Volume I [867 pages]
Volume II [525 pages]

I shall shew, that Buddha and Cristna were only renewed incarnations of the same Being, and that Being the Solar power, or a principle symbolized by the Sun—a principle made by the sun visible to the eyes of mortals : and particularly exhibiting himself in his glory at the vernal equinox, in the heavenly constellation known by the name of Taurus, as BUDDHA, and subsequently in that of Aries, as CRISTNA.

"Buddha is variously pronounced and expressed Boudh, Bod, Bot, But, Bad, Budd, Buddou, Boutta, Bota, Budso, Pot, Pout, Pota, Poti, and Pouti. The Siamese make the final T or D quiescent, and sound the word Po; whence the Chinese still further vary it to Pho or Fo. In the Talmudic dialect the name is pronounced Poden or Pooden; whence the city, which one contained the temple of Sumnaut or Suman-nath, is called Patten-Sumnaut. The braod sound of the U or Ou or Oo, passes in the variation Patten into A, pronounced Ah or Au; and in a similar manner, when the P is sounded B, we meet with Bad, Bat, and Bhat. All these are in fact no more than a ringing of changes on the cognate letters B and P, T and D. Another of his names is Saman, which is varied into Somon, Somono, Samana, Suman-Nath, and Sarmana. From this was borrowed the sectarian appellation of Samaneans, or Sarmaneans. A third is Gautama, which is indifferently expressed Gautameh, Godama, Godam, Codam, Cadan, Cardam, and Cardana. A fourth is Saca, Sacya, Siaka, Shaka, Xaca, Xaca-Muni or Xaca-Menu and Kia, which is the uncompounded form of Sa-Kia. A fifth is Dherma, or Dharma, or Dherma-rajah. A sixth is Hermias, Her-Moye, or Heri-Maya. A seventh is Datta, Dat-Alreya, That-Dalna, Date, Tat or Tot, Deva-Tut or Deva-Twasta. An eighth is Jain, Jina, Chin, Jain-Deo, Chin-Deo, or Jain-Eswar. A ninth is Ahran. A tenth is Mahi-Man, Mai-Man, or (if Om is added) Mai-Man-Om. An eleventh is Min-Eswara, formed by the same title Min or Man or Menu joined to Eswara. A twelfth is Gomat or Gomat-Eswara. A thiteenth, when he is considered as Eswara or Siva, is Ma-Esa or Har-Esa; that is to say, the great Esa or the Lord Esa. A fourteenth is Dagon or Dagun, or Dak-Po. A fifteenth is Tara-Nath. And a sixteenth is Arca-Bandhu or Kinsman of the Sun."*

"Wod or Vod is a mere variation of Bod; and Woden is simply the Talmudic mode of pronouncing Buddha : for in that mode of enunciation, Buddha is expressed Pooden or Poden; and Poden is undoubtedly the same word as Voden or Woden."* This etymology is assented to by Sir W. Jones, if it were not, as I believe it was, originally proposed by him. Woden was the God of the Scuths and Scandinavians, and said to be the inventor of their letters; as Hermes was the supposed inventor of the letters of the Egyptians. This, among other circumstances, tends to prove that the religion of the Celts and Scuths of the West was Buddhism. The Celtic Teutates is the Gothic Teut or Tuisto, Buddha's titles of Tat, Datta, or Twashta. Taranis is Tara-Nath. Hesus of Gaul is, Esa, Ma-Hesa, and Har-Esa. But those are by the Latin writers called Mercury.**

In Scotland, the country people frighten their children by telling them, that old Bud or the old man will take them. In India, one of the meanings of the word Buddha is old man.

In this inquiry it seems of the first consequence to ascertain the meaning of the word Buddha. From the examination of the accounts of the different authors, this celebrated word appears to have the same meaning as to the first word of Genesis, that is, Wisdom, or extremely wise, or wise in a high degree. M. Creuzer gives it savant, sage, intelligence, excellente, et supérieure. He says, it allies itself or is closely allied to the understanding, mind, intelligence unique, and supreme of God.

This is confirmed by Mr. Ward, the missionary, who tells us that Buddha is the Deity of WISDOM, as was the Minerva of Greece. When devotees pray for wisdom to their king, they say, may Buddha give thee wisdom.*

… In the Pali, of Ceylon, it means universal knowledge or holiness.*

Buddhi, wisdom; Buddha, sage, wise; Bodha, WISDOM.

Two facts seem to be universally agreed upon by all persons who have written respecting Buddha. The first is, that at last he is always found to resolve himself into the sun, either as the sun, or as the higher principle of which the sun is the image or emblem, or of which the sun is the residence. The second is, that the word Buddha means WISDOM. Now, we cannot believe that this WISDOM would be called by so singular a name as Buddha, without a cause.

It has been observed by several philologers that the letters B D, B T, universally convey the idea either of former or of creator. But Genesis says the world was formed by WISDOM. Wisdom was the Buddha or former of the world : thus WISDOM, I conceive, became called Bud. Wisdom was the first emanation, so was Buddha. Wisdom was the Logos by which the world was formed; but Buddha was the Creator : thus the Logos and Budd are identical, the same person of the Trinity.

… I shall shew that Logos, Bud, and Rasit, were only names in different languages for the same idea.

Mr. Whiter says, "Through the whole compass of language the element B D denotes Being : hence we have the great Deity worshipped all over the East—Budda."* Then Buddha will mean the existent or self-existent wisdom, self existent as an integral part of the Trinity. He then informs us that, in Persian, Bud-en Bud, signifies to be. The same as Is, est, existo. Bud is clearly the I am that I am of our Bible; or, in the original, which has no present tense, the I shall be, or the I have been; or what, perhaps, this celebrated text may mean, THAT WHICH I HAVE BEEN, I SHALL BE—Eternity, past and future.

"… The following is the speech of Arjoon respecting Vishnu as Cristna—Thou art all in all. … O supreme Bhagavat, thou art the Buddha Avatar who shall tranquilize and give ease to Devaties, human creatures, and Ditytes."*

I think I could scarcely have wished for a more complete proof of the truth of my doctrine of the renewal of the Avatars, than the above. It shews, in fact, that both Buddha and Cristna are nothing but renewed incarnations in each cycle.

The ancient identity of the worship of Buddha and of Cristna, receives a strong confirmation from the fact, that the Buddhists have TEN incarnations of Buddha, the same as the followers of Cristna, and, what is remarkable, called by the same names.*

Between the Brahmins and the Buddhists there exists the greatest conceivable enmity … The ancient histories of the Hindoos are full of accounts of terrible wars between the different sectaries, which probably lasted, with the intermissions usual in such cases, for many generations, and extended their influence over the whole world; and we shall see in the course of this work, that, in their results, they continue to exercise an influence over the destinies of mankind.

After various trials, he came out of them all triumphant; and after certain temptations or penitences, to which he submitted in the desert, were finished, he declared to his disciples that the time was come to announce to the world the light of the true faith, the Gods themselves descending from heaven to invite him to propagate his doctrines. He is described by his followers as a God of pity, the guardian or saviour of mankind, the anchor of salvation, and he was charged to prepare the world for the day of judgment.

Amara thus addresses him : "Thou art the Lord of all things, the Deity who overcomest the sins of the Cali-Yug, the guardian of the universe, the emblem of mercy towards those who serve thee—OM : the possessor of all things in vital form. THOU ART BRAHMA, VISHNU, and MAHESA : thou art the Lord of the universe : thou art the proper form of all things, moveable and immoveable, the possessor of the whole, and thus I adore thee. Reverence be unto thee, the bestower of salvation.— … I adore thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names, and under various forms, in the shape of BUDDHA the God of mercy. Be propitious, O most high God."*

Buddha was often said not to have been born of a virgin, by to have been born, as some of the heretics maintained Jesus Christ was born, from the side of his mother.* He was also said to have had no father. This evidently alludes to his being the son of the androgynous Brahme-Maia.** …

St. Jerom says,* Apud Gymnosophistas Indiæ, quasi per manus, hujus opinionis auctoritas traditur, quod Buddam, principem dogmatis eorum, è latere suo virgo generavit.

We see here that the followers of Buddha are called Gymnosophists. It has been observed that the Meroe of Ethiopia was a Meru. This is confirmed by an observation of Heliodorus, that the priests of Meroe were of a humane character, and were called Gymnosophists.*

Buddha as well as Cristna means shepherd. Thus, he was the good shepherd. M. Guigniaut says, there is a third Guatama, the founder of the philosophy Nyaya. I ask, may not this be the philosophy of a certain sect, which in its ceremonies chaunts in honour of Crista the word IEYE, in fact, the name of the Hebrew God Ieue, or Jehovah as we disguise it ?* We know that names of persons in passing from one language into another, have often been surprisingly changed or disguised; but there is no change here; it is the identical name.

Buddha may be seen in the India House with a glory round his head. This I consider of great consequence. The glory round the head of Jesus Christ is always descriptive of his character, as an incarnation of that Higher Power of which the sun is himself the emblem, or the manifestation.

In my Celtic Druids I have observed, that the word Creeshna, of the old Irish, means the Sun. Now, in the Collectanea of Ouseley,* we find Budh, Buth, Both, fire, the sun; Buide lachd, the great fire of the Druids. We also find in Vallancey's ancient Irish history, that they brought over from the East the worship of Budh-dearg, or king Budh, who was OF THE FAMILY OF SACA-SA, or bonus Saca. In the Hindoo Chronology there is a Buddha Muni, who descended in the family of Sacya : and one of his titles was Arca-bandu, or Kinsman of the Sun. If my reader will look back a little, and observe that the Hindoo Budhh was of the family of SAKYA, he will, I think, believe with me that here we have the Hindoo Buddha in Ireland. It is impossible to be denied. How contemptible does it make our learned priests appear, who affect to despise facts of this kind, and to consider the learning wherein they are contained, beneath their notice ! But they do not despise them; they hate them and fear them. They feel conscious that they prove a state of the world once to have existed, which shakes to their foundations numbers of their nonsensical dogmas, and, with them, their gorgeous hierarchies.

