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THE

DOCTRINE

THE DELUGE;

VINDICATING
THE SCRIPTURAL ACCOUNT
FROM
THE DOUBTS WHICH HAVE RECENTLY BEEN CAST UPON IT BY
GEOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS.

BY

THE REV. L. VERNON HARCOURT.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON.
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,
PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1838.

London :
Printed by A. Spottiswoode,
New-Street- Square.

HIS GRACE
THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK,
TO WHOM, UNDER GOD,
THE AUTHOR IS INDEBTED FOR ALL THAT HE IS,
.\ND ALL THAT HE KNOWS,
THE FOLLOWING ATTEMPT TO VINDICATE AND EXPLAIN
THE DOCTRINE OF THE DELUGE,
IS DEDICATED,
IN TESTIMONY OF GRATITUDE AND FILIAL LOVE,
BY
HIS AFFECTIONATE SON,
L, VERNON HARCOURT.

A %

PREFACE.

Whatever may be the merit of originality, in
pursuing the traditional memorials of the Ark
through the mazes of pagan mythology, it is none
of mine. The honour of those discoveries belongs
in the first instance to Jacob Bryant, and next to
my excellent and much valued friend Mr. Faber,
the master of Sherburn Hospital. They were the
pioneers, whose track I have endeavoured to en
large and illustrate, in the hope that it may become
more familiar to those who are not aware what a
mass of evidence is to be collected from the most
unsuspected sources in corroboration of the Mosaic
History of the Deluge. The strength of that
evidence is too great to be shaken by the difficulty
of reconciling the fact with the present appear
ance of the earth. If there are any who by dwell
ing too much on that difficulty have been led to
conclusions unfavourable to the scriptural account,
it is to be hoped that by weighing in the contrary
scale the preponderance of testimony that supports
a 3

VI PREFACE.
it they may be induced to suspect themselves of
error, and be content to believe that it is only
" science falsely so called" which will raise its
voice against the declarations of scripture. Far be
it from me to accuse the distinguished writers on
geology of entertaining such intentions ; but being
much dissatisfied with the feeble attempt which
they have made to reconcile their theory with the
narrative of the Deluge in the Bible, and having
reason to believe that it has unsettled the faith of
some weak minds, I conceived it might be of service
to religion to demonstrate, that if geological specu
lations are at variance with scriptural history, they
are not less at variance with the united testimony
of all nations from the remotest time to which
history or tradition extends ; and consequently that
if one or the other must give way, it is incumbent
on geology to revise her conclusions, and for her
own sake to modify them, so as to bring them to an
agreement with a truth which is placed by other
evidence beyond all dispute. With respect to the
mere establishment of the fact, I shall have the
wishes and feelings of all good Christians combined
in my favour, however they may differ from me in
estimating the evidence detailed. But with respect
to the religious use to which I have applied the

PKEFACE. VU
doctrine, it will meet with various acceptance
according to the opinions which my readers have
already formed : some will approve of my views —
others more loudly will condemn them; but the
cause of truth would be unjustifiably sacrificed, if
those who have strong arguments to allege, or at least
arguments which appear to them to be strong, and
calculated to effect any thing towards the settling of
important questions, were restrained from producing
them by the fear of human censure. Truth is my
object, and truth alone ; for only by truth can God
be glorified, and the salvation of man promoted.

CONTENTS

THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER I.

The general Design of the Work, and a Justification of calling
in the Aid of Etymology - - 1
CHAP. II.
Traditions of the Flood, and the Power of religious Feeling
which accounts for their Preservation - - - 29
CHAP. III.
Instances of the Permanence of ancient Superstitions and Usages 47
CHAP. IV.
Evidence that the Patriarchs were deified in India, beginning
with Noah and his Sons - - - - 75
CHAP. V.
ON BUDDHA.
Noah's Grandson Phut was Buddha, whose Name was changed
into Fo and Po ; hence the River Padus, and his Footstep the
Sreepad - ... - 90
CHAP. VI.
ON BUDDHA.
His Connection with the Lotus by its Indian Name ' Padma.' —
His Temple Padma Mandira. — His Name enters into the Com
position of many Eastern Words connected with his Worship.
— In the Western Pomona he is amalgamated with his Father
Ham. — His Connection with Mon, Moon, Mun, Man, Mana,
Meni, Menu, Mandara, Ammon, Minotaur. — Meaning of
Taurus and Baris ----- 109

CONTENTS.

CHAP. VII. Page
Horns called Sima because they were a Sama or Symbol of
the two-peaked Mountain and of the crescent-shaped Ship.
Hence, Sama was the Name of insulated Mountains. — The
Shem of the Builders of Babel Explained. — A Star between
Horns a Divinity. — Zoroaster. — Astarte. — Explanation of
the Star of Remphan and Chiun. — Orion and Side. — Osiris.
— Janus. — Saturn. - 145

CHAP. VIII.

Explanation of the Stars mentioned in Job. — Pleiades. —
Hyads. — Arcturus. — Bootes. — Ericthonius. — Dardanus.
— Samothrace. — Danaus. — Deucalion's Flood compared
with Noah's — Pelasgi. — Capella. 181
CHAP. IX.
Chesil. — Mazzaroth. — Scorpio. — Serpentarius. — The Zodiac. 232
CHAP. X.
Hercules. — Belus. — Bali. — Baliswara. — Hindoo and Grecian
Myths concerning him. — His Club and Lion's Skin. — Coin
cides with Osiris. — His Tomb at Phile. — Voyage of his Son
to Pergamus. — Explanation of it. — Why from Arcadia. —
Deucalion, how far historical. — His Deluge not to be ac
counted for by the bursting of the Euxine. — The Cup of
Hercules. — The Cup of Thetis. — Similar Myths of Achilles.
— The Meaning of Hylas called his Son, and of his Arrows
given to Philoctetes, and of the Trojan War - 268
CHAP. XI.
Egyptian Gods. — Their Paintings and Hieroglyphics explained.
— Stories of Pytho. — Typhon. — Theseus. — Meaning of
Amonei. — Meen. — Mouna. — Hermon. — Vadimon. — Palae-
mon. — Menu. — Muni. — Mahamoonie. — Chinese Fohi. —
British Bud, — Man. — Hu. — Mongol Ayou. — Mountains
of Ayoub, or the Moon. — Mountains of Mahadeo in Cashmir.
— Other Evidence that the Minotaur was an Arkite Myth - 341

CONTENTS. XI

CHAP. XII.

Page

The Relation of the Egyptians to Mizraim different from their
Relation to Phut. — The Descendants of the former were
conquered, and for some time kept in Subjection by the De
scendants and Votaries of the latter under the Name of Palli.
— Hycsos. — Shepherds. — Berbers. — Confusion introduced
by different Families appropriating divine Honours to their
own immediate Ancestors. — No Amon. — Thebes. — Menes
Noah. — Soth uncertain, but an Arkite. — Concerning Thoth
and Athothis. — Cnouph. — Canobus. — Anubis. — Mannus. —
Explanation of Isaiah lxv. 11. — Gad in Gades. — Hermes. —
Mercury, who is also Hercules. — Story of Io. — Picus. —
Horus. — Orion. — Meaning of Peleiades and Cuon, and Osiris
and Ogyges - - 410

CHAP. XIII.
ON THE WORSHIP OF FIRE.
The Worship of Fire. — Its Conflict with the Arkites. — Affinity
of Irish Mythology to the Indian and classical Mythology —
The Ship Temple — Patrick's Purgatory — Kieven's Bed, all
Arkite Monuments. — Combat of Hercules the Reformer with
Achelous. — Fire-Temple of Perseus in the City of Io or Isis.
— Variations of the Calendar - - 482

THE
DOCTRINE OF

THE DELUGE,

CHAPTER I.
THE GENERAL DESIGN OF THE WORK, AND A JUSTIFICATION
OF CALLING IN THE AID OF ETYMOLOGY.
The most recent speculations of geology have
tended to discredit the facts of the Mosaic deluge ;
and the manner in which the subject has been
treated by two of the most eminent geologists of
the present day, has contributed much to produce
the same effect. Their respect for revealed religion
has prevented them from arraying themselves
openly against the scriptural account of it — much
less do they deny its truth — but they are in a great
hurry to escape from the consideration of it, and
evidently concur in the opinion of Linnaeus, that
no proofs whatever of that deluge are to be dis
cerned in the structure of the earth. Dr. Buck-
land throws it aside as a feeble agent, and can find
no phaenomena worth recording produced by " the
comparatively tranquil inundation described in the
VOL. I. B

2 EXPLANATION OF THE SUBJECT.
inspired narrative ; " and he adds : — " It has been
justly argued, that as the rise and fall of the waters
of the Mosaic deluge are described to have been
gradual, and of short duration, they would have
produced comparatively little change on the surface
of the couutry they overflowed." ] That, how
ever, was not always his opinion : for Mr. Lyell
accuses him of representing it as "a violent and
transient rush of waters, which tore up the soil to
a great depth, excavated valleys, gave rise to im
mense beds of shingle, carried fragments of rocks
and gravel from one point to another, and during
its advance and retreat strewed the valleys, and
even the tops of many hills, with alluvium." 2
Mr. Lyell should have said diluvium ; for that is
the term which the professor himself selected to
express the deposits of the Mosaic deluge. 3 But
since he has seen reason to alter his opinion, he
has sealed his recantation by appropriating that
term to a different purpose : he now refers it to
some previous violent irruption of water, the last
of the great physical events that have affected the
surface of our globe ; and there is no longer a
term in geology which can suggest an idea of the
Mosaic deluge to the mind of the geologist.4
Dr. Fleming and Mr. Lyell were the first who led
the way to the adoption of the tranquil theory, by
1 Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, note at p. 95.
2 Lyell's Principles of Geology, 3d edit. iv. 147.
3 Buckland's Reliquiae Diluvianse, p. 187. compared with p. 223.
and 228.
1 Bridgewater Treatise, p. 94.

EXPLANATION OF THE SUBJECT. 3
insisting that in the narrative of Moses "there are
no terms employed that indicate the impetuous
rushing of the waters, either as they rose, or when
they retired, upon the restraining of the rain and
the passing of the wind over the earth." ' It seems
not to have been sufficiently considered, that a wind
passing over the retreating waters does not present
an image of great tranquillity. He who has ever
seen upon the sea-shore the effects of a single tide
agitated by wind, in accumulating masses of sand
and gravel which alter the whole aspect of the
beach, will not readily accede to the opinion that
" the surface of the earth would not undergo any
great modification at the era ofthe Mosaic deluge." 2
And wherever a section of those accumulations
happens to be displayed, evidence is afforded of the
rapidity with which strata of different materials
may be successively deposited, either from some
difference in the strength of the wave, or from the
manner in which those materials are arranged in
the bed of the sea. I do not mean to dispute the
conclusiveness of the evidence, which shews, that
the greater part of our fossils belonged to a pre-
existent condition of the earth, before it was re
modelled in the hands of its Creator, and received
its present form ; neither do I enter into the
question, whether the Pliocene period has of ne
cessity a greater antiquity than the deluge ; nor
1 Edin. Phil. Journal, xiv. 205. Lyell's Prin. of Geol. iv. 148.
- Lyell, iv. 151.
B 2

4 EXPLANATION OF THE SUBJECT.
whether, in the absence of all proof, it is not quite
as likely, that the volcanic cones of central France
were formed subsequently to that era ; nor whether
there is not an antecedent probability, that the
re-absorption of the waters into the heart of the
earth, would generate volcanic action : neither do
I contend, that all vallies of denudation, and banks
of sand and gravel were the effect of that catas
trophe : but following the guidance of the inspired
historian, I find, that a great change was then
effected, though not sufficient to alter altogether
the features of the earth. The part of Asia, in
which man was first created, was characterised by
abundance of water, which was necessary to sustain
its continual fertility, and which afterwards found
its way to the sea by four different channels.1 After
the deluge, that tract of country disappeared ; but
still the rivers might be recognised by the general
direction of their course. One of them was so well
known in the time of Moses, that it was only ne
cessary to mention the name of the Euphrates. If
therefore the posture of the country at its source
had not undergone some great alteration by means
of the deluge, it would have been needless for him
to seek to identify the other three by minute
details ; and indeed they would still be seen flow
ing from one common reservoir. Moses knew, that
in his time, their springs were far separated from
the spot where they rose before that event ; and
therefore he took some pains to describe the coun-
1 Genesis, ii. 10 — 14.

EXPLANATION OF THE SUBJECT. 5
tries through which they ran ; countries, which
were known well enough by those for whom he
was writing, however obscure they may have
become to us.1 Since then it is evident, that the
surface of the earth was considerably modified by
the deluge, though not to the same extent as by
former revolutions, it is to be lamented, that Mr.
Lyell should have carried his theory of tranquillity
to a degree which borders upon ridicule. " The
olive branch," says he, "brought back by the
dove, seems as clear an indication to us, that the
vegetation was not destroyed, as it was then to
Noah, that the dry land was about to re-appear." 2
At least this argument appeal's to me a clear indi
cation, that he has not examined the sacred narra
tive with the same attention and accuracy, as he
has bestowed upon the strata of the earth. The
dry land was not about to appear then for the first
time : seven weeks before, the tops of the moun
tains had been seen, and during all that period, the
flood had been continually decreasing i and there
fore, although it is undoubtedly said, that when
the dove brought back, not a branch, but a leaf of
the olive, which she had plucked 3, Noah knew
that the waters were abated from off the earth, yet
it is evident, that Moses was then speaking of the
plains to which he wanted to descend : for it is a
most important rule of interpretation, at least
1 Upon this subject see Faher's Origin of Pagan Idolatry.
2 Principles of Geology, iv. 148.
3 Genesis, viii. 11.

0 EXPLANATION OF THE SUBJECT.
where the writer cannot be charged with absolute
stolidity, that doubtful passages should be ex
plained in such a way, as to make the narrative
consistent with itself, and free from contradictions.
Upon the same principle, when it is said, that the
dove on her first flight could find no rest for the
sole of her foot, we must necessarily understand
it of that part only of the earth, where she went
to seek for her accustomed food. The whole rise
of the deluge occupied the space of 150 days,
which, however, are divided into two distinct por
tions : first, " the rain was upon the earth forty
days and forty nights," and " the flood was forty
days upon the earth." ' But then a more copious
irruption of water from the fountains of the deep
seems to have ensued, and the rain, perhaps after
a pause, returned with renewed violence : for it
was not finally restrained till the termination of
the 150 days ; and in the meantime, the waters
increased greatly upon the earth, and prevailed
exceedingly, and rose fifteen cubits above the tops
of the mountains.2 May it not be conjectured,
that during the first period the flood advanced
more quietly, till all the lower levels were covered,
because it was designed to protect the surface of
the earth from that violent disturbance of its pre
vious arrangements, which would have unfitted it
for the habitation of man ? Whatever might be the
cause, neither of these periods escaped the observ
ation of Noah : he seems to have calculated that
1 Genesis, vii. 12. 17. 2 Genesis^ vii. 18 — 20. and viii. 2.

EXPLANATION OF THE SUBJECT. 7
the retreating waters would occupy the same time,
and observe the same periods as they did in their
advance ; and therefore, having watched for the
expiration of the second period, which consisted
of 1 10 days, he counted forty more before he
ventured to make any experiment, from which he
might learn the state of the earth.1 A month before
the commencement of the forty days, the tops of
the mountains had been seen, and the mountains
in this case must mean the lower ranges of hills ;
for immediately after the first abatement of the
flood, the ark had grounded on Mount Ararat.2
He had reason therefore to conclude, that by the
end of that time, the lowlands also would be un
covered. The rivers, however, had not yet found
their channels ; the plains were still inundated ;
and the dove, that was first sent forth to explore
the new world, returned to the ark, not because all
the trees were buried under water, (for though
many would be uprooted, some certainly would
still be standing on the sides of the hills), but
because they were still in a leafless state. The im
mense evaporation from the surface of the earth
producing a degree of cold unfavourable to ger
mination, she could find no spot on which it was
possible to alight with any prospect of obtaining
food. But after the lapse of another week, vegeta
tion had recommenced ; not however that sort of
vegetation which the bird required ; and so she
returned to the ark, with a specimen of the first
1 Gen. viii. 5. 2 Gen. viii. 4.
B 4

S EXPLANATION OF THE SUBJECT.
green meat that she had seen. The Greeks ex
pressed a strong opinion of the vitality and power
of revirescence in the olive, when in their usual
vein of exaggeration, they reported, that the tree
in the Acropolis of Athens, not only sprouted, but
that the shoot was a cubit long, the day after it
was burned by the Persians.1 But even in this
country the half-dead plants, which are imported,
begin to grow again in the course of six weeks or
two months.2 There is no reason therefore what
ever to suppose, that the olive leaf brought by the
dove, must have been miraculously preserved
during a ten months' submersion under the waters
of the flood. But further, even if every olive tree
in Armenia had been uprooted and covered with
diluvium, it is evident, that sufficient time had
elapsed to allow of the germination of the seed on
the rising grounds, although the plains were still
lying under water. When therefore, upon such
slender grounds, it is determined, in answer to those
who insist upon its universality, that the Mosaic
deluge must be considered a preternatural event,
far beyond the reach of philosophical enquiry ; not
only as to the causes employed to produce it, but
also as to the effects most likely to result from it 3 ;
that determination wears an aspect of scepticism,
which, how much soever it may be unintentional in

1 Herodotus, viii. c. 55. It is remarkable, that a sea is mentioned
as having been the companion of the olive on the Acropolis.
2 Miller's Gard. Diet., Olea.
3 Lyell' s Principles of Geology, iv. 149.

