The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

40 HISTORY OF INITIATION
volved him in a series of furious conflicts from which he
seldom escaped without wounds and bruises ; for to
make him equal with the gods, it was necessary that he
underwent the same trials, and exposed himself to simi-
lar dangers.
Having reached the extremity of the seven75 mystic
caverns, 76 77
a cheerful peal of bells was heard to ring;
which he was instructed to believe would expel from
these dark caves the evil demons who might be inclined
to disturb the sacred ceremonies in which they were
engaged. 78
Before the candidate wT as enlightened and
ed and destroyed whole hosts of giants and tyrants. The seventh
Avater forms of itself a complete and voluminous Romance, of which
Vishnu is the hero, under the name of Rama, who is represented as a
valiant and successful warrior. With the assistance of a vast army,
composed of an incredible number of monkeys or satyrs, led on in battle
array, he accomplished so many wonderful adventures, that their
recital fills actually several volumes. In the eighth Avater, he slew a
host of giants, armed only with an enormous serpent and in ; the
ninth he transformed himself into a tree, for the purpose of gratifying
a criminal passion with a king's daughter. The Hindoos still expect
a tenth Avater, with the same impatience which the Jews manifest for
their Messiah. Sir W. Jones informs us, that this Avater "is expected
to appear mounted (like the crowned conqueror in the Apocalypse,)
on a white horse, with a cimeter blazing like a comet, to mow down
all incorrigible and impenitent offenders who shall then be on the earth."
(Asiat. Res., vol. i., p. 236.)
75 Vid. Signs and Symbols, Lect. 8.
76 These seven caverns bore an allusion to the metempsychosis, as
well as to the seven places of reward and punishment which different
nations have received into their creed. And it may perhaps be asserted
without profanation, that the Christian system gives a sanction to
the same hypothesis. If an inspired Apostle speaks of a third heaven :
(2 Cor. xii., 2,) of the righteous differing from each other in glory, as
one star differs from another ; (1 Cor. xv., 41,) if the plural number
be commonly used by Christ and his apostles, when speaking of the
place of supreme bliss j (Mark i., 10. Acts vii., 56. Eph. iv., 10.
Heb. i., 10. .2 Pet. iii., 5, &c.,) and if the Saviour himself should
acknowledge that heaven contains many mansions ; (John xiv., 2,)
then we may also conclude that as there are many heavens, so there are
also degrees of reward proportioned to the measure of man's faith and
obedience.
77 From time immemorial, bells were employed in
religious rites all
over the eastern world. (Wait. Orient. Ant., p. 83. See also the
Rumayuna of Valmic.) In India no religious ceremony was esteemed
efficacious if
unaccompanied by this indispensable appendage
(Maur. Ind. Ant, vol. v., p. 900.)
78 These wicked and mischievous beings were said to be struck with
horror at the sound of a bell; and even the undulations of the air
produced by it were so detestable to them, that they would flee witii