The farther back we go in history the more simple we find the icons of the Gods, until at last, in Italy, Greece, and Egypt, we arrive at a time when there were no icons of them. … For Buddha is never seen in the old temples, where his worship alone prevails, but in one figure, and that of extreme simplicity. And in many temples about Cabul, known to be Buddhist, there are no images at all. …

The images of Buddha can be considered only as figures of incarnations, of a portion of the Supreme Being; in fact, of human beings, filled with divine inspiration; and thus partaking the double quality of God and man. No image of the supreme Brahm himself is ever made; but in place of it, his attributes are arranged, as in the temple of Gharipuri, thus :

Thus each triad was called the Creator. In the last of these divisions we find the Trinity ascribed to Plato, which I have noticed in B. I Ch. II. Sect. 4. We see here whence the Greeks have obtained it, and as was very common with them, they misunderstood it,* and took a mere figurative, or analogical, expression of the doctrine, for the doctrine itself. Probably the Earth, fire, water, might be given to the canaille, by Plato, to deceive them, as it has done some moderns, to whose superstition its grossness was suitable.

… But yet there is one circumstance of very great importance which is peculiar to Buddha, and forms a discriminating mark between him and Cristna, which is, that he is continually described as a Negro, not only with a black complexion, in which he agrees with Cristna, but with woolly hair and flat face. M. Creuzer observes, that the black Buddha, with frizzled or curled hair, attaches himself at the same time to the three systems into which the religion of India divides itself.

Mr. Moore, on his woolly head, says, "Some statues of Buddha certainly exhibit thick Ethiopian lips;* but all woolly hair : there is something mysterious, and unexplained, connected with the hair of this, and only of this, Indian deity. The fact of so many different tales having been invented to account for his crisped, woolly head, is alone sufficient to excite suspicion, that there is something to conceal—something to be ashamed of; more than meets the eye."**

The reason why Buddha is a Negro, at least in the very old icons, I trust I shall be able to explain in a satisfactory manner hereafter. The Brahmins form a species of corporation, a sacerdotal aristocracy, possessing great privileges; but the Buddhists have a regular hierarchy; they form a state within a state, or a spiritual monarchy at the side of a temporal one. "They have their cloisters, their monastic life, and a religious rule. Their monks form a priesthood numerous and powerful, and they place their first great founder at their head as the sacred depositary of their faith, which is transmitted by the spiritual prince, who is supported by the contributions of the faithful, from generation to generation, similar to that of the Lamas of Thibet." M. Creuzer might have said, not similar to, but identical with the Lama himself; who, like the Pope of Rome, is God on Earth, at the head of all, a title which the latter formerly assumed. Indeed the close similarity between the two is quite wonderful to those who do not understand it.

The monks and nuns of the Buddhists, here noticed by M. Creuzer, take the three cardinal vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience,—the same as the monks and nuns of the European Christians. This singular fact at once proves the identity of the orders in the two communities, and that they must have had a common origin. I know not any circumstance of consequence in their economy in which they differ.

A certain order of persons called Samaneans are noticed by Porphyry and Clemens Alexandrinus. …

Porphyry, in his treatise on Abstinence, gives a very good description of the Brahmins and Samaneans,* from which it appears that the latter had precisely the same monastic regulations in his time, that they have at this day.

"Both Cyril and Clemens Alexandrinus* agree in telling us, that the Samaneans were the sacerdotal order both in Bactria and in Persia. But the Samaneans were the priests of Saman or Buddha, and it is well known that the sacerdotal class of Bactria and Persia were the Magi : therefore the Magi and the Samaneans must have been the same, and consequently Buddha, or Maga, or Saman, must have been venerated in those regions. With this conclusion, the mythologic history of the Zend-avesta will be found in perfect accordance. The name of the most ancient Bull, that was united with the first man Key-Umurth, is said to have been Aboudad. But Aboudad, like the Abbuto of the Japanese, is plainly nothing more than Ab-Boud-dat, or father Buddh-Datta."** But this is not the only proof of the Buddhism of the Persians. According to the Desatir of Moshani, Maha-bad, i.e. the great Buddha, was the first king of Persia and of the whole world, and the same as the triplasian Mithras.***

Buddha has his three characters, the same as Brahma, which produced three sects, like those of the Brahmins—that of Buddha or Gautama, that of Jana or Jina, and that of Arhan or Mahiman.* I think in the last of these titles may be found the Ahriman or the Ma-Ahriman, the destroyer, of Persia. But Buddha is allowed by the Brahmins to have been an incarnation of Vishnu, or to be identified with Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and like them he was venerated under the name OM.

Colonel Franklin (p. 5) says, "The learned Maurice entertains no doubt that the elder Boodh of India is no other that the elder Hermes Trismegistus of Egypt, and that that original character is of antidiluvian race; … ."

Buddha in Egypt, was called Hermes Trismegistus; Lycophron calls him Tricephalus. This speaks for itself, as we have seen that Buddha is identidied with Brahman, Vishnu, and Siva.

Mr. Moore says, "Most, if not all, of the Gods of the Hindoo Pantheon, will, on close investigation, resolve themselves into the three powers, and those powers into one Deity, Brahm, typified by the sun."* Again, "In Hindu mythology every thing is indeed the Sun." Nothing can be more true. Mr. Moore adds, "We may here, as usual with all Hindoo deities, trace Kama's genealogy upwards to the sun, who is Brahm."**

Buddha is stated by Sir W. Jones to be Woden, and not a native of India.* But it is remarkable, that Woden is his Tamul name, and the Tamulese are now in South India. This will be found of importance hereafter.

Mons. Guigniaut, in his notes on Creuzer, has very justly observed that the earliest notice we have of the Persian religion has come from the north, from ancient Aria or Balch, the ancient Bactriana. He says, "Nous avons déjà parlé des temples souterrains de Bamian, à quelque distance de Caboul. Ici la Perse et l'Inde, Hom et Brahma, Bouddha et Zoroaster, semblent se donner la main."* …

In my last chapter I said, that the word OM was used exactly like our word Amen. In the above prayer is a proof of what I there advanced, with this only difference, that it was not spoken but meditated on, in profound silence, at the end of the distich or the prayer. …

… Mr. Franklin makes an observation which is new to me, that the ancient Etrurians had the countenances of Negroes, the same as the images of Buddha in India.* …

Many of our divines have been much astonished at the coincidence between the prophecy of the heathen Sybil and that of Isaiah; the difficulty I flatter myself I shall now be able to remove, by shewing that it related to the system of cycles, which Mons. Cassini detected in the Siamese manuscript.

I shall now proceed to prove that the period of 600 years, or the Neros alluded to by Cassini, which has been well described by the most celebrated astronomers as the finest period that ever was invented, Josephus says was handed down from the patriarchs who lived before the flood, is the foundation of the astronomical periods of the Indians, and is probably the age or mundane revolution alluded to by Virgil. On the subject of this fine cycle, and the important consequences deduced by Mons. Bailey from the knowledge of it by the ancients, my Celtic Druids may be consulted. There my reader will see proofs that it was probably the invention of a period long prior to any thing which we have been accustomed to contemplate as founded on historical records.

The prophecy of Isaiah may be said to have been a mystery, an example of judicial astrology. It required no divine inspiration to prove to the initiated, that, at the end of the cycle then running, a new cycle would commence, or that the cycle of the God Cristna, the Sun, would be born again : and this leads us to a discovery which will account for and remove many of the difficulties which our learned men have encountered respecting Buddha and Cristna. It is evident that both of them being the sun, mystically and astrologically speaking, their year was 600 years long, and their birthday on the first year of the 600, on which was a conjunction of sun and moon at the vernal equinox. The day of the first birth of Buddha was at the vernal equinox of that 600 when the sun entered Taurus, of Cristna of that 600 nearest to the time when he entered Aries. The birthdays of both returned every 600 years—when the Phen or Phenishe or Phoenix was consumed on the altar of the temple of the sun at Heliopolis, in Egypt, and rose from its ashes to new life. This, I think, seems to have been purely astrological.

At first many persons will be greatly surprised at the assertion, that the passages of Isaiah, ch. viii. 14, viii. 8, are not prophecies of Christ. …

Again, Dr. Adam Clarke maintains, that the prophecy of Isaiah—A virgin* shall conceive and bear a son, and call his name Immanuel, does not mean Christ.**

I can entertain little doubt that this prophecy was well known to the Gauls or Celts and Druids, long before the time of Christ, as is made sufficiently evident by an inscription VIRGINI PARITURÆ, which was found at Chartres upon a black image of Isis. This image was made by one of their kings, and the Rev. M. Langevin says it was existing in his day, about 1792.* They are almost the words of Isaiah, and Mons. Langevin says, were inscribed one hundred years before the birth of Christ. Along with the statue of Isis was a boat, which M. Langevin says was the symbol under which this Goddess was adored. This was the Argha of India, of which I shall treat hereatfter.

This prophecy, which our divines have been so eager to make apply to Jesus Christ, was known also to the Egyptians and Greeks, as well as to the Hindoos and Jews. This fact strongly supports my rendering, that it related to their sacred OM.*

Singular as my reader may imagine it to be that Isaiah alludes to the OM of India, he will not think it so very paradoxical and singular, when he learns, that the history of Cyrus, who is prophesied of by name by Isaiah, is taken from a passage in the life of Cristna, from some history of whom Herodotus must have copied it.

The Mem final—the letter Samach—was adopted for the 600, because the cycles of 60 and 600 are, in reality, the same, or one a part of the other : they would equally serve the purpose of the calendar. If they reckoned by the Neros, there were 10 Neroses in 6000; if the reckoning was made by 60, there were 100 times that number in 6000 years. This we shall understand better presently. This explanation of the Samach completes what I have said respecting the X being the mark for 600, in my Celtic Druids, Ch. iv. Sect. ix.

But M is the sign of the passive as well as of the active principle, that is, of the Maia. Thus it is the symbol of both; that is, of the Brahme-Maia; and this is the reason why we find this the Monogram of the Virgin upon the pedestal of the Goddess Multimammia, and of the Virgin Mary, with the Bambino, or black Christ, in her arms, as may be seen in many places in Italy.

The Momphta of Egypt, named by Plutarch, admitted by Kircher to be the passive principle of nature, is evidently nothing but the Om-tha or Om-thas, with the Mem final, the sign of 600, prefixed. The sun was the emblem of the active principle, the moon of the passive principle. Hence she was generally female, often called Isis, to which she was dedicated, and Magna Mater.*

The recurrence of the word Om, in the names of places in Egypt, and in Syria,* about Mount Sinai, is very remarkable, and raises strong ground for suspicion that it has a relation to the Om of India. We must remember that this Om is the Amen or sacred mystical word of the Bible, of the law given on Sinai. It is also the word Omen—good or bad—which means prophecy.