EXPLANATION OF THE SUBJECT. 9
the mind of the writer, yet cannot but produce an
evil impression on those, who are already predis
posed to carp and cavil at the evidences of Reve
lation. In order therefore to counteract in some
measure the tendency, which has sprung up in the
study of geology, to weaken our belief of the
sacred narrative, I propose to bring forward other
evidences of the fact which it asserts ; evidences
which, if not equally imperishable, are at least
more conclusive ; evidences impressed not upon
the surface of the earth, but upon the memory of
its inhabitants, and derived from their traditions,
their superstitions, their monuments, and their
usages ; and lastly, I propose to shew, that the
doctrine, which it inculcated, was kept alive ob
scurely, in various parts of the world, till it was
finally enlisted in the service of true religion, and
obtained a permanent place in the institutions of
Christianity, and was consigned to holier purposes,
and endowed with a more operative function, and
exalted to the dignity of a Sacrament.
But before we proceed to investigate the evi
dence, which is to be found in the history of the
present and the past, it may be expedient to re
bate the edge of a prejudice, which opposes itself
to such investigations. There is an unreasonable
prejudice against the use of etymology, even as an
auxiliary in identifying places, and nations, and
persons, of whom only some vague unconnected
notices are scattered up and down the field of his
tory. It cannot, indeed, be allowed to usurp the

10 EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY
place of demonstration : the resemblance of one
word to another is no proof that it is derived from
it, though the one be modern and the other ancient ;
for many coincidences of sound are merely fortuit
ous ; and even if two words, apparently alike, may
be traced up to one common source, it no more
follows that there is any other relationship between
them, than if we were to say that Napoleon was
descended from Charlemagne, because they were
both derived from the common stock of Noah.
But still there are such striking instances, in which
persons, who aimed at expressing not only the same
thing but the same sound, have yet represented it
by characters most widely different, that to refuse
the help furnished by the corruption of languages
in illustrating ancient history, would be no less
absurd than to refuse the help of our eyes in ascer
taining the bulk of bodies, because they sometimes
deceive us in estimating dimensions. The great
changes which a language may undergo in the same
country, and the new aspect which it may assume
in the lapse of a few centuries, may be illustrated
by comparing the English with the Anglo-Saxon.
That the former is the legitimate offspring of the
latter no one doubts ; and a very short selection of
words common to both will exhibit the permuta
tions that it has suffered in its descent.

halija

haliga

holy

bijceop

bisceop

bishop

cogeaner

togaines

against

cypcan

cirean

church

mnepeapbe

innewearde

inwards

NOT INADMISSIBLE.

11

fettle '

settle

stool

^eicmtigob

geeniligod

emptied

gebopen2

geboren

born

fceolon

sceolon

shall

healban

hcaldan

holden

hjiact

hwaet

what

Dujeryxt

dugesyxt

thou seest

j-eipan

seiran

sheer

haejrbe

haef'de

haveth

j;ante

fante

fount

abylejobe

adylegode

assoilzied

miltfe

miltse

mercy

heoponum

heofonum

heaven

1 The Anglo-Saxon settle is still retained in cottages.
2 As in German, for this language being sister to the English,
often supplies the intermediate links by which modern words are
connected with their ancient root: for instance, genoh, is in German
genau, which when the first letter is dropped, would be pronounced
enow, the old English form for Enough : so again, buph-j-meajan is
to consider, or thoroughly to taste ; in modern German, Schmecken
is to taste, in English it becames Smack : again, nothing appears
more unlikely at first sight, than that Which should be derived from
Hwilcese, and yet nothing is more certain, the intermediate steps
being welches in German, and whilk in old English. Many ancient
words indeed of Anglo-Saxon origin are now either obsolete, or their
real meaning is almost forgotten : thus gafeprcipe means companion
ships and hence comes, gaffer ,• bybel means a herald, hence Beadle ;
bibienbe means preaching, hence the bidding-prayer; bpollie means
wrong or bad, and it is still used in Yorkshire, where a person who
is not well says he is dooly ; byprcignyr means daringness, all that
remains of this word is the verb durst. Sybjeopnep is used for the
love of God and our neighbour ; now Syb means a connection ; in
which sense it is still used in the North ; two animals from the same
parents are said to be Sib to one another, and hence Gossip was
used to signify Godfathers and Godmothers, i. e. those who had a
religious relationship to the child ; therefore Sybgeornes is the love
or dearness (d and g being convertible letters) of those to whom we
are in any way related. Nytenu means beasts, and is still preserved
in the expression, neat cattle ; hence nytenyr signified ignorance, or
the state of brutes : and hence it has passed into a term of reproach,
what a neat fellow you are ! hvfel means the Eucharist, and hence
Shakspeare's unhouselled. Other words are connected with other
nations: thus tacnum is signum, micelumis ptyakov, and in Scotch
mickle ; gofepob is carried, ferried, from <peou.

12

EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY

lupenbe

lufiende

loving

geleapa

geleafa

belief

ssepr

gaers

grass

leben pppsece

leden sprasce

latin speech

pseceleapnyp

raeceleasnys

recklessness

popefceapunge

foresceawunge

foreshewing

apolcenyp

asolcenys

sauciness

pum heoptnyr

rum heortnys

roomy heartedness

rypepnyj-

syfernys

soberness

maegShabe

maegthhade

maidenhood

geceap

geceas

chose

pupcenb

vurcend

working

cpaste

crsete

cart

tybbepneppe

tydderness

tenderness

angel cyn

angel cyn

Englishmen

peopon

seofon

seven

maepta

maesta

most

hyhfta

hyhsta

highest

anbpypbe

andwyrde

answered

gepceop

gesceop

shaped

anhcneppa

anlicnessa

likeness

eagan

eagan

eyes

gebytlob

gebytlod

builded

caege

caege

keys

onableop

onableow

blew on

maenigpealbpe

maenigfealdre

manifold

onlocienbum

onlociendum

onlookers

hlaepbige

hlaafdige

lady

cynelican

cynelican

kingly

naeglum

naeglum

nails

beophtneppe

beorhtnesse

brightness

geppicaS

geswicath

ceaseth

peopepti

feowerti

forty

enblyptan

endlyftan

eleventh

geebnypobe

geednywode

renewed

gegabepob

gegaderod

gathered

papulleap

sawulleas

soulless

ptabolpaepneppe

stadolfsesnesse

stedfastness

gepceote

gesceote

chewed

piligenban

filigendan

following

NOT INADMISSIBLE. 1.3
Ceafcey means a city ; therefore towns ending
in ' caster,' or * Chester,' are not necessarily Latin,
and have no relation to ' castrum,' except through
the Anglo-Saxon. Through the same medium,
' fcemina' passes into ' woman ;' for the Anglo-
Saxon is ' pgemman.' Professor Jakel of Berlin has
taken the same view ofthe relationship of different
languages. ' Caput,' he says, is the same word with
' head :' for in German it is ' kopf ' and ' haupt,' in
Danish it is 'hoved,' and in Gothic 'heafod.'
'Oculus' is the same as 'eye;' for it is only the
diminutive of a word preserved in ' ex-agcus,' i. e.
cgecus, blind, or without an eye, like the German
* aus-auge : ' for ' auge' is ' eye : ' in Anglo-Saxon,
* eag,' imago, an image, is that which is ' imauge,'
in the eye. ' Lingua ' and tongue are the same
word ; for Victorinus says that the ancients used
' dingua' for 'lingua.' The accusative ' dinguam,'
Swedish, slides into ' tungan,' and the nominative
into the German ' zunge' and the English 'tongue.'
' Ungula,' which looks so little like ' nail,' is con
nected with it by the German ' nagel.' Genu, which
in old German is kniu, and in modern German
knie, becomes in English knee. ' Genus' in Persic
is 'gun,' in old German 'kuni,' in English 'kin7
and ' kind.' Magistracy is from magistratus, which,
interpreted by the German, is machtigste ' rath,
the mightiest counsellor ; for ' rede,' in German
and old English, is counsel, from 'reden,' to speak
1 So I suppose Master or Magister is Machtigste Herr ; but
fAtyitrop comes nearer to it than the German.

14 EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY
or advise ; and the Swedish ' rad' is the same as the
Latin ' ratio,' reason. The meaning of ordo is illus
trated by the German ordnung, which is the set
ting of a thing in its ' ort' or place : ' airt' is still
used in the north of England for the place or quar
ter of the wind. The Greek ' udor ' is the same
as water, and may be found in the names of many
European rivers — the Oder, the Eyder, the Adour,
and the Douro : for the changes which vowels
undergo in the translation of a word from one
language to another is well exemplified in the
Latin conjunction * ac,' which becomes in Ger
man ' auch,' in English ' eke,' and in Swedish ' ok.'
Ceylon is spelled both Khundi and Candi, Ganges
both Gunga and Ganga ; Morocco is spelled by
the Moorish emperor in his letter to George IV.,
Marakah, and Fez is Fass. The Latin * casa ' passes
readily through the German ' haus,' which retains
one of its vowels, into the English ' house,' which
retains neither ; and ' cutis ' travels through the
Frankish 'hut' and the German 'haut,' till it ar
rives at the English ' hide,' without one of the
letters with which it set out ; so ' quod ' becomes
' what,' and jam is converted into the German
schon ; and although not a letter is preserved, yet
the sound remains much the same. It might seem
a hopeless task to deduce 'four' from 'tessares,'
and yet the process of its descent may be easilv
shown. The Greeks themselves changed ' tessares'
into ' tettares' and ' pisures ; ' it is no wonder, then,
that in the Oscic dialect it became ' petor,' in old

NOT INADMISSIBLE. 15
German ' fedwor,' and thence in English ' four.'
The preposition ' ex' was first changed by the
Germans into ' aus,' and then by the English into
'out;' and 'via,' which according to Varro was
anciently written ' veha,' became in German ' weg,'
and then in English ' way.' Our adjectives, much,
more, and most, are a compound of Latin and
Greek, through the intervention ofthe German : —
Latin. Greek. Old German. Old English.
Magnus Megasor Megalos Mekelo Mickle
Major Meizon Meziro Mair
Maximus Megistos Meisto Maist
The two last are much the same as the modern
German mehr and meiste ; but our * much' comes
in from another quarter — it is derived from the
Latin ' multus,' through the Spanish ' muchas.'
This language, indeed, furnishes many examples
of a similar transition : for instance, ' valiente' is the
intermediate step between the Latin 'valens' and
the English ' valient ;' ' tumba' between the Italian
'tombolare' and the English 'tumble;' 'hierro'
between the Latin ' ferrum' and the English ' iron.'
But formerly many words were used in Spain which
were absolutely English, though they have since
become dissimilar. Thus in the translation of
the Bible, in 1478, by Bonifacio Ferrer, the mo
dern 'frutos' is'fruyts;' ' siervos,' is 'servents;'
' frentes' is ' fronts ; ' ' linatge' we have turned into
'lineage;' but 'spirits' and 'plagues' are letter
for letter the same. ' The etymology of ' other '
1 M'Crie's Reformation in Spain, p. 414.

16 EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY
may exemplify the manner in which corruption
creeps on from one language to another. In Latin it
is 'alter' and 'altera; ' the Spaniards combined both
in ' altra ;' the French altered it to ' autre ;' in mo
dern Spanish it became 'otra,' and in English
' other.' But how much their own native language
is subject to the same universal law of corruption,
in spite even ofthe strongest fence of religious tradi
tion, may best be shown by the history of Compos-
tella. To that capital of Galicia the body of St. Jago,
that is to say, James the Less, was reported, by a
cunningly devised fable of the priests, to have been
transported in a ship without human aid, in order
to be buried. Hence the place became sacred to
Giacomo Postolo, that is, Jacobus Apostolus ; and
by abbreviation it became Compostella. But this
is nothing to an instance of our own talent at ab
breviation, with which we are more familiar. Lam
mas-day was the day dedicated to St. Peter in
prison. The mass, therefore, which was said on
that day, was called the St. Peter ad vincula-mass ;
but the English, says Holinshed, love brevity, and so
have cut off all but the last two syllables. We have
already seen that James is transformed by the Spa
niards into Jago ; butwho would think that James and
Lapo have a common origin, and mean one and the
same person ? yet James is derived from Iachomo,
or Giachomo, which is only a soft pronunciation of
Jacobus ; and Lapo is said by the commentators
on Dante to be a corruption from Jacopo, which is
another form of Jacobus. Other instances there

NOT INADMISSIBLE. 17
are in modern history of very singular metamor
phoses suffered by the names of some persons,
though facts and dates are too numerous, at such a
recent epoch, to permit a doubt of their identity.
Thus the Greek emperor Isaac (Angelus, 1185),
is styled by Villehardouin ' Sursac,' which may be
derived from the French ' sire,' or the Greek ' tkur,'
melted into his proper name ; and the further cor
ruptions of ' Tursac' and ' Corserac' will instruct us,
says Gibbon, what licence may have been used in
the old dynasties of Assyria and Egypt.1 The
same historian cites a passage from Cantacuzene,
concerning the first wife of Andronicus the younger,
who ascended the throne of Constantinople in
1328. She was the daughter Ssxoo- vn [XTrpe^aix ;
in which letters the classical scholar will have some
difficulty in recognising the Duke of Brunswick :
the modern Greeks are in the habit of substituting
Nt for D, and Mp for B. But similar substitutions
of one consonant for another occur without end in
the ancient dialects ; K for P, P for M, F for Th,
P for T, R for L, S for Th, D for B.2 Sometimes
Band sometimes Twas added at the beginning.3
The Romans changed D into R ; for Midday,
which was written ' Medidies' in the Ten Tables,
afterwards became ' Meridies.' The Afghauns
change it into L, as we are assured by Mr. El-
1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xi. 198.
2 Kojoj/ for itotov, oititara. for ojH/xaTa, fXccrai for 6\arai, ottoAtj for
o-toXij, KpiSavov for K\i€avov, o-eo? for Seo?, oSeXo; for ottXo^.
3 Bjjo&oj/ for poSoy ; and therefore Wordsworth derives BoAto;, a
marsh, from aXc, and 0sAi) from eXvj, toi for oi.
VOL. I. C

18 EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY
phinstone ; but the eastern Afghauns have some
permutations peculiar to themselves, which some
times disguise a word in such a manner as to render
it a matter of difficulty to discover its etymology.
Nobody, says he, would suppose that ' ghwug,' an
ear, could be derived from the Persian ' gosh ;' from
which, however, it is clearly deducible. : The
change of M into B is another substitution of one
consonant for another, wholly dissimilar to it in
sound ; which shows how far a word may be altered
without destroying its identity. Castalio remarks,
that the Greek word for a rope, 'camelus,' is re
tained in the French word ' cable 2 :' he might have
added, in the English too. Nor is there any thing
incredible in the derivation ; since we know that
the same word, as a proper name, is sometimes
pronounced ' Camel,' and sometimes ' Campbell.'
Two terms in most frequent and universal use,
and therefore most likely to be constant in their
orthoepy, may be selected to illustrate the changes,
which it is possible for a word to undergo in its pas
sage through several languages ; 'Father' and 'God.'
1. ' Father' in Greek and Latin, is ' Pater ;' but in
English, an aspirate is inserted after each of the two
first consonants : for F is only another form of Ph.
In the Irish Celtic the rule is, that if a small vowel
immediately follows a consonant in the beginning
of a word, that consonant is not pronounced : this
rule being extended to A, 'Father' became 'Athair'
1 Account of Caubul, p. 305.
2 Comment, in Matth. xix. 24.

NOT INADMISSIBLE. 19
in Irish ', and ' Aita' in Biscayan : the Erse adds
'ne' at the end — 'Athairne,' which in Manx is
shortened into ' Ain.' In Armoric, the first syllable
was altered into ' Tat ;' in modern Welsh, it is
' Tad;' in old Welsh, 'Taad;' and in Cornish, 'Taz,'
which is very remote from the Icelandic and Nor
wegian 'Fader,' the Italian Padre, and the German
' Vater.' %. There seems at first sight, to be no more con
nection between the words ' Akua ' and ' Theos '
(God), than between ' Hosper' and ' Pepin' the king
of France, the well known ridicule of etymology :
and yet there is a real and close connection between
them. ' Akua' is the Polynesian name for ' God ; '
but in one of the Sandwich Islands it is pronounced
'Atua,' and the initial vowel being quite unneces
sary, as in the instance of ' Otaheite, ' which Ellis
spells ' Tahiti,' it becomes ' Tua,' and then we per
ceive the affinity which it bears to 'Tev,' which has
the same meaning in Aztec or Mexican, and to the
Sanscrit 'Dewa' or 'Deva,' which the Singalese
lengthen into 'Devigo.' It is unnecessary to dwell
further upon the intimate relationship between these
names of God, and many in the languages of Eu
rope: Divi, Dio, Dieu,Deus, Zeus, Theos. TheDii
minores of the Latins exactly coincides with the Tii
ofthe Polynesians2, " a kind of inferior deities to
whom prayers were offered." In the same author,
we find another instance how differently sounds
1 Vallancey's Essay on the Celtic Language, p. 50.
2 Ellis's Polynesian Researches, i. 3Q.
C Z

20 EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY
caught by the ear may be represented in writing.
There is an island, which Captain Cook called
' Owhyhee,' which it is very difficult to recognise in
the dress given it by the missionary. He writes it
' Hawaii.' In like manner, English writers on Hin
doo mythology are accustomed to describe a certain
incarnation of Vishnu as the ' Matsya Avatar ;' but
Gladwin in his translation of the Ayeen Akbery
gives quite a different spelling, and pronunciation —
the 'Mutch Owtar.' In Phillips' account of Ma
labar, he mentions their gods, ' Tschivens' and
' Wischtnu.' Who would guess that the first of these
is ' Siva,' if the second were not something more
like ' Vishnu.' If we turn from mythology : to geo
graphy, we shall find the same deviations from the
primary form of names disguising and almost con
cealing their real origin. Seringapatam is known
to be a corruption from Patana, the city of Sri
Ranga, that is, Siva, and the original name was
Srirangapatana. 'Behut' is the name in use
among the Moguls for the Hydaspes, and Lieu
tenant Burnes thinks that the one is yet disco
verable in the other.2 Chaussard is ofthe same
opinion. " Behut," says he, " a un rapport evi
dent avec Bedusta, ou Vetasta du Sanscrit, comme
avec le Bidaspe ou Hydaspe des Grecs ; et toutes
1 Tacitus deduces the origin of the Germans, who call themselves
Dutch, from their god Tuisco, otherwise called Teut, from whence
they got the name of Teutshe, or Deutsche ; originally Theutsche
but the sound of Th being lost, passed into the next sound D. Ac
cordingly Cramer, in his ode to Luther, calls his countrymen Thuis-
kons Volk. — Bardenhain, 23.
2 Travels in Bokhara, iii. 128.

