chapter vi

.; the third, the giants, or _nephilim_, who are only hinted at in the _Bible_, but fully explained elsewhere; the fourth, the parents of men “whose daughters were fair.”

Taking the admitted facts that the Mexicans had their magicians from the remote periods; that the same remark applies to all the ancient religions of the world; that a strong resemblance prevails not only in the forms of their ceremonial worship, but also in the very names used to designate certain magical implements; and finally that all other clews, in accordance with scientific deductions, have failed (some because swallowed up in the bottomless pit of coincidences), why should we not turn to the great authorities upon magic, and see whether, under this “aftergrowth of fantastic nonsense,” there may not be a deep substratum of truth? Here we are not willing to be misunderstood. We do not send the scientists to the _Kabala_ and the Hermetic books to study magic, but to the authorities on magic to discover materials for history and science. We have no idea of incurring the wrathful denunciations of the Academicians, by an indiscretion like that of poor des Mousseaux, when he tried to force them to read his demonological _Memoire_ and investigate the Devil.

The _History of Bernal Diaz de Castilla_, a follower of Cortez, gives us some idea of the extraordinary refinement and intelligence of the {560} people whom they conquered; but the descriptions are too long to be inserted here. Suffice it to say, that the Aztecs appeared in more than one way to have resembled the ancient Egyptians in civilization and refinement. Among both peoples magic or the arcane natural philosophy was cultivated to the highest degree. Add to this that Greece, the “later cradle of the arts and sciences,” and India, cradle of religions, were and are still devoted to its study and practice—and who shall venture to discredit its dignity as a study, and its profundity as a science?

There never was, nor can there be more than one universal religion; for there can be but one truth concerning God. Like an immense chain whose upper end, the alpha, remains invisibly emanating from a Deity—in _statu abscondito_ with every primitive theology—it encircles our globe in every direction; it leaves not even the darkest corner unvisited, before the other end, the omega, turns back on its way to be again received where it first emanated. On this divine chain was strung the exoteric symbology of every people. Their variety of form is powerless to affect their substance, and under their diverse ideal types of the universe of matter, symbolizing its vivifying principles, the uncorrupted immaterial image of the spirit of being guiding them is the same.

So far as human intellect can go in the ideal interpretation of the spiritual universe, its laws and powers, the last word was pronounced ages since; and, if the _ideas_ of Plato can be simplified for the sake of easier comprehension, the spirit of their substance can neither be altered, nor removed without material damage to the truth. Let human brains submit themselves to torture for thousands of years to come; let theology perplex faith and mime it with the enforcing of incomprehensible dogmas in metaphysics; and science strengthen skepticism, by pulling down the tottering remains of spiritual intuition in mankind, with her demonstrations of its fallibility, eternal truth can never be destroyed. We find its last possible expression in our human language in the Persian Logos, the _Honover_, or the living _manifested_ Word of God. The Zoroastrian _Enoch-Verihe_ is identical with the Jewish “_I am_;” and the “Great Spirit” of the poor, untutored Indian, is the manifested Brahma of the Hindu philosopher. One of the latter, Tcharaka, a Hindu physician, who is said to have lived 5,000 years B. C., in his treatise on the origin of things, called _Usa_, thus beautifully expresses himself: “Our Earth is, like all the luminous bodies that surround us, one of the atoms of the immense Whole of which we show a slight conception by terming it—the Infinite.”

“There is but one light, and there is but one darkness,” says a Siamese proverb. _Dæmon est Deus inversus_, the Devil is the shadow of God, states the universal kabalistic axiom. Could light exist but for {561} primeval darkness? And did not the brilliant, sunny universe first stretch its infant arms from the swaddling bands of dark and dreary chaos? If the Christian “_fulness of Him that filleth all in all_” is a revelation, then we must admit that, if there is a devil, he must be included in this _fulness_, and be a part of that which “filleth all in all.” From time immemorial the justification of the Deity, and His separation from the existing evil was attempted, and the object was reached by the old Oriental philosophy in the foundation of the _theodiké_; but their metaphysical views on the _fallen spirit_, have never been disfigured by the creation of an anthropomorphic personality of the Devil as was done subsequently by the leading lights of Christian theology. A personal fiend, who opposes the Deity, and impedes progress on its way to perfection, is to be sought only on earth amid humanity, not in heaven.