There was a remarkable eclipse in March 4710 of the Julian period,* about the time of Herod's death, and the birth of Christ. This is as it ought to be. The conjunction of the Sun and Moon took place on the birth of Christ. This was exactly 600 years after the birth of Cyrus, who was the Messiah, to use the epithet of the Old Testament, who immediately preceded Jesus Christ.

It is necessary to observe, that few of the numbers respecting the precession are absolutely correct : for instance, the number of years for a sign is 2153, instead of 2160; the difference arises from fractions, as I have stated above, and is so small, that it is not worth notice. The following observation of M. Volney's will explain it.

"Edward Barnard discovered from ancient monuments that the Egyptians priests calculated, as we do, the movement of the precession at 50" 9'" ¾ in a year : consequently that they knew it with as much precision as we do at this day.

"According to these principles, which are those of all astronomers, we see that the annual precession being 50" and a fraction of about a fourth or a fifth, the consequence is, that an entire degree is lost, or displaced, in seventy-one years, eight or nine months, and an entire sign in 2152 or 2153 years."*

Again Volney says, "It is, moreover, worthy of remark, that the Egyptians never admitted or recognized, in their chronology, the deluge of the Chaldeans, in the sense in which we understand it : and this, no doubt, because among the Chaldeans themselves it was only an allegorical manner of representing the presence of Aquarius in the winter solstitial point, which presence really took place at the epoch when the vernal equinoctial point was in Taurus : this carries us back to the thirty-first (3100) or thirty-second century before our æra, that is, precisely to the dates laid down by the Indians and Jews."*

We must recollect that the likeness between the history of Hercules and Jesus Christ is so close that Mr. Parkhurst has been obliged to admit, that Hercules was a type of what the Saviour was to do and suffer. Now M. Dupuis has shewn the life of Hercules in the sphere in a manner which admits not of dispute; and Hercules, as it has also been shewn, is the Hericlo, the Saviour 600.

I will now shew that the Mosaic system is exactly the same as that of the Brahmins and the Western nations; I will unfold one part of the esoteric religion. But first I shall avail myself of the statement of several facts of the highest importance, which cannot be disputed, made by Col. Wilford in the Asiatic Researches.*

In consequence of certain prodigies which were reported to have been seen at Rome, about the year 119 before Christ, the sacred College of Hetruria was consulted, which declared that the EIGHT REVOLUTION OF THE WORLD was nearly at an end, and that another, either for the better or the worse, was about to take place.*

Juvenal, who lived in the first century, declared that he was living in the ninth revolution,* or sæculum. This shews that the cycle above alluded to had ended in Juvenal's time, and that a new one had begun : and this ninth revolution consisted evidently of a revolution of more than 100 or 120 years—of several centuries at least.

This statement of Juvenal's, which no author has yet ever pretended to understand, will now explain itself, and it completes and proves the truth of my whole system. It is of the greatest importance to my theory, as it is evidence, which cannot be disputed, of the fact on which the whole depends. Virgil lived before Christ, Juvenal after him. This is quite enough for my purpose, as we shall soon see.

About sixty years before Christ the Roman empire had been alarmed by prodigies, and also by ancient prophecies, announcing that an emanation of the Deity was going to be born about that time. And that a renovation of the world was to take place.

Previous to this, in the year 63 B.C., the city had been alarmed by a prophecy of one Figulus, that a king or master of the Romans was about to be born, in consequence of which the Senate passed a decree, that no father bring up a male child born that year : but those among the Senators, whose wives were pregnant, got the decree suppressed.* These prophecies were applied to Augustus, who was born 63 years before Christ according to some persons, but 56 according to several writers in the East, such as the author of the Lebtarikh and others. "Hence it is, that Nicolo de Conti, who was in Bengal and other parts of India in the fifteenth century, insists that the Vicramaditya was the same as Augustus, and that his period was reckoned, from the birth of that Emperor, fifty-six years before Christ." Now, it is evident that these fifty-six years before Christ bring us to the æra of the Buddha of Siam, for the beginning of the new æra, foretold by the Cumæan Sibyl, as declared by the Mantuan or Celtic poet, the Druid of Cisalpine Gaul, in his fourth eclogue.** This, in some old manuscripts seen by Pierius, is entitled Interpretatio Novi Sæculi.***

* See Sup. to Tit. Liv. CII. Decad. Cap. xxxix.

Another prophecy has been noticed by Prideaux* of one Julius Marathus, in these words : Regem populo Romano naturam paturire.**

Among the Greeks, the same prophecy is found. The Oracle of Delphi was the depository, according to Plato, of an ancient and SECRET prophecy of the birth of a son of Apollo, who was to restore the reign of justice and virtue on earth.* This, no doubt, was the son alluded to by the Sibyl.

Du Halde, in his history of China, informs us, that the Chinese had a prophecy that a holy person was to appear in the West, and in consequence they sent to the West, which I think would be Upper India, and that they brought thence the worship of Fo, (i.e. Buddha,) whom they call Fwe, K-yau, and Shek-ya. This is evidently the Iaw of Diodorus, and the Iau of Genesis, and the Sa-kia the name of Buddha.

Now, according to my idea, the Sibyl of Virgil would have no difficulty, as, from her skill in judicial astrology, she would know very well when the Neros would end. Isaiah might easily learn the same (even if he were not initiated, a thing hardly to be believed) from the Sibyl of Judæa,* perhaps called a Huldah. Nothing is so likely as that Augustus should permit his flatterers to tell the populace that his age exactly suited to the prophecy. Few persons would dare to canvas this matter too closely; it was good policy, to strengthen his title to the throne. But respecting him I shall have much to say hereafter. The Hindoo works, Colonel Wilford informs us, foretell the coming of Cristna, in the same manner, at the time he is said to have come. Nothing is more likely. This has been erroneously supposed to prove them spurious. Any astronomer might tell it, for it was what had been told for every new age, before it arrived, that a great personage would appear—in fact the presiding genius, Cyrus, or Messiah, of the Cycle.

Amongst other arguments against its being a forgery, Professor Lee observes, that the very same prophecy, in the same words, is reported by Abulfaragius to have been found by him in the oriental writings of Persia. This prophecy thus found in the East and in Ireland, and in the Virgini parituræ, of Gaul, before noticed, previous to the Christian æra, is of the very first importance. … This prophecy is alluded to in the gospel of the Infancy; …

The star above spoken of, was also known to the Romans, "Chalcidius, a heathen writer who lived not long after Christ, in a commentary upon the Timæus of Plato, discoursing upon portentous appearances of this kind in the heavens, in different ages, particularly speaks of this wonderful star, which he observes, presaged neither diseases nor mortality, but the descent of a God among men : Stellæ quam à Chaldæis observatam fuisse testantur, que Deum nuper antum muneribus venerati sunt."* Nothing can be more clear than that the Romish Christians got their history of the Star and Magi from these Gentile superstitions.

With respect to the time fixed by Eusebius for the age of the world before Christ, we must recollect that it is very different from all others, because at the time when he and his master, Constantine, were settling and establishing the Christian religion—destroying by the agency of Theodoret such gospel histories as they thought wrong, and substituting such as they thought right—they may be fairly supposed to have had information on these subjects, which may very easily have been lost in later times. I think no one will believe that it was by accident, that the number of the years of the Sun's precession in a sign, (2160,) the number of Eusebius, (5200,) and the eight cycles, agreed with the doctrines of Juvenal and Censorinus and the eight Avatars of India.

In the annals of China, in fact of the Chinese Buddhists, in the reign of the Emperor YAU, (a very striking name, being the name of the God of the Jews,) it is said, that the sun was stopped ten days, that is, probably, ten degrees of Isaiah,* a degree answering to a year, 360 degrees and 360 days.

As might well be expected, when Joshua stopped the sun it was observed in India. Mr. Franklin says, "1575 years before Christ, after the death of Cristna (Boodh the son of Deirca), the sun stood still to hear the pious ejaculations of Arjoon. This is the great leader of the Jews—Moses."*

The author of the Cambridge Key says, that in the text of the Bible the sun is said to stand still in A.M. 1451, the year in which Moses died. This is the Cali year 1651, in which the sun stood still to hear the pious ejaculations of Arjoon for the death of Cristna.* The learned Jesuit Baldæus observes, that every part of the life of Cristna has a near resemblance to the history of Christ : and he goes on the shew that the time when the miracles are supposed to have been performed was during the Dwaparajug, which he admits to ended 3100 years before the Christian æra.** So that, as the Cantab says, If there is meaning in words the Christian missionary implies that the history of Christ was founded on that of Crishnu.

After this, in p.. 226, Cantab goes on to shew, that it is almost impossible to doubt that the history of Cristna was written long prior to the time of Christ. The same mythos is evident, in all these widely-separated nations. Its full meaning, I have no doubt, will be some day discovered.

Noah began a new world, and thus also did Cristna.

In looking back to the Jewish history, I find the flood ended on the day that Noah finished his 600^th year, when a new world began. We have already seen that the year of the saviour Cristna was feigned to be 600 years—the duration of the Neros. He was the saviour of India, expressly predicted in the ancient writings of the Brahmins. The saviour of the Jews and of Europe was the same. The Jewish incarnations were the same as those of the Hindoos, as was indeed almost every part of their system. …

The first cycle began with the sun in Taurus, the creation of the system, and ended with Enoch, who did not die, but who ascended into heaven. I think this speaks for itself.

Enoch is said to have lived 365 years, but it is probable that his life was only 360, the time which was necessary to intercalate to make up the difference between the three Neroses, and the precession for one sign, 1800+360=2160, when the system of Noah, the correct system, began.

… The cycles were like men, and died of old age. … The Arabians called Enoch Edris, and say that Edris was the same as Elijah, who did not die. And the Arabians and the Jews also had a tradition, that Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, revived in Elijah.* Thus the Jewish and Arabian traditions unite Enoch and elijah, and Elijah and Phinehas, by correct renewed incarnations; and I suppose every one who reads this will recollect, that the Jews are said to have believed Jesus to be Elijah.** Jesus declares that John Baptist came in the SPIRIT and power of Elijah.*** These circumstances have at least a strong tendency to prove, if they do not really prove, that the Hindoo doctrine of renewed incarnation was the esoteric religion of the Jews. When Elijah went up to heaven, he left his cloak and prophetic office to Elisha, or to the Lamb of God.****

George Syncellus says, that the Phœnix which appeared in Egypt in the reign of Claudius, had been seen in the same country 654 years before. On this Larcher says, "This pretended Phœnix appeared the seventh year of the reign of Claudius, the year 800 of Rome, and the 47^th year of our æra. If we take from 800 the sum of 654, which is the duration of life of this bird, according to this chronographer, we shall have for the time of its preceding apparition the year 146 of the foundation of Rome, which answers to the year 608 before our æra." It is surely a very extraordinary accident that make the learned Larcher's calculation exactly agree with the term of one of the great Neroses, which the bird's name means; …

… I before stated that I suspected the first ended with the birth of Enoch. The second ended with the birth of Noah. The third ended with Noah leaving the ark, when he was 600 years old. The fourth ended about the time of Abraham, and was probably Isaac, whose name may mean joy, gladness, laughter, and who was called because he was the saviour, not because his mother laughed at God.

