Astarte was the divinity with whose worship it was thus associated, and by that being understood the moon,[109] it was natural to suppose that the study of the stars would essentially enter into the ceremonial of her worship. Another name by which this divinity was recognised, was Rimmon, which, signifying as it does pomegranate, was a very happy emblem of fecundity, as apples are known to be the most prolific species of fruit.
Lingam is the name by which the Indians designated this idol.[110] Those who dedicate themselves to his service, swear to observe inviolable chastity. “They do not, however,” says Craufurd, “like the priests of Atys, deprive themselves of the means of breaking their vows; but were it discovered that they had in any way departed from them, the punishment is death. They go naked; but being considered as sanctified persons, the women approach them without scruple, nor is it thought that their modesty should be offended by it. Husbands whose wives are barren solicit them to come to their houses, or send their wives to worship Lingam at the temples; and it is supposed that the ceremonies on this occasion, if performed with the proper zeal, are usually productive of the desired effect.”[111]
Such was the origin and design of the most ancient Indian pagodas, which had no earthly connection with fire or fire-worshippers, as generally imagined. And that such, also, was the use and origin of the Irish pagodas is manifest from the name by which they are critically and accurately designated, viz. Budh, which, in the Irish language, signifies not only the Sun, as the source of generative vegetation, but also as the male organ of procreative generativeness, consecrated, according to their foolish ideas, to Baal-Phearagh or Deus-coitionis, by and by to be elucidated. This thoroughly explains the word “Cathoir-ghall,” or “temple of delight,” already mentioned as appropriated to one of those edifices, and is still further confirmed by the name of “Teaumpal na greine,” or “temple of the sun,” by which another of them is called; while the ornament that has been known to exist on the top of many of them represents the crescent of Sheevah, the matrimonial deity of the Indians, agreeably to what the Heetopades states, viz. “may he on whose diadem is a crescent cause prosperity to the people of the earth.”
But you will say that my designating these structures by the name of Budh is a gratuitous assumption, for which I have no authority other than what imagination may afford me; and that, therefore, however striking may be appearances, you will withhold your conviction until you hear my proofs. Sir, I advance nothing that I cannot support by arguments, and should not value your adherence were it not earned by truth. This is too important an investigation to allow fancy any share therein. It is not the mere settlement of an antiquarian dispute of individual interest or isolated locality that is involved in its adjustment,—no, its bearings are as comprehensive as its interest should be universal; the opinions of mankind to a greater extent than you suppose will be affected by its determination; and I should despise myself if, by any silly effort of ingenuity, I should attempt to lead your reason captive, or pander to your credulity, rather than storm your judgment.
This being premised, I shall not condescend, here or elsewhere, to apologise for the freedom with which I shall express myself in the prosecution of my ideas. The spirit that breathes over the face of the work will protect me from the venom of ungenerous imputation. Freedom is indispensable to the just development of the subject. Nor do I dread any bad results can accrue from such a course, knowing that it is the vicious alone who can extract poison from my page,—and they could do it as well in a museum or picture gallery,—while the virtuous will peruse it in the purity of their own conceptions, and if they rise not improved, they will, at least, not deteriorated.
My authority for assigning to the Round Towers the above designation is nothing less than those annals before adduced.[112] Where is it there? you reply. I rejoin in Fidh-Nemphed; which, as it has heretofore puzzled all the world to develop, I shall unfold to the reader with an almost miraculous result. Fidh, then—as the Ulster Annals, or Fiadh, as those of the Four Masters spell it—is the plural of Budh, i.e. Lingam; the initial F of the former being only the aspirate of the initial B of the latter, and commutable with it[113]; and Nemphed is an adjective, signifying divine or consecrated, from Nemph, the heavens: so that Fidh-Nemphed taken together will import the Consecrated Lingams, or the Budhist Consecrations.
Celestial INDEXES, cries O’Connor; following which term—but with a very different acceptation—the reader must be aware how that, in the early part of our journey, I ascribed to this enigma an astronomical exposition; but herein I was supported not only by expediency but by verity, having, all along, not only connected Solar worship, and its concomitant survey of the stars—which is Sabianism—with Phallic worship,—beginning with the former in order to prepare the way for the latter,—but shall proceed in detail until I establish their identity.
The Egyptian history, then, of the origin of this deification is what will put this question beyond the possibility of denial, viz. that “Isis having recovered the mangled pieces of her husband’s body, the genitals excepted, which the murderers had thrown into the sea, resolving to render him all the honour which his humanity had merited, got made as many waxen statues as there were mangled pieces of his body. Each statue contained a piece of the flesh of the dead monarch. And Isis, after she had summoned in her presence, one by one, the priests of all the different deities in her dominions, gave them each a statue, intimating that, in so doing, she had preferred them to all the other communities of Egypt; and she bound them by a solemn oath that they would keep secret that mark of her favour, and endeavour to prove their sense of it by establishing a form of worship, and paying divine honours to their prince. But that part of the body of Osiris which had not been discovered, was treated with more particular attention by Isis, and she ordered that it should receive honours more solemn, and at the same time more mysterious, than the other members.”[114]
Now as Isis[115] and Osiris—two deities, by the way, which comprehended all nature and all the gods of the ancients—only personated the Sun and Moon, the sources of nutrition and vegetative heat, it is very easy to remove the veil of this affectionate mythology, and see that it means nothing more than the mutual dependence and attraction of the sexes upon, and to, each other; while the fact of the Egyptian “Osiris,”[116] which in their language signifies the Sun, and the Irish “Budh,” which in our language signifies the same planet, being both represented by the same emblematic sign;[117] and the name of that sign in both languages signifying as well sign as thing signified, gives a stamp to my proof which I defy ingenuity to overthrow.