Thus is it that all the religious monuments of old, in whatever land or under whatever climate, are the expression of the same identical thoughts, the key to which is in the esoteric doctrine. It would be vain, without studying the latter, to seek to unriddle the mysteries enshrouded for centuries in the temples and ruins of Egypt and Assyria, or those of Central America, British Columbia, and the Nagkon-Wat of Cambodia. If each of these was built by a different nation; and neither nation had had intercourse with the others for ages, it is also certain that all were planned and built under the direct supervision of the priests. And the clergy of every nation, though practicing rites and ceremonies which may have differed externally, had evidently been initiated into the same traditional mysteries which were taught all over the world.

In order to institute a better comparison between the specimens of prehistoric architecture to be found at the most opposite points of the globe, we have but to point to the grandiose Hindu ruins of Ellora in the Dekkan, the Mexican Chichen-Itza, in Yucatan, and the still grander ruins of Copan, in Guatemala. They present such features of resemblance that it seems impossible to escape the conviction that they were built by peoples moved by the same religious ideas, and that had reached an equal level of highest civilization in arts and sciences.

There is not, perhaps, on the face of the whole globe, a more imposing mass of ruins than Nagkon-Wat, the wonder and puzzle of European archæologists who venture into Siam. And when we say ruins, the expression is hardly correct; for nowhere are there buildings of such tremendous antiquity to be found in a better state of preservation than Nagkon-Wat, and the ruins of Angkorthôm, the great temple.

Hidden far away in the province of Siamrap—eastern Siam—in the midst of a most luxuriant tropical vegetation, surrounded by almost impenetrable forests of palms, cocoa-trees, and betel-nut, “the general appearance {562} of the wonderful temple is beautiful and romantic, as well as impressive and grand,” says Mr. Vincent, a recent traveller.[840] “We whose good fortune it is to live in the nineteenth century, are accustomed to boast of the perfection and preëminence of our modern civilization; of the grandeur of our attainments in science, art, literature, and what not, as compared with those whom we call ancients; but still we are compelled to admit that they have far excelled our recent endeavors in many things, and notably in the fine arts of painting, architecture, and sculpture. We were but just looking upon a most wonderful example of the two latter, for in style and beauty of architecture, solidity of construction, and magnificent and elaborate carving and sculpture, the Great Nagkon-Wat has no superior, certainly no rival standing at the present day. The first view of the ruins is overwhelming.”

Thus the opinion of another traveller is added to that of many preceding ones, including archæologists and other competent critics, who have believed that the ruins of the past Egyptian splendor deserve no higher eulogium than Nagkon-Wat.

According to our plan, we will allow more impartial critics than ourselves to describe the place, since, in a work professedly devoted to a vindication of the ancients, the testimony of so enthusiastic an advocate as the present writer may be questioned. We have, nevertheless, seen Nagkon-Wat under exceptionally favorable circumstances, and can, therefore, certify to the general correctness of Mr. Vincent’s description. He says:

“We entered upon an immense causeway, the stairs of which were flanked with six huge griffins, each carved from a single block of stone. The causeway is ... 725 feet in length, and is paved with stones each of which measures four feet in length by two in breadth. On either side of it are artificial lakes fed by springs, and each covering about five acres of ground.... The outer wall of Nagkon-Wat (the city of monasteries) is half a mile square, with gateways ... which are handsomely carved with figures of gods and dragons. The foundations are ten feet in height.... The entire edifice, including the roof, is of stone, _but without cement, and so closely fitting are the joints as even now to be scarcely discernible_.... The shape of the building is oblong, being 796 feet in length, and 588 in width, while the highest central pagoda rises some 250 odd feet above the ground, and four others, at the angles of the court, are each about 150 feet in height.”

The above underscored lines are suggestive to travellers who have remarked and admired the same wonderful mason-work in the Egyptian {563} remains. If the same workmen did not lay the courses in both countries we must at least think that the secret of this matchless wall-building was equally known to the architects of every land.

