seen for miles around—has been consecrated by the Christians to the Archangel Michael, who is the patron saint of every height, hill, or cone, natural or artificial, in Brittany. The reason of this dedication has been conjectured to be that S. Michael is the assailant and conqueror of the spiritual Dragon of the Apocalypse. The mutilated image of that great serpent lies prostrate below the mound; and when its worshippers were converted to the religion of Christ, they naturally erected on the Solar mount a chapel consecrated to its archangelic slayer. This consecration indicates, therefore, the triumph of Christianity over Ophiolatry; and it is but consistent, says Deane, that the people who allegorised the conversion of the Ophites by the metaphor of a victory over serpents, should, in token of the victory, erect upon the high places of idolatry chapels to the great Archangel.

It is possible that the mound gave name to the adjacent village: that is, Karn-ak, or Carnac, from “cairn” a hill, and “hac,” a snake. The “serpent’s hill” would be no unsuitable title for Mont S. Michel. In the same manner the group of pillars called Lemaenac, may have been named from maen, stones, and hac.

It is curious to find proofs of the existence of Serpent-worship in the New World as in the Old; to meet with its traces in Mexico as well as in Egypt or Chaldea. But certain it is that the religion of Mexico had many features which were common to the Egyptian and Chaldean creeds; the same Solar Worship, the same pyramidal monuments, and the same Ophiolatrous symbols.

For instance, we learn that the temple of Huitziliputli, in Mexico, was built of great stones, in the fashion of snakes tied one to another, and that the circuit was called “the circuit of snakes,” because the walls of the enclosure were covered with the figures of snakes. This truculent-looking deity held in his right hand a staff cut in the fashion of a serpent; and the four corners of the ark or tabernacle, in which he was seated, terminated each with a carved effigy of a serpent’s head.

The Mexican astronomers represented a century by a circle, with a sun in the centre, surrounded by the symbols of the years. The circumference was a serpent twisted into four knots at the cardinal points.

The Mexican month was divided into twenty days, two of which were symbolised by the serpent and dragon. Further, the doorway of the temple, dedicated to “the god of the air,” was so wrought as to resemble a serpent’s mouth.

The Mexicans, however, went beyond the symbolical worship of the sacred serpent, and like many other branches of the Ophite family, they fostered living serpents in their dwellings as household gods. Mr. Bullock asserts that they make the rattlesnake an object of their worship and veneration; and that representations of this reptile, and of others of its species, are very commonly met with among the remains of their ancient idolatry. He says that the finest known to be in existence may be seen in a deserted part of the cloister of the Dominican convent, opposite to the Palace of the Inquisition. It is curled up in an irritated, erect position, with the jaws extended, and is represented in the act of gorging a woman, richly dressed, who lies between its fangs, crushed and lacerated.The Conquistadors, or Spanish followers of Cortez, all assert that the Aztecs, or inhabitants of Mexico, worshipped an idol wrought into the shape of a serpent. Bonal Dias del Castello, one of the Spanish invader’s veteran captains, and the chronicler of the expedition, describes the interior of the principal temple, to which he and his leader were conducted by the Emperor Montezuma: “When we had ascended to the summit of the temple, we observed on the platform as we passed, the large stones on which were placed the victims intended for sacrifice. Here was a great figure representing a Dragon, and much blood lay spilled. Cortez, addressing Montezuma, requested him to do him the favour to show his gods. After consulting the priests, Montezuma led them into a tower where was a kind of hall. Here were two altars, highly adorned with richly-wrought timbers on the roof; above the roof, spread gigantic figures like unto men. The one on the right hand was Huitzilopochtli, their war god, with a great face and terrible eyes. This figure was entirely covered with gold and jewels, and his body wreathed about with golden serpents. Before the idol smoked a pan of incense, in which the hearts of three human victims were burning, mixed with copal. The other great figure, on the left, with a face like a bear’s, was the god of the infernal regions. His body was everywhere covered with figures of devils, having serpents’ tails. In this place was kept a drum of most enormous dimensions, the head of which was made of the skins of large serpents. At a short distance from the temple stood a tower, and at the door grinned frightful idols, like serpents and devils: in front of these were tables and knives for sacrifice.”

