James George Roche Forlong (6 November 1824 – 29 March 1904) was a
Major General of the
Indian Army
The Indian Army (IA) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Land warfare, land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head ...
who trained as a
civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...
in
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
and
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. He was renowned for his road-building skills through the jungles of India and Burma and for his studies on
comparative religion
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including human migration, migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study ...
.
Life
He was born at Springhall in
Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark (; ), is a Counties of Scotland, historic county, Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and registration county in the Central Lowlands and Southern Uplands of Scotland. The county is no l ...
on 6 November 1824, the third son of William Forlong of Erines and his wife, who was the eldest daughter of General Gordon Cumming Skene of Dyce in Aberdeenshire.
He joined the Indian Army in 1843 and fought in the Mahratha Campaign of 1845-46. He later filled various posts including that of Secretary and Chief Engineer to the government of
Oudh
The Kingdom of Awadh (, , also Oudh State, Kingdom of Oudh, Awadh Subah, or Awadh State) was a Mughal subah, then an independent kingdom, and lastly a British protectorate in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the Br ...
. In 1858/59 he travelled extensively in Egypt, Syria and the Middle East.
Exposure to
Indian religions
Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism,Adams, C. J."Classification o ...
while doing missionary work led him to abandon his Christian faith, and into some very heterodox ideas about religious origins, including those of the ancient
Hebrews
The Hebrews (; ) were an ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic-speaking people. Historians mostly consider the Hebrews as synonymous with the Israelites, with the term "Hebrew" denoting an Israelite from the nomadic era, which pre ...
. These found expression in his massive work of
comparative religion
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including human migration, migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study ...
, ''Rivers of Life'', with its markedly sexual, some would say blasphemous, interpretation of
religious rites and
symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
*Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea
Arts
*Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea
** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...
.
He retired from the army in 1876 and then concentrated on writing, mainly on the comparison of various religions. His huge opus "Rivers of Life" was followed by "Faiths of Man: A Cyclopaedia of Religions" which was published posthumously in 1906.
Forlong was a
rationalist. He was an Honorary Associate of the
Rationalist Press Association
The Rationalist Association was a charity in the United Kingdom which published '' New Humanist'' magazine between 1885 and 2025. Since 2025, the Rationalist Press has been the publishing imprint of Humanists UK.
The original Rationalist Press ...
, to which he left a sum of money in his will.
He died at home, 11 Douglas Crescent in Edinburgh's West End on 29 March 1904. He is buried in
Dean Cemetery
The Dean Cemetery is a historically important Victorian cemetery north of the Dean Village, west of Edinburgh city centre, in Scotland. It lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith, bounded on its east side by Dean Path and o ...
in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
with his wife Lavinia ("Nina") Reddie. The grave lies in the northern Victorian extension attaching the original cemetery on one of the north-south paths.
Rivers of Life
"''...the shower of phallicism that burst upon the reading public in the shape of General Forlong's ''Rivers of Life''".''
The book is in two large volumes together with a huge coloured Chronological Chart of the Religions of the World representing different currents:
*
Tree Worship
Trees are significant in many of the world's mythologies, and have been given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages. Human beings, observing the growth and death of trees, and the annual death and revival of their foliage, have often seen ...
*
Phallic Worship
*
Serpent Worship
*
Fire Worship
Worship or deification of fire (also pyrodulia, pyrolatry or pyrolatria), or fire rituals, religious rituals centred on a fire, are known from various religions. Fire has been an important part of homo, human culture since the Lower Paleolithic. ...
*
Sun Worship
*
Ancestor Worship
The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of t ...
All of these originated very early in mankind's history, and form streams flowing down the millennia and separating and commingling into the major religions.
Some Themes
Like
Payne-Knight,
D’Hancarville and
Hargrave Jennings
Hargrave Jennings (1817–1890) was a British Freemason, Rosicrucian, author on occultism and esotericism, and amateur student of comparative religion.
Jennings was a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and was involved with a Pagan grou ...
he is of the
phallicist school of religious anthropology. Phallic worship had two wings, the right hand, or
lingam
A lingam ( , lit. "sign, symbol or mark"), sometimes referred to as linga or Shiva linga, is an abstract or Aniconism, aniconic representation of the Hinduism, Hindu Hindu deities, god Shiva in Shaivism. The word ''lingam'' is found in the Up ...
and the
left hand path
In Western esotericism, left-hand path and right-hand path are two opposing approaches to magic. Various groups engaged with the occult and ceremonial magic use the terminology to establish a dichotomy, broadly simplified as (malicious) blac ...
of the
yoni
''Yoni'' (Sanskrit: योनि, ), sometimes called ''pindika'', is an abstract or aniconic representation of the Hindu goddess Shakti. It is usually shown with ''linga'' – its masculine counterpart. Together, they symbolize the merging ...
worshipers,
* The
Garden of Eden
In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden (; ; ) or Garden of God ( and ), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2–3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31..
The location of Eden is described in the Book of Ge ...
story was simply that of human generation.
Eve
Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and there ...
bruised the serpent's head and he bruised what is euphemistically called her heel.
* The
Ark of the Covenant
The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites.
Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...
represented a female sex organ or yoni, and the two stones it contained signified testicles.
*The early Jews practiced a most crude and extreme form of phallic worship.