“Passing, we ascend a platform ... and enter the temple itself through a columned portico, the _façade_ of which is beautifully carved in _basso-relievo_ with ancient mythological subjects. From this doorway, on either side, runs a corridor with a double row of columns, cut—base and capital—from single blocks, with a double, oval-shaped roof, covered with carving and consecutive sculptures upon the outer wall. This gallery of sculptures, which forms the exterior of the temple, consists of over half a mile of continuous pictures, cut in _basso-relievo_ upon sandstone slabs six feet in width, and represents subjects taken from Hindu mythology, from the _Ramayana_—the Sanscrit epic poem of India, with its 25,000 verses describing the exploits of the god Rama, and the son of the King of Oudh. The contests of the King of Ceylon, and Hanouma,[841] the monkey-god, are graphically represented. There is _no keystone_ used in the arch of this corridor. On the walls are sculptured the immense number of 100,000 separate figures. One picture from the _Ramayâna_ ... occupies 240 feet of the wall.... In the _Nagkon-Wat_ as many as 1,532 solid columns have been counted, and among the entire ruins of Angkor ... the immense number of 6,000, almost all of them hewn from single blocks and artistically carved....

“But who built _Nagkon-Wat_? and when was it built?” Learned men have attempted to form opinions from studies of its construction, and especially “ornamentation,” and have failed. “Native Cambodian {564} historians,” adds Vincent, “reckon 2,400 from the building of the temple.... I asked one of them how long _Nagkon-Wat_ had been built.... ‘None can tell when.... I do not know; it must have either sprung up from the ground or been built by giants, or perhaps by the angels’ ... was the answer.”

When Stephens asked the native Indians “Who built Copan?... what nation traced the hieroglyphic designs, sculptured these elegant figures and carvings, these emblematical designs?” the dull answer he received was “_Quien Sabe?_” who knows! “All is mystery; dark, impenetrable mystery,” writes Stephens. “In Egypt, the colossal skeletons of gigantic temples stand in all the nakedness of desolation. Here, an immense forest shrouded the ruins, hiding them from sight.”[842]

But there are perhaps many circumstances, trifling for archæologists unacquainted with the “idle and fanciful” legends of old, hence overlooked; otherwise the discovery might have sent them on a new train of thought. One is the invariable presence in the Egyptian, Mexican, and Siamese ruined temples, of the monkey. The Egyptian cynocephalus assumes the same postures as the Hindu and Siamese Hanoumā; and among the sculptured fragments of Copan, Stephens found the remains of colossal apes or baboons, “strongly resembling in outline and appearance the four monstrous animals which once stood in front, attached to the base of the obelisk of Luxor, now in Paris,[843] and which, under the name of the cynocephali, were worshipped at Thebes.” In almost every Buddhist temple there are idols of huge monkeys kept, and some people have in their houses white monkeys on purpose “to keep _bad_ spirits away.”

“Was civilization,” writes Louis de Carné,[844] “in the complex meaning we give that word, in keeping among the ancient Cambodians with what such prodigies of architecture seem to indicate? The age of Pheidias was that of Sophocles, Socrates, and Plato; Michael Angelo and Raphael succeeded Dante. There are luminous epochs during which the human mind, developing itself in every direction, triumphs in all, and creates masterpieces _which spring from the same inspiration_.” “Nagkon-Wat,” concludes Vincent, “must be ascribed to other than ancient Cambodians. But to whom?... There exist _no credible_ traditions; _all is absurd fable or legend_.”