NOT INADMISSIBLE. 21
ces ressemblances proviennent de la relation, qui
existe entre les voyelles a et u dans l'orthographe
orientale, ou de 1' affinit6 des consonnes b et v avec
1' haspiree." l So too, the Hyphasis. is ' Biah,' or
' Beah,'in Persian and Hindostanee; ' Beascha' in
Sanscrit ; ' Beypasha' in the Ayeen Akbery ; ' Bi-
pasis'or 'Bibasis' in Ptolemy; 'Hypanis'in Strabo;
' Hypasis' in Pliny, and ' Hyphasis' in Arrian. So
too, the 'Iyrawutti' ofthe Ayeen Akbery, is 'Rave'
in Persian or Hindostanee ; ' Rhuadis'in Ptolemy;
' Hyarotes' in Strabo and Quintus Curtius ; ' Hydra-
otes' in Arrian ; 'Adaris' in the commentators on
Ptolemy; and 'Ivaratti' in the Sanscrit of the Kef-
fenthaler. The change from 'Irawutti' to 'Ivaratti'
is a specimen of actual transposition, which war
rants the assertion of Sir W. Scott, that not only
the English ' Goblin,' but also the Scottish ' Bogle,'
is by some inversion and alteration of pronunciation
evidently derived from certain German spirits,
called ' Kobold.' 2 Even setting aside the mistakes,
into which Europeans might be apt to fall when
dealing with eastern names, the difference which is
produced even by the difference of Asiatic organs
of pronunciation, by giving a different power to the
same letter, is very considerable. Thus the name
of ' China' is derived from the dynasty of ' Thtsin,'
in the third century b.c ; but this word is pro
nounced by the Arabs, ' Sin,' by the Malays 'Chin,'
1 Table Geographique, Histoire d' Expeditions d' Alexandre, iii.
365. 2 Scott's Demonology, p. 118.
c 3

22 EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY
and by the Hindoos Thin ' : and even within nar
rower limits, and in the same country, the same
variations have been produced by time, as have
been already observed in English; for 'Lavana,'
which in Sanscrit is ' Lalt,' becomes in Prakrit
« Lona.' ' Bhavati' becomes ' Hodi.' ' Parusha,' a
man, is ' Puriso ;' and ' Yauvanam,' youth, is ' Jo-
banam.' 2
Surely, therefore, there is evidence enough to
prove, that a difference in the mode of spelling the
names of persons or places should be considered
no bar to the admission of their identity, when
other circumstances corroborate the probability ;
and, for instance, there is no absurdity in supposing
that ' Isapura' or ' Is'pura,' the abode ofthe Indian
gods, in the Sweta Dwipa, or white island of the
West, is the 'Hesperia' ofthe western classics ; and
that the ' Az-burj,' the mountain at which, in Persian
romance, the sun sets, is the ' Asburg' or ' Asgard'
1 History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, 114.
2 Wilson's Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindoos.
A few other instances may be added. The French je and the
Italian io seem to be sufficiently remote, yet the Provencal ieu,
introduced by Dante in his Purgatorio, Cant. xxvi. 141., shows the
connection, and the means by which the one passed into the other.
The Jutes brought over by Hengist and Horsa have had their names
written by various authors, Geatum, Geatani, Jotuni, Juta;, Juitse,
Vitae. — Sharon Turner's Hist, of Ang. Sax. ii. 58.
M. Jomard observes several instances, where alterations of
African names have been introduced by mistakes in MSS. from the
resemblance of the Arabic letters to one another : Tegherry for
Taghazza, Mala for Sala, Nekda for Tagada. — Caillee's Travels to
Timbuctoo, ii. 234.
Sir G. Temple says, that the only word from which the name
we give to a Turkish place of worship Mosque, can be derived, is
Musjed, a chapel. The Egyptians pronounce the J hard like G.
— Travels in Greece, i. 33.

NOT INADMISSIBLE. 23
(the terms being equivalent) of the Germanic na
tions, their heavenly Paradise; and that the other
names of the Sweta Dwipa, ' Ghrita' the bright,
' Teja'the splendid,' Canta' the brilliant, ' Cshira'the
milkwhite, and 'Padma' the flower, may be dis
cerned in the islands of ' Greece,' 'Crete,' ' Teios,'
' Cynthus,' ' Scyrus,' and' Patmos.' For it would be
a great mistake to say, that the languages of Greece
and India are too far separated to admit of the
hypothesis that any affinity between them can
exist, or that neither of them can borrow aid from
the other in philological researches. Long ago,
Levesque was aware that the mother language from
which the Sclavonic, Greek, Latin, and German
languages were derived, contained also roots of the
Persian and Sanscrit ' ; and since the subject has
been more thoroughly investigated, their common
origin has been established beyond a doubt. A
gentleman residing in India writes thus : " It is
evident that the Greeks have borrowed largely
from the Sanscrit. I am delighted and surprised at
times to meet with whole passages actually Greek,
both in words and in grammatical construction.2
" The Pelasgi," says Cuvier, in his Lectures on the
Natural Sciences, " were originally from India, of
which the Sanscrit roots that occur abundantly in
their language do not permit us to doubt. It con
tains the roots of the Greek, Latin, German, and
1 Etudes de l'Histoire ancienne, liv. ii. 73.
2 Letter from the Rev. W. J. Doran ; Travancore, 1830.
C 4

24 EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY
Sclavonic." ' That eminent naturalist was induced
by certain considerations of outward form to divide
mankind into three distinct races, the Caucasian,
the Mongolian, and the African : with respect to
whose common origin, it will matter little from
what accident their characteristic organization may
have arisen, if it shall be shown that the same tra
ditions remained among them, of an event anterior
to their separation, which is commemorated by
similar religious monuments. But the Caucasian
race he further divides into three branches, dis
tinguishable by the analogy of their languages.
One of them, the Scythian and Tartarean, being
of no consequence whatever in literature, needs no
further notice ; but the others are the Aramagan,
which belonged to the Assyrians, the Chaldaeans,
the Arabs, the Phoenicians, the Abyssinians, the
Jews, and probably the Egyptians 2 ; and, 2. a branch
which comprised, besides the Sclavonian 3, the In
dian or Sanscrit, the Pelasgic, from whence Greek
and Latin, and all the idioms in the south of Europe
are derived ; and, lastly, the Gothic or Tudesque,

1 Halhed finds in Sanscrit an equal affinity to Persian and Arabic.
" I have been often astonished," says he, " to find the similitude of
Sanskrit words with those of Persian and Arabic, and even of Latin
and Greek, and that not in technical and metaphorical terms, which
the mutuation of refined arts and improved manners might have
occasionally introduced, but in the groundwork of language, in
monosyllables, in the names of numbers, and the appellations of
such things as would be first discriminated in the immediate dawn of
civilization." — Preface to the Grammar of the Bengal Language, p. 3.
2 To these, the Zend and Celtic may be added. Prichard's
Review of Philological and Physical Researches, p. 532.
3 The Sclavonian includes Russian, Polonese, Bohemian, &c. '

NOT INADMISSIBLE.

25

from which came the German, Dutch, English,
Danish, Swedish, &c. ; and between these languages,
says he, we recognise a multitude of affinities. x A
very striking example of these affinities may be
seen in the following table of the changes in the
persons of the present and perfect tenses of the verb
substantive, a most necessary and elementary word
in all languages. Present.

Sanscrit.

Persic.

Gothic.

Latin.

Greek.

Asmi

Em

Im

Sum

Ei|«i

Asi

i

is

es

E<?

Asti

est

ist
Perfect.

est

EO-TIV

Abhutam

budem

vas

feci

£?««

Abhus

budi

vast

fuisti

xpvi

Abhut

bud

vas

fecit

EfV

To this list of affinities, the Welsh adds its contin
gent ; for ' Bu' may be considered a continuation
of the last series at one end, as the English 'Was 'is
at the other, no two of them being more widely apart
from each other, although connected together by
several intermediate links ; and 'Ys' is precisely the
root in Sanscrit and in the European languages (ex
cept English, where it remains the same), which add
ing the pronominal suffix, makes of the same word
'asti,' '££«,' 'est,' and 'ist.' This abbreviated prono-
minalsuffix is said by Prichardto be always wanting
in Welsh in the third person singular2, and yet that
1 Regne Animal.
2 Eastern Origin of the Celtic Dialects, p. 177. >

2G EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY
mode of distinguishing the persons1 of the verbs
is sufficiently discoverable in the Celtic dialects ;
so that they form a connecting link between the In-
do-Europasan and Semitic languages ; for he classes
the Celtic with the Aramaean branches. Upon this
subject Conybeare has formed a very curious and
interesting calculation, which serves to show that
the two branches are not so widely separated as to
preclude all possibility of finding the one inter
woven with the other, at a very remote period. He
assumes fairly enough, that there are not more
than 2000 radical terms in any language, nor more
than 512 literal roots, from which those terms are
formed: and he then shows by the ordinary
method of calculating chances, that the probable
accidental coincidences between two such mother
tongues will be less than five. " But no one,"
says he, " can cast a hasty glance over the table of
coincidences of the Semitic dialects, with those of
the Indo-European languages, without being at
once struck with the evidence of the superiority
in number of actual coincidences to those which
can appear at all probable as of accidental oc
currence." [ If therefore it should be necessary
to have recourse to Etymology, to corroborate an
argument, or to interpret a myth in the course of
1 Conybeare's Lectures on Theology.
It is easy to find more than the required number in a comparison
of Hebrew and English: — -QJ2? Shiver (Ex. ix. 5.), lyift Month,
2*\,ii Hyssop, ^Vjtf Evil, "Q Bare (Prov. xiv. 4.), V-)tf Earth,
*7DD Mioc> *y& Check, pjy Sack, *t\-fo Lick.

NOT INADMISSIBLE. 27
our researches, no one can reasonably be sur
prised to find fragments of far distant languages,
lying upon the surface of antiquity, like those
boulders of some primitive rock, the detritus from
a distant mountain, which are found scattered over
the face of the newest strata, and puzzle the inex
perienced geologist.1 Hence there is no objection
on the score of distance to admit that the Indian
1 Hanasa,' or, as it is pronounced, ' Hansa,' the bird,
like a heron, which is represented by the Hindoos
carrying their idol Saraswati2, is the same as
' Hahnsy,' which is the name given in Suffolk to the
Heron ; or that ' Booth Dean Spaw,' a well near
a rocking stone, in Rishworth, much esteemed by
the country people, though in truth not remarkable
for any one good quality, derives its reputation
from the Indian ' Boudha.' It is not at all more
extraordinary that the language of India should
be found in England 3, than that the language of
Wales should be found in the interior of Africa,
and yet of this we have some well-authenticated
evidence. " Mrs. Logie, a Welsh lady, the wife
1 Quare verius primsevam linguam nullibi puram exstore, sed
reliquias ejus esse in Unguis omnibus. — Grot. Comm. in Gen.xi. 1.
Toutes nos langues, depuis 1'ocean jusq'au Japon, offrent les vestiges
d' une ancienne langue repandue dans toutes ces contre"es. — M.
Court de Gebelin, Monde Prim. Orig. du Langage. L'examen attentif
que j'ai fait des diverses langues, m'a convaincu que toutes ses
langues avoient une origine commune, c'est a dire, que les langages
descendent les unes des autres d'une maniere indirecte. — M. de
Guignes, Mem. de I'Academie des Inscript., torn. xxix. p. 7-
2 Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 59-
3 Himila is heaven in an old Teutonic Te Deum, preserved by
Hicks.— Prichard on the Celtic Nations, p. 105. This is doubtless
the Indian mountain, the seat of the Hindoo Paradise.

28 EVIDENCE OF ETYMOLOGY NOT INADMISSIBLE.
of a British consul, residing at Algiers, was as
tonished at hearing in the Bazaar some people
from the interior conversing in a language so
similar to the Welsh that she could understand
much of what they said ; she then addressed them
in her native tongue, and found that she could
make herself intelligible to them ." * The Celtic
nations have always been exceedingly tenacious of
their language, as well as their customs ; but it
would be difficult to find a more remarkable proof
of it than this : for when we consider the great
length of time that has elapsed since those
branches separated, it carries back the existing
Welsh to a very remote antiquity ; and therefore
one characteristic feature of it must not pass un
noticed, on account of the latitude which it gives
to the Etymologist. The initial consonant of the
root, which is usually immutable, suffers various
changes from the pronoun, which may happen to
precede it. Thus,

his

Iter

my

Car, a kinsman

Ei gar

Ei char

Vy nghar

Tad, a father

Ei dad

Ei thad

Vy nhad

Pena, head

Ei ben

Ei phen

Vy mhen

Duw, a god

Ei dhnw

Vy nuw

Bara, bread

Ei vara

Vy mara 2

1 Archaeologia, xvi. 119-
2 Eastern Origin of the Celtic Dialects, by Prichard, p. 33.

29

CHAP. II.
TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD, AND THE POWER OF RELIGIOUS
FEELING WHICH ACCOUNTS FOR THEIR PRESERVATION.
In addition to those traditions of the Deluee.
among nations who knew nothing of the Penta
teuch ', which Faber has collected together, in his
Origin of Pagan Idolatry, and which therefore,
though I may have occasion hereafter to refer to
some of them, it is needless to repeat here, there
are others which have come to light since that
time, and may be considered an appendix to the
testimony of a universal cataclysm which his in
dustry had accumulated. Of the Mexican tradition,
he has furnished only a concise abridgment ; but
since Humboldt has added something to our know
ledge upon that subject, it will be useful to give
his statement at full length. He tells us, then, that
"of the different nations who inhabit Mexico,
paintings, representing the deluge of Coxcoe, are
found among the Aztecks, the Miztecks, the

1 Sir William Jones remarks upon the argument of Bryant in his
analysis of ancient Mythology, that if the deluge really happened at
the time recorded by Moses, those nations, whose monuments are
preserved, or whose writings are accessible, must have retained
memorials of an event so stupendous and comparatively so recent.
This reasoning seems just, and the fact is true beyond controversy. —
Works, iii. 197.

30 TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD.
Zapotecks, the Tlascaltecks, and the Mechoachans.
The Noah, Xisuthrus, or Menou of these nations,
is called Coxcox, Teocipactli, or Tezpi. He saved
himself and his wife Xochiquetzal in a bark, or
according to other traditions, on a raft of Ahua-
huete, (the Cupressus disticha) ; but according to
the Mechoachans, he embarked in a spacious
Acalli with his wife, his children, several animals,
and grain, the preservation of which was of im
portance to mankind. When the Great Spirit,
Tezcatlipoca, ordered the waters to withdraw,
Tezpi sent out from his ship a vulture, the Zopi-
lote ; this bird, which feeds on dead flesh, did not
return, on account of the great number of carcasses
with which the earth recently dried up was strewed.
Tezpi sent out other birds, one of which, the
humming-bird, alone returned, holding in its beak
a branch covered with leaves. Tezpi seeing that
fresh verdure began to clothe the soil, quitted
his bark near the mountain of Colhuacan." ' In
another part of the same country, the tradition
extends over a greater space of Scriptural history,
but the points at which it touches upon the true
account are very different. It states, that before
the great inundation, which took place 4800 years
after the creation of the world, the country of
Anahuac was inhabited by giants ; all those who
did not perish were transformed into fishes, ex
cept seven, who fled into caverns. When the
waters subsided, one of the giants, Xelhua, sur-
1 Humboldt's Researches, p. 65.

TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD. 31
named the Architect, went to Cholollan, where, as
a memorial of the mountain, Tlaloc, which had
served as an asylum to himself and his brethren,
he built an artificial hill in form of a pyramid.
The gods beheld with wrath this edifice, the top of
which was to reach the clouds : irritated at the
daring attempt of Xelhua, they hurled fire on the
pyramid : numbers of the workmen perished : the
work was discontinued, and the monument was
afterwards dedicated to Quelzalcoatl, the god of
the air."1 When therefore, in the subsequent part
of this work, evidence shall be produced to show
that caverns were considered sacred, because they
were images of the Ark, and that pyramids were
intended to represent the diluvian mountain, let
it not be deemed a fanciful and chimerical hypo
thesis ; for the Mexican tradition establishes the
fact. But further, in this tradition we recognise not
only the assertion of Scripture, that there were
giants in those days2, and that soon after the flood a
structure was raised in defiance of God, the top of
which was to reach unto heaven 3 ; but also the
very form in which the remains of Babel are still
supposed to exist. In the kingdom of Guatimala,
the tradition proceeds a step further : for the
Teochiapans say, that their ancestors, who came
from the north, were led by a chief whose name
1 Prom a MS. of Pedro de Ios Rios, a Dominican monk, who in
1566 copied on the very spot all the hieroglyphical paintings of
Mexico he could procure. It is confirmed by Humboldt.
2 Gen. vi. 4.
Ibid. xi. 4.

