Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism
by Thomas Inman, M.D. (1874)
Pagan and Christian symbolism

Fig. 80

Figure 80 is copied from Godfrey Higgins' Anacalypsis, vol. ii., fig. 27. It is drawn from Montfauçon, vol. ii., pi. cxxxii., fig. 6. In his text, Higgins refers to two similar groups, one which exists in the Egyptian temple of Ipsambal in Nubia, and is described by Wilson, On Buddhists and Jeynes, p. 127, another, found in a cave temple in the south of India, described by Col. Tod, in his History of Raj-pootanah. The group is not explained by Montfauçon. It is apparently Greek, and combines the story of Hercules with the seductiveness of Circe. The tree and serpent are common emblems, and have even been found in Indian temples in central America, grouped as in the woodcut.