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Index
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New evidence—Five bas reliefs of the Amarâvatî
Tope—They illustrate Buddha's Descent into Hell—Details of Amarâvatî
Tope imitate details of an early tope—Tree Worship—Tree stem a
lingam—Cairn Worship—Cairn a lingam—Roman Catholics maintain
that their rites give the life of Jesus in epitome—Question
examined—Not the life of the Jesus of the first three gospels—A
"willing victim"—Suffers at night—Herod Antipas, the
"King of the Jews"—An originality of Luke—Why brought
in—His dress the same as that of a Catholic Bishop—The
"Amice" the Hood-winking rag of the Freemasons—The spear
thrust—Blood and water—Baby New Year in Alexandria and
Tibet—Covered with flour—Tertullian on "Eleusinian
dissipations."
FROM Tibet and from Ceylon we have obtained evidence that there was
in S’iva Buddhism a sacrifice of
the year-god of a S’ivan type. Is
it corroborated? On this point I have accidentally come across some
very startling matter and evidence, given by the sculptures of the
Amarâvatî Tope in the British Museum. I came upon this evidence only
very recently, but I do not regret the position it occupies in my
little work, as without these last three chapters its full importance
would not be made evident. It completely confirms all I have said
about the Tibetan Mystery of the "Sacrificial Body of the Dead
Year," and also the "Inebriating Festival of the
Buddha"; for five bas-reliefs, which I shall reproduce, represent
that festival seriatim.
The large topes were developed from the sepulchral cairn; and have
for ornament a handsome railingn and four gateways all covered with
bas-reliefs and stone emblems. The Amarâvatî Tope stood on the banks
of the Kistna in Guntoor. It is believed to be the Dhanakacheka
visited by the Chinese traveller, Hiouen Thsiang. It is believed also
to be the Temple erected on the "Golden Sands" when the
tooth of Buddha was brought back to India from Ceylon, after many
romantic adventures in which the Princess Hemachala figured as a
heroine. The celebrated Sanchi Tope and the Amarâvatî Tope, before
it was broken up, must have presented at a distance a similar
appearance. The dates of these Topes are very uncertain. Mr. Fergusson
fixes the four gateways of the great Tope at Sanchi "within the
limits of the first century A.D."; and Sir Alexander
Cunningham—from 19 to 37 A.D.; but the last authority holds that the
mound was set up as early as 500 B.C. The Amarâvatî Tope, in the
view of Mr. Fergusson, might have been erected any time between 200
and 300 A.D. One fact in my mind throws it further back in the past
than some folks suppose. Comparing this tope with the Sanchi Tope, a
monument of early Buddhism, I was startled to find that the Amarâvatî
Tope was of fell purpose constructed to exhibit the rites and legends
of a Second Buddhism that proposed to supersede the first. It wore a
masquerade dress borrowed from early Buddhism, which points to an
epoch when such disguise was necessary.
That Buddhism was Saint Worship. There were seven great Saints or
Buddhas. Each had his Saint's day like the Saints of the Roman
Catholic Church. The rites were simple as we have shown, and centred
round the Cairn where the relics of the Saint were deposited. Each had
for symbol a tree in the forest; and received his flowers, food
offerings, and adoration. This was the blameless Buddhist substitute
for cannibalism and bloody sacrifices. With these simple rites the
sculptors of both the Sanchi and the Amarâvatî Topes covered slab
after slab, holy men adoring trees and holy men adoring relic cairns.
Now S’iva Buddhism sought to wreck this reform, and re-introduce
cannibalism and the bloody altar. And if you narrowly scrutinise the
Tree Worship of Amarâvatî (), you see that it is not real tree
worship. The tree is the Tavateinza Tree, already described, that has
a stem of silver. In other words, it is the worship of the Columnar
Lingam of S’iva.
A second plate () shows this very plainly. Here we get the worship
of this Columnar Lingam, and a few branches are put at the top to
suggest the Tavateinza Tree, the Tree of S’iva and his intoxication,
the Soma Tree (Ćsclapius acida). There are five or six large slabs at
Amarâvatî exhibiting this worship of the Columnar Lingam. Mark, too,
at the base of the smaller Lingam in this plate, the Charan or impress
of Buddha's feet. Plainly, it has been cleverly converted into a
grinning head of Avalokitishvara, the balls of the feet are his
everlasting eyes, and the toes his terrible teeth.
In Chapter five I have already dealt with the dome-shaped lingam.