32 TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD.
was Votan or Vodan. He seems to be evidently
the same as the Wodan or Odin, who reigned over
the Scythians; and "we cannot doubt," says
Humboldt, " that Wod or Odin, whose religion,
as the northern historians admit, was introduced
into Scandinavia by a foreign race, was the same
with Buddh, whose rites were probably imported
into India nearly at the same time, though received
much later by the Chinese, who soften his name
into Fo."1 I shall endeavour hereafter to show
that the Chinese retained the original pronuncia
tion, which was hardened by the Hindoos, and
softened by the Scandinavians and Chiapanese ;
which, as far as the latter are concerned, will be
better understood by following the thread of their
tradition. According, then, to the account of the
bishop Francis Nunnez de la Vega, who took
great trouble in collecting these traditions, the
Wodan of the Chiapanese was grandson of that
illustrious old man, who, at the time of the great
deluge, in which the greater part of the human
race perished, was saved on a raft, together with
his family. He co-operated in the construction of
the great edifice, which had been undertaken by
men to reach the skies ; but the execution of this
rash project, was interrupted, and each family re
ceived from that time a different language. 2 The
1 Humboldt's Researches, v. 1. 173.
2 " These are traditions," says Humboldt, " of high and vener
able antiquity, which are found both among the followers of Brahma,
and among the Shamans of the eastern steppes of Tartary." — Hum
boldt's Researches, i. 199-

TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD. 33
impression of the same fact may be traced in
another tradition, which says that the men born
after the deluge were dumb, till a dove, represented
in one of their paintings on the top of a tree,
distributed tongues among them, under the form
of small commas. Now Phut, who it will be
shown was probably the Fo of the Chinese, was
the grandson of Noah ; and might very well have
co-operated with his nephew Nimrod, who is sup
posed to have been the builder of Babel. Even
among the less civilised tribes of that continent,
vestiges of the same tradition of a deluge have
been found, though much disfigured by the ridicu
lous puerilities which too often besmear the face
of truth. "The Crees," says Dr. Richardson, who
accompanied Franklin in his journey to the shores
of the Polar Sea, " all spoke of a universal deluge,
caused by an attempt ofthe fish to drown Wcesach-
ootchacht, a kind of demigod, with whom they
had quarrelled. Having constructed a raft, he em
barked with his family, and all kinds of birds and
beasts. After the flood had continued some time,
he ordered several water fowl to dive to the bot
tom ; they were all drowned ; but a musk rat
having been despatched on the same errand, was
more successful, and returned with a mouthful of
mud." • The Choctaw Indians, who, before their
intercourse with white men, used to assemble the
youth of their villages from time to time, in order
that the old men might rehearse to them the stories
1 P. 73.
VOL. I. D

34 TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD.
which they had received from the preceding gene
ration, repeated one of these to a missionary, who
resided among them for eight or nine years. They
said that a deluge had drowned all men but a few,
who escaped upon a raft of reeds ; these being
bound with bark, the fastenings were gnawed
asunder by beavers. It may easily be supposed,
that their computation of time would not go back
very far ; and accordingly they believed, that their
great grandfathers had conversed with the first
race of men, formed at Nunih Waiya, which was
the first ground seen above the waters.1 Now since
Nunih Waiya means ' the sloping hill,' and is re
ported to have the appearance of being a work of
art, there can be no doubt that it was one of those
huge tumuli, or mounds, representing the diluvian
mountain, which will be described more at large
hereafter. It is to be observed, that in the tradi
tions of the Choctaws, as in those of many other
nations, the first and second birth of the world
are blended together, and a sort of divinity is
attributed to the father of mankind. The account
ofthe deluge preserved among the Dogrib Indians,
who have also a tradition of the fall of man by his
disobedience in eating a forbidden fruit, is of the
same complexion. Chapewee is the name of the
Being who imposed the test of obedience, of the
first man who lived so long that at last he desired to
die, and ofthe person who embarked with his family
in a canoe, and took with him all manner of birds
1 Missionary Herald. Boston, xxiv.

TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD. 35
and beasts to escape from an inundation : for "the
strait on which he lived being choked up by fish
which he had caught in a weir, the waters rose
and overflowed the earth, and covered it for many
days ; but at length he said, ' we cannot always live
thus ; we must find land again :' and he sent a
beaver to search for it ; the beaver was drowned,
and his carcass was seen floating on the water ; he
then despatched a musk rat upon the same errand,
who was long absent, and when he did return
almost died of fatigue, but he had a little earth in
his paws. For a long time, Chapewee's descendants
were united as one family ; but at length, some
young men being accidentally killed in a game, a
quarrel ensued, and a general dispersion of man
kind took place." ' The animals which Noah sent
out, are here metamorphosed into others with
which the Indians were more familiar, without
much attention to the propriety of their employ
ment : but that very circumstance shows what was
the true foundation of the story. At the opposite
extremity of the globe traditions to the same effect,
but somewhat less distinct, have been discovered.
In the Sandwich Islands, the remarkable events of
their history are preserved in songs, committed to
memory by persons who held the hereditary office
of bard2, and therefore the poet may be supposed to
1 Franklin's Journey to the Polar Ocean, p. 294.
2 So also Peter Martyr observes, that the natives of Hayti had
dances, which they performed to the chant of certain ballads, handed
down from generation to generation ; in which were rehearsed the
deeds of their ancestors ; some were of a sacred character, containing
D 2

36 TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD.
have indulged in a little poetic licence ; but in one
of them it is believed that once there was nothing
but sea, till an immense bird settled on the water,
and laid an egg, which soon burst, and produced
the island of Hawaii.1 An egg, we shall see, was a
symbol of the ark, and only two human beings
were said to have been saved from a flood : and
therefore when it is added, that their progenitors
were a man and woman, who came in a canoe with
a hog, and a dog, and a pair of fowls, which com
prise the whole of their domestic animals, though
it is very likely to be a simple matter of fact, yet,
taken in connection with the preceding fable, it
seems to imply something more. In the Tonga
Islands, the earth is said to have been drawn out of
the water by the god Tangaloa.2 Now Tangata
signifies a man, and Loa ' ancient ; ' and since the
souls of deceased chiefs become in the opinion of
the natives inferior gods, the ancient man, to
whom they ascribe divinity and the deliverance of
the earth from its submersion under water, must
have been the patriarch Noah. Lastly, Bali re
cords, we are told, allude to the destruction ofthe
world by water3, and the Californian Indians have
a tradition of the deluge. 4
their superstitions, and fables which comprised their religious creeds.
— Washington Irving' s Life of Columbus, ii. 122. and 124. Bei
den alten Nordlandern waren Poesie und Religion innigst verbunden.
Barth. Hertha, p. 6Q.
1 Ellis's Missionary Tour, pp.439. 451. 472.
2 Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands, ii. 104.
3 Trans. As. Soc. iii. 106.
* Beechey's Voyage to Pacific, ii. 78.

POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. 37
A German writer has observed, that religious
belief, though it escapes not that changeableness
which is the common lot of earthly things, is yet
that which takes deepest root in the mind of man,
and retains its original ideas with most fidelity.1
Historians have too much neglected this truth, and
are too much disposed to find political events in
the fables of mythology, when they ought rather
to explain much that passes for history by reference
to religious notions. Neander indeed complains,
that religious feelings entered so much into all the
characters, customs, and relations of social life,
and ancient history was so much compounded of
tales half mythical, half historical, that the re
ligious matter could no longer be separated from
the mixed mass, nor be disentangled from the in
dividual nature of the life and political character
of each people with which it was interwoven.2
In order to extricate themselves from this em
barrassment, the explorers of antiquity have been
accustomed to strip history altogether of its mythi
cal moiety, and have tortured dates and genealogies
with a blind ingenuity, for the sake of converting
the mysteries of tradition into plain matters of fact.
Thus, for instance, in the history of Attica, the
whole series of kings said to have preceded Theseus
are fictions, owing their existence in great measure
to ancient customs and religious rites misunder-
1 Hertha von C. Barth., p. 180.
2 Neander's Hist, of the Church during the Five First Cent. p. 3.
D 3

38 POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING.
stood.1 Some critics, indeed, have had discrimination
enough to be sensible ofthe effect, though they have
not sufficiently discerned the cause. " Those,"
says Boeckh, " who have deeply investigated anti
quity, know that the whole genealogy of the de
scendants from Hellen is destitute of historical
truth, and was dressed up at a late period, chiefly
by. the cyclian poets after the Homeric age, with
very slender guidance from tradition, and certainly
long after the return of the Heraclidae, in order to
demonstrate the common origin of all the Greeks."3
If, then, those early writers were guilty of an in
tentional distortion of facts to suit a particular
purpose, we must not wonder that modern in
quirers have been misled. But, that religion really
occupied a large space in the popular traditions,
may very fairly be inferred from the respect paid
to the ministers of religion, and the influence
which they enjoyed in society. Among the
Greeks and Romans, the persons appointed to
preside over sacred things were of the noblest
1 Philological Museum, No. v. 347-
M. Court de Gebelin observes, that the Parian Chronicle, in the
Arundel marbles, is not to be depended on as history before the
Trojan war; it contradicts itself in making Cecrops the first king
come from Egypt, where agriculture was certainly understood ; and
yet more than two centuries afterwards Ceres comes to instruct
Triptolemus in that art, under the sixth king Erectheus. The mys
teries of Ceres were perhaps introduced about that time ; but the
whole of the seven kings before Theseus, who, according to Plutarch,
built Athens, are mythological personages, mistaken by the chron
icler for historical kings : 250 years, the duration assigned to their
empire, gives an average of more than 35 to each reign, which is a
length not warranted by the course of nature. — Discours Preliminaire.
2 Boeckh. Not. Crit. ad Pind. Nem. vi. 40—42.

POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. 39
families, and an injury offered to their persons was
deemed injurious to the whole community. This
is the hinge upon which the whole action of the
Iliad turns. The quarrel, which excited the wrath
of Achilles, was occasioned by the injunction of a
priest, which Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief,
durst not disobey ; the pestilence which wasted
the Grecian army was attributed to dishonour done
to a priest, and ceased not till Chryseis was re
stored, without stain or ransom, to her father.
And, at a subsequent period of their history, Alex
ander's allies recommended him to enslave all the
Thebans, who escaped the carnage and the sack,
except the priests and priestesses, and a few private
friends.1 Among the Romans, the priests, who
were called pontifices, were subject to no other
power, and were not bound to render an account
of their actions either to the senate or the people.2
When Cicero pleaded before them for the restitu
tion of his house, he opened his oration by declar
ing, " that of all the institutions transmitted to
them by their ancestors, there was none more ad
mirable than that which appointed the same per
sons to preside over the worship of the gods and
the interests of the state ; so that the most dis
tinguished and illustrious citizens preserved the
commonwealth by their skill, and religion by their
wise interpretations." 3 Even from the city's ear
liest date, when it was first founded by Romulus,
1 Arrian. Exped. Alex. 1. i. c. ii. 2 Dionys. 1. ii.
3 Orat. de Dom.
D 4

40 POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING.
he showed how much importance he attached to
the sanction of a peculiar priesthood, by sending
for persons out of Etruria to direct] the religious
ceremonies on that occasion ' ; and it is remark
able that those ceremonies were of a nature which
connects them with the religious system, which I
shall have hereafter to describe. A circular ditch
was dug round a central space, which was after
wards the Comitium, and its name at that time
was Mundus. When Plutarch adds, that the first
fruits of all useful things were thrown in, and a
small quantity of the earth of the country from
which each man came, it is evident that he fills up
out of his own imagination the meagre outline of
tradition. It happened to be the day sacred to
Pales, the goddess of agriculture, to whom the first
fruits and the soil were a very natural offering,
but they had nothing to do with the Etruscan
rites ; for Pales would have been contented with
out a circle, and the world in general was not under
her jurisdiction : neither were science and refine
ment sufficiently advanced in that country and at
that time to give the world a globular form, or to
convert it into an object of adoration ; for in the
reign of Romulus some of the months consisted of
twenty days, and some were stretched to thirty-
five. Since, therefore, we are as much at liberty
to guess as Plutarch was, it is more probable that
the ditch was dug, as other ditches are, to hold
1 The Laws of the Twelve Tables said, Etruria; principes dis-
ciplinam docento. Cic. de Leg. 1. ii.

POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. 41
water, and that the centre of the future city was
insulated in that way to confer upon it a certain
sanctity, just as we shall see that mounds of
earth, and pyramids, and pillars, were insulated for
the same purpose. Numa's distaste for polytheism
probably originated from the same source ; for
Janus, whose temple he built, will be shown to
have a special reference to the deluge. He for
bade the Romans to represent the Deity in the
form either of man or beast, nor was there among
them formerly any image or statue of the Divine
Being, during the first 170 years.1 He instituted
two sacerdotal orders, who had always high consi
deration among the Romans, the Flamens and the
Vestal Virgins. The Flamens, who at first were
three, according to the genius of a religion which
dealt much in triads, were afterwards multiplied to
suit the polytheists, and every deity had his fla-
men, whose business it was to resolve questions of
right, and to prescribe expiations for offences
against religion.2 In Britain, Jones is quoted by
Toland to show, that the druids executed the of
fice and functions of the flamens beyond the sea.3
It may be worth while, therefore, to learn the
power which they exercised, and the influence of
religion, from the testimony of those who were
adverse to it. " The druids," says he, " drew
the decision of all controversies of law and equity
to themselves, the distribution of all punishments
1 Plutarch. Vit. Num. 2 Cic. de Leg. 1. ii. c. xii.
3 Hist, of Druids, p. 223.

42 POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING.
and rewards, from the power that was first given
or afterwards assumed by them, of determining
matters of ceremony and religion. Most terrible
were the effects of the druidical excommunication
on any man that did not implicitly follow their di
rections, and submit to their decrees ; not only to
the excluding of private persons from all benefits
of society, and even from society itself, but also
to the deposing of princes, who did not please
them, and often devoting them to destruction.
Nor less intolerable was their power of engaging
the nation in war, or of making a disadvantageous
peace, while they had the address to get them
selves exempted from bearing arms, or paying
taxes, and yet to have their persons reputed sacred
and inviolable." 1 If we turn to the other tribes of
northern Europe, we find Gibbon bearing the same
testimony to the power of the sacerdotal order.
" The German priests had assumed a jurisdiction
even in temporal concerns, which the magistrate
could not venture to exercise, and the haughty war
rior patiently submitted to the lash of correction,
when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but
by the immediate order of the god of war." 2 And
again, " In the days of Paganism, the priests of Gaul
and Germany reigned over the people, and con-
trouled the jurisdiction of the magistrates."3 On
the same authority we find, that in the East as well
1 Toland's Hist, of the Druids, p. 50.
2 Decline and Fall of the Rom. Empire, i. 372.
3 Ibid. vi. 276.

POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. 43
as in the West, political power depended upon the
support of religious feeling. The monarchies both
of the Huns and of the Moguls were erected by
their founders on the basis of popular superstition ;
and the administration of Artaxerxes or Ardshir,
who founded the dynasty of the Sassanides in
Persia, was in a great measure directed by the
counsels of the sacerdotal order. These were the
Magi, who were extremely numerous, since four
score thousand of them were convened in a general
council. They possessed a large tract of the most
fertile land in Media, and levied a general tax on
the fortunes and industry of the Persians. Zo
roaster had commanded his disciples to pay tithes
of all that they possessed, of their goods, of their
lands, and of their money. " For the Destours
or priests," said he, " are the teachers of religion ;
they know all things, and they deliver all men." l
When therefore, a German writer observes, that
these Persians, when they conquered Egypt, were
naturally enemies to the ruling caste of priests 2,
the observation indeed is true, but in quite another
sense than that which he intended. The antipathy
to which he alludes was the effect, far more of re
ligious differences, than of a struggle for power ;
for the priests were as much a ruling caste in Per
sia as in Egypt ; and if in the latter country the
same system of religion had prevailed, their au
thority would have been equally respected. The
1 Gibbon's Hist. i. 327-
2 A. H. L. Heeren's Reflections on Africa, &c. ii. 124.

44 POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING.
nature of that difference will be explained here
after; in the mean time it will be sufficient to
observe, that the priests are admitted to have
been, after the king, the principal persons in the
country. The king bound himself by the rules
established in their conclave ; their persons were
respected, and their laws obeyed without a mur
mur ; and they were in possession of one third of
the whole land. l M. Larcher attributes so much
to their influence in the explication of history, that,
in his opinion, all the successive reigns of the gods
in Egypt are to be considered only as so many
colleges of priests, succeeding and subverting one
another. 2 For, at a much later period, we are as
sured that a religious dispute was sufficient at any
time to kindle a sedition among the vast multitude
who peopled Alexandria. 3 The zeal for their
own idolatry, with which the Magi contrived to
inspire their victorious chieftains, was exemplified
in another remarkable instance. When Tiridates
recovered Armenia, a.d. 286, the statues of the
deified kings and the sacred images of the sun and
moon were broken in pieces by the Persian con
querors, and the perpetual fire of Ormuzd was
kindled upon an altar erected on the summit of
Mount Bagavan 4 , which no doubt had before
been devoted to a very different system of rites,
1 Col. Tod's Comparison of the Hind, and Theb. Hercul., Trans.
As. Soc. v. iii. 232. Diod. Sic. lib. i. 66.
2 Etudes de l'Histoire ancienne, par P. C. Levesque, i. 390.
3 Gibbon's Hist. i. 453.
4 Ibid. ii. p. 140.

POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. 45
more resembling those which were practised in
Egypt. Again, in Hindostan, the sacerdotal caste
enjoyed the same high station in society, and com
manded the same respect from the military chiefs.
Thus it is related, that in 1798, Bajee Rao, the
Peishwa, laid his head at the feet of Nana Fur-
nawees, and swore by those feet to consider him
his father : where it is remarked by the historian,
that to swear by the feet of a Brahmin, is one of
the most sacred and solemn of Hindoo oaths : ;
and though the Mahrattas are not so remarkable
as the other Hindoos for their veneration of that
order, yet Sivajee, the founder of their power, be
fore he ventured on his expedition into the Car-
natic in 1677> went to the temple of Purwuttum,
and gave large sums to the Brahmins, who, though
they are the priesthood, have long been the principal
officers, civil and military, in all Hindoo states, and
those who strictly follow the tenets of their faith
are held in great esteem. 2 Lastly, in the South
Sea Islands, the priests must of necessity have had
great political power, since the gods were invoked
in their persons. Tooi Tonga was the name of an
hereditary priest, who was always sacred in his
lifetime, and worshipped after death. 3 Since, then,
it has been abundantly proved, from the respect

1 Duff's Hist, of the Mahrattas, iii. 171.
1 Ibid. i. 278. and 10.
3 Tooi means a Chief, and To'onga is a sign of the plural number
of animated beings ; so that the priest was considered the chief of
animated beings, though he was not the chief of any tribe. —
Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands, i. 365.

46 POWER OF RELIGIOUS FEELING.
shown by so many different nations to the ministers
of religion, and the exalted station they occupied
in society, that religion itself, however false, how
ever superstitious, however absurd, must have been
a political engine of the first importance, in deter
mining the government and institutions of the ear
liest ages, it is not unreasonable to conclude that
many of those names which have floated down to
us upon the stream of time, and puzzle us to say
from whence they came, had their real origin in
this source ; and that many of those achievements
which have been sometimes taken for sheer fable,
and at other times, with laborious futility, have
been digested into serious history, are in truth
traditional notices of sacerdotal conflicts, and the
struggle of rival sects ; which, when their power
had yielded to other forms of worship, and the in
terest in their success had passed away, were con
verted into the exploits of heroes by the active
imagination of a warlike people.