It was the belief that some great personage would appear in every cycle, as the Sibylline verses prove; but it was evidently impossible to make the birth of great men coincide with the birth of the cycle. But when it was desirable to found power upon the belief that a living person was the hero of the cycle, it is natural to expect that the attempt should have been made, as was the case with the verses of Virgil and others, as I shall hereafter shew. This great person is, according to Mr. Parkhurst, the type of a future saviour.

The fifth Jewish cycle might end when the Samaritans say the prophecy of Jacob was verified, that is, when Osee, expressly called the Messiah or Saviour—Joshua or Jesus—brought the ark to Shiloh. … The language of the prophecy of Jacob to Judah, that a Lawgiver should not pass from beneath his feet till Shiloh should come, has been a subject of much dispute. Dr. Geddes and others maintain, that it is no prophecy, but Christians in general consider it to be one. The Samaritans insist that it is a prophecy, and that it was fulfilled in the son of Nun, Osee, called properly Jesus or the Saviour, and improperly Joshua, on his bringing the ark to Shiloh, as remarked above. Sir William Drummond has shewn, in a most ingenious and convincing manner, in his Œdipus Judaicus, how this prophecy is depicted on the sphere.

The sixth incarnation I will not attempt to name. The Jews, like the Hindoos, had many saviours or incarnations, or persons who at different times were thought to be inspired, or to be persons in whom a portion of divine wisdom was incarnate. This makes it difficult to fix upon the right person. Might not Samson be one of them ? He was an incarnation, as we shall soon see.

On this subject Plato says, "When the time of all things is full, and the change is needful, and every kind upon the earth is exhausted, each soul having given out all its generations, and having shed upon the earth as many seeds as were appointed unto it, then doth the pilot of the universe, abandoning the rudder of the helm, return to his seat of circumspection, and the world is turned back by fate and its own innate concupiscence. At that time also the Gods, who act in particular places as colleagues of the supreme Dæmon, being aware of that which is coming to pass, dismiss from their care the several parts of the world. The world itself being and having a great concussion within itself, makes another destruction of all living things. But in due process of time it is set free from tumult, and confusion, and concussion, and obtaineth a calm, and being set in order, returneth into its pristine course, &c."* Nimrod then adds, "as we farther learn from Virgil, that the next renovation of the world will be followed by the Trojan war—I do not think that more words are necessary in order to evince that the Ilion of Homer is the Babel of Moses." …

The doctrine of the renewal of worlds has been well treated by Dr. Pritchard.* He shews that the dogma was common to several of the early sects of philosophers in Greece;** that traces of it are found in the remains of Orpheus; that it was a favourite Doctrine of the Stoics, and was regarded as one of the peculiar tenets of that school; and that we are indebted chiefly to their writings for what we know of this ancient philosophy. But although the successive catastrophes are shewn to have been most evidently held by them, yet, from the doctor's account, it is very clear that they were not generally understood; …

* Floyer's Sibyls, p.244.

St. Augustin has an indistinct view of the true system. He says, that the fifth age is finished, that we are in the sixth, and that the dissolution of all things will happen in the seventh.* He evidently alluded to the thousands, not the Neroses; and that the world should be burnt and renewed.** Barnabas says, "In six thousand years the Lord shall bring all things to an end." He makes the seventh thousand the millenium, and the eighth the beginning of the other world. …

Nothing astonishes me more than the absolute ignorance displayed in the writings of the ancients, of the true nature of their history, their religious mythology, and, in short, of every thing relating to their antiquities. At the same time it is evident that there was a secret science possessed somewhere, which must have been guarded by the most solemn oaths.

Plutarch in Sylla has stated, that on a certain clear and serene day, a trumpet was heard to sound which was so loud and clear, that all the world was struck with fear. On the priests of Etruria being consulted they declared, that a new age was about to commence, and a new race of people to arise,—that there had been EIGHT races of people, different in their lives and manners,—that God has allotted to each race a fixed period, which is called the great year,—that when one period is about to end and another to begin, the heaven or the earth marks it by some great prodigy. …

Among all the ancient nations of the world, the opinion was universal, that the planetary bodies were the disposers of the affairs of men. Christians who believe in Transubstantiation, and that their priest have an unlimited power to forgive sins, may affect to despise those who have held that opinion, down to Tycho Brahe, or even to our own times; but their contempt is not becoming, it is absurd. From this error, however, arose the opinion, that the knowledge of future events might be obtained from a correct understanding of the nature of the planetary motions. This was, perhaps, an improvement on the other. It was thought that the future fortunes of every man might be known, from a proper consideration of the state of the planets at the moment of his birth. As, of course, these calculations would continually deceive the calculators, it was very natural that endeavours should be made (overlooking the possibility that the system might be false from the beginning) to ascertain the cause of these failures. This was soon believed to arise from a want of correctness in the calculation of the planetary motions—a fact which would speedily be suspected and then ascertained. This produced the utmost exertion of human ingenuity, to discover the exact length of the periods of the planets; that is, in other words, to perfect the science of astronomy. In the course of these proceedings it was discovered, or believed to be discovered, that the motions of the planets were liable to certain aberrations, which it was thought would bring on ruin to the whole system, at some future day. … Experience would teach them that they could never be certain they had discovered all the aberrations, and thus they could never be certain that they had calculated all the periods. They would also perceive that the longer they made their cycles or periods the nearer they came to the truth. For this reason it was, and it was a sensible reason, that they adopted the very long periods : for it was evident that, in every one of the lengthened periods, multiples of 600, the cycle of the Sun and Moon would be included, and with it would make a cycle. When our priests can discover, or suppose, no other reason for these lengthened periods than a wish to appear the most ancient of nations, I fear they estimate the understandings of those who discovered the Neros, by the measure of their own.

I am always rejoiced when I find my theories supported by learned Christian dignitaries. I then flatter myself that they cannot be the produce of a too prurient imagination. Bishop Horsley could not help seeing the truth, that the fourth Eclogue of Virgil referred to the child to whom the kings of the Magi came to offer presents. In the second volume* of Sermons, he has undertaken to prove that this Eclogue is founded on old tradition respecting Jesus Christ, and that he is the child of whom Virgil makes mention. I suspect the learned Bishop had at least a slight knowledge or the esoteric doctrine. On this I shall say more when I treat of the Sibyls; I shall then shew that the bishop is perfectly right.

The date of Pythagoras's birth has been much disputed by learned men. After what the reader has seen, he will not be surprised to find this great philosopher connected, as has been already noticed from the work of La Loubière, like the Jewish worthies, Augustus Cæsar, and others, with one of the Neroses. …

… We have every reason to believe, that Pythagoras travelled far to the East to acquire knowledge. In looking through the great mass of facts and doctrines charged to him, we find much oriental doctrine intermixed with truth and science, the same as we find at this day among the Brahmins : truth and science very much more correct than that which his successors (whose ignorance or uncertainty respecting him is admitted) knew or taught, mixed with an inconceivable mass of nonsense, of that description of nonsense, too, which his followers particularly patronized, and taught as sense and wisdom. Have we not, then, reason to make a selection, and give Pythagoras credit only for such parts as we find of the wise character to which I have alluded, and throw out all the remainder as the nonsense of his successors ? What can be more striking than the fact of his teaching that the planets moved in curved orbits, a fact for the statement of which he got laughed at by his ignorant successors, but a fact which we know to be well-founded !

All his doctrines, we are told by his followers, were founded on numbers, and they pretend to give us what was meant by these numbers, and choice nonsense they give us,—nonsense very unworthy of the man who taught the 47^th proposition of Euclid, and the true planetary system. Then are we to believe them ? I reply, no; we ought to believe only such parts as are analogous to the oriental systems, and to good sense. All the remainder must remain sub judice. …

Mr. Payne Knight says, "the male organs of generation are sometimes represented by signs of the same sort, which might properly be called symbols of symbols. One of the most remarkable of these is the cross in the form of the letter T, which thus served as the emblem of creation and generation."*

… Among the Alchemists the T with a circle and crescent, is the numerical sign of Mercury. The sign of Venus is a crux ansata, that is, a cross and a circle.

The cross was a sacred emblem with the Egyptians. The Ibis was represented with human hands and feet holding the staff of Isis in one hand, and a globe and cross in the other. It is on most of the Egyptian obelisks, and was used as an amulet. Saturn's astrological character was a cross and a ram's-horn. Jupiter also bore a cross, with a horn.

… The two principle pagodas of India, viz. at Benares and Mathura, are built in the form of crosses.* The cross was also a symbol of the British Druids.** Mr. Maurice says, "We know that the Druid system of religion, long before the time of Cambyses, had taken deep root in the British Isles."*** "The cross among the Egyptians was an hieroglyphic, importing the life that is to come."****

The following are monograms of Christ, XXX ; but it is unquestionable, that they are also monograms of Jupiter Ammon. The same character is found upon one of the medals of Decius, the great persecutor of the Christians, with this word upon it, B A XXX A T O. This cipher is also found on the staff of Isis and of Osiris. There is also existing a medal of Ptolomy, king of Cyrene, having an eagle carrying a thunderbolt, with the monogram of Christ, to signify the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, which was in the neighbourhood of Cyrene, and in the kingdom of Ptolomy.*

Dr. Clarke has given a drawing of a medal, found in the ruins of Citium, in Cyprus, which he shews is Phœnecian, and, therefore, of very great antiquity. This medal proves that the Lamb, the holy cross, and the rosary, were in use in a very remote period, and that they all went together, long before the time of Jesus of Nazareth.