The latter sentence has become of late a sort of cant phrase in the mouths of travellers and archæologists. When they have found that no {565} clew is attainable unless it can be found in popular legends, they turn away discouraged, and a final verdict is withheld. At the same time Vincent quotes a writer who remarks that these ruins “are as imposing as the ruins of Thebes, or Memphis, but more mysterious.” Mouhot thinks they were erected “by some ancient Michael Angelo,” and adds that Nagkon-Wat “is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome.” Furthermore Mouhot ascribes the building again to some of _the lost tribes of Israel_, and is corroborated in that opinion by Miche, the French Bishop of Cambodia, who confesses that he is struck “by the Hebrew character of the faces of many of the savage Stiêns.” Henri Mouhot believes that, “without exaggeration, the oldest parts of Angkor may be fixed at more than 2,000 years ago.” This, then, in comparison with the pyramids, would make them quite modern; the date is the more incredible, because the pictures on the walls may be proved to belong to those archaic ages when Poseidon and the Kabeiri were worshipped throughout the continent. Had Nagkon-Wat been built, as Dr. Adolf Bastian[845] will have it, “for the reception of the learned patriarch, Buddhagosa, who brought the holy books of the _Trai-Pidok_ from Ceylon; or, as Bishop Pallegoix, who “refers the erection of this edifice to the reign of Phra Pathum Suriving,” when “the sacred books of the Buddhists were brought from Ceylon, and Buddhism became the religion of the Cambodians,” how is it possible to account for the following?

“We see in this same temple carved images of Buddha, four, and even thirty-two-armed, and two and sixteen-headed gods, the Indian Vishnu, gods _with wings_, Burmese heads, Hindu figures, and Ceylon mythology.... You see warriors riding upon elephants and in chariots, foot soldiers with shield and spear, boats, tigers, griffins ... serpents, fishes, crocodiles, bullocks ... soldiers of immense physical development, with helmets, and some people with beards—probably Moors. The figures,” adds Mr. Vincent, “stand somewhat like those on the great Egyptian monuments, the side partly turned toward the front ... and I noticed, besides, five horsemen, armed with spear and sword, riding abreast, like those seen upon the Assyrian tablets in the British Museum.”[846]

For our part, we may add, that there are on the walls several repetitions of Dagon, the man-fish of the Babylonians, and of the Kabeirian gods of Samothrace. This may have escaped the notice of the few archæologists who examined the place; but upon stricter inspection they will be found there, as well as the reputed father of the Kabeiri—Vulcan with his bolts and implements, having near him a {566} king with a sceptre in his hand, which is the counterpart of that of Cheronæa, or the “sceptre of Agamemnon,” so-called, said to have been presented to him by the lame god of Lemnos. In another place we find Vulcan, recognizable by his hammer and pincers, but under the shape of a monkey, as usually represented by the Egyptians.

Now, if Nagkon-Wat is essentially a Buddhist temple, how comes it to have on its walls _basso-relievos_ of completely an Assyrian character; and Kabeirian gods which, though universally worshipped as the most ancient of the Asiatic mystery-gods, had already been abandoned 200 years B.C., and the Samothracian mysteries themselves completely altered? Whence the popular tradition concerning the Prince of Roma among the Cambodians, a personage mentioned by all the native historians, who attribute to him the foundation of the temple? Is it not barely possible that even the _Ramayâna_, itself, the famous epic poem, is but the original of Homer’s _Iliad_, as it was suggested some years ago? The beautiful Paris, carrying off Helen, looks very much like Râvana, king of the giants, eloping with Sita, Râma’s wife? The Trojan war is a counterpart of the _Ramayâna_ war; moreover, Herodotus assures us that the Trojan heroes and gods date in Greece only from the days of the _Iliad_. In such a case even Hanoumā, the monkey-god, would be but Vulcan in disguise; the more so that the Cambodian tradition makes the founder of Angkor come from _Roma_, which they place at the western end of the world, and that the Hindu Roma also apportions the west to the descendants of Hanoumā.

Hypothetical as the suggestion may now seem, it is worthy of consideration, if even for the sake of being refuted. The Abbé Jaquenet, a Catholic missionary in Cochin China, ever ready to connect the least glimmer of historical light with that of Christian revelation, writes, “Whether we consider the commercial relations of the Jews ... when, in the height of their power, the combined fleets of Hiram and Solomon went to seek the treasures of Ophir, or whether we come lower down, to the dispersion of the ten tribes who, instead of returning from captivity, set out from the banks of the Euphrates, and reached the shores of the ocean ... the shining of the light of revelation in the far East is not the less incontestable.”