Ornamental models of it are everywhere at Amarâvatî. On them is
usually the five-headed Serpent; and often five Columnar Lingams, the
five Dhyâni Buddhas, are sculptured on the little dome and present
the appearance of the barrels of a cathedral organ. Why they are
always five is a puzzle. The five Indrayas (five senses), the five Bhűtas
(five material elements) have been suggested. Hodgson tells us that
they are at the base of every Mahâ Chaitya (Lingam Temple) in Nepal.
It is a very important gain if we can show that at the date of the
Amarâvatî Tope the story of the "Inebriating Festival of the
Buddha "was in the ritual of the Buddhism on the mainland of
Hindustan,—somewhere about 150 A.D.; and that it is depicted in
ineffaceable characters on five slabs of one of its temples. I
commence with slab One (See bottom of Pl. 28).
"On the left," says Mr. Fergusson, "a chief seated on a
throne is listening to the animated eloquence of a warrior who seems
addressing a youth seated cross-legged on the ground." The
second, he thinks, shows the King on an elephant with his army; the
third the enemy fly without striking a blow."
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My interpretation is different. It seems to me that the man that
Mr. Fergusson takes to be an orator is about to strike off the head of
the young man by him with a weapon very like the Kukri of the
Nepaulese, a weapon that can sweep off a buffalo's head at one blow.
The victim is tied to a post. A darikhâna, with jewelled throne and
costly cushions, is hardly the place for a commonplace execution; and
the young man is handsome and calm. This suggests a willing victim, as
was required in the S’ivan mysteries. In fact, we have here the
great Inebriating Festival.
When
Sakya Muni as Mâga went down to hell and cleared out those regions of
suffering, after the manner of Buddhas, the Nâgas became very drunk,
and they fled from the kingdom without striking a blow. (Slab 3). The
White Elephant in the second plate shows that their pursuer was Buddha
in person, and the mighty "Cup" on the fourth bas-relief (.)
shows the mixture of blood and spirit, the immortal drink. The framer
of this weird
story of Buddha-Silenus thought to make it a little less preposterous
by announcing that Buddha himself only pretended to drink. But he
forgot that to take in Nâgas you must imitate their favourite rites
to the letter. The warm blood from a human victim requires that that
victim be slain on the spot. To avoid making Buddha a toper he is made
treacherous and an assassin. Mr. Fergusson thinks that the vessel
holding the drink that the assembled
multitude is calling for in their corybantic frenzy is Buddha's
alms-bowl, but would an alms bowl be as big as a sitz bath, and
require five or six people to hold it up?
In the fifth of these tablets (Pl. 30) we
have a startling piece of corroborative evidence making plain that
this group of bas-reliefs really tells the story of Mâga. In the
Cingalese Masque, the Kolan Nattanawa, as translated by the Rev. John Calloway,
a pyramid of scantily clothed women supporting each other in the air
is a prominent factor. *
Here is a similar pyramid, six women. The Cingalese group consisted
of five.
Matter declared that it was held in the old days that the word
"Abrasax" contained tremendous mysteries. The Roman Catholic
priest with his amice, his wafer, his bell, his ornamental bandages,
professes to give in epitome the whole story of Christ. This may be so
but it is certainly not that of the Jesus of the first three Gospels,
but it may be that of Abrasax.
To begin with, Jesus prayed that the "cup" might be
passed away from him, whereas the S’ivan Year-god was a willing
victim. Jesus was crucified in the daytime. Abrasax requires imposing
tenebrć, the "Paschal Candles," "New Fire." He
suffers at night.
Commonplace occurrences may acquire in the process of time tremendous
meanings. The sun sinks into the sea in the evening. It rises again in
glory in the morning, having passed through, in that interval,
portentous and unknown terrors in the bowels of the earth. The
ancients believed it passed through hell. The story of Sita, the story
of Ceres, the story of [paragraph continues] Buddha, all hinge on
this; and we saw that hell was also the theatre of the "Religious
King Devil" in Tibet. Deva Rajah, too, in Ceylon was in hell, and
the mighty darkness with which Buddha frightened his Nagâs, and the
miraculous flames that issued from the "carpet of skin" on
which he sat, can certainly claim cousinship with the tapers that are
miraculously lighted in Christ's sepulchre in Jerusalem, when the
Patriarch of the Holy City goes into it at Easter, and then brings
them out as a prize for his zealous but combatant congregation, who
wrestle for them wildly. *
The death of the year-god by all ancient nations was fixed at the
Spring equinox. He died always on March 25th. This gives a much graver
aspect to the change of date introduced in the Fourth Gospel (John xix.