On the subject of the cross Mr. Maurice says, "Let not the piety of the Catholic Christian be offended at the preceding assertion, that the cross was one of the most usual symbols among the hieroglyphics of Egypt and India. Equally honoured in the Gentile and the Christian world, this emblem of universal nature, of that world to whose four quarters its diverging radii pointed, decorated the hands of most of the sculptured images in the former country; and in the latter stamped its form upon the majestic of the shrines of their deities."*

Mr. Maurice observes, that in Egypt, as well as India, the letter T, or in other words, the Cross, or the Crux Hermis, was very common, in which form many of the temples of India are built, and those in particular dedicated to Cristna : as for example, those at Matterea or Mattra, and at Benares. D'Ancarville and the generality of mythologists explain this symbol to refer to the Deity in his creative capacity, in both Egypt and India. Mr. Bruce frequently met with it in his travels in the higher Egypt and Abyssinia, and it was also very often noticed by Dr. Clarke. It was commonly called the crux ansata, in this form XXX and was what was referred to in Ezekiel,* in the Vulgate, and the ancient Septuagint, according to Lowth, rendered, "I will mark them in the forehead with the T or Tau." It is also referred to by Tertullian, when he says that the Devil signed his soldiers in the forehead in imitation of the Christians. It is certainly very remarkable that God should select this Mithraitic symbol for the mark to distinguish the elect from those that were to be slain by the sword of the destroyers. This may furnish another reason why Christians should moderate their anger against those who used this symbol of the creative power of God.** The Latin Vulgate*** does in fact read, "You shall mark their forehead with the letter Thau." … In the Mazoretic Hebrew it is tau, which confirms the Vulgate and shews what it was considered to be by the Mazorites of the middle ages. The cross was much venerated by the cabalists of the early Christians who endeavoured to blend the arcana of Plato and the numerical doctrines of Pythagoras with the mysteries of Christianity. I have no doubt that it is either the origin of the words Taut and Thoth, names of the Egyptian Gods, or, that these words are the originals from which it came; and perhaps of the Thor of the Celts, who went into Hell and bruised the head of the great snake. The monogram of the Scandinavian Mercury was represented by a cross. The Monogram of the Egyptian Taut is formed by three crosses thus, XXX united at the feet, and forms, to this day, the jewel of the royal arch among the free masons. It is the figure XXX and is X=600 H=8 =608.

The Samaritans had, in very early times, the Tau of their alphabet in the form of the Greek Tau, as is clearly proved by their ancient Shekels, on which it is so inscribed. St. Jerom and Origen both assert that it was so in Samaritan copies of the Pentateuch in their day. …

On the decad or the number X, the Pythagoreans say, "That ten is a perfect number, even the most perfect of all numbers, comprehending in it all difference of numbers, all reasons, species, and proportions. …"*

… Thus the letter X stood for the 600 of the Hebrews, for Ezekiel's sacred mark of salvation, and for the astronomical or astrological cycle.

… "Jamblicus thinks the crux ansata was the name of the Divine Being … Sometimes it is represented by a cross fastened to a circle as above : in other instances, with the letter T only, fixed in this manner to a circle."*

And when accompanied by the circle, it is the Linga and Ioni of India united. The Deity presided in the kingdom of Omtha, Om-tha, the cycle Om. Here we have the cycle of 600, the Om of Isaiah, the cross of Christ, and the Om-tha of Egypt all united. …

I shall now exhibit, in an extract from my Celtic Druids, another example of the mystical numbers 600 and 608, where few persons would expect to find it, viz. in the ancient Druidical temples of Britain. "The most extraordinary peculiarity which the Druidical circles possess, is that of their agreement in the number of the stones of which they consist with the ancient astronomical cycles. The outer circle of Stonehenge consist of 60 stones, the base of the most famous of all the cycles of antiquity. … At Abury we find all the outward circles and the avenues make up exactly the 600, the Neros, which Josephus says was known before the flood. … I also think that the whole number of stones which Stonehenge consisted of was 144, … thus making the sum-total of stones exactly to the oriental cycle of vau of 144 years."

I confess I cannot help considering the discovery of these cycles in the old temples as confirmatory in an extraordinary manner of my system. My theory respecting the Druids being oriental Buddhists is confirmed by the oriental Neroses of Siam; and my theory of the origin of the oriental doctrines is confirmed by the temples of the West. Circumstances of this kind surpass all written testimony : there can be no forged interpolations here. …

The number 650, sacred to the Sun, and found in the temple at Abury is so remarkable a manner, again confirms my theory. He must have a prurient imagination indeed who can attribute all these coincidences to accident. …

… This shews that the earliest year in Greece was 360 days only. Thus we find the same ignorance in Greece, and in the book of the deluge of Moses, and in the Apocalypse, as well as in Egypt : but in the Indians, we find the Metonic cycle and the Neros, which evince a more correct knowledge of the length of the year; and it was shewn by the builders of the Metonic cycles of pillars in Britain.

In my Celtic Druids I have given an example of two Cromlehs in India, Plates 39 and 40; … I have since found that stone circles, similar to Stonehenge, Abury, &c., are very common in the Northern parts of India. The natives can give no account of them.

For the origin of the cross we must go to the Buddhists and to the Lama of Tibet, who takes his name from the cross, called in his language Lamb, which is with his followers an object or profound veneration.

The cross of the Buddhists is represented with leaves and flowers springing from it, and placed upon a mount Calvary, as among the Roman Catholics. They represent it in various ways, but the shaft with the cross bar and the Calvary remain the same. …

The celebrated Monk Georgius, in his Tibetinum Alphabetum, p. 203, has given plates of the God Indra nailed to a cross, with five wounds. These crosses are to be seen in Nepaul, especially at the corners of roads and on eminences. Indra is said to have been crucified by the keepers of the Hindoo garden of Paradise for having robbed it. …

Gen. Vallancey says, "The Tartars call the cross Lama from the Scythian Lamb, a hand, synonymous to the Jod of the Chaldeans : and thus it became the name of a cross, and of the high-priest with the Tartars; and, with the Irish, Luam* signifies the head of the church, an abbot, &c.

From the abuse of the original incarnation or divine inspiration, for if they were not identical they were very nearly allied, arose the Lama of Tibet, now become a mere tool of the Monks, by means of which their order keeps possession of the sovereign sway. If the circumstances of the Lama and the Pope be carefully examined, the similarity will be found to be very striking. In each case the Monks and their Pope have the temporal power in the surrounding territory, and in each case extensive foreign states admit their spiritual authority. And when in former times the priests gave the Pope of Italy the epithet of Deus, and elevated him as they yet do, ON THE ALTAR of St. Peter's, and bending the knee to him, offered him, to use their own words, adoration—they in fact very nearly arrived at Tibetan perfection. In each case the head of the empire is called Papa and Holy Father, and in each case the empire is called that of the Lama, the Lamh, or the Cross—for Lamh means Cross. …

"Boodism," Col. Franklin* says, "is known widely in Asia under the appellation of Shamanism : the visible head of which religion, the Dalai Lama, resides in a magnificent palace called Putala, or the Holy Mountain, near Lassa, the capital of the extensive region of Thibet. He is believed to be animated by a Divine Spirit, and death is nothing more, it is pretended, than the transmigration of the spirit into another body, like that of the Bull God Apis in Egypt." Here is the principle which will unravel all the mysteries of antiquity.

The close coincidence between the religion of Tibet and that of the Christians, can hardly be disputed, as the knowledge of it comes to us from several persons who do not appear to have any interest in trying to deceive. "Father Grebillon observes also with astonishment, that the Lamas have the use of holy water, singing in the church service, prayers for the dead, mitres worn by the bishops; and that the Dalai Lama holds the same rank among his Lamas, that the Pope does in the Church of Rome : and Father Grueber goes farther; he says, that their religion agrees, in every essential point, with the Roman religion, without ever having had any connexion with Europeans : for, says he, they celebrate a sacrifice with bread and wine; they give extreme unction; they bless marriages; pray for the sick; make processions; honour the relics of their saints, or rather their idols; they have monasteries and convents of young women; they sing in their temples like Christian Monks; they observe several fasts, in the course of the year, and mortify their bodies, particularly with the discipline, or whips : they consecrate their bishops, and send missionaries, who live in extreme poverty, travelling barefoot even to China. Father Grueber says he has seen all this : and Horace de la Pona says, that the religion of Tibet is like an image of that of Rome. They believe in one God : a Trinity, but filled with errors; a Paradise, Hell, Purgatory; but mingled with fables : … have confessors appointed by the grand Lama, and, besides holy water, the cross, chaplets, and other practices of Christians."* The above is confirmed by Grueber and D'Orville, the missionaries, in the account of their Voyage to China.

The accounts of the Jesuits are, in some instances, confirmed by the Journal of a most respectable gentleman, sent by Mr. Hastings to Tibet.* Mr. Turner says, that the mysterious word Aum or Om, is equally sacred with the Buddhists of Thibet, as with the Brahmins of Bengal, under the form of Oom maunee paimee oom. The temple at Jaggernaut, and most of the other places in India held sacred by the Brahmins, are equally held sacred by the Buddhists of Tibet.**

Menu, meaning mind, or soul, or spirit, every incarnation was a MENU, or a manifestation of the Divine Mind. …

The intimate connexion between Minerva and Buddha, as WISDOM and mind, I need not point out. On this Word or Person Mr. Faber says, "The import of the Greek word Nous and of the Sanscrit Menu is precisely the same : each denotes mind or intelligence : and to the latter of them the Latin Mens is evidently very nearly allied : or, to speak more properly, Mens and menu, perhaps also our English Mind, are fundamentally one and the same word."*

Mr. Faber has very successfully proved that Buddha and Zoroaster,* or the star of the Bull, and he explains the word, are the same person, the same as the Menu of the Chusas of Iran.

In short, I believe the word Menu had the same meaning, originally, as Rasit, Wisdom; that it was the same as the mount Meru, and that Meru and Menu were dialectic variations. …

… We have already seen that Noah and Menu were the same. Thus we find that in the Western as well as in the Eastern part of Asia, there was a Menu, and each was saved in an Ark from a flood.

It is not surprising that Mr. Parkhurst should be obliged to acknowledge the close connexion between Hercules and Jesus—as the fact of Hercules, in the ancient sphere, treading on the head of the serpent leaves no room for doubt on this subject, and also identifies him with Cristna of India, who is seldom seen without the head of the Cobra beneath his foot : and these two facts at once locate Cristna before the Christian æra.

… After the equinox began in Taurus, they were all incarnations of Buddha until the sun entered Aries, and after his entrance into Aries, of Cristna; and both were incarnations of Vishnu, or of the Trimurti.

The story of Samson and Delilah may remind us of Hercules and Omphale.