Mr. Bullock, who made a valuable collection of Mexican antiquities, describes an idol, “the goddess of war,” on which Cortez and his followers may possibly have looked:

“This monstrous idol,” he says, “is, with its pedestal, twelve feet high, and four feet wide. Its form is partly human and partly composed of rattlesnakes and the tiger. The head, enormously wide, seems that of two rattlesnakes united; the fangs hanging out of the mouth, on which the still-palpitating hearts of the unfortunate victims were rubbed as an act of the most acceptable oblation. The body is that of a deformed man, the place of arms being supplied by the heads of rattlesnakes, placed on square plinths, and united by fringed ornaments. Round the waist is a girdle, which was originally encrusted with gold; and beneath this, reaching nearly to the ground, and partly covering its deformed cloven feet, a drapery entirely composed of wreathed rattlesnakes, which the natives call “a garment of serpents.... Between the feet, descending from the body, another wreathed serpent rests his head upon the ground.”

“The only worship,” says Mr. Deane,[48] “which can vie with that of the Serpent in antiquity or universality, is the adoration of the Sun. But uniformly with the progress of the Solar superstitions has advanced the sacred serpent from Babylon to Peru. If the worship of the Sun, therefore, was the first deviation from the truth, the worship of the Serpent was one of the first innovations of idolatry. Whatever doubt may exist as to which was the first error, little doubt can arise as to the primitive and antediluvian character of both. For in the earliest heathen records we find them inexplicably interwoven as the first of superstitions. Thus Egyptian mythology informs us, that Helios (the Sun) was the first of the Egyptian gods; for in early history, kings and gods are generally confounded. But Helios married Ops, the serpent deity, and became father of Osiris, Isis, Typhoeus, Apollo, and Venus: a tradition which would make the superstitions coeval. This fable being reduced to more simple laws, informs us, that the Sun, having married the Serpent, became, by this union, the father of Adam and Eve, the Evil Spirit, the Serpent-solar deity, and Lust; which appears to be a confusion of Scriptural truths, in which chronological order is sacrificed from the simplification of a fable. But—ex pede Herculem—from the small fragments of the truth which are here combined, we may judge of the original dimensions of the knowledge whose ruins are thus heaped together. We may conclude that, since idolatry, lust, the serpent, and the evil spirit, are here said to have been synchronous with the First Man and Woman, the whole fable is little more than a mythological version of the events in Paradise.”

Mr. Deane, who lived before the days of Comparative Mythology, read into the old fables a meaning which they are hardly capable of bearing. It is clear enough that Serpent-worship had an astronomical origin; but we may agree with him that it was as ancient and universal as the worship of the Sun, with which, indeed, it was closely connected.

We shall now borrow a few illustrations of the character, extent, and significance of Serpent-worship from Mr. Fergusson’s elaborate work,[49] in which he deals particularly with the Topes at Sanchi and Amravati. But, first, a word or two in explanation of the origin and purpose of the Topes will be desirable.

The era of stone architecture in India seems to have begun with the reign of Asoka about 250 B.C. It is contemporaneous with the rise of Buddhism, whose followers gradually usurped the place formerly occupied by the Aryans. The Buddhist buildings then erected may be divided into three principal classes:

1st. Topes or Stupas, with their surrounding rails and lats:

2nd. Chaityas, which, in form and purpose, closely resemble the early Churches of the Christians, though several of those cut in the rock were, in all probability, excavated before the Christian era: and,

3rd. Viharas, or Monasteries, forming in the earliest times the dwellings of the monks or priests who ministered in the Topes or Chaityas, but afterwards becoming the independent abode of monastic communities, who had chapels or oratories appropriated to their use within the walls of their monasteries.

We are here concerned only with the Tope or Stupa.

In its origin we suspect that it simply took the place of the mound or tumulus which the Turanian and other races had from earliest ages been accustomed to raise over the last resting-place of their dead. No such tumuli now exist in India, having probably been washed away by the tropical rains or river-floods; but some are still found in Afghanistan. The Indian type is distinguished from the tumulus of other countries by its material and its shape. It is built of brick or stone, in a rounded or conical form. It is distinguished also by the circumstance that instead of being the place of interment of a corpse, it is the depository of relics.