It looks certainly “incontestable” enough if we reverse the position and admit that all the light that ever shone on the Israelites came to them from this “far East,” passing first through the Chaldeans and Egyptians. The first thing to settle, is to find out who were the Israelites themselves; and that is the most vital question. Many historians seem to claim, with good reason, that the Jews were similar or identical with the ancient Phœnicians, but the Phœnicians were {567} beyond any doubt an Æthiopian race; moreover, the present race of Punjaub are hybridized with the Asiatic Æthiopians. Herodotus traces the Hebrews to the Persian Gulf; and south of that place were the Himyarites (the Arabians); beyond, the early Chaldeans and Susinians, the great builders. This seems to establish pretty well their Æthiopian affinity. Megasthenes says that the Jews were an Indian sect called _Kalani_, and their theology resembled that of the Indians. Other authors also suspect that the colonized Jews or the Judeans were the Yadus from Afghanistan—the old India.[847] Eusebius tells us that “the Æthiopians came from the river Indus and settled near Egypt.” More research may show that the Tamil Hindus, who are accused by the missionaries of worshipping the Devil—Kutti-Sattan—only honor, after all, Seth or Satan, worshipped by the biblical Hittites.

But if the Jews were in the twilight of history the Phœnicians, the latter may be traced themselves to the nations who used the old Sanscrit language. Carthage was a Phœnician city, hence its name; for Tyre was equally _Kartha_. In the _Bible_ the words _Kir_, _Kirjath_ are frequently found. Their tutelar god was styled _Mel-Kartha_ (Mel, Baal), or tutelar lord of the city. In Sanscrit a city or communal was a _cûl_ and its lord was _Heri_.[848] Her-culeus is therefore the translation of Melkarth and Sanscrit in origin. Moreover all the Cyclopean races were Phœnicians. In the _Odyssey_ the Kuklopes (Cyclops) are the Libyan shepherds; and Herodotus describes them as miners and great builders. They are the ancient Titans or giants, who in Hesiod forge bolts for Zeus. They are the biblical _Zamzummim_ from the land of the giants, the Anakim.

Now it is easy to see that the excavators of Ellora, the builders of the old Pagodas, the architects of Copan and of the ruins of Central America, those of Nagkon-Wat, and those of the Egyptian remains were, if not of the same race, at least of the same religion—the one taught in the oldest Mysteries. Besides, the figures on the walls of Angkor are purely archaic, and have nothing to do with the images and idols of Buddha, who may be of a far later origin. “What gives a peculiar interest to this section,” says Dr. Bastian, “is the fact that the artist has represented the different nationalities in all their distinctive characteristic features, from the flat-nosed savage in the tasselled garb of the Pnom and the short-haired Lao, to the straight-nosed Rajaput, with sword and shield, and _the bearded Moor_, {568} giving a catalogue of nationalities, like another _column of Trajan_, in the predominant physical conformation of each race. On the whole, there is such a prevalence of _Hellenic_ cast in features and profiles, as well as in the elegant attitude of the horsemen, that one might suppose Xenocrates of old, after finishing his labors in Bombay, had made an excursion to the East.”

Therefore, if we allow the tribes of Israel to have had a hand in the building of Nagkon-Wat, it cannot be as the tribes numbered and sent, from the wilderness of Paran in search of the land of Canaan, but as their earlier ancestors, which amounts to the rejection of such tribes, as the casting of a reflection of the _Mosaic_ revelation. And where is the outside _historical_ evidence that such tribes were ever heard of at all, before the compilation of the _Old Testament_ by Ezra? There are archæologists who strongly regard the twelve tribes as utterly mythical,[849] for there never was a tribe of Simeon, and that of Levi was a _caste_. There still remains the same problem to solve—whether the Judæans had ever been in Palestine before Cyrus. From the sons of Jacob, who had all married Canaanites, except Joseph, whose wife was the daughter of an Egyptian Priest of the Sun, down to the legendary _Book of Judges_ there was an acknowledged general intermarrying between the said tribes and the idolatrous races: “And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites; and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods,” says the third chapter of _Judges_, “ ... and the children of Israel forgat their God and served Baalim, and the groves.” This Baal was Moloch, M’lch Karta, or Hercules. He was worshipped wherever the Phœnicians went. How could the Israelites possibly keep together as tribes, while, on the authority of the _Bible_ itself, whole populations were from year to year uprooted violently by Assyrian and other conquerors? “So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day. And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria _instead_ of the children of Israel” (_2 Kings_, xvii. 23, 24).

