rabbit, which animal constantly ornaments the right-hand of the representative images of that deity, drawn or sculptured in the pagodas. A serpent was adored in Egypt as the emblem of the divine nature; not only, says Warburton, "on account of its great vigour and spirit, but of its extended age and revirescence;" and we have observed from the Ayeen Akbery, that, in Cashmere, there were no less than seven hundred places, where carved figures of snakes were worshipped; indeed almost all the deities in Salsette and Elephanta either grasp serpents in their hands or are environed with them, which can only be intended as a mark of their divinity. They are also sculptured on the cornices surrounding the roofs of those caverns and the more modern pagodas; a circumstance which reminds me of another use to which serpents were applied in the symbols of Egypt; for, their wreathed bodies, in its hieroglyphic sculpture, represented the oblique course of the stars, while the same bodies, formed into a circle, were an embiem of eternity; and it will be remembered, that the serpent was one of the most conspicuous of the forty-eight great constellations, into which the antients divided the visible heavens. On those cornices too, in embossed work, are seen very conspicuous

'spicuous figures of horses, elephants, and lions, three of the most distinguished constellations of the Hindoos; the two former of which stand foremost in order among those enumerated in Mr Costard's table of the twenty-seven constellations, of which the zodiac of the Indians consists, called ACHEVINI and BARANI; literally, the horse and the elephant; while the third, or SING, is that favourite sign of the same zodiac, which gives the additional honour of its name to that of every brave rajah, who chooses to be distinguished on the roll of fame for possessing the fortitude of a LION. † These symbolic animals, probably, in the antient mythological system, represented the renowned hero-deities of India in the same manner as in Egypt the god Horus was recognised in Orion, Anubis in Sirius, or the Dog-star, Typho in Ursa Major, or the Bear, and Nephthe in Draco, or the Dragon. It was this close union of the Hindoo theology and astronomy which deceived that elegant and judicious historian, Mr Orme, ‡ when he declared, that the history of their gods was a heap of the greatest absurdities. "It is, says he, Eswara twisting off the

** Costard's ASTRON. p. 5. Orme's Hindostan, vol. i. p. 3.

+ As CHEYT SING.

VOL. II.

N

neck

neck of Brahma; it is the Sun who gets his teeth knocked out, and the Moon who has her face beat black-and-blue at a feast, at which the gods quarrel, and fight with the spirit of a mob." These celestial combats, represented at various festivals in India, doubtless allude to the conjunction or opposition of the constellations; and the assertion of Mr. Wilkins, that, on every eclipse, the Hindoos: believe those planets to be seized upon by a large serpent, or dragon, which assertion is supported by two passages of the Geeta * and Heetopades, in the strongest manner corroborates the supposition. I cannot pass by this inviting opportunity of demonstrating the very striking similarity in sentiment, subsisting, upon this as well as upon many other occasions, between the Hindoos and the Chinese, proving either an original descent from the same common ancestor, or a most intimate connection between those nations at some remote æra, The Jesuit Le Compte, giving a description of a partial eclipse of the sun, which he observed in China about the end of April, 1688, informs us, that, during the whole of the eclipse, the Chinese were under

Bhagvat Geeta. p. 149.

Heetopades, p. 28, and note, p. 299:

the

the greatest alarms, imagining they were going to be suddenly enveloped in thick darkness, and made every where the most hideous yelling and horrid noises to oblige the dragon to depart. "For, to this animal," he adds, "they attribute all the disappearances of the stars which take place, because the celestial dragon, being hunger-bitten, at that time holds the Sun or Moon fast between his teeth, with intent to devour them." *

The whole of this curious relation exhibits to us, not only decisive evidence of the early proficiency of the Hindoos and Chinese in the science of astronomy, but a glaring proof how deeply, and at what remote periods, their astronomical and theological speculations were. blended together, and, as it were, interwoven.-To explain the allusion, it is necessary that the reader, not conversant with astronomy, should be informed of the following circumstance, to which I request his attention, as it will be of material use towards understanding many parts of the Indian astronomical mythology that will hereafter ocThe two points in the heavens, where the moon's apparent orbit cuts the ecliptic, are

cur.

* Le Compte's Memoirs of China, p. 480. English edit.

called the MoON'S NODES.

The point where the moon appears to cross the ecliptic, during her passage into north latitude, is denominated her ASCENDING NODE. On the other hand, the point in the heavens, at which the moon crosses the ecliptic, during her passage into south latitude, is called by astronomers her DESCENDING NODE. To the circular curve, thus described by the moon's orbit, the fancy of the antient Asiatic astronomers assigned the figure of a serpent, as indeed they did to the path of the sun through the signs of the zodiac, which, in Eastern hieroglyphics, is re-. presented by a circle of intertwining serpents. Serpens and Draco are terms that in astronomy are synonymous, and it is, therefore, according to Dr Long, whose account of the nodes I have followed above,* that the Arabians give the appellation of dragon's bellies to those parts of the orbit of the moon where she makes the greatest deviation from the line of the ecliptic. This is customary with them at this day, and proves that they derived their astronomical notions from the same fountain with the Indians and Chinese; I mean their ancestors of the old Chaldæan school.

*See Dr Long's Astronomy, vol. ii. p. 361.

The

moon's