The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

48 HISTORY OF INITIATION.
Their sylvan residence imparted a taste for the study of
botany, which exemplified itself in the practice of medi-
cine and surgery; nor were they ignorant of chemistry,
mineralogy, metallurgy; and excelled in many other
abstruse arts, as well as those domestic manufactures
which are attendant on civilization, and contribute their
aid to the refinements of social life.
An extensive system of symbolical instruction was
used in the Mysteries, and the veil by which they were
covered was too dense for the uninitiated to penetrate. 21
Eternity was symbolized equally by a serpent
and a
wheel; fire by a trident; 22 wisdom, strength, and beauty
23
by a circle of horned heads benevolence ; by the cow j
friendship by the buccinum or conch wisdom ; by the
24 25 chakram the lotos was an emblem of the soul's free-
;
21 " In truth," says Stukeley, " the first learning in the world con-
sisted chiefly in symbols. The wisdom of the Chaldeans, Phenicians,
Egyptians, Jews; of Zoroaster, Sanchoniathon, Pherecydes, Syrus,
Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, of all the ancients that is come to our
hand, is symbolic. It was the mode, says Serranus on Plato's Symposium,
of the ancient philosophers to represent truth by certain
symbols and hidden images."
23 Maur. Ind. Ant., vol. v., p. 857.
23 The cow was also a symbol of the great mother 1. (Herod., c.
ii.,
41, et Vid. Tobit i., 5) ; for this animal was usually identified with the
Ark. Thus the great father is indifferently said to be born from a cow
and from the Ark.
24 Krishna is described in the Geeta (p. 91) as "of infinite shape;
formed with abundant arms, and bellies, and mouths, and eyes;
crowned, and armed with a club and Chakra; a mass of glory darting
refulgent beams around." The Chakram is a round or circular machine,
of which many devotees of Vishnu bear the emblem, imprinted on their
shoulders with a hot iron. It is still used in some places as a weapon
of war, and is nothing more than a large circular plate of iron, the
outer edge of which is made very sharp. Through the centre a shaft
passes, by means of which a rotatory motion is given to the plate,
which whirls with great rapidity, and cuts whatever it approaches."
(Dubois on the Inst. of Ind., p. c.
3, 11.) It is also used without the
shaft, for Mr. Wilkins, in his notes on the Geeta (p. 96), describes it
as "a kind of discus with a sharp edge hurled in battle from the
point of the fore finger, for which there is a hole in the centre."
25 This plant had the good fortune to be held sacred in most coun-
tries^ In Egypt it was called the lily of the Nile; and Mr. Savary
(vol. i., p. 8) says it still maintains its pristine veneration in that
country. It was the great vegetable amulet which distinguished the
eastern nations. Their gods were always represented as seated on the
lotos ; it was the sublime throne of oriental mythology, and referred
indubitably to the ark of Noah.