Elohim
''Elohim'' ( ) is a Hebrew word meaning "gods" or "godhood". Although the word is plural in form, in the Hebrew Bible it most often takes singular verbal or pronominal agreement and refers to a single deity, particularly but not always the Go ...
was the same as
Baal
Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...
and their worship was lingamist, the
Yahweh
Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...
worshiping revolt against it (spearheaded by the prophets) was a pro-yoni movement, like Indian
Shaktism
Shaktism () is a major Hindu denomination in which the God in Hinduism, deity or metaphysics, metaphysical reality is considered metaphorically to be a woman.
Shaktism involves a galaxy of goddesses, all regarded as different aspects, mani ...
.
* Christian churches are constructed on phallic principles. All these ideas are backed up with great erudition and parallels from antiquity, India and the far east.
Selected publications
*''Rivers of Life''
''Volume 1''''Volume 2''
1883)
''Through what Historical Channels did Buddhism Influence Early Christianity?''
(''Open Court'', 1887)
''Short Studies in the Science of Comparative Religions: Embracing All the Religions of Asia''
(1897)
*''Faiths of Man: Cyclopaedia of Religions'' (3 volumes, 1906)
*''Jainism and Buddhism''
Quotes
* ''The numerous tales of holy trees groves and gardens repeated everywhere and in every possible form justify me in my belief that Tree Worship was first known and after it came Lingam or Phallic, with of course the female form A-dama.''
* ''He he Serpentis the special Phallic symbol which veils the actual God and therefore do we find him the constant early attendant upon Priapus
In Greek mythology, Priapus (; ) is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens, and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism. He becam ...
or Lingam, which I regard as the second religion of the world.''
* ''Phallic Worship, the second if not the first of man's faiths.''
James G. R. Forlong Fund
The Royal Asiatic Society
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encourag ...
's James G.R. Forlong Fund derives from his bequest (in a will dated 1901). The fund was registered as a charity in 1962, to be used "for the "encouragement of the study of the religions, history, character, languages and customs of Eastern races" and within this definition to be devoted to the funding of scholarships and the publication of short works on these subjects.Thomas Burrow
Thomas Burrow (; 29 June 1909 – 8 June 1986) was an Indologist and the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford from 1944 to 1976; he was also a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford during this time. His work includes ''A Dravidi ...
(1940)
* Vol.19 - ''A Dictionary of the Language of Bugotu, Santa Isabel Island, Solomon Islands'', by Walter George Ivens (1940)
* Vol.18 - ''Marriage in Early Islam'', by Gertrude Henrietta Stern (1939)
* Vol.17 - ''Three Persian Dialects'', by Ann Katharine Swynford Lambton (1938)
* Vol.16 - ''The Pronunciation of Kashmiri'', by Thomas Grahame Bailey (1937)
* Vol.15 - ''Balti Grammar'', by Alfred Frank Charles Read (1934)
* Vol.14 - ''Study of the Gujarati language in the 16th century'', by Trimbaklal Nandikeshwar Dave (1935),
* Vol.13 - ''An Introduction to Colloquial Bengali'', by Walter Sutton Page (1934)
* Vol.12 - ''The Phonetic System of Ancient Japanese'', by Saburo Yoshitake (1934)
* Vol.11 - ''Dialogues in the Eastern Turki dialect on subjects of interest to travellers'', by Ross (1934),
* Vol.10 - ''Ta'rikh-i-Jahan-gushay of Juwayni (vol.3)'', by Wahid-ul-Mulk, intro by Edward Denison Ross
Sir Edward Denison Ross (6 June 1871 – 20 September 1940) - known as Denison - was an orientalist and linguist, specializing in languages of the Middle East, Central and East Asia. He was the first director of the University of London's School ...
(1931)
* Vol.9 - ''Diwan'', by Falaki-i Shirwani (1929),
* Vol.8 - ''The Elements of Japanese Writing'', by Noel Everard Isemonger (1929)
* Vol.7 - ''Critical studies in the phonetic observations of Indian grammarians'' (1929)
* Vol.6 - ''Falakī-i-Shirwānī: his times, life, and works'', by Hasan Hādī (1929),
* Vol.5 - ''The Milindapañho: being dialogues between King Milinda and the Buddhist sage Nāgasena. The Pali text'', ed. Vilhelm Trenckner, index by C.J. Rylands ... and an index of Gāthās by Caroline A.F. Rhys Davids (1928)
* Vol.4 - ''Taʾríkh-i Fakhruʾd d-Dín Mubáraksháh : being the historical introduction to the Book of Genealogies of Fakhruʾd-Dín Mubáraksháh Marvar-rúdí, completed in A.D. 1206 / edited from a unique manuscript by E. Denison Ross'', by Fakhr ul-Dīn Mubārakshāh (1927)
* Vol.3 - ''Moslem Architecture, 623 to 1516. Some causes and consequences'', by Ernest Tatham Richmond (1926)
* Vol.2 - ''The Arab Conquests in Central Asia'', by Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb (1923)
* Vol.1 - ''The Primitive Culture of India'', by Thomas Callan Hodson (1922)
Notes and references
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forlong, James
1824 births
1904 deaths
19th-century British engineers
British people in colonial India
Rationalists
Scottish civil engineers