Volney says, "Hercules is the emblem of the sun : the name of Samson signifies the sun : Hercules was represented naked, carrying on his shoulders two columns called the Gates of Cadiz : Samson is said to have borne off and carried on his shoulders the Gates of Gaza. Hercules is made prisoner by the Egyptians, who want to sacrifice him : but while they are preparing to slay him, he breaks loose and kills them all. Samson, tied with new ropes by the armed men of Judah, is given up to the Philistines, who want to kill him : he unties the ropes and kills a thousand Philistines with the Jawbone of an Ass. Hercules (the sun) departing for the Indies, (or rather Ethiopia,) and conducting his army through the deserts of Lybia, feels a burning thirst, and conjures Ihou, his father, to succour him in his danger : instantly the celestial RAM appears : Hercules follows him, and arrives at a place where the ram scrapes with his foot, and there comes forth a spring of water (that of the Hyads or Eridan).* Samson after having killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass feels a violent thirst : he beseeches the God Ihou to take pity on him : God makes a spring of water to issue from the jawbone of an ass."** M. Volney then goes on to shew that the story of the foxes is copied from the Pagan mythology, and was the subject of a festival in Latium. The labours of Hercules are all astronomically explained by Mons. Dupuis in a manner which admits of no dispute. They are the history of the annual passage of the sun through the signs of the Zodiac, as may be seen on the globe, it being corrected to the proper æra and latitude.

The word Heri in Sanscrit means shepherd as well as saviour. Cristna is called Heri, and Jesus is always called Shepherd. He is the leader of the followers of the Lamb. He is the good shepherd, as was also Cristna. …

In addition to all the other circumstances of identity between Cristna and Hercules, is the fact that they were both black. …

… Mr. Colebrook allows, that the formulas attached to the Vedas for adjusting the periods for celebrating the religious festivals, "were evidently formed in the infancy of astronomical knowledge :" hence he infers that they were written about 200 years after the Pentateuch. But the fair inference is, that as the Vedas, and the caves, and the astronomical observations, and the formulæ, are all closely interwoven with the history of Cristna—that history is of the same early date, and the formulæ at least equally ancient. However, as Dr. Pritchard allows that the formulæ are much older than Christ, it is evident that they cannot have been written to serve any purpose in any way connected with Christianity.

But the stories related to Cristna are most clearly no interpolation; they are intimately blended with, they are, in fact, the ground-work, of the whole system. The system of the Brahmins cannot exist without them. Besides, what is to be said of the sculptures in the caves ? Are they interpolations too ? What, of the tremendous figure destroying the infant boys ? What, of the cross-shaped temple in the city of Mathura, allowed by Mr. Maurice to have been once the capital of a great empire ?* This is most certainly proved by Arrian to have been in existence in the time of Alexander. Was this built to support the apocryphal gospel history ? The April festival, in Britain and India, was it founded for the same purpose; or the statue of Hercules and Samson still remaining at Rama-deva ? Mr. Maurice acknowledges that the Evangelists must have copied from the Puranas, or the Brahmins from the Evangelists.**

When it is considered that the Vyasa, of whom so much has been said, is an imaginary character, that the word means merely a compiler, and that when we say Vyasa compiled the Vedas, we ought to say, the compiler compiled them at such a time, and, that it is admitted that they were compiled from oral traditions—it does seem to me probable, that the Brahmins had any fraudulent or dishonest intention in correcting the astronomical parts of them. They contained astronomical facts, in which, in their old books, they discovered errors, and they corrected them. The astronomical tables had no connexion with religion : nor was it possible the Brahmins could foresee that these tables could ever, in London or any where else, at a future day, have any connexion with it. After the Mythos was established about the year B.C. 3101 on the Cycle of the Neros, it stood still; but the astronomy constantly advanced. The same thing takes place with our astronomical tables, tables of Logarithms, &c., &c. in every new edition errors are corrected.

Mr. Colebrook* after a very careful examination of the credit due to the genuineness of the Vedas, inclines to think the worship of Cristna may have been introduced at or after the time that the persecution took place of the Buddhists and Jains.** This I think is the truth, and as far as the fact goes agrees perfectly with my theory, that Cristna is only the Indian Hercules, the Sun in Aries. …

… In a letter from him [Mr. Bentley], published by the Rev. J. Marsham, D.D., in his Elements of the Chinese Grammar, is the following passage : "July 14^th, 1813, Krishna was contemporary with Yoodhisht' hira (see the Geeta), and the epoch of Yoodhisht' hira's birth was the year 2536 of the Cali Yug of the present astronomers, or about 575 years before the Christian æra." The fact of Cristna's living more than 500 years before Christ at once disposes of all the nonsense, both oral and written, about the history of Cristna being copied from that of Christ. … Mr. Bentley's admission opens the door to my theory, that renewed incarnations of the same persons were believed to have taken place, and indeed nearly prove the truth of it respecting them : for we have here one Cristna about 600 years before Christ, and another Cristna about 600 years after him. Here we have three persons of the same name in the world, at three very peculiar epochas—Cristna about 600 B.C., Christ himself at the end of this 600, and Cristna 600 years afterward.

In the various accounts which different authors have given us respecting Buddha, I perceive but one plausible objection to the theory which I have proposed of his being the Sun in Taurus, as all allow that he was the Sun; and that is, the difficulty of accounting for the Cristna of the Brahmins having come to Egypt. That a colony did pass from India to Egypt no one can doubt, and that, too, after the rise of the name and mythos of Cristna. … Now, it is equally certain that the mythos did come to Italy; …

The fact of the black God Cristna being found in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and France, is of itself, independent of all other circumstances, sufficient to decide the question. How came the French and Italians to dye their own God Cristna black, before they sent icons of him to India ? How came his mother to be black ?—the black Venus, or Isis the mother, the virgin mother of divine love, of Aur or Horus, the Lux of St. John, the Regina Cœli, treading, in the sphere, on the head of the serpent—all marks of the Jesus of Bethlehem—of the temple of the sun, or of Ceres, but not of Jesus of Nazareth.

The following observation of Mr. Seely, is alone quite sufficient to determine the question as to which of the two countries, Egypt or India, colonized the other.

Mr. Seely says, "The Cobra capella, or hooded Snake, being unknown in Africa, except as hieroglyphic, it may be concluded (as also from other arguments), that the Egyptians were the depositaries, not the inventors, of their mythological attainments."* If it be true that there are no shakes of this kind in Africa, though they are very commonly found among the hieroglyphics, I can scarcely conceive a more decisive proof, that the Egyptian mythology came from India. From the union of these considerations and indisputable facts I conclude, that, in very early times, soon after the sun entered Aries, the Brahmins did not, as at this day, object to travel from their own country; and I think we may find a probable reason for their present dissocial system being adopted. …

The Rev. Dr. Claudius Buchanan has the following passage :* "The chief and distinguishing doctrines of Scripture may be considered the four following—the Trinity in Unity : the incarnation of the Deity : a vicarious atonement for sin : and the influence of the Divine Spirit on the mind of man. Now, if we should be able to prove that all these are represented in the systems of the East, will any man venture to affirm that it happens by chance ?" No, indeed, no man, who is not a fool, will venture to say any such thing. The Doctor then goes on to admit, that the Brahmins must have known of the plural nature of the Aleim, which he calls the ELOHIM, the "Let us make man," of the first chapter of Genesis, the incarnation, the atonement, and the influence of the Holy Spirit,—the doctrine of regeneration or man twice born. …

Original Sin, the foundation of the doctrine of the atonement, was not know to the early Christians,* and therefore it is perfectly clear that it cannot have been copied from them.

"Buddha, the son of Máyá, is considered as the God of Justice; and the Ox, which is sacred to him, is termed Dherma. So that this epithet, like that of Buddha, is not confined to any individual or any race."* "On the contrary, we learn from the institutes of Menu, that the very birth of Brahmins is a constant incarnation of Dherma, God of Justice." Here I think we have a Melchizedek. In the interior of the great temple of Bali, at Maha-bali-pore, is a couch called the bed of Dherma-rajah.** This compound word translated, is Bed of the king of justice or Bed of Melchizedek.

Sir W. Jones, in his Sixth Annual Discourse, gives an account of a celebrated Persian work, called the Desatir, written by a person named Moshani Fani, in which is described a dynasty of Persian kings descending from a certain Mahabad who reigned over the whole earth, by whom, he says, the castes were invented; that fourteen Mahabads or Great Buddhas has appeared or would appear; and that the first of them left a work called the Desatir, or Regulations, and which was received by Mahabad from the Creator. This Maha-Bad is evidently the great Buddha;* and the Maha-Bul or Maha-Beli the great Baal, or Bol of Syria, with the head of a bull, in fact the sun—the whole most clearly an astrological or astronomical mythos or allegory. As a mythos the Mahabadian history of Moshani Fani is very interesting; as the true account of a dynasty of kings it is nothing. But I think there is great reason to believe that the Desatir is one of the oldest religious works existing, though probably much corrupted by the Mohamedan Moshani. This work confirms what I have said in B. V. Ch. V. S.2, that Menu and Buddha were identical.

The most remarkable of the remains of the Indian Bal or Bala-Rama yet to be found in the West, is the temple of Heliopolis or Baalbec in Syria. … The Greek name Heliopolis proves, if proof were wanting, the meaning of the word Bal.

The Hindoos have a sacrifice held in very high esteem which, their traditions state, goes back to the most remote æra : this is the sacrifice of a certain species of grass, called Cufa grass. This ancient sacrifice was also in use among the Egyptians.

… This history of the passage of the sun and of the passage of the Israelites from Egypt, affords a very remarkable example of the double meaning of the Hebrew books. …

In India, the devotees throw red powder on one another at the festival of the Huli or vernal equinox. This red powder, the Hindoos say, is an imitation of the pollen of plants, the principle of fructification, the flower of the plant. Here we arrive at the import of this mystery. A plant which has not this powder, this flower or flour, is useless; it does not produce seed. This Huli festival is the festival of the vernal equinox; it is the Yulé; it is the origin of our word holy; it is Julius, Yulius.

The followers of Vishnu observes the custom, on grand occasions, of sacrificing a ram. This sacrifice was called Yajna; and the fire of the Yajna was called Yajneswara, of the God fire. The word "Yajna, M. Dubois says (p.316,) is derived from Agni fire, as if it were to this God that the sacrifice was really offered. I need not point out the resemblance of the word Agni and the Latin Ignis." And I suppose I need not point out the resemblance of the word Agni to the Latin Agnus, to those who have seen the numerous extraordinary coincidences in the languages of Italy and India, which I have shewn in this work and in my Celtic Druids.