If the language of Palestine became in time Semitic, it is because of Assyrian influence; for Phœnicia had become a dependency as early as the days of Hiram, and the Phœnicians evidently changed their language from Hamitic to Semitic. Assyria was “the land of Nimrod” (from _Nimr_, spotted), and Nimrod was Bacchus, with his spotted leopard-skin. This leopard-skin is a sacred appendage of the “Mysteries;” it was {569} used in the Eleusinian as well as in the Egyptian Mysteries; it is found sculptured on the _basso-relievos_ of Central American ruins, covering the backs of the sacrificers; it is mentioned in the earliest speculations of the Brahmans on the meaning of their sacrificial prayers, the _Aytareya Brahmanam_.[850] It is used in the _Agnishtoma_, the _initiation rites_ of the Soma Mystery. When the neophyte is “to be born again,” he is covered with a leopard-skin, out of which he emerges as from his mother’s womb. The Kabeiri were also Assyrian gods. They had different names; in the common language they were known as Jupiter and Bacchus, and sometimes as Achiochersus, Aschieros, Achiochersa, and Cadmillus; and even the true number of these deities was uncertain with the people. They had other names in the “sacred language,” known but to the hierophants and priests; and “it was not lawful to mention them.” How is it then that we find them reproduced in their Samothracian “postures” on the walls of Nagkon-Wat? How is it again that we find them pronounced—albeit slightly disfigured—as known in that same sacred language, by the populations of Siam, Thibet, and India?

The name Kabeiri may be a derivation from אבר, _Abir_, great; הבר, _Ebir_, an astrologer, or חבר, _Chabir_, an associate; and they were worshipped at Hebron, the city of the _Anakes_—the giants. The name Abraham, according to Dr. Wilder, has “a very Kabeirian look.” The word _Heber_, or _Gheber_ may be the etymological root of the Hebrews, as applied to Nimrod and the Bible-giants of the sixth chapter of _Genesis_, but we must seek for their origin far earlier than the days of Moses. The name _Phœnician_ affords its own proof. They are called Φοινικες by Manetho, or _Ph’ Anakes_, which shows that the Anakes or _Anakim_ of Canaan, with whom the people of Israel, if not identical in race, had, by intermarriage, become entirely absorbed, were the Phœnicians, or the problematical Hyk-sos, as Manetho has it, and whom Josephus once declared were the direct ancestors of the Israelites. Therefore, it is in this jumble of contradictory opinions, authorities, and historical _olla podrida_ that we must look for a solution of the mystery. So long as the origin of the Hyk-sos is not positively settled we can know nothing certain of the Israelitish people who, either wittingly or otherwise, have mixed up their chronology and origin in such an inextricable tangle. But if the Hyk-sos can be proved to have been the Pali-Shepherds of the Indus, who partially removed to the East, and came over from the nomadic Aryan tribes of India, then, perhaps, it would account for the biblical myths being so mixed up with the Aryan and Asiatic Mystery-gods. As Dunlap says: “The Hebrews came {570} out of Egypt among the Canaanites; they need not be traced beyond the _Exodus_. _That is their historical beginning._ It was very easy to cover up this remote event by the recital of mythical traditions, and to prefix to it an account of their origin in which the gods (patriarchs) should figure as their ancestors.” But it is not _their historical beginning_ which is the most vital question for the world of science and theology. It is their _religious_ beginning. And if we can trace it through the Hyk-sos—Phœnicians, the Æthiopian builders and the Chaldeans—whether it is to the Hindus that the latter owe their learning, or the Brahmans who owe it to the Chaldeans, we have the means in hand to trace every so-called _revealed_ dogmatical assertion in the _Bible_ to its origin, which we have to search for in the twilight of history, and before the separation of the Aryan and Semitic families. And how can we do it better or more surely than through means afforded us by archæology? Picture-writing can be destroyed, but if it survives it cannot lie; and, if we find the same myths, ideas, and secret symbols on monuments all over the world; and if, moreover, these monuments can be shown to antedate the twelve “chosen” tribes, then we can unerringly show that instead of being a direct divine _revelation_, it was but an incomplete recollection or tradition among a tribe which had been identified and mixed up for centuries before the apparition of Abraham, with all the three great world-families; namely, the Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian nations, if so they must be called.