47

CHAP. III.
INSTANCES OF THE PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES.
But besides the records of tradition, other records
of the earliest time, engraven on popular usages,
have survived the recollection of their origin among
those who practise them,' — usages which yet may be
traced up to their real source by a diligent investi
gation of history. If, then, many of these usages
can be seen to converge to one point from many
different parts of the globe's circumference, that
point must be the centre of the circle, the central
point from which all such customs and all nations
have radiated in various directions. Vallancey
urges the same" argument, though with differ
ent views. " If," says he, " we meet with many
religious customs generally practised by the in
habitants of Syria and the eastern world, and
equally followed by the western inhabitants of
Gaul, Germany, Spain, Britain, and Ireland ; if
we find monuments of the same kind in Africa and
Sweden, or still more distant regions, — we are not
to be surprised, but to consider that mankind
travelled from Babel equally instructed in all the
notions and customs common to them there, and
that it is no wonder if some of the deepest rooted

48 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
principles, and the most prevailing customs, reached
even as far as mankind extended themselves, that
is, to the utmost extremities of the earth."1 If
any one doubts the possibility of customs continu
ing in force so long after the reason of them has
been lost and the intention forgotten, it may be
useful to convince him of his error by adducing a
few examples of the fact. At Aboukir, the site of
the ancient Can opus, which was formerly an insu
lated rock, the temple of Serapis stood, and Strabo
describes the number of pilgrims who resorted to
it as something quite astonishing.2 "These pilgrim
ages," says Savary, " which have been customary
ever since the time of Herodotus, still subsist in
our own days. The Pagans went to the temple of
Serapis ; the Turks go to the tomb of their santons
there ; the Copts to the churches of their saints ;
and both these abandon themselves to enjoyment,
and Turkish gravity has been unable to abolish
those licentious songs and dances which seem to
have originated with the Egyptians."3 It must
be granted that a usage which extends from the
first worship of Serapis in Egypt down to the
present time, can boast of no inconsiderable dura
tion. But when it shall have been shown who
the deity was whom they worshipped at Canopus,
it will be seen that the custom is connected by an
uninterrupted chain with the first events of the
1 Essay on the Celtic Language, p. 42.
2 Strabo, i. 17.
3 Lettres sur l'Egypte, par M. Savary, i. 44.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 49
regenerated world. At Orchomenus, we learn from
Dr. Clarke that the children wear small stones
about their necks, which are superstitiously re
garded. It is a superstition noticed by Pausanias
1700 years ago ', and it then belonged to an age
equally remote, as I shall have occasion to show ;
but its continuance during the latter period is the
more remarkable, because it might have been ex
pected that the light of the Gospel would have
brought it into contempt. It is indeed a most
striking proof of the difficulty with which here
ditary superstition is eradicated from the mind,
that Christianity has failed to produce that effect
in a great variety of instances ; one of the most
singular is related by the same writer. " At
Lebadea the secretary of the Archon, considered a
man of education among the Greeks of that city,
speaking of the tops of the mountains, and particu
larly of Parnassus, said, ' It is there that the old
gods have resided ever since they were driven from
the plains ; ' and observing that we were amused
with his observation, he added with great serious
ness, ' They did strange things in this country ;
those old gods are not fit subjects for laughter.' " 2
We recognise here exactly the same feeling which
Strabo describes when he tells us that all Parnassus
was esteemed sacred.3 The reason of its sacred
character will be better understood, if we bear in
1 T«5 fj.lv Sy/ TtLTQouq o-£€ovvl te fiaXiafoc. Bceot. C. xxxviii.
2 Clarke's Travels, vii. 21 6.
3 TEpowpEiT)); Stern i«{ 0 ttaovxao-fa. Geog. 1. ix. 604.
VOL. I. E

50 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
mind that it is a solitary lofty mountain, that its
two peaks are visible at a great distance, and that
the crater on its summit contains a pool of water.
From Delphi, which was situated at the lower part
of this mountain, a stone column sustaining a
brazen serpent was removed to Constantinople.
Now the serpent was an ancient symbol of the
deluge, and therefore belonged very properly to
Parnassus ; but after it came in contact with the
Jewish history, it assumed another meaning, in
allusion to one of the earliest events of that history,
and retained it till the middle of the seventeenth
century at least ; for a writer of that period, de
scribing the entrance of Mahomet into Constan
tinople, relates the following anecdote : " When
the conqueror came to the Atmeidan, and saw the
serpent, he asked ' What idol is that ? ' and at the
same time hurling his iron mace with great force
knocked off the lower jaw of one of its triple heads ;
upon which immediately a great number of ser
pents began to be seen in the city ; whereupon
some advised him to leave that serpent alone from
thenceforth, since through that image it was that
there were before no serpents in the city. Where
fore," adds the chronicler, " that column remains
to this day ; and although in consequence of the
lower jaw being struck off some serpents do come
into the city, yet they do no harm to any one." '
Now though neither the Mahommedan nor the
1 Leunclavius, Annales Turcici, sect. 130. Deane on Serpent
Worship, p. 200.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 51
Jew expressly referred this protection from the
serpent's bite to its Jewish origin, there can be no
doubt that the notion took its rise from the brazen
serpent in the wilderness. But idolatry has left
numerous traces of its sway even in the bosom of
the Christian church. In Gait's Life of Lord
Byron it is mentioned, that on the first evening
of the new moon the Athenian maidens, who are
anxious to get husbands, put a little honey, a little
salt, and a piece of bread on a plate, which they
leave at a particular spot on the east bank of the
Ilyssus, near the stadium, and muttering some
ancient words to the effect that fate may send them
a handsome young man, return home and long for
the fulfilment of the charm. However little the
Athenian maidens may be conscious of what they
are doing, these offerings are in fact a sacrifice to
Venus ; for it appears from Pausanias, that a statue
of Venus formerly stood on that very spot. But
the Church of Rome in a more especial manner
lends her sanction to the inheritance of idolatry.
In Sicily, at Enna, now Castrogiovanni, which,
according to Livy, was the spot in the whole
island regarded with most religious reverence, the
temple of Proserpine is said to have been built, the
scene of her rape being the borders of a lake five
miles off: and Ceres came from her temple on the
opposite side of the city to pay an annual visit to
her daughter. The same custom still prevails ; for
the Madonna is removed from the Chiesa della
Madre to that of the Padri Reformati every year,
E 2

52 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
and makes an annual stay of fifteen days, during
which time a great concourse of people assembles,
and continual feastings are held on the plain.1 It
is evident that the Virgin Mary has in this case
succeeded not only to the honours, but even to
the name of Ceres ; for the Greeks called her De-
meter. In another instance she partakes of her
lunar dignity ; for Ceres was a name of the moon.
In the church at Radna, the figure of a Turk on
horseback is painted on the wall over a stone that
had the mark of a crescent. The figure of the
Virgin in the sky appears fastening the hoof to the
rock, where it has left the impression of the shoe.
The inscription, jealous of the Turkish symbol,
transfers the honour of the crescent to the Virgin
in these lines : —
Turcae equus en ! mediae pede format cornua lunas,
Quem lapidi affixum Luna Maria tenet.2
At Eleusis in Greece, which was so long her most
favourite abode, the statue of Ceres is still regarded
with a high degree of superstitious veneration. The
inhabitants of the small village situated among its
ruins attribute to its presence the fertility of their
land. 3 But in general there is a broad distinction
between the remnants of the overthrown idolatry

1 Sir R. C. Hoare's Travels in Sicily, ii. 248.
2 Walsh's Journey from Constantinople, 375.
3 Clarke's Travels, vi. 563. The same notion may be traced in
the name of the doll composed of ears of corn, and carried in
triumphant procession with loud shouts in the north of England
under the title of the Kern at the close of the harvest.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 53
in Greece and at Rome : in Greece, they are like
a Codex Palimpsestus, on which, though the writing
is erased, yet the marks of it are sufficiently visible
to the observant eye. Thus the priests of a village
called Scamnya go annually on the 20th day of
June, to perform mass on the highest point of
Olympus1, the residence ofthe ancient gods, which
however is related by its form to a much earlier
system of religion ; for it is shaped like a tumulus,
the meaning of which must be reserved for future
consideration. And again, on Mount Hymettus,
where there was once a temple of Venus, and a
fountain supposed to facilitate parturition, there is
now a monastery, to which the Greek women still
repair at particular seasons ; and the priest told
Chandler, that a dove, which it will be recollected
was the bird sacred to Venus, is seen to fly down
from heaven to drink of the water annually at the
feast of Pentecost. 2 Here, again, we may perceive
the same spirit of accommodation : for the dove,
which has been so adroitly shifted into successive
forms of worship, originally belonged to a more an
cient system of religion : for she belonged to the
history of the deluge ; and the bull's head found in
the same place sculptured upon a marble cistern,
for reasons which will be explained hereafter, may
be considered a part of the same system. But at
Rome, even the names of the idols have been re-

1 Clarke's Travels, vii. 388.
2 Chandler's Travels in Greece, 145. Clarke's Travels, vi. 345.
E 3

54 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
tained, and the inscription of idolatry upon them
is perfectly legible. Thus Middleton affirms that
he saw in that city an altar erected ta St. Baccho [ ;
and other pagan-like saints, whom he enumerates,
are Quirinus, Romula, Concordia, Nympha, and
Mercurius. The burning of candles at these altars,
and the votive offerings after recovery in the shape
of the cured limbs, are customs imported from
Egypt. The former is mentioned by Herodotus2,
and of the latter, specimens may be seen among
the antiquities at the British Museum. In Lon
don, up to the time of the Reformation, the wor
ship of Diana was performed, not avowedly, but
substantially, with all its ancient rites. From the
evidence of Erasmus, it appears that it was the
custom at that time, upon a certain day, to intro
duce into the great church of St. Paul the head
of a wild beast, fixed upon the point of a long spear,
accompanied by a disagreeble noise of hunters'
horns.3 Now, St. Paul's was originally built by
Ethelbert, king of Kent, upon the site of a temple
of Diana the huntress. But even under the sway
of a reformed faith, many customs still keep their
ground, which deduce their unsuspected origin
from pagan rites. The practice, for instance, of
perambulating the boundaries of parishes in Roga
tion week is derived from the procession in honour
of Terminus, the god of boundaries. The pancake
of Shrove Tuesday is said to have succeeded to a
1 Letter from Rome, 354. 2 Lib. ii. 62.
3 Eras. Op. torn. v. p. 701.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 55
feast in the Fornicalia, appointed to commemorate
the manner in which bread was baked before the
invention of the oven by the deified Fornax. The
festivities of May- day are only a continuation of
the Floralia; and the Christmas holidays are a
substitute for the license of the Saturnalia. Sir
Isaac Newton, indeed, gives a different reason for
our Lord's Nativity being assigned to the 25th of
December. But it comes to the same purpose.
It is all in the spirit of accommodation to pre-exist
ing rites. " The Christian festivals," says he, "were
allotted to the most remarkable days in the Julian
calendar : the saints' days to those on which the
sun entered the different signs : the Annunciation
to the 25th of March, because it was the vernal
equinox : the feast of St. Michael to September 29.,
because it was the autumnal equinox : of John
the Baptist to June the 24th, because it was the
summer solstice ; and the birth of Christ to De
cember 25., because it was the winter solstice." '
This, however, is only to substitute one form of
idolatry for another ; for the equinoxes and solstices
were sacred days only to those who worshipped the
sun. But whichever explanation be adopted, it is
certain that the mode in which the festival is cele
brated was borrowed from the heathen ; for it
was on that account interdicted by ecclesiastical
authority. "Be it forbidden," says one of the
councils, "to commit the irregularity of observing
1 Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, p. 144.
E 4

56 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
the Kalends, and to keep Gentile holidays, and to
hang laurels and evergreens round the walls ofthe
houses ; for all these observances belong to pagan
ism." l And Prynne, in his Histriomastix, cites
other councils, forbidding the early Christians, " to
deck up their houses with laurel, yvie, and green
boughes, as we used to do in the Christmas sea
son." 2 The original meaning of this custom is
thus explained by Chandler in his Travels in
Greece : — " Where Druidism prevailed, the houses
were decked with evergreens in December, that
the sylvan spirits might repair to them, and remain
unnipped with frost and cold winds, until a milder
season had renewed the foliage of their favourite
abodes." But there was one evergreen which the
Druids took under their particular protection, and
attached to it a sacred and mysterious importance :
in distributing the misletoe among the people, they
used to cry out Giul ain nuadh ; and in Burgundy
it is said that the children and rustics still ask for
their new year's gifts by the word Ginlaneuf. Both
terms are evidently equivalent ; and, according to
Vallancey, who states that this pagan custom is still
preserved in Ireland by a set of mummers, who
parade annually on that day in all parts of the king
dom, the meaning of them is — "the misletoe ofthe
new year." 3 But Bede supplies a better interpret-
1 Braecanae, canon 73.
2 Brand's Popular Antiquities, i. 404. Tortull. de Idololat.
c. xv. 3 Giu is any viscus. Ain is a circle, Nuadh is new in Irish. Essay
on Celt. Liter, p. 67.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 57
ation : tlie Anglo-Saxon Geol or Jule, which was
the first day of the year, he derives from the turn- .
ing of the sun, which of course implies that the
solstice was the beginning of the year ; and this
is in accordance with the present use of the word
Yule in the north of England, where it signifies
Christmas. In an Anglo-Saxon hymn1, we find an
expression which is a sufficient warrant for the ety
mology : Gylsunne — let the sun return or shine.
The return, however, of the sun from the tropics is
so little perceptible on any particular clay, except
to the accurate observation of the astronomer, that
it could never be the ground of any popular re
joicing ; but if a family had been obliged to live in
a place from which the sun was almost excluded,
during the space of a year, in the midst of a most
awful and appalling catastrophe, the return of the
day on which they hailed the light of the returning
sun, would be a festival to be transmitted with joy
and gratitude to their descendants : and if those
descendants were accustomed to look out for ob
jects which might remind them of the mountain
between the menoeid peaks of which their floating
microcosm grounded ; and if the largest vessels
which they could see were also in the shape ofthe
moon in her first quarter, then nothing could be
better suited for their purpose than the misletoe,
which has stems repeatedly forked, and its globular
fruit lying in the axilke between a pair of leaves
which, when fully expanded, forms a crescent and
1 Sharon Turner's Hist, of the Ang. Sax. p. 19.

58 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
a boat. One of the consequences of the same form-
was the worship of the moon, which has also been
traced up to a very late period in some strange
customs, of which no other rational account can be
surmised. In the reign of Louis XIV., a man per
sonating a prince, and called Roifollet, went from
the village into the woods at Christmas, bawling
out, " Ou gui menez." Hence, says Professor Ro
binson, in his work on Natural Philosophy, " the
Guiscarts of Edinburgh, who were persons dis
guised, derived their cry, Hay menay ; both being
corruptions of ay/ajavfj/T), the sacred moon." Another
Christmas custom goes back to a date of very re
mote antiquity. Maid Marian, in the morris-dance,
is said to be a corruption of Miriam the prophetess,
whose dancing women suggested the first notion
of a female morris-dancer. ! The next festival
which partakes most largely of ancient superstition
is Candlemas, the origin of which is thus described
by an ancient writer : " On the second day of Febru
ary, the Romaines went about the city of Rome in
the night, with torches and candles brenning in
worship of Februa, for hope to have the more help
and succour of her son Mars. Then there was a
pope, called Sergius, and when he saw Christian
people draw to this false maumetry and untrue be
lief, he thought to undo this foul use and custom,
and turn it unto God's worship and our Lady's, and
gave commandment that all Christian people should
come to church, and offer up a candle brenning in
1 Smith's Festivals.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 59
the worship that they did to this woman Februa,
and do worship to our Lady, and to her Sonne our
Lord Jesus Christ ; so that now this feast is so
lemnly hallowed thorowe all Christendome." ¦ A
few weeks later in the year, another very singular
practice, though of much more limited extent, pro
claims the durability even of the most irrational
usages, when they are once rooted in the habits of
a people. In Northumberland, grey peas which
have been steeped in water are fried with various
condiments on Midlent Sunday, which was formerly
called Care, or Carle, and now is Carlin Sunday, and
this dish is eaten in almost every cottage : yet no
one knows why ; there is not one among them that
can explain the custom ; and they would be much
surprised to learn that it is the remnant of an old
heathen superstition. There is, indeed, some little
variety of time and circumstance, but not more
than may be easily explained. The origin of the
name is German : for in that language formerly
Karr signified a fine or punishment of transgres
sion, or rather satisfaction made for punishment.2
Hence, Karrwochen was used for Passion-week, of
which the first day was called in the church of
Rome Passion-Sunday ; and rites peculiar to Good
Friday (in German, Karr Fryetag) were performed
upon it. These rites, therefore, were doubtless the
same as those observed upon the 12th of March at

1 The English Festyvall, in Brand's Observ. on Pop. Antiq.
p. 39- 2 Hospinian de orig. Fest. Christ, fol. 54.

60 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
Rome, where, on that day, we are told, they ob
served the mysteries of Christ, and his passion, with
great ceremony and much devotion. l
There can be little doubt that a part of that
ceremony was the distribution of pulse 2, which, in
an old Roman calendar, is assigned to the 12th of
March ; for it was the custom there — a custom de
rived from their heathen ancestors — to give away
beans at funerals. 3 Erasmus observes that the
Flamen Dialis was not allowed to touch or even to
name beans, because they were supposed to belong
to the dead, and were used in sacrifices to the dead,
and letters of woe were discernible in their flower. 4
One of the reasons given by Pliny for the prohi
bition of beans by Pythagoras is, that the souls of
the dead were in them : which seems to admit of
only one explanation. The bean-pod is shaped like
the Egyptian Bari, and consequently like the
boat in which the souls of the dead were ferried
across Styx by Charon : for that story belongs to
Egypt. Since then such mysterious properties
were ascribed to this plant, and the superstitious
heathen, after having cleansed his hands at the
fountain, is represented turning away to propitiate
the infernal spirits by throwing beans out of his
mouth, and saying, " With these beans I redeem
1 Lloyd's Dial, of Days.
2 Faba? molles in sportulam dantur. — Brand's Popular Antiquities.
3 Fabis Romani saepius in sacrifices funeralibus operati sunt nee
est ea consuetudo abolita alicubi inter Christianos, ubi in eleemosi-
nam pro mortuis fabre distribuuntur. — Moresini Papatus. p. 55.
4 Erasm. Adag. in A Fabis abstineto.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 61
myself and mine," ' it might be thought that they
would be a memorial of real redemption suffi
ciently falling in with the habits of the new con
verts, to be readily employed in a new service.
In England, peas were substituted for beans, per
haps because it was a pulse more easily procured,
and more fit to be eaten at that season of the year ;
and with respect to the time, Easter being a move
able feast, the 12th of March would coincide with
different Sundays in Lent, in the different years
when the custom was introduced into different re
gions. This is not the only instance in which our
sacred festivals have been contaminated by the ad
hesion of some old idolatry : neither Good Friday
nor Easter have escaped. The bun of the former
is the Grecian Boun, which Julius Pollux and He-
sychius explain to be a cake with horns, offered
every seventh day, as Bryant says, in Arkite tem
ples, and originating with Cecrops, or, in other
words, with the commencement of Grecian history.
The latter is the name of a goddess, whose festi
vities were celebrated in April. " The name of
Eostre," says Sharon Turner, " is still retained to
express the season of our great pascal solemnity,
and thus the memory of one ofthe idols of our an
cestors will be perpetuated as long as our language

Terque manus puras fontana proluit unda,
Vertitur et nigras accipit ore fabas ;
Aversusque jacit ; sed dum jacit, hax ego mitto,
His, inquit, redimo meque meosque fabis.
Ovid, Fast. v. 435.