Besides being used as a relic-shrine, the Tope was frequently employed as a memorial tower to indicate a sacred spot. Of the 84,000 Stupas which, according to tradition, Asoka erected, fully one half would seem to have been raised to mark the scenes where Buddha or some BÔdhisatwa had performed a miracle or done something worthy of being remembered by the faithful.

The “rails,” or stone-circles, surrounding the Indian Topes are often of as much importance as the Topes themselves; and in the case of Sanchi and Amravati, are even more important. As with the Topes, they are sepulchral in origin. “The circles of rude stones found all over Europe certainly are so in most cases. They may sometimes enclose holy spots, and may possibly have in some instances places of assembly, though this is improbable. Their application to the purposes of ancestral worship is, however, not only probable, but appropriate. Sometimes a circle of stones encloses a sepulchral mound, as at New Grange in Ireland, and very frequently in Scandinavia and Algeria. In India rude stone circles are of frequent occurrence.” Some hundreds are found in the neighbourhood of Amravati alone, and all are sepulchral; but like the Topes when adopted by the Buddhists, they were “sublimated into a symbol instead of a reality.”

Reference must briefly be made to another group of early Buddhist monuments, the lats or stembhas, of which very few are now extant in India, the British engineer having used them for his roads, and the native zemindar for his rice or sugar mills. Those erected by Asoka are uniform in character: circular stone shafts, monoliths, thirty or forty feet high, and surmounted by a capital of a bell-shaped or falling leaf form, imitated from the later Grecian architecture. They were erected in order that certain edicts might be engraved upon them, which Asoka desired to keep constantly in the remembrance and before the eyes of his subjects. But in the fifth century, those raised by the Guptas had no other object than to perpetuate the name and fame of their royal founders.

The Topes at Sanchi form part of a large group of Topes situated between the towns of Bhilsa and Bhopul in Central India. They range over an area about seventeen miles from east to west, and about ten miles from north to south, in five or six different clusters, and number in all between forty and fifty of various dimensions. It is believed that the smallest are merely the places of interment of local chiefs; others are strictly Dagobas, or relic-shrines; while the largest is a chaitya or stupa, designed apparently to consecrate some sacred spot, or perpetuate the memory of some remarkable event in Buddhist history.

Architecturally speaking, it consists, first, of a basement 121 feet in diameter and 14 feet in height. This is surmounted by a platform or procession path, within which the dome or tumulus itself rises in the shape of a truncated hemisphere to a height of 39 feet. The summit is a level area, measuring 34 feet across, and surrounded by a circular railing or barrier of stones, which enclosed a square Tu or reliquary, 11½ feet square, and this in its turn enclosed a circular support for the sacred and symbolic umbrella that always crowned these edifices.

At a distance of 9½ feet from the base, the tope is encircled by a rail, eleven feet high, and consisting apparently of one hundred pillars, exclusive of the gateways. Each pillar seems to have been the gift of an individual, and even the rails between them have apparently been contributed by different persons. The rail or circle is devoid of sculpture; but four gateways which were added to it about the Christian era are covered with sculptured work of the most elaborate kind.

The human figures represented in these sculptures belong in the main to two great races. One of them is easily recognised as “Hindus,”—“meaning by that term the civilized race who formerly occupied the valley of the Ganges, and who, from their capitals of Ayodhy and Indraprastha or PÂtaliputra (Palibothra), had been the dominant class in India for at least two thousand years before the time to which we are now referring.” It may be taken as proved that these people were originally pure immigrant Aryans, but by intermixture with other races their blood took, as it were, a new colouring, though they did not lose the civilisation and pre-eminence which they owed to their intellectual superiority.

We know them in the sculptures by their costume; by the dhoti, wrapped round the loins exactly as it is worn now-a-days; the chadder over their shoulders; and the turban on their heads. So much for the dress of the men; of the undress of the women it is more difficult to speak. They are always decorated with enormous bangles about the wrists and ankles, and strings of beads round the neck; but with the exception of a bead belt round the body below the waist they wear little body clothing. From this belt slips of cloth are sometimes suspended, more generally at the sides or behind than in front,—and sometimes also a cloth not unlike a dhoti, invariably of transparent texture. This scantiness of attire can hardly be regarded as finding compensation in the dimensions and amplitude of the head-dress, which, consisting of two long plaits of hair mixed with beads, and a thick roll of cloth, forms almost a kind of tippet, covering the whole of the woman’s back.

