General
Brine said he had been in all the coin'ries alluded to by Mr. Phillips,
and had seen most of the gems which had been mentioned. The
missionaries, who were the forerunners of civilisation all over the
world, generally got hold of the gems, which they sold to travellers in
order to support their missions.
The
Chairman said he should not wish the discussion to close without,
justifying his opinion that " the breastplate of Aaron," was of the
nature of a zodiacal palladium. Josephus (" Antiquities of the Jews,"
iii. vii., 5, 6, 7) by implication, frankly admits it. But he (the
Chairman) had come to this conclusion not so much from the study of oil
world books as from long acquaintance with the people of India, and
their traditional arts; and no one who had lived familiarly among them
could ever for an instant doubt the original talismanic, palladial,
phalacterial, prophylactic, alexipharmic, or therapeutic character not
only of all jewellery, but of all decorations. Coloured stones,
beautiful flowers, and line feathers are not used in India primarily
for ornament, but because they are sacred to some god the wearer would
propitiate for his or her antidotal defence. Our whole pharmacopoeia,
including the British Pharmacopoeia, has really originated in this way.
The officinal plants were at first only 36; that is one for each of the
12 leading, and 24 subsidiary (" decani," " 24 elders") constellations
in. the sun's path or " zodiacal " circle. In conformity with their
number also, the human body was divided into 36 parts, and when men
fell ill they gathered and used, not chemically and physiologically,
but alexipharmically and therapeutically, some suitable preparation of
the plant sacred to the divinity presiding over the limb of organ
affected. Pharmacy means literally " enchantment," and "therapeutics, "
the worships of the gods;" or cure by faith in the divinities of
certain plants. Now that we have distilled them off as essences, and
precipitated them as alkaloids, and can weigh and measure them out with
the nicest exactitude, we despise "the prayerof faith," and even
prosecute those who still put their trust in it. He was first led to
suspect the zodiacal origin of " Aaron's breastplate" from its obvious
resemblance to the Hindu and Buddhist talismanic amulet known as the nava ralna, or
" nine gems." This famous amulet, which is universally worn in India
and Burmah, refers in India, in a secondary sense, to the nine poets
[cf : the Pleiades or seven tragic poets of the Court of the Ptolemies]
of the Court of the mythical Hindu king, Vik-rainaditya, B.C. 57; but
in its primary sense, the only sense in what it is understood by the
Buddhists of Ceylon and Burmah, it refers to the seven planets, Saturn,
Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Mercury, and Luna; the triform moon [cf : " the
triple Hecate" Tergemina] being represented in it by three gems instead
of one. In Burmah this amulet is always shaped as a conventionalised
eight-leaved lotus flower, typifying celestially the octagonal heaven,
and terrestrially the octagonal earth ; and is invariably set with the
same gems, viz., the sapphire representing Saturn; the topaz, Jupiter;
coral, Mars; the ruby, in the centre, Sol; the diamond, Venus; the
emerald, Mercury; and the moonstone, the waxing, the pearl, the full,
and the catseye, the waning moon or Luna. In India, on the other hand,
the nava ratna, or nao-ralan, is always represented
as a square, in fact, as a horoscopic square, obviously its most
ancient form; while the stones with which it is set vary in almost
every province; for, and in consequence probably of its wide
association with the " nine gems" of the Court of Vikramaditya, its
planetary character has become very much obscured among ignorant
Hindus; as that of the horseshoe ornament with its seven gems, so much
affected by horsey men, has passed out of popular recognition among
ourselves ; and that of the combined circle and crescent-shaped brooch,
with its five pendants, has been forgotten by the Aral*- and Turks,
although it has descended to them directly from the Chaldeans, who were
the great inventors of astrological mineralogy, and, indeed, of all
ouranographical symbolism, whether spiritual or material. The vault of
heaven, the womb of nature, with its included constellationary life,
and, above, all, the seven guardian
{Continued oh page 206.)