62 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
and country continue." l Two others have been
doomed to a more disgraceful fate, one being ap
propriated to the impostures of the conjuror, and
the other a synonom for Satan. Ochus Bochus
the magician and Neccus the demon are still pre
served in Hocus Pocus and Old Nick. Sir Walter
Scott, who was a great lover of old traditions, has
discovered many relics of former times in his own
country, and his observations are so much to the
purpose, that I cannot do better than transcribe
them. " Though the thrones of Jupiter and the
rest were overthrown and broken in pieces, frag
ments of their worship, and many of their rites, sur
vived the conversion to Christianity — nay, are in
existence even at this late and enlightened period,
although those by whom they are practised have
not preserved the least memory of their original
purpose." Among the ancient customs which he
mentions, these are remarkable : " When the bride
in Scotland enters her husband's house, she is lifted
over the threshold, and to step on it or over it vo
luntarily is reckoned a bad omen. This custom
was universal in Rome, where it was observed as
keeping in memory the rape of the Sabines, and
that it was by a show of violence toward the females
that the object of peopling the city was obtained.
On the same occasion, a sweet cake, baked for the
purpose, is broken above the head of the bride,
which is also a rite of classic antiquity. In like
1 Hist, of Anglo Saxons, ii. 15.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 63
manner, the Scottish, even of the better rank,
avoid contracting marriage in the month of May.
The ancients have given us a maxim, that it is only
bad women who marry in that month. l The cus
tom of saying ' God bless you,' when a person
sneezes, is derived from sternutation being consi
dered as a crisis of the plague in Athens, and the
hope that when it was attained the patient had a
chance of recovery." 2 There are other ancient,
perhaps more ancient, superstitions, though not de
rived from a classic source, to the existence of
which, notwithstanding the diffusion of evangelical
light for eighteen hundred years, he likewise bears
witness. "In many parishes of Scotland, a certain
portion of land, called the Gudeman's Croft, was
never ploughed or cultivated, but suffered to remain
waste, like the temenos of a pagan temple. There
must be still many alive who in childhood have
been taught to look with wonder on knolls and
patches of ground left uncultivated, because when
ever a ploughshare entered the soil the elementary
spirits were disposed to testify their displeasure by
storms and thunder. For the same reason, the
mounts called Sith Bhruaith were respected, and it
was deemed dangerous and unlawful to cut wood,
dig earth and stones, or otherwise disturb them." 3
The real cause why these knolls and mounds were
so much respected will be shown in the sequel.
But before we take our leave of this writer, another
1 Mala: nubent Maia. 2 Demonology, 93, 94.
3 Kirke's Ess. Scott's Demonology, 87-

64 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
anecdote, which he has furnished in his own most
characteristic style, may be cited to show how
easily the most ancient monuments are sometimes
appropriated to events comparatively recent, riot
only by the ignorance of the natives, but by their
desire to impose upon the credulity of travellers ;
and the positive information of those who ought to
know the truth is only calculated to mislead us,
and to disguise with a mask of history the remains
of an unknown age. " In the celebrated field of
battle at Killiecrankie, the traveller is struck with
one of those rugged pillars of rough stone which
indicate the scenes of ancient conflict. A friend of
the author, well acquainted with the circumstances
of the battle, was standing near this large stone,
and looking on the scene around, when a highland
shepherd hurried down from the hill to offer his
services as cicerone, and proceeded to inform him
that Dundee was slain at that stone, which was
raised to his memory. "Fie, Donald ! " answered my
friend, "how can you tell such a story to a stranger ?
I am sure you know well enough that Dundee was
killed at a considerable distance from this place,
near the house of Fascally, and that this stone was
here long before the battle in 1688." "Oich! Oich!"
said Donald no way abashed, "and your honour's in
the right, and I see you ken a' about it, and he was
na killed on the spot neither, but lived till the next
morning. But a' the Saxon gentlemen like best to
hear he was killed at the great stane." l The an-
1 Note to the Abbott.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 65
tiquities in which Scott delighted, were local anti
quities, and therefore comparatively recent ; they
were ancient as regards the history of these islands,
but not with reference to the history of the world : '
his imagination, therefore, could not go back be
yond the heroic age, the age of wars and conflicts;
and every monument appeared to him a monument
of sanguinary strife. Yet in Ireland, where ancient
superstitions are not so easily eradicated, he might
have learned that the records of those rugged
pillars are the mysteries of a deeper-seated feeling
than mere valour can command. A writer, who
made it his business to investigate those supersti
tions, thus relates the answer to one of his en
quiries : — "When I pressed a very old man to state
what advantage he expected to derive from the sin
gular custom of frequenting in particular such wells
as were contiguous to an old blasted oak, or an up
right unhewn stone, his answer was, ' that their an
cestors always did it ; that it was a preservative

1 In Isabel Gowdie's Confession of Witchcraft it is stated that,
when they came to the Dounie Hills, the mountain opened to receive
them : at the entrance ramped and roared the fairy bulls, which
were probably, says Scott, the water bulls famous both in Scottish
and Irish tradition  Demonology, 156. But famous though, they
were, they had no charms for him : the question, why they should
be water-bulls, or what these bulls had to do with a mountain, ex
cited no interest in his inquisitive mind. We shall see in the sequel,
that the bulls were intimately connected with the mountain, pre
cisely because they were water- bulls. For the present it may suffice
to observe that the three objects, which seem to have been brought so
incongruously together in this tradition, were really united under one
name. For Tauvis is the name of a bull, and of a mountain, and
of one of the channels by which the Nile discharges its waters into
the sea. — Sol. Polyhist. c. xxxii.
VOL. I. F

66 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
against Geasa Draoideckt, that is, the sorceries of
the Druids.' And so thoroughly persuaded were
they of the sanctity of these Pagan practices, that
they would travel bareheaded and barefooted from
ten to twenty miles for the purpose of crawling on
their knees round these wells, and upright stones,
and oak-trees, westward as the sun travels, some
three times, some six, some nine, and so on, until
their voluntary penances were completely fulfilled." '
In the progress of this work, it will be shown
that certain towers, which have always been cover
ed with a veil of mystery, were, in fact, only more
elaborate pillars, and subserved the same purpose as
the tall unhewn stone. It is therefore interesting to
learn, that, at a place bearing the remarkable name
of Bel, or Baal, crowds of people assemble at one
season of the year, round one of these towers, and
not only perform various ceremonies, which con
clude with feasting and dancing, but that they
regard the river too with a respect, which is the re
mains of ancient veneration, and that much of the
Pagan worship is retained in their present rites.2
In Scotland, indeed, the veneration of the tower
being mingled with the warlike spirit ofthe people,
the custom has been warped to record the conten
tion of rival sects. In Mid-Lothian it was the
custom of the shepherds to raise towers of sods,
seven or eight feet high, on Lammas-day. At the
bottom, the diameter was about four feet; and at
1 Third Letter on Ireland by Columbanus.
2 Survey of Mayo, p. 130. Miss Beaufort's Essay.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 67
the top, they tapered to a point, so that the shape
was something between a pyramid and a cone.
This tower was begun a month before, and, during
that time, defended with the most jealous care
from the attacks of the herds in the adjoining dis
tricts. Having preserved their tower inviolate till
the afternoon of Lammas-day, they concluded with
races and other sports.1 In another part, however,
craggy stones, of the same description as that
which Scott saw, exercise the same sacred influence
over an adjoining spring. Near Tillee Beltane, in
Perthshire, are two groups of upright stones,
where, on Beltane morning, superstitious people
go to drink of the well, which is still held in great
veneration, and then walk in procession round it
nine times.2 But perhaps the most remarkable
instance of this sort, as connecting recent usages
with the cradle of the postdiluvian race of men, is
to be found in another part of the same country.
The waters of Strathfillan are situated near what
is supposed to be the highest ground in Scotland :
thither, at the beginning of summer and harvest,
crowds of sick people flock from the remotest parts
of Argyleshire and other places, as to a panacea
for every disorder. Three several journeys are
necessary : they bathe thrice, and go thrice round
some earns at a moderate distance, performing
1 Trans. Soc. Antiq. v. i. 196.
2 Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish Language. The Eleusmian
women practised a dance about a well, which was called Callichorus ;
and their dance was accompanied by songs in honour of Ceres. —
Clarke's Travels, v. iii. 430.
F 2

68 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
always the circumvolutions with the course of the
sun.1 Now no one believes, no one at least except
the Argyleshire peasantry and their immediate
neighbours, that the waters of Strathfillan really
possess medicinal virtues sufficient to cure all dis
orders. It is an opinion not only propagated, but
originally devised by superstition ; and surely it
could be not without design, that so inconvenient
a spot was selected for the purpose, as the highest
ground in Scotland. If, then, there was a time
when the highest ground ofthe then known globe
was an object, if not of worship, yet at least of
devout veneration, and an extraordinary efficacy
was ascribed to the waters that surrounded it ; that
is the date which may, with great probability, be
assigned to the origin of the Scottish superstition ;
"which will carry us back to the period, when the
Armenian mountain was the only land seen above
the flood, and the diluvian waters were supposed
to have purged the earth of its former guilt and
corruption. The earns would represent the lower
hills, and the revolutions round them, according to
the course ofthe sun, the great number of days during
which the threeheadsof the human race were kept in
durance and in danger ; for a superstition, which can
only be founded on the same great catastrophe, is still
cherished by the Irish branch of the same Celtic
race. The inhabitants of the Arran Islands, on the
western coast of Ireland, believe, that from time to
time they see the shores of a happy island rise
1 Trans. Soc. Ant. in Scotland, p. 79-

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 69
above the waves ; and they say that Ireland was
formerly united to that land, until for the sins of
its inhabitants, the greater part of it was engulphed
in the ocean.1 The punishment of sin, by drown
ing the land which it corrupted, and the acknow
ledgment of a paradise in the pre-existing world,
are features of the truth, which it is impossible to
mistake. Even, however, if this conclusion were
denied, still the evidence of the enduring nature
of superstition would be scarcely less strong ; for
the more you make it irrational, by taking away a
sufficient cause, the more you increase the wonder.
Whatever may be the origin of the persuasion, its
immediate descent (if any thing can be called
immediate which may be considered at least 3000
years old) is undoubtedly from Hindostan ; for
there the Sanscrit books speak much of the happy
island in the west where the progenitors of man
kind reside : and Marco Polo reports the same
story of Ceylon, as the Arrannese do of Ireland.
Another point may be noticed here, in which Ire
land coincides with the East. The Hindoos believe
that, by passing through a hole in a rock, regenera
tion may be obtained; a corresponding notion
among the Irish is thus related : — In the island of
Innisfollen, in the Lake of Killarney, there grows
a tree called the eye of the needle, from a hole
caused by its rising with a double trunk, and
uniting again above. When the visitor asked the
use of squeezing through it, the guide replied,
1 Lardner's Ancient Geography, p. 385.
F 3

70 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
" It will ensure your honour a long life." l Now if
those notions arose, as Bryant maintains, from the
passage through the door of the ark into a new
state of existence on the renovated earth, the
wooden aperture at Innisfollen was a more appro
priate memorial than the stone of India ; but per
haps the most singular incorporation of ancient
superstitions with a reverence for Christianity is
a custom, which is said to be not yet wholly abo
lished in Wales. At Llandegla, in Denbighshire,
patients in epilepsy washed in the well of St.
Thecla, and having made an offering of a few pence,
walked thrice round the well, and thrice repeated
the Lord's Prayer. The ceremony never began till
after sunset. The patient then entered into the
church, and got under the communion table,
where, putting a Bible under his head, and being
covered with a carpet or cloth, he rested till break
of day, and then having made an offering of six
pence, and leaving a fowl in the church, which
had previously been carried round the well, he
departed.2 Here we behold a reliance upon the
Word of God, and the holiness of his house of
worship, strangely mingled with the ancient sacri
fice of a cock to iEsculapius the restorer of health,
and the threefold revolution round the mystic
waters, and the communion table substituted for
the heathen sanctuary and the sacred cave. So
that we need not wonder, if in a country, which
1 Legends of the Lakes by Crofton Croker.
2 Roberts's Popular Antiquities of Wales, p. 238.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 71
has enjoyed less advantages of education and fewer
opportunities of learning the truths contained in
the Bible, the traveller finds reason to say, " Thus
you see among the sacred things of this untravelled
spot (the principal island of the Strophades), how
large a proportion still are caves and fountains ;
you see how little the spirit of its sanctity has
been affected by the change of its religion ; how
little it ceased to be Grecian when it became
Christian." ! The threefold circumgyration round
earns and chapels, with a view to the recovery of
health, is said to be still practised in Scotland ; at
least it was not long ago ; and Martin of the Isles
mentions the same ceremony (the Deisiul) having
been performed round himself by a beggar, in token
of respect and gratitude. It has been already men
tioned, that on Beltane morning water received its
honours from the Scottish Celts as a source of
health, and emblem of purification ; but there was
another mode of purification, the subsequent in
vention of philosophical refinement, but still boast
ing a very high antiquity, which was equally ob
served on that day. It was the first of May, which

1 Waddington on the Greek Church, p. 203.
The Mahommedans of Algiers are equally superstitious about
fountains, but it is an evil spirit which they suppose to reside in them,
and whom they still propitiate by sacrifices. Campbell saw some
fowls dipped with great ceremony in the sacred sea ; after which the
high priest took them to a neighbouring fountain and cut their throats.
— Letters from the South, i. 178.
So, too, the peasantry on the banks of the Garonne suppose that
the inundations of the river are occasioned by wicked spirits bathing
in its springs. — Murray's Summer in the Pyrenees, ii. 174.
F 4

72 . PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT
was the commencement of the Celtic year : and,
on the eve of that day, two fires were kindled near
one another in every village of the nation, one on
the Earn, and the other on the ground adjoining;
and between the two the men and beasts to be
sacrificed were made to pass. The sacrifices, indeed,
are not continued, but the fire is. ; In the parish of
Callander, on the first of May, the herdsmen cut a
square trench in the ground, leaving the turf in the
middle, on which the fire is kindled.2 But since it
was a common thing to substitute a period of six
months for a period of twelve, and to repeat those
ceremonies at the end of the former period, which
properly belonged to the latter, the Druids had
also their solemn fires on the 1st of November, to
which, all other fires being previously extinguished,
every man was bound to repair to obtain some for
his domestic hearth 3 ; and this custom also is re
tained in many parts of Scotland. The Hallow-eve
fires continue to be kindled ; and, in some places,
should any family through negligence, suffer this
1 Barth's remark upon the Johannisfeuer kindled by the Greeks
upon the Bosphorus is this : Sollte das ein Ueberbleibsel gemein-
schaftlicher altthrakischer Sitte sein ? so entstehen, so erhalten sich
Gebrauche, und die alte Zeit spielt mit den klugen Kindern der
neuen. — Hertha, 92. He is right ; but, what is more, his explanation
of tnis old Thracian custom is, to a certain point, correct also : they
were rejoicing fires, lite those which the Germans kindled in 1814.
But on the tops of hills they had another use ; they were signals
employed by those nations, to whom some particular phasis of the
moon was sacred, as that of the sixth day among the Celts ; and
thus the knowledge of the new month having begun at Jerusalem
was spread through all Palestine. — Idelev Lehrbuch, p. 214.
2 Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish language.
3 Borlase's Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 130.

SUPERSTITIONS AND USAGES. 73
sacred fire to go out, they might find a difficulty in
getting a supply from their neighbours the next
morning. But the celebration of this ceremony is
an instance of the confusion that may be introduced
into original dates, by accidental irregularities
creeping in ; for, in Cornwall the festival fires are
kindled in the month of June, on the eve of John
the Baptist's and St. Peter's day * : in Ireland, Bel-
tein is celebrated on the 21st of June, and the
people then pass through the fires.2 A similar in
stance of irregularity may be observed in the cele
bration of an old Oxfordshire festival, called
Hoketyde, which is universally agreed to be a com
memoration of a massacre of the Danes, in the
time of King Etheldred.3 But that happened on
a Friday, and on the 13th of November, 1002,
though the festival is kept ori Tuesday, in the
second week after Easter. It has, indeed, been sug
gested, that the tradition has made a mistake 4, and
that Hoketyde being derived from the German
Hockzeit, a wedding, the event to which it refers
must be the expulsion of the Danes from England,
after the sudden death of Hardicanute at his wed
ding ; and, accordingly, women bear the chief rule
at the feast, which would not be so proper, if it
related merely to a massacre : in this case, it is an
additional proof how long customs may endure,
1 Borlase's Antiq. of Cornwall, p. 130.
2 Macpherson. Crit. Diss. xvii. 286.
3 Plot's Hist, of Oxfordshire.
4 Trans. Soc. Ant. vii. 168.

74 PERMANENCE OF ANCIENT SUPERSTITIONS.
when their origin is forgotten, and when they can
only be explained by the assistance of Etymology.
Enough has now been said, to shew the futility of
any objections that may be taken to the deduction
of some mysterious facts and names from an aera so
remote as the Deluge ; and a way has been opened
out, to clear up some obscurities of ancient history,
by only allowing a fair extent to that influence of
superstition which, by an abuse of man's highest
privilege, a subjection to a sense of religion, is sure
to be generated in all unenlightened minds.