Mr. Fergusson remarks:[50]

“It is, however, not only in the Topes that this absence of dress is so conspicuous. In all the sculptures at Karli, or Ellora, or Mahavellipore, or in the paintings in Ajanta, the same peculiarity is observable. Everywhere, indeed, before the Mahometan conquest, nudity in India conveyed no sense of indecency. The wife and mother of Buddha are at times represented in this manner. The queen on her throne, the female disciples of Buddha, listening to his exhortations, and on every public occasion on which women take part in what is going on, the costume is the same. It is equally remarkable that in those days those unveiled females seem to have taken part in every public transaction and show, and to have mixed with the men as freely as women do in Europe at the present day.

“All this is the more remarkable, as in Buddhist books modesty of dress in women is frequently insisted upon. In the Dulva, for instance, a story is told of the King of Kalinga presenting to the King of KosÁla (probably Padh), a piece of muslin, which afterwards fell into the hands of a lewd priestess. She, it is said, wore it in public, while it was so thin that she, notwithstanding this, appeared naked to the great scandal of all who witnessed the exhibition.[51] The probability is, that the story and the book that contains it are of very much more modern date than our sculptures. It certainly is in direct conflict with their evidence.”

The want of shame in women, to which this exposure of the person bears witness, is always the mark and sign of inferior civilisation.

The other race depicted in the sculptures has its distinctive characteristics. The male costume consists of a kilt,—not a cloth wrapped round the loins, but a kilt, shaped, sewn, and fastened by buckle or string;—and also of a cloak or tippet, which seems to be similarly shaped and sewn. As for the hair, it is twisted into a long rope or plait like a Chinaman’s, and then folded round the head in a conical form, or a piece of cloth or rope was treated in this way. The beard is worn, whereas no single individual of the Hindu race, either at Sanchi or Amravati, has any trace of beard or moustache; a circumstance the more remarkable, because, according to Nearchus, the Hindus dyed their beards with various colours, so that some were red, some white, some black, others purple, some green. The female dress differs from that of the Hindus even more than the male. A striped petticoat is gathered in at the knees so as to form a neat and modest garb, and a cloak or tippet like that of the men is thrown generally over one shoulder so as to leave one breast bare, but sometimes both are covered. The head-dress is a neat and elegant turban.

Who then are these people? From the peculiarities of their costume, and their living in the woods, some authorities are inclined to regard them as priests or ascetics, though, it is to be noted, they are nowhere represented as worshipping Topes, hero-wheels, or the disc and crescent symbols (the sun and moon.) In one compartment, however, they are evidently worshipping the serpent in a fire-temple. Fergusson concludes that they were the aboriginal inhabitants of Malwa, to whom came the Hindus as conquerors or missionaries (or both?) The Topes were erected and the sculpture wrought by the conquering race, and the others are always represented as inferior and engaged in servile employments, but not as converts to Buddhism. The only act of adoration in which we see them concerned is the adoration of the five-headed Naga. Mr. Fergusson proposes to call them Dasyus, not because such a name has any local or traditional authority, but because in the Vedas and the heroic poems it seems to be applied to the aboriginal people of India as opposed to the Aryans.

Proceeding now to a consideration of the sculptures, we find that one half of those at Sanchi represent religious acts, such as the worship of the Dagoba or of Trees. Once or twice the Wheel is the object of adoration, and once the Serpent. Other bas-reliefs represent events in history, and some again are devoted to the ordinary incidents of every man’s life. Their general execution is vigorous though rude. Those at Amravati “are perhaps as near in scale of excellence to the contemporary art of the Roman empire under Constantine, as to any other that could be named; or, rather, they should be compared with the sculptures of the early Italian Renaissance, as it culminated in the hands of Ghiberti, and before the true limits between the provinces of painting and sculpture were understood.”

