On Tree And Serpent Worship, As Exemplified By Some Recently Discovered Indian Monuments.

Rajah in building the town of Amrati , at the end of the last century . On examination , it was found that the Tope had been erected in the 4 th century , and was in all essentials a Buddhist monument ; but its

sculptures proved that the worship of the seven-headed Naga , or Serpent-god , was nearly as important and as prevalent Avhen it was erected as that of Buddha himself . Another circumstance , nearly as unexpected , Avas that the worship of the Tree

was equal in dignity to that of the Serpent—the three forming a trinity for which we were by no means prepared .

The next piece of evidence which came to light was in the form of a series of photographs of the Sanchi Tope , near Bhopal , in Central India , made by Lieut . Waterhouse , and a still more interesting series of drawings of the sculptures of the same

monument by Lieut .-Col . Maisey . The sculptures of this monument are earlier than those of the Amravati Tope , and date from the first century of our era . In them Buddha himself never appears as an object of worship , though the

monument is essentially Buddhist . The Serpent is worshipped , but only occasionally ; but the Tree is the prevailing and prominent object of adoration .

The light thrown on the subject by the examination of these three typical examples was so distinct and clear that many minor indications which had hitherto been overlooked were now found to bear directly on the subject ; and the general result was

to prove what had only before been suspected , * which was , that before the preaching of Gautama Buddha , or Sakya Muni , who died 543 B . C ., the prevailing worship of the aboriginal tribes of India was Tree and Serpent worship ; that the former

was tolerated by Buddha—the latter abolished ; but in later times , when the prophet ' s influence became weaker , that the two had cropped up again , and had , in later times , so obscured as nearly to obliterate the reforms he had introduced .

Mr . Fergusson then proceeded to point out what he believed to be the key to half the problems of Indian mythology or art : this was , that the country was now , and had in all historical times been , inhabited by tivo perfectly distinct and

separate races of men . One aboriginal , so far as knoAvn , and of distinctly Turanian race ; the other , Aryans , who migrated into India some 2 , 000 , or

it may be 3 , 000 years before the Christian era , and Avho , down at least to the 7 th century B . C . completely dominated the aboriginal races . The language of the Aryans Avas Sanscrit—their religion that of the Vedas ; aud it may be asserted ,

almost without limitation , that all the literature of India belongs to this great family of mankind ; but like Aryans all over the world , they had no great feeling for art , and erected no permanent buildings .

The aboriginal Turanians , on the other hand , had no literature , but an innate love of art , and built as instinctively as bees . Their religion like all similar races , was ancestral . They had no distinct idea of a future state , but supplied its place

by metempsychosis ; and , as before stated , their principal outward symbols of worship were Serpents and Trees . The religion which Buddha taught Avas not a reform of the Vedic faith of the Aryans ,

but a refinement of the less intellectual relig ion of the Turanians . Serpent-worship was abolished , and with it human sacrifices , to be

replaced by the utmost tenderness towards all living things ; but Tree-worship was not only tolerated but encouraged ; the ancestral tumulus became a relic shrine ; ascetics were formed into monastic communities ; and , Avhat is even more

important for onr present purposes , simultaneously with this upraising of a Turanian race , men began to erect permanent buildings in India . There does not , so far as we now know , exist in all India a single building or any carved stone that dates

from the days of Aryan supremacy ; but 300 years after the death of Sakya Muni , Asoka , then emperor of India , did for Buddhism what Constantino did for Christianity 600 years afterwards .

He madeic the religion of the state ; and with him begins also the history of lithic architecture in that country . The old caves that belong to this age , and all those down at least to the Christian era , are literal copies of Avooden forms ; and it is not

till after the time of the Sanchi ' s gateways , Avhich were erected in the first centuary after Christ , that the architecture ceases to be mare imitative carpentry , and becomes appropriate to masonic forms .

These propositions were illustrated by diagrams on the Avails taken principally from the Sanchi and Amravati Topes , to which the speaker frequently referred as illustrating this branch of his subject .