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we read in Herodotus,* that the principal officers of his household were strangled, together with many fine horses, and in his tomb were deposited golden goblets, and other ne cessary domestic utensils, for his use in the other world.

The last resembling custom which I shall notice between the Scythian and Indian nations, was their great veneration for the memory of their ancestors. When upbraided by Darius for flying before his army, the former exclaim, "Pursue us to the sepulchres of our ancestors, and attempt to violate their hallowed remains, and you shall soon find with what desperate valour the Scythians can fight." The Indians, we learn from Mr Holwell, have so profound a veneration for the ashes of their progenitors, that, on the fast of Callee, worship and offerings are paid to their manes, and Mr Wilkins, in a note upon the Heetopades, favours us with additional information, that the offerings consisted of consecrated cakes, that the ceremony itself is denominated STRADHA, and that a Hindoo's hopes of happiness after death greatly depend upon his having children to perform this cere

* Herodoti, lib. iv. p. 70.

+ Heetopades, p. 271, and note 372.

mony,

mony, by which he expects that his soul will be released from the torments of NARAKA, or hell. In his sixth note upon the text of the GEETA, his account of this ceremony is still more ample; for, in that note, he acquaints us that the Hindoos are enjoined, by the Vedas, to offer these cakes to the ghosts of their ancestors as far back as the third generation; that this greater ceremony of the Stradha is performed on the day of the new moon in every month, but that they are commanded by those books daily to propitiate them, by an offering of water, which is called Tarpan, a word signifying to satisfy, to appeàse. A speech of the Indian emperor Dushmanta, in the Sacontala, remarkably exemplifies this observation of Mr Wilkins. That emperor, struck with horror at the idea of dying childless, exclaims, "Ah me! the de parted souls of my ancestors, who claim a share in the funeral cake, which I have no son to offer, are apprehensive of losing their due honour, when Dushmanta shall be no more on earth-who, then, alas! will perform in our family those obsequies which the Vedas prescribe? My forefathers must drink, instead of a pure libation, this flood of tears, the only offering which a man who dies childless can make them." Mr Wilkins judiciously remarks that

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that these ceremonies were not unknown to the Greeks and Romans, in proof of which, if ne-> cessary, many instances might be brought from classical writers.

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SECTION II.

Commences with a general View of the Indian Mythology, and displays the Analogy subsisting between the antient Religion of INDIA and PERSIA, particularly in their universal aud enthusiastic Veneration of the Solar Orb and Elementary Fire.-The Indians sacrifice to the MooN under the Character of a Male Divinity.An extensive Review taken of the SABIAN SUPERSTITION, or Worship of the Host of Heaven, in the earliest Ages of the World. The Souls of deceased Heroes elevated to the Stars, and adored as the Genii of the revolving Orbs.—The Persian Theology resumed. - The Laws of the Persian Zoroaster and Brahma have a wonderful Feature of Resemblance.-The Race originally the same, and probably the · Legislators not different.The Antiquity of the Four VEDAS, or Sacred Books of India, examined.

Historical Observation relative to Zoroaster, and introductory to the Investigation of the stupendous Antiquities remaining to this Day in the Caverns of Elephanta and Salsette.

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HE investigation of that unpleasing but curious subject, the human sacrifices of the antients, which engaged so large a portion of the former chapter, has too long detained us from the consideration of the other parts of the extensive system of the Hindoo Mythology; without a comprehensive insight into which it is impossible to understand the pages of their early history, or to arrive at any satisfactory knowledge of the hieroglyphics under which that history is veiled. Never did a belief in aërial beings, in the phantoms engendered by the warmth of a glowing and enthusiastic imagination, so universally infect a people as that belief did in antient times, and does, at this day, infect the people of Hindostan. In the Ayeen Akbery, the world is said to be divided into ten quarters; over each of which presides a guardian spirit. Their names, and those of the quarters over which they rule, as stated in that authentic book, are thus arranged: "Indree, Aujin, Jum, Benyroot, Wurrun, Bayoo, Kobeir, Jysan, Birmha, Naga; East,' South-east, South, South-west, West, Northwest, North, North-cast, Above, Below." Of these Dewtah, only two are deserving particu

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