75

CHAP. IV
EVIDENCE THAT THE PATRIARCHS WERE DEIFIED IN INDIA,
BEGINNING WITH NOAH AND HIS SONS.
As a river wears away the rock on which it runs,
so that, after the lapse of ages, nothing remains of
the original channel but some projecting points
where the stone has been harder or the current
more tranquil, so the progress of civilisation wears
away the surface of primeval usages, till at last we
can only conjecture their original shape by ob
serving here and there some relics still undestroyed,
where its force has been less active, or the material
more durable. In the unperishing works of a rude
age, unsparing of labour, when required by religion,
whether true or false, in the caves of Ellora, and
the Pyramids of Egypt, and the Cromlechs of Ire
land, and the Stonehenge of England, we may dis
cern vestiges of opinions that once prevailed over
all the ancient world ; and though soon supplanted
by the inventions of civilised society, as in Greece,
and Italy, and Hindostan, they have retained a
longer existence in more barbarous countries, and
still survive in some. A strong sentiment of venera
tion for their ancestors prevailed in the earliest
ages, the natural consequence of a patriarchal form

76

EVIDENCE THAT THE

of government, especially when the duration of
life was so much prolonged beyond its present
term, that a whole tribe might look up to one living
head as their common parent, ruler, and instructor :
it still prevails in those countries which have had
little intercourse with the rest of mankind, and have
lived for ages on the same spot, in a little microcosm
of their own. Thus, for instance, we learn from
Sir Stamford Raffles l, that among the inhabitants of
Pasumah, in the Island of Sumatra, a people almost
unknown to Europe before his visit, " the manes of
their ancestors are held in the highest veneration,
and are esteemed not inferior to the Gods them
selves. They suppose them to take concern in the
welfare of their posterity, over whom they are
always watchful : " and in the neighbouring Island
of Nias, " wooden images considered as represent
atives or memorials of their ancestors, for whom
they have a great reverence, are regarded as a kind
of lares or protecting household Gods."2 Worship
is performed to them in Pasumah by sacrificing a
buffalo, a goat, or even a fowl, by prayer, and by
fasting sometimes for fourteen days, but generally
two or three ; and it is very remarkable, that Gu-
nungDempu3, a volcanic mountain, is looked upon
as the sacred abode of the Devas, and the souls of
their ancestors occupy the regions of the moun-
1 Memoirs of Sir S. Raffles, p. 337.
2 P. 493.
3 The natives conceive that the guardian genius of their country
has his abode in Ounung Dempo, or the sacred mountain, and that
the Devas and inferior deities have also their residence there, p. 324.

PATRIARCHS WERE DEIFIED. 77
tains. The same superstitious veneration of ances
tors marks the religion ofthe Hindoos : the Pitris,
or Progenitors, are an inferior race of deities to whom
oblations are offered, and from whom the Devas and
Danavas proceeded.1 Now these were considered
good and evil spirits, which can no otherwise be
reconciled with their descent from the progenitors
of the human race, than by supposing them to be
in fact the heads, perhaps the priests, of two rival
religious factions2; the object of both being the
introduction of new rites into the old patriarchal
worship, and both being exalted by their adherents
to the honours of a superior order of beings ; with
this difference only, that they who were ultimately
successful in the contest were deemed good genii,
and the unsuccessful met the usual fate of the
unfortunate, and were declared bad. The peculiar
character of their respective rites it may not be
difficult to conjecture, when it is considered, that
Deva is the name given by the sacred books ofthe
Brahmins to the sun 3, and that Danava is the
plural of Danu, who is also said to be their father.

1 Institutes of Menu, c. iii. v. 201.
In the Mahabarit it is said, that 1072 years B. C. a Brahmin from
Jarcund introduced the worship of idols, and in a manner obliter
ated all traces of the old religion. For then every great family
moulded their silver and gold into images of their forefathers ; and
setting them up as objects of worship among their vassals, there
arose in the land gods without number.
2 Dow's Hist, of Hindostan, i. 16.
3 There is no subject, says Mr. Wilford, on which the modern
Brahmins are more reserved, than when closely interrogated on the
title of Deva, or god, which their most sacred books give to the sun.
— Dissertation on Egypt and the Nile.

78 EVIDENCE THAT THE
For "Nuh," says Sir W. Jones, " is the proper name
of Noah." It is evident, that these Pitris have been
confounded by an all-confounding superstition with
the first restorers of the world after the flood : for
they are considered " Primeval deities who have
laid arms aside," ' and the dark half of each month
was sacred to them, and the places on which they
might be consulted were either on the summit of
the highest mountain in the Island Suvarneya2,
where the gardens of the Hesperides were placed
by the Puranas, or else in a narrow cave in a small
island ; which are Arkite modes of worship, as will
be seen hereafter. But it is certain, that they
properly ascend no higher than to the second
generation after the flood ; for they are the offspring
of another set of deities, seven in number, and in
habiting the mountain Meru, who were preserved
in the ark, and are called Rishis or penitents, be
cause they obtained their sanctity by a Lunar
Penance.3 If we set aside the nonsense of modern
Brahmins, the Lunar Penance mentioned in the
Institutes cannot but appear remarkable, when it is
considered that the Pitris are said to inhabit the
moon.4 This is a point of so much importance, that
I shall have occasion to revert to it hereafter : at
1 Institutes of Menu, c. iii. v. 192.
2 They also inhabit Chandra Dwip the Lunar Island.
3 Institutes of Menu, c. xi.
This penance, say they, consists in the devotee eating for a whole
month no more than thrice eighty mouthfuls of wild grains. The
reward is the obtaining the same abode as Chandra the regent of
the moon. — Moor's Pantheon, p. 92.
4 Institutes of Menu, c. i. v. 66.

PATRIARCHS WERE DEIFIED. 79
present the number seven calls for some notice ;
for the number of those preserved in the ark was
eight. But numbers and names, that have been
preserved by tradition, are often covered with a
cobwreb of obscurity from various causes. The
principal personages both in classical and Hindoo
mythology are sometimes androgynous ; Venus is
represented with a beard ; the moon is both Lunus
and Luna 1 ; Brahma divides himself into two
bodies, the one male, the other female ; Siva and
Parvati are sometimes combined in one body 2 : and
all this is because the patriarch is sometimes viewed
separately and alone, at other times in conjunction
with his wife, as the parent of the postdiluvian
race. Sometimes the number alone is preserved
without regard to relationship or sex ; and then the
same names and the same qualities are attributed
to all, and it is difficult to make out whether the
characters are distinct, or one and the same re-ap
pearing on the stage under various disguises of
fable : thus, on the one hand, Sir W.Jones suspects,
that all the Menus are reducible to one, who was
called Nuh by the Arabs ; and probably, he adds,
by the Hebrews, though we have disguised his
name by an improper pronunciation of it. On the
other hand, Mr. Wilford suggests, that the seven
Menus, the seven Rishis, and the seven Brahma-
dicas, or children of Brahma, were the same, and
. ! Lunam masculum deum, ut plerique omnes in oriente populi,
iEgyptii ducebant. Salmasius in Jul. Salin. Polyhist. p. 311. The
Anglo-saxons according to Sharon Turner did the same.
2 See Moor's Pantheon. Plates 4. 27.

80 EVIDENCE THAT THE
make only seven individual persons.1 The seventh
Menu, however, was undoubtedly Noah ; for in the
Matsya Purana, which will presently be noticed,
the Mosaic deluge is described in terms that admit
of no mistake or doubt, and in the book, which is
called the Laws of Menu, he calls himself the
secondary framer of all this visible world.2
He has the title of Satyaurata, because he be
longs to the Satya Yug,3 the first or golden age of
the Hindoos 4 ; and Vratta is a circle : hence his
name imports the originator of the circle, or the
author of the circular worship. It will be shewn
hereafter, that circular enclosures were Arkite
temples, and that the mode of worship was by cir
cular gyrations. Now if Sraddha and Vratta are
the same word, as sylva and oAvj are, it may be con
jectured, that whether it be now practised or not,
this was the ceremony prescribed to the devotee,
in the laws of Menu. " Each day let him perform
a Sraddha with boiled rice and the like, or water,
for thus he obtains favor from departed progenitors;
this act of due honour to departed souls on the
dark day of the moon is famed by the appellation
of Pitrya or Ancestral." 5 Great stress is laid upon
the offerings on these occasions. An oblation by
1 As. Res. v. 246.
2 Sir W. Jones's Works, iii. 336. 729.
3 Satya seems to be the same as Satwa, which signifies truth or.
purity, and is a title of Doorga or Parvati, the mountain born,
considered as the author of existence. It corresponds with the Sydic
of the Welsh bards.
4 Moor's Pantheon, p. 167.
5 Sir William Jones, v. vii. 166.

PATRIARCHS WERE DEIFIED. 81
Brahmans to their ancestors transcends an oblation
to the deities, because that to the deities is con
sidered as the opening and completion of that to
ancestors ], and therefore it is ordained, that
having satisfied Agni, alias Jivani, Soma, and
Yama, they should proceed to satisfy the manes
of their progenitors, who are called by the sages
gods of the obsequies, and the chief of the twice-
born." 2 In those deities, tradition seems to have
preserved the names of Japhet, Shem, and Ham ;
unconsciously, however ; for otherwise less ho
nour would not have been paid to them, than to
their children ; but this fact admits of an easy ex
planation : their deities of a later age being called
Devas, and these being the offspring of the Pitris,
the earlier objects of their worship, who were
most truly twice born, first into the antedilu
vian world, and afterwards into the new world
out of the ark, came to be confounded with the
descendants of their own children. The stream of
superstition was so turbid and muddy, that it was
difficult to see the bottom of it ; but now, since
its impurities have partly been deposited by lapse
of time, it is somewhat more transparent. Agni
and Soma being viewed as the sun and moon, were
justly held in less honour than the progenitors ; for
that sort of worship was posterior to the other as
well as inferior, a fact sufficiently implied in the
history of those divinities : for one of the ark-pre
served saints, the children of Menu, (Atri), was
1 Sir W. Jones, vii. 166. 2 Ibid. vii. 186.
VOL. I. G

82 EVIDENCE THAT THE
the father of the moon ', and another, (Casyapa),
was the father of the sun. 2 It is no objection to
this statement, that one of these same Rishis had a
name which corresponds to Allsun 3, nor that the
sun and moon were said to be two of the eight
guardian deities of the world. For when the Wor
ship of the heavenly bodies grew out of the decay
of true religion, it was a natural mode of concili
ating the elder superstitions to represent them
animated by the spirits of men already deified,
whether their apotheosis were of recent or of an
cient date ; whether they were kings and heroes
not long deceased, or members of the patriarchal
family. The first king of Hindostan, says Dow,
is said to have been Krishen ; not that Krishen
whom the Hindoos worship, but a man of wisdom,
policy, and courage, who lived to the age of 400
years. The historian is mistaken : for the Krishen,
or Krishna, whom the Hindoos worship, was an
incarnation of Vishnu ; that is to say, he was a
man ; and it is not difficult to discover who that
man was, by comparing the historical and mytho
logical traditions : his age was 400 years ; an age
attained by none since the days of the Patriarch :
he peopled 2000 towns ; i. e. from him the earth
was re-peopled after the deluge. His vizier was
Brahma, the father of many arts, of writing, and of

1 Under the name of Chandra. — Moor, p. 90.
2 Under the name of Surya. — Ibid. p. 281.
3 Viswamitra.
4 Agni and Soma.

PATRIARCHS WERE DEIFIED. 83
working in wood and iron. Now Brahma, or
Brimha, signifies the wisdom of God, and by means
of wisdom imparted to him from that source, the
second father of the human race transmitted to his
descendants the arts by which he constructed
the ark. ' Let us next turn to his mythological
character. For a certain time, he was hidden in
the moon, which it will be seen hereafter was a
common type of the ark ; and in one legend, he
is represented to be the conqueror of the demon
of the ocean, who had swallowed up the children
of his spiritual preceptor 2 ; but his most singular
exploit was the lifting up a mountain, under which
his votaries found shelter from the wrath of Indra,
the god of the elements, who sent a deluge to de
stroy them. 3 The ark, or real place of shelter, is
evidently confounded in this tradition with the
mountain on which it rested : almost every age has
added some inventions to adorn the character of
Krishna, which have given him a very diversified
aspect; but these circumstances are sufficient to
identify him with Noah in his origin. Both Sa-
tyaurata and Krishna are avatars, or incarnations,
of Vishnu 4 : now Vishnu, alias Surya, is the sun,
and Krishna is the sun, both in Irish and in San-

1 Krishna, says Vallancey, is from Crisean, which in Irish means
holy, pure, a priest. — Vindication of Hist, of Ireland, p. 82.
2 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, pp. 198. 213. Plate 62.
3 Moor's Pantheon, p. 199-
4 Ibid. pp. 112. and 280. Vishnu is a personification ofthe sun,
or conversely the sun is a type of him. Ibid. 16.
G 2

84 EVIDENCE THAT THE
scrit; but Yama is another name of the sun ' ; if,
therefore, Yama is derived from Ham, both he
and his father were worshipped under the same
type. Hind, who probably was the first settler in
the country to which he gave his name, is said by
the author of the Mahabarit 2, to have been the son
of Ham ; but ' Hindoo,' according to Dow, signifies
the moon. Thus, in three generations after the
deluge, we discover appellations of the heavenly
bodies bestowed upon the fathers of the human
race. And yet history affirms 3, not only that Hind
continued, in imitation of his father, to worship the
true God, but that his descendants followed his
example ; till in the time of Marage, (b.c. 2129).
a person came from Iran, and introduced the wor
ship of the sun, moon, and stars, and their proper
element, the symbol of fire. The date thus as
signed to the introduction of the Magian and Sa-
bian superstitions is very likely to be correct ; but
the names, which the Hindoos gave thereupon to
their ancestors, show that they had previously been
in the habit of paying them some sort of adoration,
and not being willing to dismiss them altogether,
they reconciled the two systems by the ingenious
device of Avatars, by which they unsphered their
radiant deities for a time, and brought them down
from heaven to earth, incarnating them in the per-
1 The sun in Bhadra had the title of Yama, says Mr.Wilford,
Asiat. Res. iii. 409.
2 Translated into Persian from the Sanscrit, by Sheek Abul Fazil,
in the reign of Akbar, and quoted by Dow.
3 Dow's Hist, of Hindostan, i. p. 16.

PATRIARCHS WERE DEIFIED. 85
sons of those whom they had deified before. With
respect to these two persons in particular, Yama
and Hind, their original connection with the era of
the deluge is strongly marked by several circum
stances, which seem to lie at the bottom of their
worship, whatever superstructure of fiction may
have been raised upon it afterwards. "Yama,"
says Ward ', " who judges the dead, is worshipped
annually on the second day of the moon's increase,
by making an image of clay, which is then thrown
into the river 2 : they offer water to him every day,
and some worship no other gods. His dwelling is
at Yumaluju, which is surrounded by water, and
where rewards and punishments are awarded." But
"the fourteenth day of the dark half of the month
Aswini, is peculiarly sacred to Yama ; bathing and
libations are auspicious on that day, and on the fol
lowing, torches and flaming brands are kindled, and
consecrated to burn the bodies of kinsmen, who may
be dead in battle, or in a foreign country, and to light
them through the shades of death to the mansions
of Yama." 3 This is a remarkable illustration of the
manner in which the genuine diluvial rites came at
length to be superseded by those of fire worship.
The dark half of the month typified the darkness
of the ark ; the 14th day of that dark half was the
exact period of the moon's increase, when her form
is the crescent, which, as I shall have occasion to
i Ward's Hindoo Mythology, p. 73.
2 This is like the worship of Doorga, of whom more hereafter.
3 Moor's Hindoo Pantheon, p. 305.
G 3

86 EVIDENCE THAT THE
show, was a perpetual type of the ark ; and in this
case, no other reason can be assigned for the se
lection of that particular period, since even amidst
the chaos of eastern mythology, Yama is never con
founded with the moon. The burning of the dead
commemorates the destruction by that catastrophe ;
and the lighting of torches, like the sacred fire,
which the miracle-mongers of Jerusalem pretend to
receive from heaven, is a symbol of the light which
flashed upon them, when they emerged from the
darkness of the ark into the open day. And this
part of the ceremonial remained when the rest was
disused and the cause forgotten. As the judge of
departed souls, Yama, or Dhurmarajah, as he is
called, the king of justice, resembles the Grecian
Minos1, of whom Virgil says, "ille silentum con-
ciliumque vocat, vitasque et crimina diseit." But
Minos was undoubtedly Menu or Menus, i. e. Noah.
One of Yama's titles is Kala, or Time, a sign of his
identity with Noah ; but as this point has not yet
been discussed, a better proof may be drawn from
another of his titles, Pitriputee, the Sovereign of
the Patriarchs ; where we observe again that in
variable disposition of mythology to mount up to
the original source, and consequently to blend the
history of the first man of the postdiluvian world
with that of his sons and immediate descendants.
1 Noah, or Nuh, as his name is spelled in Hebrew, is the same
with Menu ; which, in the nominative case, is Menus, who bears
etymological, and historical, and mythological affinity with Minos,
like him a great lawgiver, and the reputed son of Jove. — Moor's
H. P. 306.