In this ceremony of sacrificing the lamb the devotees of India chaunt with a loud voice, When will it be that the Saviour will be born ! When will it be that the Redeemer will appear ! The Brahmins, though they eat no flesh on any other occasion, at this sacrifice taste the flesh of the animal : and the person offering the sacrifice makes a verbal confession of his sins* and receives absolution.** … The Hindoos have a sacred fire which never dies, and a sacrifice connected with it, called Oman.*** They have also the custom of casting out devils from people possessed, by prayers and ceremonies,**** which is also practised by the people of Siam. All this is very important.

… The sacrifice of the Ram is the Ram of the Zodiac at the vernal equinox. Thus the adoration of the Ram succeeded to the Bull, (but it did not entirely abolish it,) as in the case of Asteroth of the Sidonians, which had first the head of a Bull, and afterward that of a Ram.

In Book iv. p.152, of the same work (de abstinentiá), Porphyry informs us that in very old times, the sacrificing or indeed the using of the flesh of animals was not practised either by the Athenians or by the Syrians—the Syrians, that is the natives of the ancient city of Iona and the Pallistini, the Ionians, of whom I shall speak presently. Advancing still eastwards, we find Porphyry giving an account of the Magi from Eubolus, who wrote their history, in which he states that "the first and most learned class of the Magi neither eat nor slay any thing animated, but adhere to the ancient abstinence from animals." After this he goes to the Gymnosophists called Samaneans and Brahmins of India, of whom he gives an account, and from which it appears that they have varied very little from what they were in his time. But all these accounts seem to shew signs of the first Black Buddhist people, as eating no animal food—of the Black Pelasgi or Ionians, as coming to Italy and bringing the black God and his mother along with them. And they not only brought the black God and his mother, but they brought his house, the house of Loretto, as I shall shew in its proper place.

The pretended genealogy of the tenth chapter of Genesis is attended with much difficulty. It reads like a genealogy : it is notoriously a chart of geography. It is exoterically genealogical, esoterically geographical. I have no doubt that the allotment of the lands by Joshua was astronomical. It was exactly on the same principle as the nomes of Egypt, which every one knows were named astronomically, or rather, perhaps, I should say, astrologically. The double meaning is clear; but probably the exact solution of the whole riddle will never be made out. Most of the names which are given in the tenth chapter of Genesis are found in the mystic work of Ezekiel. The works of all the prophets are mystical. … Many of the works of the Greeks were equally mystical.

The adoration of the Bull still continued in most countries after the equinox had receded to Aries. This was the case in Egypt, where Apis still continued, though Ammon with his sheep's head arose—if he did not, as I believe he did, change his beeve's head for that of a ram. I have shewn that Ammon meant generative power of Am, or Aum, or Om : but Am was the Bull Mithra, Buddha—therefore it must have changed. The prayers to the God Bull, of Persia, given by Mr. Faber, are very curious. Asteroth, or Astarte, in Syria, was first represented with the horns and head of a beeve, and in later times with those of a sheep.* Thus in India the Bull, the emblem of Buddha, continued to be adored long after Cristna arose, and along with him at some few places.

We have seen that the days of the week are, in the most remote corners of the world, called by the names of the same planets, and in the same order, and these planets after the same Gods. The universality of this shews its extreme antiquity—that in all probability it must have been adopted before the human race became divided into nations. But the fact that all these Gods were identified with the Bull of the Zodiac in some way or other, proves that they must have been adopted later than the time when the sun, at the vernal equinox, entered Taurus by the true Zodiac, which would be about 4700 years before Christ. … This consideration seems to offer something like a boundary to our researches; something like a distant view of our journey's end, which I agree with pleasure; for I think we can find no traces of any thing before the Tauric worship commenced. And this brings our chronology to agree, as near as can be expected, with the various systems. The eight ages, about the time of Augustus, cannot be doubted. If these were 600 years each—4800, and we add a thousand before the Tauric worship commenced for mankind to arrive at their then state of civilization, we shall not be very much out of the way in our calculations.

As I have formerly said, the fact of Buddha giving name to one of the days of the week, Wednesday, fixes him to the very earliest period of which we have any record or probable tradition. He is acknowledged to be the Sun or the Surya, with seven heads, of Siam and Japan and Ceylon; and to be the son of Maia. Thoth or Teutates and Hermes are allowed to be identical, and Hermes is allowed to be Mercury; and Mercury is the God to whom Wednesday is dedicated, and the mother of Mercury is Maia. Sir William Jones clearly proved that the first Buddha was Woden, Mercury, and Fo, … Mr. Faber says, "The Egyptian cosmogony, like the Phœnician, is professedly of the Buddhic school : for the fullest account which we have of it is contained in a book ascribed to Hermes or Thoth : but Hermes or Thoth is the same person as Taut, who is said to have drawn up the Phœnician system : and Taut again is the same as the Oriental Tat or Buddha."*

The Tau, T, is the emblem of Mercury, of Hermes. It is the crux ansata, and the crux Hermis. It was the last letter of the ancient alphabets, the end or boundary, whence it came to be used as a terminus to districts : but the crux Tau was also the emblem of the generative power, of eternal transmigrating life, and thus was used indiscriminately with the Phallus. It was, in fact, the phallus. The Tau is the Thoth, the Teut, the Teutates of the Druids;* and Teutates was Mercury, in the Sanscrit called God or Somona-cod-om; and in German God. In old German Mercury was called Got. …

I cannot help thinking that even the oldest of both the Greek and Roman writers, unless I except Homer, were absolutely and perfectly ignorant of the nature of their Gods—whence they came, and of what they consisted. That the people by degrees emerging from barbarism began to open their eyes, they found them. They received the Gods from their ancestors, who, having no writers, transmitted their superstitions, but not the histories of their Gods. Whether the initiated into the mysteries were any wiser seems very doubtful. But I think it is possible that the only secrets were, the admission of their own ignorance and the maintenance of the doctrine respecting the nature of God (of which I shall treat hereafter) and in substance of the unity of God. …

I shall be told I have a theory. This is very true : but how is it possible to make any sense out of the mass of confusion without one ? And are not facts sufficient collected to found a theory upon ? My theory has arisen from a close attention to the facts which transpire from the writings of a vast variety of authors, and is, I think, a theory which will be found to be established by them. I have not first adopted my theory, and then invented my facts to confirm it. The facts have come first, and the theory is the consequence. Whether they be sufficient to support my theory, is the only question. This must be left to the reader. I feel confident that I can explain every thing which appears inconsistent with the theory, unless it be a very few of the histories of the inferior Gods, which may very well be supposed to have been mistaken or mistated, by the Priests, whose ignorance or deceit is acknowledged.

Protestant priests for some years past have endeavoured to shew that the Mosaic accounts are to be found in India and generally among the Gentiles. What good this can do them cannot understand. However, they have certainly succeeded. The labours of the learned Spencer have shewn that there is no rite or ceremony directed in the Pentateuch, of which there is not an exact copy in the rites of Paganism. The Rev. R. Faber has proved that the Mythoses, as the Romish Dr. Geddes properly calls them, of the creation and the flood have their exact counterparts among the wild mythologies of the followers of Buddha and Cristna; and the history of the serpent and tree of life have been lately discovered by Mr. Wilson to be most correctly described on the ruins of the magnificent temple of Ipsambul in Nubia.* So that it is now certain, that all the first three books of Genesis must have come from India : the temple at Ipsampul, as well as the famous Memnon, being the work of the ancient Buddhists—the latter proved most satisfactorily by Mr. Faber.

Mr. Moore says, "Sonnerat notices two basso-relievos placed at the entrance of the choir of Bourdeaux Cathedral : one represents the ascension of our Saviour to heaven on an Eagle : the other his descent, where he is stopped by Cerberus at the gates of hell, and Pluto is seen at a distance armed with a trident. In Hindu pictures, VICHNU, who is identified with Krishna, is often seen mounted on the Eagle GARUDA, sometimes with as well as without his consort Lakshmi.* And were a Hindoo artist to handle the subject of Krishna's descent to hell, which I never saw, he would most likely introduce Cerbura, the infernal three-headed dog of their legends, and Yama, their Pluto, with a trisula, or trident : a farther presumption of early intercommunication between the Pagans of the Eastern and Western hemispheres."** An account is given by Arrian of a visit of Alexander the Great to the cave of Prometheus on the borders of India.

Prometheus formed the first woman, for the formation of whom he stole fire from heaven, &c., &c. The word Prometheus is the Sanscrit word PRAMATHAH or PRAMATHAS, which comes from PRA-MAT'HA-ISA, which coalescing, according to the rules of Sanscrit grammar, form PRAMATHESA. Now, Bra is the Siamese Pra, creator or former; Matha is Mati, in the Bali language Mother, and esa is Isa or Iscah or Eve or Isis—the whole meaning, maker of mother Eve or Isis. It is no small confirmation of what I have said, that Prometheus, the name of the Greek God, is Sanscrit;* as is also Deucalion, his son. The latter is Deo-cala-yun or Deo-Cala-Yavana.

Mr. Faber* says, "The close resemblance of the whole Levitical ceremonial to the ceremonial in use among the Gentiles has often been observed, and has differently been accounted for. This resemblance is so close and so perfect, that it is alike absurd to deny its existence, as to ascribe it to mere accident. The thing itself is an incontrovertible matter of fact : and it is a fact which might at first seem to be of so extraordinary a nature, that we are imperiously called on to account for it." Again he says,** "Spencer has shewn at full length, that there is scarcely a single outward ordinance of the Mosaical law, which does not minutely correspond with a parallel outward ordinance of Gentilism."

Mr. Maurice says,* "After all, we must own, with Calmet, that the temple of the great Jehovah had many decorations similar to those in the hallowed temples of Asia. He was served there, says the last cited author, with all the pomp and splendour of an Eastern monarch. He had his table, his perfumes, his throne, his bed-chamber, his offices, his singing-men and his singing-women."

… "We are taught on the one hand, that Brahma, Vishnou, and Siva, are essentially but a single person; and this single person in Brahm, who unites in himself the divided attributes of the three; and that the triplicated Brahm is materially the World, astronomically the Sun, and mystically the great hermaphrodite, who is equally the father and the mother of the universe. But we are told, on the other hand, that Menu-Swayambhuva is conjointly and individually Brahma, Vishnou, and Siva; that he had three sons, who sprang in a mortal shape from his body, and who named his three daughters; and that these three sons were severally Brahma, Vishnou, and Siva.