The _Teraphim_ of Abram’s father, _Terah_, the “maker of images,” were the Kabeiri gods, and we see them worshipped by Micah, by the Danites, and others.[851] Teraphim were identical with the seraphim, and these were serpent-images, the origin of which is in the Sanscrit _sarpâ_ (the serpent), a symbol sacred to all the deities as a symbol of immortality. _Kiyun_, or the god Kivan, worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness, is Siva, the Hindu,[852] as well as Saturn.[853] The Greek story shows that Dardanus, the Arcadian, having received them as a dowry, carried them to Samothrace, and from thence to Troy; and they were worshipped far before the days of glory of Tyre or Sidon, though the former had been built 2760 B.C. From where did Dardanus derive them?

It is an easy matter to assign an age to ruins on merely the external evidence of probabilities; it is more difficult to prove it. Meanwhile the rock-works of Ruad, Perytus, Marathos, resemble those of Petra, {571} Baalbek, and other Æthiopian works, even externally. On the other hand the assertions of certain archæologists who find no resemblance between the temples of Central America and those of Egypt and Siam, leave the symbologist, acquainted with the secret language of picture-writing, perfectly unconcerned. He sees the landmarks of one and the same doctrine on all of these monuments, and reads their history and affiliation in signs imperceptible to the uninitiated scientist. There are traditions also; and one of these speaks of the last of the king-initiates—(who were but rarely admitted to the higher orders of the Eastern Brotherhoods), who reigned in 1670. This king of Siam was the one so ridiculed by the French ambassador, de la Loubère, as a lunatic who had been searching all his life for the philosopher’s stone.

One of such mysterious landmarks is found in the peculiar structure of certain arches in the temples. The author of the _Land of the White Elephant_ remarks as curious, “the absence of the keystone in the arches of the building, and the undecipherable inscriptions.” In the ruins of Santa Cruz del Quiché an arched corridor was found by Stephens, equally without a keystone. Describing the desolate ruins of Palenque, and remarking that the arches of the corridors were all built on this model, and the ceilings in this form, he supposes that “the builders were evidently ignorant of the principles of the arch, and the support was made by stones lapping over as they rose; as at Ocosingo, and among Cyclopean remains in Greece and Italy.”[854] In other buildings, though they belong to the same group, the traveller found the missing keystone, which is a sufficient proof that its omission elsewhere was _premeditated_.

May we not look for the solution of the mystery in the Masonic manual? The keystone has an esoteric meaning which ought to be, if it is not, well appreciated by high Masons. The most important subterranean building mentioned in the description of the origin of Freemasonry, is the one built by Enoch. The patriarch is led by the Deity, whom he sees in a vision, into the _nine_ vaults. After that, with the assistance of his son, Methuselah, he constructs in the land of Canaan, “in the bowels of the mountain,” nine apartments on the models that were shown to him in the vision. Each was roofed with an arch, and the apex of each _formed a keystone_, having inscribed on it the mirific characters. Each of the latter, furthermore, represented one of the nine names, traced in characters emblematical of the attributes by which the Deity was, according to ancient Freemasonry, known to the antediluvian brethren. Then Enoch constructed two deltas of the purest gold, and tracing two of the mysterious characters on each, he placed one of them in the deepest arch, and the other entrusted to {572} Methuselah, communicating to him, at the same time, other important secrets _now lost to Freemasonry_.