Let us describe an upper bas-relief which has been found on the eastern gateway.

Here the people whom Mr. Fergusson calls Dasyus are represented worshipping the five-headed Naga, or Serpent, which appears in a small hexagonal temple, raising its head over something very like an altar. In front stands a pot of fire,—probably a fire-altar,—and in spite of Mr. Fergusson’s doubts, we think both the Serpent and the Fire are connected with the old Sun-worship.[52]

In the foreground an old man is seated in a circular leaf-thatched hut, with, according to a frequent Indian custom, a scarf bound round his knees and loins. Behind him in the hut is suspended his upper garment, and in front a bearded senior, of his own tribe, is, to all appearance, addressing him. Near this individual stands another pot of fire, with three pairs of tongs or ladles, and a bundle of sticks to feed the flame. Close beside him we see one elephant, two buffaloes, sheep, and deer. The scene takes place in a forest. Above are trees and cocks, with monkeys and peacocks; below, a reedy marsh opens into a lake blooming with lotus-flowers and occupied by geese.

A lower bas-relief in the same gateway puts before us a very different scene:

In the centre of the upper part blooms the sacred Buddhist Tree, behind its altar, with its Chattee and garlands, occupying a position similar to that of the serpent in the other bas-relief. Two Garudas or Devas, or flying figures, present garlands, and two females, instead of griffins, approach it on either side.

In the lower part of the picture, the Inja, or chief male personage, sits enthroned upon the Naga, and is sheltered by its five-headed hood. On his right crouch three women on stools, eating and drinking, and each with her tutelary or snake behind her; and above them are a female Chaori bearer and a woman with a bottle—there are snakes behind both. On the other side are two women playing on drums, two on harps, one on a flute, and a fifth dancing, but all likewise with snakes, and all in the costume which Mr. Fergusson defines as that of the Hindus.

The worship of the Naga by the bearded Dasyus as represented in the upper bas-relief, does not occur again at Sanchi, and occurs only once at Amravati. There, however, the five-headed snake is seen very frequently in front of the dagoba, and in a position which is designed to command the worship, not only of the Dasyus, but of the whole world.

The Hindu male or chief canopied by the Naga, as shown in the lower bas-relief, occurs at least ten times at Sanchi, and must have occurred several hundred times at Amravati.

Mr. Fergusson asks, what are we to infer from these facts? Is it that the Naga, or serpent, was the god of the aborigines, whom the conquering Hindus adopted as their own deity, and pretended that it was for them he reserved his patronage and support? We must recollect that the Topes were built and the sculptures carved by Hindus, and that there is no representation of a Hindu doing honour to a snake; on the contrary, the snake always does homage to the Hindu.

Shall we conclude, then, that the Hindus were the real Naga-worshipping people, and that it was they who enforced serpent-worship on the Dasyus? A conquered people have not infrequently imposed their language, laws, and religion on their conquerors.

It is, perhaps, impossible to answer these questions: a cloud of obscurity hangs over the whole subject of Snake-worship; but we take it to have been the old and prevalent faith of the aborigines of India prior to the Aryan immigration, and we believe that the Aryans adopted it more and more generally as they mixed more and more widely with the Hindus, and their blood became less and less pure. It is not mentioned in the Vedas; there is scarcely an allusion in the RÂmÂyana; in the MahÂbÂhrata it occupies a considerable space; it appears timidly at Sanchi in the first century of the Christian era; is triumphant at Amravati in the fourth; and might have become the dominant faith of India had it not been elbowed from its pride of place by Vishnuism and Sivaism, which took its position when it fell together with the Buddhism to which it had allied itself so closely.

We turn to the celebrated Tope at Amravati, a town situated on the river Kishna. The dimensions of the Tope are 195 feet for inside diameter of the outer circle, and 165 feet for that of the inner. The procession path is paved with slabs 13 feet long, and the inner rail is 2 feet wide. It has four gateways, and projecting about 30 feet beyond the outer rail; but these are in so dilapidated a condition that their size cannot be accurately ascertained.