"Such are the declarations of the Hindoo theologists; and the inference to be drawn them is abundantly obvious. Since Brahma, Vishnou, and Siva, are conjointly Menu-Swayambhuva; and since they are also conjointly the imagined supreme God Brahm; it is evident, that Brahm and Menu-Swayambhuva must really be the same person. And again, since Brahman, Vishnou, and Siva, are severally the three sons of Menu-Swayambhuva; and since they are also three supposed emanations from Brahm; it must plainly follow, that the famous triad of Hindoo theology, which some have incautiously deemed a corrupt imitation of the Trinity, is really composed of the three sons of a mere mortal, who, under the name of Menu, is described as the general ancestor of mankind. Brahm then at the head of the Indian triad, is Menu at the head of his three sons. But that by the first Menu we are to understand Adam is evident, both from the no less remarkable tradition that one of his three sons was murdered by his brother at a sacrifice. Hence it will follow that Brahm, at the head of the Indian triad, is Adam at the head of his three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth."*

Again, Mr. Faber says, "Each Menu, however, with his triple offspring, is only the reappearance of a former Menu with his triple offspring; for, in every such manifestation at the commencement of each Manwantara, the Hindoo Trimurti or Triad becomes incarnate, by transmigrating from the human bodies occupied during a prior incarnation; Brahm or the unity appearing as the paternal Menu of a new age, while the triad of Brahma, Vishnou, and Siva, is exhibited in the persons of his three sons. The first Menu, therefore, with his three sons, must be viewed as reappearing in the characters of Menu-Satyavrata and his triple offspring—Sama, Cama, and Pra-Japati. But the ark-preserved Menu-Satyavrata and his three sons, are certainly Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Hence again it will follow, since Menu-Satyavrata is only a reappearance of Menu-Adima, and since the triplicated Menu-Adima is the same as the triplicated Brahm, that Brahm at the head of the Indian triad is likewise Noah at the head of his three sons."*

Notwithstanding the nonsense in the above extracts about Brahm being the world, &c., and the ingenious misrepresentation that Brahm is not the true God, enough transpires to shew that the mythoses of the Israelites and of the Brahmins are essentially the same. When this is added to the general character of the history, of the serpent, of the tree of knowledge, &c., &c., and to the proof which has been given by Sir W. Drummond, in his Œdipus Judaicus, that the names of the persons and places in Genesis have astronomical meanings, I think no one can hesitate to agree with the ANCIENT JEWS AND FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, that the whole is allegory. … How surprising that a man of learning and talent like Mr. Faber should succeed in persuading himself that the Platos and Ciceros of antiquity, were contemptible enough to adore three or four old women and a rotten ship !

The similarity of the numbers, in the Mosaic history, with the numbers constantly recurring in the Hindoo systems, seems very striking. Here are Adam and his three sons, and Noah and his three sons, each class answering to Brahm and his three emanations—Brahma, Vishnou, and Siva. There are eight persons in the ark, answering to the sun and seven planetary bodies. But whether the histories of Adam and Noah and their families were taken from the metaphysical and profound theory of the hermaphroditic creator, preserver, and destroyer—the sun presiding over the planetary system; or, the recondite system was formed, and the sun and planets numbered after him and his family, I leave to every person to judge of as he thinks proper. …

The book of Genesis was considered by most, if not all, of the ancient Jewish philosophers and Christian fathers as an allegory. For persons using their understandings, to receive it in a literal sense, was impossible : and when, we find modern Christians so receiving it, we only find a proof that, with the mass of mankind, reason has nothing to do with religion, and that the power of education is so great, as in most cases to render the understanding useless. In the Jewish religion, as in all other religions, there was an esoteric and an exoteric meaning of its dogmas.

… If the reader will consult the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, particularly Volume IV., he will find innumerable proofs that the Grecian histories, equally with the Mosaic and Hindoo mythologies, are most of them drawn from the same common fountain, in Upper India, about Balk, and Samarkand. The same universal system pervaded the whole, and, no doubt, had its origin in ancient Buddhism.

That the Mosaic ceremonies were the same as those of the Gentiles, has been proved by Spencer, Faber, and other learned divines, beyond dispute. This being the fact, it does not seem surprising that the doctrines of the two should also partake of the same character, when stripped of the corruptions which the priests and the infirmities of humanity have introduced into them. We see not only the same fundamental Trinity, but we see the same system of concealment under apparently absurd mythoses or allegorical representations,—absurd, indeed, to outward appearance, but probably, if perfectly understood, covering a system of wisdom and truth. …

I must now once more bring back the attention of my reader to the curly-headed, flat-faced, thick-lipped, black-skinned Buddha, almost forgotten. … This Negro God cannot have been the only Negro East of the Indus, without some cause. On this subject credible history is silent. Let us try if we can form a theory.

… Now I suppose, that man was originally a Negro, and that he improved as years advanced and he travelled Westwards, gradually changing, from the jet black of India, through all the intermediate shades of Syria, Italy, France, to the fair white and red of the maid of Holland and Britain. On the burning sands and under the scorching sun of Africa, he would probably stand still, if he did not retrograde. But the latter is most likely to have happened; and, accordingly, we find him an unimproved Negro, mean in understanding, black in colour. …In the rich soils of India, unfit for pasturage or hunting, but well calculated for the operations of agriculture, distinctions of rich and poor would much sooner arise than among the nomade or wandering tribes; and as soon as a class became rich, the natural propensity would operate in causing the most handsome of the males, which would be the rich, those who were well fed and lived without labour, to couple with the most handsome of the females. This cause, in long periods of time, constantly acting, produced a great improvement in the human form. The scorching climate kept man black; but, by degrees, the curly hair, flat face, and thick lips, yielded to the improved appearance of the present race.

When the Equinoctial Sun entered Taurus, he found man in India, like the first Buddha, a Negro; when he entered Aries, he found him black, it is true, but with the aquiline nose and long hair of the handsome Cristna. The God of wood, of stone, of gold, stood still : the man in the space of 2160 years, perhaps of peace and prosperity, had materially improved. Not so the curly-haired man of Africa. Every thing tended to the improvement of the former, every thing to stop the improvement of the latter. In the African Ethiopia he remains a curly-headed black. In Egypt he formerly was so; as the Memnon, Sphinxes, &c., prove. But in Egypt, where he became rich and civilized, and where good farinaceous food was grown, the same effects, in a great measure, took place as in India : and if he be not quite black, the mixture of white Europeans, and, comparatively speaking, white Turks, will account for the difference. It has been observed, that the figures in the old caves of India are representations of a very different race from the present inhabitants; that, although the figures possess a graceful elegance of form, yet a remarkable difference may be observed in the countenance, which is broad and full : the nose flat : the lips, particularly the under lip, remarkably thick, and the whole very unlike the present natives of Hindostan.*

The opinion which I have given, is supported by the ingenious Dr. Pritchard, in his Researches into the Physical History of Man, p. 41. He says, "The perception of beauty is the chief principle, in every country, which directs men in their marriages. It is very obvious that this peculiarity in the constitution of man, must have considerable effects on the physical character of the race, and that it must act as a constant principle of improvement." … Again, "The noble families of modern Persia were originally descended from a tribe of ugly and bald-headed Mongoles. They have constantly selected for their harams the most beautiful females of Circassia. The race has been thus greatly ameliorated, and is said now to exhibit fine and comely persons."

Dr. Pritchard* has observed, that the Brahmins are, as might be expected, the finest formed race in India. He has also shewn, in a very satisfactory manner,** that the ancient Egyptians, the masters of Thebes, were Negroes—or, that they were black, with curly heads.

Col. Wilford says, "It cannot reasonably be doubted that a race of Negroes had formerly pre-eminence in India."* These were the inhabitants of India in the time of the curly-headed Buddha, who was succeeded, after 2160 years, by the long-haired Cristna—one an incarnation of the solar God in Taurus, the other in Aries.

Thus I account for the Negro Buddha, and for the handsome, though black, Cristna.*

The shocking state of degradation into which the religion of the Brahmins has sunk, gives a plausible appearance of truth to the rantings of our Missionaries; but, nevertheless, the religion of Brahma is no more idolatrous than the religion of the Romish Church. Abul Fazil, a Mahometan author, in the Ayeen Akbery, states, that the opinion that the Hindoos are Polytheists has no foundation in truth, but that they are worshipers of God, and only one God. They maintain (with all enlightened followers of the Romish Church), that images are only representations of the great Being, to which they turn whilst at prayer, in order to prevent their thoughts from wandering. They hold that "the Being of beings is the only God, eternal, and every where present, who comprises every thing; there is no God but HE."* …

If we are to believe our priests, at the same time that nothing can be more pure than our religion, or more charitable than themselves, nothing can be more horrible than the religion of practices of the wicked Heathens. Yet it is worthy of observation, that we curse sinners on Ash Wednesday, and our enemies whenever we are at war : but when the Athenians in a moment of fury ordered the priestess to curse Alcibiades for having insulted the mysteries, she REFUSED—saying, she was the priestess of prayers, not of curses.* The passage in Martianus Capella, cited in Chap. II. Sect. 8, shews that the Pagans were no more Idolators than the modern Romans.

The liberal and benign doctrine of the followers of Brahma, in its original purity, can never be too much praised, and must fill every one with admiration. No doubt in succeeding ages its corrupt and mercenary priests engrafted into it, as we see daily to take place in all religions, and wherever priests are concerned, doctrines and practices utterly repugnant to the mild spirits of its founders. Those founders maintained that all religion come from God, and that all modes of adoring him, when springing from an upright heart, are acceptable to him. Their enlightened followers still affirm that "the Deity is present with the Mahometan in the mosque counting his beads, and equally in the temple at the adoration of the idols; the intimate Musselman and the friend of the Hindoo; the companion of the Christian, and the confidant of the Jew." They are of opinion that he has many times appeared and been incarnate in the flesh, not only in this world, but in others, for the salvation of his creatures; and that both Christians and Hindoos adore the same God, under different forms.*

"If God had pleased, he surely had made you one people : but he hath thought it fit to give you different laws, that he might try you in that which he hath given you respectively. Therefore strive to excel each other in good works; unto God shall ye return, and then will he declare unto you that concerning which ye have disagreed."** How supperior is this to the faith without woks of our modern and fashionable fanatics !***