And so, among these arcane secrets, now lost to their modern successors, may be found also the fact that the keystones were used in the arches only in certain portions of the temples devoted to special purposes. Another similarity presented by the architectural remains of the religious monuments of every country can be found in the identity of parts, courses, and measurements. All these buildings belong to the age of Hermes Trismegistus, and however comparatively modern or ancient the temple may seem, their mathematical proportions are found to correspond with the Egyptian religious edifices. There is a similar disposition of court-yards, adyta, passages, and steps; hence, despite any dissimilarity in architectural style, it is a warrantable inference that like religious rites were celebrated in all. Says Dr. Stukely, concerning Stonehenge: “This structure was not erected upon any Roman measure, and this is demonstrated by the great number of fractions which the measurement of each part, according to European scales, gives. On the contrary the figures become even, as soon as we apply to it the measurement of the ancient cubic, which was common to the Hebrew children of Shem, as well as to the Phœnicians and Egyptians, children of Ham (?), and imitators of the monuments of unhewn and oracular stones.”

The presence of the artificial lakes, and their peculiar disposition on the consecrated grounds, is also a fact of great importance. The lakes inside the precincts of Karnak, and those enclosed in the grounds of Nagkon-Wat, and around the temples in the Mexican Copan and Santa Cruz del Quichè, will be found to present the same peculiarities. Besides possessing other significances the whole area was laid out with reference to cyclic calculations. In the Druidical structures the same sacred and mysterious numbers will be found. The circle of stones generally consists of either twelve, or twenty-one, or thirty-six. In these circles the centre place belongs to Assar, Azon, or the god in the circle, by whatever other name he might have been known. The thirteen Mexican serpent-gods bear a distant relationship to the thirteen stones of the Druidical ruins. The ~T~ (Tau), and the astronomical cross of Egypt [A circle with a horizontal diameter and a vertical radius above] are conspicuous in several apertures of the remains of Palenque. In one of the _basso-relievos_ of the Palace of Palenque, on the west side, sculptured on a hieroglyphic, right under the seated figure, is a _Tau_. The standing figure, which leans over the first one, is in the act of covering its head with the left hand with the veil of initiation; while it extends its right with the index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The position is precisely that of a Christian bishop giving his blessing, or the one in which Jesus is often represented while at the Last Supper. Even the Hindu {573} elephant-headed god of wisdom (or magic learning), Ganesha, may be found among the stucco figures of the Mexican ruins.

What explanation can the archæologists, philologists—in short, the chosen host of Academicians—give us? None whatever. At best they have but hypotheses, every one of which is likely to be pulled down by its successor—a pseudo-truth, perhaps, like the first. The keys to the biblical miracles of old, and to the phenomena of modern days; the problems of psychology, physiology, and the many “missing links” which have so perplexed scientists of late, are all in the hands of secret fraternities. This mystery _must be_ unveiled some day. But till then dark skepticism will constantly interpose its threatening, ugly shadow between God’s truths and the spiritual vision of mankind; and many are those who, infected by the mortal epidemic of our century—hopeless materialism—will remain in doubt and mortal agony as to whether, when man dies, he will live again, although the question has been solved by long bygone generations of sages. The answers are there. They may be found on the time-worn granite pages of cave-temples, on sphinxes, propylons, and obelisks. They have stood there for untold ages, and neither the rude assault of time, nor the still ruder assault of Christian hands, have succeeded in obliterating their records. All covered with the problems which were solved—who can tell? perhaps by the archaic forefathers of their builders—the solution follows each question; and this the Christian could not appropriate, for, except the initiates, no one has understood the mystic writing. The key was in the keeping of those who knew how to commune with the invisible Presence, and who had received, from the lips of mother Nature herself, her grand truths. And so stand these monuments like mute forgotten sentinels on the threshold of that _unseen_ world, whose gates are thrown open but to a few elect.

Defying the hand of Time, the vain inquiry of profane science, the insults of the _revealed_ religions, they will disclose their riddles to none but the legatees of those by whom they were entrusted with the MYSTERY. The cold, stony lips of the once vocal Memnon, and of these hardy sphinxes, keep their secrets well. Who will unseal them? Who of our modern, materialistic dwarfs and unbelieving Sadducees will dare to lift the VEIL OF ISIS?

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