These circles, or circular bas-reliefs, from the intermediate rails of the outer enclosure are thus described:

In the upper circle on the right hand side a group of Buddhist priests, in their yellow robes, may be seen worshipping. In front two supple women, such as so frequently occur in these sculptures, bend in attitudes of adoration, and on the left a chief in the ordinary Hindu costume—surrounded by the women of his family—presents his little son to the Buddha-emblem.

In the lower circle the same structural arrangements occur up to the Trisul (or emblem), but the whole is surmounted by the Chakra, or Wheel, which we know to be the symbol of Dharma or the Law. Here all the worshippers are men; it is, we are told, one of the very few scenes in these sculptures from which women are entirely excluded. Whether it was considered that the study of the Law was unsuited for women, or whether some other motive governed the designers, certain it is that, contrary to the usual rule, the whole of the worshippers are of one sex and one race. The only other noticeable peculiarity is the introduction of two antelopes, one on each side of the throne.

The second circle represents the Trisul ornament, or emblem, not on a throne, but behind an altar. The sacred feet of Buddha are depicted, but there are no relics. In the upper compartment the principal worshippers are two men with seven-headed snake-hoods, and two women with single snakes.

In the centre of the bas-relief sits the principal personage, with a nine-headed snake-hood, between two of his wives, and beyond, on both rims of the circle, stands a female figure, supporting herself by the branches of a tree. On each a young girl waits; one of these girls has a snake at the back of her head. In front are three musicians, also with snakes; and on their right a lady without a snake receives the assistance of a girl with a snake.

“This distinction,” says Mr. Fergusson, “between people with snakes and those without is most curious and perplexing. After the most attentive study I have been unable to detect any characteristic either of feature or costume by which the races can be distinguished, beyond the possession or absence of this strange adjunct. That those with snakes are the Naga people we read of, can hardly be doubted; yet they never are seen actually worshipping the snake like the Dasyus, but rather as protected by it. The snake seems their tutelary genius, watching over, perhaps inspiring them; but whether they borrowed this strange emblem from the natives of the country, or brought it with them from the north-west, are questions we are hardly yet in a position to answer satisfactorily.”

We have thus abundant evidence of the prevalence of Serpent-worship in India in “olden times;” the reader will, perhaps, be surprised to hear that it lingers still throughout the peninsula. Dr. Balfour, who had an intimate acquaintance with the habits and customs of the natives, asserts that the worship both of the sculptured form and the living creature, is general. The sculpture invariably represents the Nag or Cobra, and almost every hamlet owns its Serpent deity. Sometimes it is a single snake, with the hood spread open. Occasionally the sculptured figures are nine in number, forming the Nao Nag, which is designed to represent a parent snake and eight of its young, but the prevalent form is that of two snakes twining in the manner of the Esculapian rod of classical antiquity.

It is the opinion of some Hindus that the living snake is not worshipped as a devata, or deity, but simply reverenced in commemoration of some ancient event—possibly of some astronomical occurrences. Others, however, distinctly assert that it is worshipped as a devata. However this may be, there can be no doubt that the living snake is worshipped throughout all Southern India. On their feast days the worshippers resort to the snake’s lair, which they bedaub with vermilion streaks and patches of turmeric and of wheat flour, and close at hand they suspend garlands of flowers, strung upon white cotton thread, and laid over wooden frames. During the rainy seasons occurs the great Nagpanchanic festival, when the Hindus go in search of snakes, or have them brought to their houses by the Sanpeli, the snake-charmers who ensnare them. The snakes are then worshipped, and offerings of milk are made to them, and in almost every house figures of snakes, drawn on paper, are affixed to the walls, and worshipped. Those who visit the snakes’ abodes, or tents, plant sticks around the hole, and about and over these sticks wind white cotton thread. A bevy of Mahrathi women repair to the hÛt, and joining hands, wind round it in a circle five times, singing songs; after which they prostrate themselves. They pour milk into the hole; hang festoons of Chembela flowers and cucumber fruit, and sprinkle a mixture of sugar and flour.