14). From the three first gospels we learn that Jesus was upon the
cross from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. He ate the Passover with His
disciples the day before, and he appeared to James on the night of the
Crucifixion. This we learn from St. Jerome, who gives us a passage
from the "Gospel according to the Hebrews."
"The Lord, after giving his shroud to the servant of the High
Priest, went forth and appeared unto James. Now James, since he had
drunk in the cup of the Saviour, had made oath not to eat bread until
he had seen him risen from the dead. The Lord then said, 'Bring me a
table and some bread.' And when he had received that which he
commanded he took the bread and blessed it and brake it, and gave it
to James saying, 'My brother, eat this bread, because the Son of Man
has risen from the dead.'"
From this two facts emerge:—
(1) It confirms our contention that Jesus was a water-drinking
Nazarite, for James, who according to Eusebius was a Nazarite, bound
by solemn oath to abstain from wine for life, could not have drunk out
of the Lord's cup unless it was water only.
(2) That he was crucified on the day after the Passover and not on
the day of the Passover, as John would make us believe.
Jesus is arrested by a vast "multitude armed with swords and
staves." They include the "chief priests, the captains of
the Temple, and Elders." They accuse him of calling himself the
King of the Jews, and hand him over to Pilate, who learning that this
offence took place in Galilee transfers Him to Herod Antipas. And now
in the splendid palace of the Tetrarch a strange scene occurs. Jesus
is dressed up in royal robes, and a white bandage blinds His eyes.
Then all the soldiers of the palace, headed by the sober Tetrarch
himself (Luke xxiii. 2) indulge in a sort of game of the "Blind
Man's Buff" pattern. Individuals slyly pinch and hit Him, and
cry, "Prophesy unto us who is it that smote thee"; and the
farcical dressing up is carried into the solemn hall of judgment of
Pilate, the representative of the most powerful monarch in the world.
This officer, instead of severely punishing the soldiers for their
mistimed buffoonery, joins in the mirth; and sets up a burlesque
description on the Cross, although quite convinced of the innocence of
the accused. And the chief priests are found even there, mocking him
and "wagging their heads" (Matt. xxvii. 55). Ever since the
arrest in Gethsemane they seem to have been amongst the mob. The same
must be said, I think, of the "great company of women" that
knew him in Galilee (Luke xxiii. 49). They seem ever present; indeed,
He halts on His last fatal journey to preach to them, and even from
the cross addresses an exhortation to His mother, though the
buffooneries of the chief priests who were "wagging their
heads" there would have prevented her from hearing most of it.
Now do we get here sober history or a drama like the
"Sacrificial Body of the Dead Year." Is this Tertullian's
"Mystery" of the Resurrection? We see many characters
dressed up—kings, chief priests, centurions, soldiers, thieves,
multitudes,—actors remaining on the stage when they should be off
it, and speaking set speeches in most unlikely places. And also as in
the "Sacrificial Body of the Dead Year" we see a crowd of
women, for according to Philo dancing and concerted song were
prominent features in the nocturnal feasts of the Therapeuts.
In the midst of all this hurly-burly one prominent fact emerges.
The "Christ" in the hall of Herod Antipas is not the
historical Jesus. If it were really true that Pilate had found that he
had no jurisdiction, and that he had handed over the prisoner to be
judged by Antipas—the judgment pronounced by that ruler would, of
course, have been final, and Jesus would have been at once released.
But Strauss has shown that this "Herod" is a phantom due to
the genius of the not very honest "Luke." Neither the first
two gospels, nor the traditions that they drew from, knew anything of,
this "Herod," and the Fourth Gospel also ignores him.
And the puzzle, if probed at all, shows many new difficulties.
Herod Antipas, the "King of the Jews," is a creation of mere
fiction, and yet he is the keynote of the mystery. The dress that he
wears, the dress that he hands over to the sacramental "King of
the Jews," is apparently the same dress as the dress of the Roman
Catholic bishop when performing mass. A little official catechism,
sold broadcast for two pence, at the Roman Catholic libraries, tells
us that the "alb," or white tunic that descends to the feet
of the priest, "represents the white garment that Herod put on
our Lord." It tells us also that the "Chasuble"
represents the purple garment with which Jesus was clothed in derision
as a mock king, the "amice" is the white rag that blinded
His eyes, the "girdle, maniple, stole" are the cords that
bound Him. The Eastern Church call the circle of hair left on the
monk's head after the tonsure the "Crown of Thorns." Give to
the bishop in addition to all this his pastoral staff which is
imperative when he performs mass, and we have—Herod Antipas.
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