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This question will have to be probed from many points of view. One
statement of Tertullian may here be mentioned. He announces that the
Valentinians maintained that it was necessary to worship the
"left-handed" deities *
as well as the right-handed. Here we have the Vâmâcharîs of S’iva.
These "left-handed" deities, were on the left side of the
Zodiac.
I tried to show in an early work, "Buddha and Early
Buddhism," that almost every mansion in the Buddhist Zodiac
seemed intentionally to suggest the two great Serpents, the Father and
the Mother. This fact if it could be established, would be of far
greater importance now that we are considering S’iva Buddha.
Fig. 1 Plate 17 is S’iva's Trisula. Outside of India it is called
the Rod of Hermes. It is the holiest symbol of Buddhism, Mani, the
Pearl.
Om Mani Padme Hum.
This Trisula of S’iva is everywhere. It is conspicuous on the
summit of the great Sanchi Tope (Fig 3). It makes up the conventional
head of Buddha (Fig. 4). It is on a charm in Tibet (Fig. 2). We see
from the Catacombs the meaning of the descending dove (Fig. 5). Now
this outline is plainly to be seen in the Crab, the Scorpion, the
Taurine or Bull, and also the Scales which according to Ptolemy are
simply the claws of the Scorpion. *
Then the Serpent is certainly suggested in the tail of the Lion, and
the trunk of the Elephant (Capricorn). An elephant and a serpent have
the same name in Sanskrit—Naga. Here we get eight serpent symbols,
but two I completely overlooked in my early work. For the Twins (they
are male and female in India), I give a design which I took from some
Buddhist sculptures, given in the "Tree and Serpent Worship"
of Mr. Fergusson, the male twin holds up a lotus (See Indian Zodiac
(Plate 18) in next page). Plainly the outline purposely makes the head
of a cobra, an Indian virile symbol. That I have not made a mistake is
evident, for the same outline is repeated in the hand of Virgo, who
again is S’iva the great Father-Mother. For the Ram there is a horse
with two snakes on his head. †
It is also from Fergusson's "Tree and Serpent Worship." In
the Indian epic the Mahabharata there is an episode, the
"Churning of the Ocean." Almost all mythical poetry in all
languages is a mixing up of astronomical signs, kaleidoscopical
fashion. In this little story Nârayana, to gain for mortals the
amrita or immortal drink, coils the Serpent Vâsukhi (the ecliptic)
round the Mountain Mandar (the Kosmos) and makes it spin round and
"churn" the ocean (unfashioned fluidic matter). In this
little story the signs of the Zodiac are brought in a little clumsily.
 The
sign for the fish is Chakra.
What is Chakra?
The little myth, the Churning of the Ocean, answers the question.
"Beneath the trenchant Chakra he saw guarding the Amrita two
immense and terrible serpents, strong, venom-darting, with fiery eyes
and throats, and tongues of forked lightning." *
Here is another passage:—
"Here dwell two serpents the terror of enemies Arvouda and
Sakravapi. Here are the sublime palaces of Swastika and Maninâga." †
Plainly Chakra, the Fish of the Zodiac, is the wheel called
Swastika in India, ‡
and Cancer the Serpents of the mani or pearl. And the palaces of these
two are the black and white halves of the Zodiac.
It is, oddly enough, the only cross in the catacombs, and it was
the only symbol on the drapery of the high altar when the Japanese
constructed a model Japanese temple in Knightsbridge a few years ago.
It is called the "Seal of the heart of Buddha."
In the Rig Veda, India's terrible Vajra or bolt is called
Chaturasri (the four angled). This is plainly the Swastika.
(3) The Twins. This is the Sowing Festival, the Epoch of the Lesser
Mysteries. Buddha, Rama, Krishna and the Sons of Pandu, of the
Mahabharata, marry now, after showing their animal strength at its
culminating point at Olympian games. Rama bends the bow of S’iva, a
constellation that is shining at midnight at this very moment. The
Asvins or Twins are sometimes male and female in the Rig Veda. Plainly
if the S’ivan designs on the punch marked coins are zodiacal, we get
here the "Jew's harp." It explains the splendid bas relief
of the Marriage of S’iva and Durga at Elora. Opposite this marriage
is "the Bow" in the sky, Life confronted with Death.
( 4)
The Crab. This is plainly the Maninaga of the Mahabharata, S’iva's
Trisula, the trident which heads the yogi's staff as he treads along
the mystical "way." Opposite is Gaṇes’a, the
Elephant, the definite God, detaching himself from the Great Fish in
the Great Ocean.
(5) The Lion. This is Durga's carrier, and her pet sign. The two
together form the Sphinx, the great enigma which man must guess to
live. Buddha on the lion throne near the tree of Knowledge was
guessing it. Lions and sphinxes abound in Elora, and other rock cut
temples.
(6) Virgo. We now come to the Virgin of the Sky, the "Mother
who delivers the World" as the Buddhists call her, the much
abused Durgâ who gave agriculture to Greece and Babylon, and sent her
son Ganes’a to give it to the Romans. To this day she presides at
the Festival of Plenty in India, and the Brahmin polytheists and her
other theological opponents crowd to it quite as eagerly as her own
votaries. Her symbol is also a tree—the tree of the ascetic.
(7) Libra is the Firebird and probably the dismembered S’iva.
S’iva, Indra, Osiris, Saturn, were all dismembered; and Durgâ in
the Mysteries wailed and made the temples resound with her grief that
the Kosmos had lost its productive energy. The legend of the flying
Mahadeo burning up the Tripura, the three cities (Earth, Kailas, and
Pandemonium) means a starving Kosmos.
(8) Scorpio. It is plain, too, also, that Scorpio, or S’iva as
Bhairava with a gaping mouth that breathes out flames, is the same
destructive energy. He is the Ialdibaoth of the Gnostics, the
inexplicable confusion in the world's harmony.
 (9)
Sagittarius. This sign is called the "Bow of S’iva" in the
Ramâyâna, and the young Râma is the only competitor at the jousts
that can bend it. The arrows that fly from that bow become serpents
and kill their foes, and then return to the sender.
(10) Capricorn. The zodiacal signs sometimes represent the sun-god
in his annual cruise, and sometimes his victims. Durga kills
Mahishasura, and S’iva kills an elephant named Gaya, he kills Kama
(the Twins, the erotic principle), he kills Tripurasura (the Brahmanic
hierarchy figuring as Scorpio), he dominates the serpent that is sent
against him and the antelope (Aries) and seizes the Dwarf's
"Club" (Virgo, the Tree), and he smashes the head of his own
son, being angry that he was born as an elephant. Then, by a clumsy
myth, he restores him to life, but the head being smashed an
elephant's head had to be substituted. The Elephant represents the
Holy Spirit in India. The Indian sign for Capricorn is an elephant
emerging from a Makara, the definite from the chaotic, the Buddhist
Padmapâni and the S’ivan Ganes’a from Îswara the Unthinkable.
The last two signs, the Yogi with the pot of immortal food
(Aquarius) and the Chakra of Dharma (Pisces), terminate the career of
the ideal man. At first the entanglements of the animal life—and
then dream- land with its angels and hobgoblins, and the crucial
puzzle of all philosophies and all religions, the origin of evil. The
yogis of S’iva and Buddha when first united must have had many such
dreams before the Cosmism of the Nirisvara school swamped up the
Aiswarikas. I mention this here because in treating S’iva-Buddhism I
am forced to consider chiefly the side that it shows to the world.
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