In reference to this festival, Colonel Meadows Taylor writes:—

On this occasion, Nags or Cobras are worshipped by most of the lower classes of the people in the Dekhan, and more particularly in the Shorapore country. The ceremonies are very simple: the worshippers bathe, smear their foreheads with red colour, and in small parties,—generally families acquainted with one another,—resort to the places known to be frequented by snakes. In such places there are generally sacred stones, to which various offerings are made, and they are anointed with red colour and ground turmeric, and invocations are addressed to the local genius and to the serpents. Near the stones are placed small new earthen saucers, filled with milk; for cobras are fond of milk, and are believed to watch the ceremony, coming out of their holes and drinking the milk, even while the worshippers are near, or are lingering in the distance to see if their offerings be received. It is considered a fortunate augury for the worshippers if the snake should appear and drink. Should the snake not appear, the worshippers, after waiting awhile, return to the place next morning, to ascertain the result: if the milk have disappeared, the rite has been accepted, but not under such favourable auspices as if the reptile had come out at once. These ceremonies end with a feast.

Colonel Meadows Taylor (whose language we are partly adopting) continues:—

It is on behalf of children that Snake-worship is particularly practised; and the women and children of a family invariably accompany the male head, not only at the annual festival, but whenever a vow has been made to a Serpent Deity. The first hair shaved from a child which has passed teething, and gone through the other infantile ailments, is frequently dedicated to a Serpent. On such occasions the child is taken to the locality of the vow, the usual ceremonies are performed, and with the other offerings is included the child’s hair. In every case a feast follows, served near the spot, and the attendant Brahmins receive alms and largess.

“In the Shakti ceremonies, Pooma-elhishÉk, which belong, I think, to aboriginal customs, the worship of the Snake forms a portion, as emblematical of energy and wisdom. Most of these ceremonies are, however, of an inconceivably obscene and licentious character. They are not confined to the lowest classes, though rarely perhaps resorted to by Brahmins; but many of the middle class sects, of obscure origin and denomination, practise them in secret, under the strange delusion that the divine energy of nature is to be obtained thereby, with exemption from earthly troubles.

“Although Snake-worship ordinarily belongs professedly to the descendants of aboriginal tribes, yet Brahmins never or rarely pass them over, and the Nagpanchani is observed as a festival of kindly greeting and visiting between families and friends—as a day of gifts of new clothes or ornaments to wives or children, &c.

“The worship of Gram Deotas, or village divinities, is universal all over the Dekhan, and indeed I believe throughout India. These divinities have no temples nor priests. Sacrifice and oblation is made to them at sowing time and harvest, for rain or fine weather, in time of cholera, malignant fever, or other disease or pestilence. The Nag is always one of the Gram Deota, the rest being known by local names. The Gram Deota are known as heaps of stones, generally in a grove or quiet spot near every village, and are smeared some with black and others with red colour.

“NÂg is a common name both for males and females among all classes of Hindus, from Brahmins downwards to the lowest classes of Sudras and MlÉchhas. NÂgo Rao, NÂgoju, &c., are common Mahratta names, as Nagappa, Nagowa, and the like are among the Canarese and Telugu population.

“No Hindu will kill a Nag or Cobra willingly. Should any one be killed within the precincts of a village, by Mahomedans or others, a piece of copper money is put into its mouth, and the body is burned with offerings to avert the evil.“It is, perhaps, remarkable, that the Snake festival is held after the season or at the season of casting the skin, and when the Snake, addressed or worshipped, is supposed to have been purified. Some Brahmins always keep the skin of a Nag in one of their sacred books.

“In reference to the lower castes alluded to, I may mention those who practise Snake-worship with the greatest reverence:—1, Beydars. 2, Dhungars or shepherds, Ahens or milkmen, Waddiwars or stone-masons, Khungins or rope-makers, Brinjaras and other wandering tribes, Mangs, DhÉrs, and Chennars, Ramorsers, Bhils, Ghonds, and Kohs, all which I believe, with many others, to be descendants of aboriginal tribes, partly received within the pale of Hinduism.

“Lingayots, who are schismatics from Hinduism, and who deny in toto the religious supremacy of the Brahmins, are nevertheless Snake-worshippers, many of them bearing the name Nag, both male and female.

“I cannot speak of the North of India, but in the whole of the South of India, from the Nerbudda to Cape Comorin, Snake-worship is now existent.”[53]