-for the veneration which the Indians entertain for cows and SERPENTS, the predominant superstition of Egypt their adoration of the SOLAR ORB

their worship of the PHALLUS and their sanguinary sacrifices of MEN and BEASTS. -The Dissertations of Sir William Jones, and others, on the Indians, very decisively point towards some such hypothesis as this-since they evince, that, aţ some remote period, there has been a general convulsion in the civil and religious constitution of India-that a great and remarkable change has taken place in the manners and opinions of the Hindoos and, since the mystery of the great battle of the MAHABBARAT, in which sons and brothers fell in a general and promiscuous carnage, can only be resolved by such a supposition. The true character of the venerable Brachmans of antiquity is finally delineated and the severe tortures are also enumerated which they underwent in their progress through the CHAR ASHERUM, or FOUR DEGREES of probation; tortures which they bore with a constancy and with a fortitude worthy of a more enlightened religion and more animating rewards.

END OF THE INTRODUCTORY PROSPECTUS OF THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS DISCUSSED IN THE DISSERTATION ON THE THEOLOGY OF HIN

DOSTAN.

CHAP.

СНАР. İ.

CONCERNING THE PHYSICAL AND SYMBOLICAL THEOLOGY OF THE ANTIENT INDIANS; IN WHAT POINTS IT RESEMBLED THAT OF THE SCYTHIANS,

ANTIENT PERSIANS,

THAT OF THE

THAT OF THE AN

TIENT EGYPTIANS,

EARLY GREEKS.

AND THAT OF THE

SECTION 1.

Pointing out the Analogy existing between the antient Theology of India and Scythia; particularly in respect to the superstitious Rites practised, by both Nations, in consecrated Groves and Caverns, and their sanguinary Sacrifices of Men and Beasts.

I

AM now about to enter upon a subject, of which the MAGNITUDE and INTRICACY fill me with awe and apprehension. In the comprehensive view which it is my intention. C 2

to

to take of this important and disputed topic, the Indian Theology, so many various and complicated circumstances press for consideration, that I am almost at a loss from what point to commence the, wide survey. If a less degree of order and connection than I could wish should appear in my reflections on this head of the RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES, maintained from age to age by the Hindoos, the reader will, I hope, candidly impute the defect to the obscure, the extensive, and complex, nature of the subject under examination.

During the intercourse which the antients maintained with India, by means of the conquests of ALEXANDER, and the commerce afterwards carried on with the nations inhabiting the Peninsula, they were able to obtain a partial insight into their theological institutions, which, as far as known to them, have been faithfully transmitted to posterity, in the writings of Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and Pliny. Some of the outlines which they have drawn ✔ are indeed just and striking; but the impenetrable veil which the craft of the INDIAN, as well as of the EGYPTIAN, priesthood had thrown over the more solemn mysteries of the religion they professed, precluded any very intimate acquaintance with its principles. Of the ge

nuine

"

nuine precepts and the more sublime doctrines of BRAHMA, whether considered as a theologist or as a legislator, as they are now known to us through the GEETA and the INSTITUTES OF MENU, the antients were as entirely ignorant, as even the European conquerors of India themselves, to their disgrace, continued, till near the close of the eighteenth century, when Sir William Jones, Mr Halhed, and Mr Wilkins, made the most indefatigable and succesful efforts to investigate them. To the laborious researches of these gentlemen is the public indebted for、 all the original knowledge of which they are now in possession, both in regard to the true principles of the theology of the Hindoos contained in the VEDAS,* and the profound wisdom and equity displayed in the code of their laws.

The gloomy CAVERN and the consecrated GROVE bore witness to the earliest devotions of mankind. The deep shade, the solemn silence, the profound solitude, of such places, inspired the contemplative soul with a kind of holy horror and cherished in it the seeds of virtue and religion. The same circumstances were

The four sacred volumes of India, so denominated from VEDA, a SANSCREET root, signifying, TO KNOW.

found equally favourable to the propagation of science, and tended to impress upon the minds of the hearers the awful dictates of truth and wisdom. The BRAHMINS of Asia and the DRUIDS of Europe were therefore constantly to be found in the recesses of the sacred grotto and in the bosom of the embowering forest. Here, undisturbed, they chanted forth their devout orisons to their Creator; here they prac tised the severities of bodily mortification; here they taught mankind the vanity of wealth, the folly of power, and the madness of ambition, All Asia beside cannot boast such august and admirable monuments of antiquity as the cas verns of SALSETTE and ELEPHANTA and the sculptures that adorn them. I consider them, not only as stupendous subterraneous temples of the Deity, but as occasionally used by the Brah, mins for inculcating the profoundest arcana of those sciences, for which they were so widely celebrated throughout the East. What were the religious rites practised and what the sciences taught in those caverns, I shall reserve for ample investigation under the second general head. In the mean time it may be observed, that, from the deep obscurity of caverns and forests, have, in every age, issued the light of philosophy and the beams of religion. ZOROASTER, or ZER

DURST,