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ship- the origin of hieroglyphics. The hieroglyphics of Egypt compared with those of India. The signs of the Indian zodiac still visible on the cornices of the cavern-pagodas. The great simi larity, in many points, between the INDIANS and CHINESE. The primeval legislator and, probably, the people of either country originally the same. -A MITHRATIC GROTTO discovered in Egpyt and described by M. Savary. A remarkable description, in Ezekiel, of a cavern, supposed by the author to be Mithratic, or rather the MYSTIC CELL of OSIRIS.Osiris only the African appellative of Mithra.—A description of the MENSA ISIACA, or Bembine table, and the hieroglyphics engraved upon it, compared with those in Salsette and Elephanta.

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After taking an extensive survey of the growth, progress, and extinction, of the Mithratic devotion, the author proceeds to examine the moral and philosophical doctrines, taught by the Brahmans in their cavern-recesses, which immediately leads to the fourth section on the physical and symbolical worship of India, and introduces the parallel of the Indian and Greek theology. The Metempsychosis the most distinguished of those doctrines →→ falsely ascribed to Pythagoras-originated in India, and first promulgated in the GEETA of VYASA, the PLATO of India, many centuries before the birth of Pythagoras-extracts from the GEETA in, proof of that assertion-various passages, in the SACONTALA and the HEETOPADES, strongly corroborative

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roborative of it, exhibited in order. The doctrine of the Metempsychosis, or the notion of this life being a probationary state, productive in India of the most excrutiating and horrible penances, in order, by those penances, to obtain мOKSH, or supreme, happiness. A description of a YOGEE, in the act of penance, from the Sacontala. The

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supreme happiness of BRAHME a state of divine absorption. The doctrine of degenerate spirits migrating through various BOOBUNS, or spheres, and through animal bodies, to be traced to some corrupted tradition of the fallen angels. - The ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES of Greece, as described by Jamblicus and Proclus, and detailed by Warburton in the Divine Legation, compared with the mysterious rites practised in the caverns of India.The genuine theology of India purer in its principles than any other professed in the world, except

the Christian

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justly stated to be so by Mr Hastings, in his elegant letter to Mr Nathaniel Smith, prefixed to the Geeta. Some most sublime passages produced in proof, from that Episode, 'and from a translation of the BHAGAVAT, by Sir William Jones. Certain passages in Scripture surprisingly consonant to these extracts. Whether this might be derived from any possible connection with the Hebrews? The fact itself, of any general intercourse between the two nations, denied and the assertions of Postellus, Dr Hyde, and others, deriving BRAHMA from ABRAHAM, Confuted. Hamilton s account of a Jew-colony at

Cranganore,

Cranganore, on the coast of Malabar, detailed and considered-possibly the remains of the ten tribes.

The VEDAS, however, written at a period far more antient than that dispersion, and consequently the primitive uncorrupted religion of Brahma could only be derived to them from NOAH, the MENU of the Sanscreet theologians, or else from his more immediate descendants of the righteous line of Shem, who first settled in India.

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The author returns to the parallel of the MYSTERIES of India and Greece. However pure the primeval theology of India, like all the systems of religion practised in every nation of the antient world, it gradually declined in its purity, through the venality, servility, or ambition, of successive priests. -Its progress in degeneracy traced from the age of VYASA to the present day. The first cause of that degeneracy stated to be the symbolizing of the ATTRIBUTES of the Deity in the veneration paid to brave and pious RAJAHS deceased, especially to those in whom the great Indian deity, Veeshnu, became incarnate-exemplified in the three RAMAS. But, as the amiable attributes of God were personified and venerated by the Indians, so was that timid race induced, by terror, to deify the evil dæmons and their horrible attributes.→ The walls of ELEPHANTA and SALSETTE crowded with images allusive to the majestic attributes of God and the magnified virtues of men. - The whole train of false deities likewise introduced into the Grecian mysteries. The caverns of Elephanta

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and Salsette formed with dark ailes and winding passages, exactly resembling those in the temple of Ceres at Eleusis. The PHALLUS of BACCHUS and the LINGAM of MAHADEO principal objects in the mystic shews. -The enormities consequent of the former gross system of worship in Greece and Rome, and of the latter in India, depicted.— The former from Herodotus and Livy, the latter from Renaudot and Tavernier.-The prostitutions. at the temple of the Dea Syria, in honour of MrLITTA, similar to those of the WOMEN OF THE IDOL in the pagodas of India-particular account of the education and accomplishments of the latter. The surrounding horrors that enveloped the ASPIRANT, and the final raptures that attended INITIATION, described from Apuleius, Dion Chrysostome, and Plato.-Some curious particulars, related by MEURSIUS, in regard to the NUMEROUS ABLUTIONS in the Grecian mysteries compared with those recounted in the Ayeen Akbery, as necessary to be undergone by the BRAHME CHAREE, or Brahmin of the first degree.-Mr Bryant's assertion, that the rites of Isis and OSIRIS were originally instituted in memory of the deluge, considered and corroborated by the similar rites of the Brahmins.-The author pledges himself to prove, that there are Sanscreet records of a GENE RAL DELUGE in Hindostan. The account of the Grecian MYSTERIES Concluded, with an enumeration of other parallel circumstances that took place in the celebration of those in India.

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This chapter concludes with an extensive inquiry into that disputed topic, who were the fabricators of the caverns of SALSETTE and ELEPHANTA?Whether the EGYPTIANS?-The subterraneous grottoes and caverns of the THEBAIS, with their sculptures, described from Pococke, Greaves, Norden, and Savary. Whether the Ethiopians?An account from Ludolphus of the Ethiopian rock-temples and their sculptures. A curious passage apparently corroborative of the latter hypothesis from the ARCHEOLOGIA.-Another remarkable passage adduced from Ezekiel, in proof. that images, resembling those in the Indian caverns, decked with similar ornaments, and painted with vermillion, were in the most antient periods adored in CHALDEA -the whole, consequently, relics of the antient prevailing SABIAN SUPERSTITION, or WORSHIP OF THE HOST OF HEAVEN, and fabricated by the antient CUTHITES.

The author, in the third volume, emerging from the gloom of SUBTERRANEOUS pagodas, introduces his readers into the splendid temples that adorn the surface of Hindostan-their height, extent, and the magnitude of the stones with which they are built, stupendous-instanced in the magnificent portico of CHILLAMBRUM, and the circumference of the walls of SERINGHAM.-The most antient pagodas erected in the form of pyramids, with only one door and illuminated by lamps kept constantly burning-properly compared by MANDELSLO to caves.-The more modern pagodas B 4 erected

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