PATRIARCHS WERE DEIFIED. 87
On this account when Homer had to reconcile the
history of Minos with his fabulous descent from
Jupiter ', he had no difficulty in extricating himself
from the embarrassment by merely inverting the
order, and making Deucalion not his father but his
son. That Menu or Minos2, in this his secondary
character, was really one with Yama or Ham, the
son of Noah, may be inferred from this ; each of
them is called the Offspring of the Sun (Vaivas-
wata), and Lord of the Obsequies (Sradhadeva).
The place where rewards and punishments are
said to be distributed is Yumaluyu, a mountain like
Ararat at the close of the deluge, surrounded by
water. Now the accent being laid on the second
syllable, the sound is nearly the same as Himalaya
similarly pronounced : but if it be the same moun
tain, the etymology is evidently different from that
which is usually assigned to it ; it means the abode
of Yumu or Yama, for it is spelled in both ways.3
That they are the same mountain is extremely
probable, for Himalaya too has many diluvian symp
toms. One of its peaks is called Kedarnath, i. e.
the Mountain of the Ship 4 ; for in that very
1 Horn. II., N. 451.
2 Minos, as the judge of departed souls, corresponds with Yama,
himself the same as Menu. — Moor, p. 306.
3 In a subsequent chapter I shall have occasion to show that
there is another etymology with equal pretensions to probability,
which would make the mountain the residence of the father, instead
of the son. But this uncertainly rather tends to strengthen the
argument than to weaken it ; for a Paronomasia which would make
the name applicable to both, would obtain for it a much more general
acceptation. 4 And from these hills flow the Kedar Ganga and Sheo Ganga.
— Asiatic Researches, v. 45.
G 4

88 EVIDENCE THAT THE
ancient language, the Irish, Kuadar is a ship, and
temples are dedicated on the hills to Kedara.
Another peak is called Bhadrinath ¦, i. e. the
Mountain of the Moon, or perhaps of the Baris :
there is a temple upon it, and it is a famous place
of pilgrimage for the Hindoos. These two peaks
are the extremities of a ridge called Nundidevi,
i. e. the Divine Bull ; for Nandi or Nundi was the
bull of Siva, of whom more hereafter ; and thus
there must be a striking resemblance to Mount
Ararat as it is represented by Kotzebue. Another
of these mountains is the Meru of Hindoo fable,
called Sumeru by the modern Pundits 2 ; from it
the sacred Ganges flows, the representative of the
ocean, and in that part the mountain has three
peaks ; a diluvian form exhibited in the trident of
Siva as well as of the classic Neptune. On the
Rham Ghur frontier there is a mountain more
evidently derived from the Baris or Ark ; it is
called Parisnauth. Its summits are eight in num
ber, the number of those who were preserved ; and
the highest is called Asmeed Sikur, or the Peak
of Bliss. Parus Nauth Ishwara is the Patriarch
of the Jeynes, of whose feet the impressions are
shown on a hill called Chandra Gurus (the Moun
tain of the Moon), from whence he sprang up to
heaven. Now Iswara is a name of Siva signifying

1 Bhadra in Sanscrit is beautiful ; but it is a common appellation
of the moon, in Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian, as well as in Sanscrit.
—Moors H. P. p. 295.
2 Heber's Travels, ii. 152. 195. 209-

PATRIARCHS WERE DEIFIED. 89
Lord, and he is said to have descended on earth
after a great deluge from which but few escaped,
to restore arts and sciences to the race of man.1
He is also called Vagiswara or Vagisa, which is
commonly pronounced Bagis 2, and is probably
the same as Bacchus. " Parusha," says Mr. Cole-
brooke, " means the primeval man 3, and a hymn
in the Veda bears his name4, in which he is repre
sented as a sacrifice of the Gods, and the framer
of the worlds ; the moon was produced from his
mind ; the sun sprung from his eye, &c. Seven
were the moats surrounding the altar." It is re
markable that the Indian Ararat, Meru, is sup
posed to be surrounded by seven seas. " By that
sacrifice the Gods worshipped this victim ; such
were primeval duties, and thus did they attain
heaven where former gods abide." 5
1 Wilford's Dissertation on Egypt, As. Res. v. iii.
2 Moor's H. P. p. 45.
3 Asiat. Res. viii. 470.
4 Ibid. vii. 251.
5 This hymn is recited in honour of deceased ancestors : it
mentions a universal sacrifice, which is plainly the destruction of
mankind, though the victim and the priest are confounded together ;
the threefold being that rose above this world, and from whom all
things were produced, is Noah, and the Gods who worshipped him
were his descendants.

90

CHAP. V.

ON BUDDHA.

NOAH S GRANDSON PHUT WAS BUDDHA, WHOSE NAME WAS
CHANGED INTO FO AND PO ; HENCE THE RIVER PADUS,
AND HIS FOOTSTEP THE SREEPAD.
It would be strange indeed, if among a people
like the Hindoos, whose writings go back so far in
chronology, and whose history is full of traditions,
and who pay such singular honour to their re
motest ancestors — it would be passing strange, I
say, if among them no memorial had been pre
served, no mythological notice, no fabulous record
of that illustrious ancestor, from whom Hindostan
derives its name. We may reasonably expect,
therefore, to find Hind under some other name,
some name worthy of the founder of so vast an
empire, and, according to the custom of eastern
polytheism, honoured with religious adoration.
Now if Hind was one of the sons of Ham, as the
Mahaberit affirms, we shall doubtless find him enu
merated among those sons in the Mosaic history.
In Genesis, then, the name of one of his sons is
Phut ; he is the only one of whose progeny and their
settlements nothing more is recorded. The other

ON BUDDHA. 91
three were founders of nations in the immediate
vicinity of the Israelites ; Cush in Babylonia,
Mizraim in Egypt, Canaan in Palestine ; and in
like manner it may be supposed that the fourth
branch of this aspiring family became the parent
of another mighty nation, although too remote to
interest those for whom Moses wrote his history.
Now in the religion of Hindostan or the country
of Hind1, we find a person of the same name, with
the sound only a little hardened, who was vene
rated not only in the Indian Peninsula, but
throughout all Asia eastward of the Ganges. The
origin of this worship is buried in unfathomable
antiquity; but that Bud, or with the final' aspirate
Budha, is in fact the same as Phut2, cannot be
reasonably doubted by any one who considers the
various transformations which it has certainly
undergone in the different languages of the East.
" His special name," says Upham, " Boodh, or
Budhu, or Budha, is often called Boudh, Bod, Bot,
and by the arbitrary substitution of F for B, and
1 Tradition often mistakes two names of one person for the
names of successive generations. Hence one Indian version of this
history is, that " Buddha the son of Indu married Ella (i. e. terra)
a grandchild of Surya, or Mana, from which union sprang the
Indu race. They deified their ancestor Buddha, who continued
to be the chief object of worship untill Chrishna," who was of the
same family, if not the same person under another name. Arrian
mentions Bovidav and Kpahvav, among their earliest ancestors. —
Trans. As. Soc. ii. 280.
2 A sarcophagus of Phutus was sent to the British Musem by
Mr. Grey, in which the name of Buto, or Bhuto, appeared to form
a part of the names of the deceased. It is extraordinary that Young
should not have recognised the one in the other. See his letter to
Mr. Bankes, Journal of Science, xiv. 259.

92 ON BUDDHA.
P, Fo, or Pho, arising from the changes of the
cognate letters B, P, T, and D. By the Japanese
and Chinese he is called Abbuto and Buto." 1
" In some parts of India," says Moor, " it is pro
nounced Booda or Butta ; he is the Bud or Wud
of the Pagan Arabs ; Pout in Siam ; Pott or Poti
in Thibet ; But in Cochin-China ; Fo, Foe, or
Fohi in China ; " 2 and as Paulus is pronounced
Taulus in the countries bordering on the Nile3, so
Pot or Pout was changed into Toth, Thoth, or
Touth, i. e. Taautos. Thoth, it is well known, was
the Egyptian Mercury, and Budha is the Hindoo
name for the planet Mercury. Accordingly when
the Sepoys of the Indian army under Sir David
Baird marched through Egypt, they recognised
their deity in the sculptures of that country. The
Scandinavian Woden is only one step beyond the
Wud of the Arabs, and the same day in the week
was sacred to Mercury among the Latins, to Budha
among the Hindoos (Budvar), and to Woden
among the Scandinavians (Wednesday). Fo may
seem still further off in sound than Woden ; but a
fact similar to that related of the Sepoys identifies
the idolatry ofthe Indians and Chinese. " When
the Chinese deputies to Ava beheld the Burman
god Buddha Gaudma, they immediately recognised
in Bud their own national idol Fo, and worshipped
1 History of Budhism, note to ch. ii.
2 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 239- The religion of Fo, or as it
is pronounced at Canton, Fut'h, is that of Bud'h  Davis on the
Chinese, ii. 79-
3 Wilford in Asiat. Res. vi. 533.

ON BUDDHA. 93
him accordingly. The mother of Bud was Maya,
of Fo Maye ; the Teeshoo Lama is considered an
incarnation of Fo by the Chinese, and of Buddha
in Thibet." : Indeed there is no difficulty at all
in accounting for the change of Bod into Fo. The
Chinese reject all terminating consonants, and
they have no sound of B in their language ; in
our own the substitution of V or F for B, is of very
familiar occurrence in words derived from the
German ; thus eben becomes even, gabe gave,
habe have ; so also self is derived from selbst, half
from halb, and the old English word lief from lieb.
" Pout or Poot is the name ofthe planet Mercury
in the Balic term for Wednesday, which is the day
of Bod in all the Hindoo languages : the Tamulic
having no B, begin the word with a P ; the vulgar
Siamese reduce it to Po."2 On the other hand
the Scythians, from whom M. Paw supposes the
Chinese to have derived their Budhism3, were like
the Arabs, without any character to express P, and
therefore used F instead of it ; as in Farsi for Parsi,
a Parthian or Persian. 4 However, the truth is,
that if the final consonant is to be suppressed, the
Chinese Fo approaches much nearer to the original
Hebrew word Phut, than the Indian Budha. That
this parent of the Indian tribes could not be re
moved further than one generation from the sons
' l Symes's Embassy to Ava, ii. 398.
2 A. R.i. 170.
3 Recherches Philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois.
: 4 Vallancey's Coll. D. R. H. p. 624.

94 ON BUDDHA.
of Noah, and consequently that the tradition is
probably correct which states him to be the
son of Ham, may be inferred from several cir
cumstances. 1. History records no conqueror
or legislator whose name could be so exten
sively venerated in that part of the world, and
mingled with the religion of so many nations
spread over so wide a space. It is impossible
to imagine any satisfactory explanation of this
remarkable fact, without resorting to the root from
which so many branches sprung, and this will bring
us back nearly to the reproduction of the human
race. 2ndly, in the same way as Janua is derived
from Janus, because it was his office to open, in
token of which he held a key in his hand, and as
Naus and Naos are derived from Noah, because he
was the master of the ship, and that ship was long
considered the most sacred place of worship, so
there are numerous derivatives from Budha, con
sidered as the first Architect, the first settler in
India ', the first who raised houses, or constructed
dwelling places in that part of the world ; and
these derivatives from his name, all signifying an
abode, are so very numerous, and occur in so many
of the most ancient languages, that a notion so
1 Some have supposed that the Avatar of Budd'ha has reference
to Noah, and that he visited India. Like Brahma and Bacchus, he
planted the vine in the countries through which he travelled : he
conquered the Yakshas or daemons of Ceylon, and set them adrift
upon a floating island. — Capt. Low on Buddha, Tr. As. Soc. iii.
158. But as the same authority refers that event to the 156th
year of the Kali Yug, or last period of the world, it will better
coincide with the settlement of that country by Phut.

ON BUDDHA. 95
universal must have originated before any great
dispersion of mankind. An abode is in Hebrew
Beth ; in Chaldee Betha ; in Syriac Bitho ; in
Arabic Beith, in Turkish Beit; in Persian Bat;
in Basque Bet ; in Gaulish Bwth or Both ; Bod :
in Gaelic Buth, Boot ; in Irish Botan, in Breton
Bod ; in Teutonic Bod ! ; and what is very remark
able, in Chinese it is Fo. 3rdly, This name, under
one form or another, has a constant aspect towards
the deluge. Unfortunately fear engenders supersti
tion, much more readily than love does piety, and
the consequence has been that the instruments of
evil were worshipped as much or more than the
author of good. Hence daemons have had their
share of religious rites, and rivers have been held
sacred as representatives of the deluge.2 Herodo
tus reports, that they were the principal objects of
Persian worship, and Seneca notices the veneration
with which the sources of great rivers were re
garded.3 These sources seem to have been more
particularly sacred, because they were usually found
on mountains, and were thus connected with
1 M. Bullet, Memoires sur la Langue Celtique, p. 2.
2 Streams and fountains were sacred in Greece, and Strabo
mentions a great number of temples, elev£s sur des eaux et con-
sacres a Diane, reine des eaux, ou a d'autres divini tes relatives au
meme element. — M. Court de Gebelin, Monde Prim. Disc. Prelim.
p. 198.
3 Magnorum fluviorum capita veneramur. — Sen. Epist. 41. Les
Perses rendaient a l'eau un culte religieux, les Gaulois rendaient
les memes honneurs a cette element. Les Gaulois avioent aussi le
plus grand respect pour les lacs et les marais, parcequ'ils croyaint que
la divinity se plaisait a les habiter. On joignait a ce culte celui des
fleuves, des] rivieres, &c. — Mythol. Comp. avec THistoire, par
M. I'Abbe de Tressan, ii. 325.

96 ON BUDDHA.
another branch of diluvian reminiscences. The
Nile was worshipped in Egypt * ; and if we can
depend on Marco Polo's Italian version of the
Ramayan, the name of Nila is given to a lofty and
sacred mountain, with a summit of pure gold, from
which flowed a river of clear, sweet, and fresh
water.2 Mr. Wilford describes two sources of the
Nile, according to the notions of the Hindoos ;
that of Abyssinia, was called Nanda. Now the
Ganges, also a sacred river, is represented by
Hindoo artists flowing from an ox's mouth, on the
side of the mountain Cailasa 3 ; perhaps Nandi's,
the sacred bull, the vehicle of Mahadeva, whose
character is to be investigated by and by. The
other branch is said to take its rise from the Lake
of the Gods, Amara, between some mountains
which seem to be part of Somagiri, the Mountains
ofthe Moon 4 ; the country round being Chandre-
stan, or Moonland, and most of the mountains and
rivers in it having appellations relating to the moon.5
Since, then, the moon in its first quarter was an
emblem of the ark, we have here the three
elements of diluvian worship, — the waters of the
deluge, Mount Ararat, and the Ark. The Lake of
the Gods is believed to be a vast reservoir, which
1 Caillie says, that ' Nile' is a generic term, and not necessarily
the Egyptian river. Thus the Dhioliba bears at Timbuctoo the name
of Bahar el Nil. — Travels to Timbuctoo, ii. 76.
2 A. R. Sir W. Jones, p. 271.
3 On the top of the mountains of Lenar is a spring, upon the
mouth of which is carved the figure of an ox. — Ayeen Akbery,
ii. 60.
4 Asiatic Researches, iii. p. 60. 5 Ibid.

ON BUDDHA. 97
supplied all rivers ' ; not in matter of fact, of course ;
for the most ignorant must have known the con
trary, but mythologically ; and hence all rivers
became sacred 2 : not fewer than twenty-seven are
thus honoured generally in India; and in one single
village 3 there are 360 sacred fountains. When the
planet Jupiter entered the sign Leo, people came
from great distances to worship the river Gungko-
terry, dedicated to Kotum ; but in another place,
Abul Fazel gives what appears to be another ver
sion of the same story, and which is very remark
able, because it points out the real origin of the
sacred character ascribed to the river. " At that
same period," he says, "a hill arises out ofthe
middle of the Ganges, and remains for a month,
so that people go upon it, and perform divine wor
ship." 4 It would be difficult to select a more striking
instance of the facility with which tradition blends
itself in matters of religion with the phenomena of
nature, and engenders superstitions unreasonable,
and at first sight unaccountable, because their
origin is forgotten. The Hindoo continues a prac
tice prescribed by immemorial custom ; but he
knows not why : but when we consult the records
of remote antiquity, to discover the origin of that
custom, it is obvious, that the retiring of the
waters from a mound of sand, such as the conflu-
1 Asiatic Researches, iii. 60.
2 The source of the Nerbuddah (qu. river of Budha ?) is held
sacred by the Brahmins — so are the Talee and Tapty — Ayeen
Akbery, vol. ii.
3 Kehrow, ibid. p. 129- 4 Ayeen Akbery, ii. 28.
VOL. I. H

98 ON BUDDHA.
ence of two rivers often forms, gradually emerging
from the bed of the stream as its depth is reduced
by the dryness of the season \ is no unapt image of
the retiring of the deluge, when the tops of the
mountains were first exposed to view. For the same
reason, at the same time of the year, the Ganges
was peculiarly sacred at its descent from the moun
tain which bears the same name ; for the Himal
ayan peak, that overhangs its source, is called
Gungotree.2 Since, then, rivers have obtained their
sacred character, because they are representatives
of the deluge, if Buddha have given his name to
one of much celebrity, that circumstance may be
supposed to infer some near relationship to the
men ofthe ark, at least in the minds ofthe people
among whom that name retained its place. Now
the river that traverses the north of Italy at the
foot of the Alps, in Piedmont, bears the name of
Buddha : its ancient name was Bod-incus ; whence
also it was called the Po, which is a very slight
variation from the Fo of the Chinese. Fo in Irish,
and Vo in Japonese, signify a prince, a chief3 ; and

1 That such is the real explanation of the mount rising from
the river, and magnified into a hill by imaginations under the
influence of tradition, may be shown from another passage in the
same work. When the planet Jupiter enters the sign Leo, for a
month's continuance the soil near Gurgong is so intensely hot that
it burns the trees ; and a kettle set upon the ground will boil.
ii. 298.
2 The Gungkoterry of the Ayeen Akbery, with a strong accent
on the last syllable, sounds exactly the same as Heber's Gungotree ;
the y being pronounced as it is every where but in England.
3 Japonium omne nomen uni quondam parebat imperatori cui
titulus Vo seu Dairi. — Maffeus, Hist. Ind. c. xii. 568.

ON BUDDHA. 99
the Po is called, by Virgil, king of rivers. Foe in
Chinese betokens wet, as Fo in the Irish word
foal, water.1 This river has three sources 2, but
one alone is called the Po, which, like the Ganges,
bursts in a full stream from the side of a high
mountain, anciently called Mons Vesulus, now
Monte Vizo, which is full as great a change as that
of Fo from Bud or Phut. It is remarkable that
the Ligurian interpretation of Bodincus was bot
tomless3, and a similar meaning maybe assigned to
Vesul : for Sui in Chaldee is bottom 4 ; and Ve, in
the composition of Latin words, sometimes means
without.5 Thus Vecors is without understanding,
and Vesanus without sanity.6 The meaning of the
name, therefore, may have been transferred from
the hill to the stream which flowed from it, in the
same way as the name itself has been transferred,
in another instance, from the hill to the city
built upon it. Vesoul, a French city, in the de
partment of the Upper Saone, stands upon a Mons
Vesulus, the base of which is washed by a rivulet.
The same word, however, will bear another
meaning, equally pertinent to this inquiry; for
1 Vallancey, Collect, de Reb. Hibern. iii. 139.
2 Padus a jugis Alpium fusus ex tribus fontibus oritur, ex quibus
uni vocabulum est Podus. — Isidorus, Originum, 1. xiii. c. xxi.
3 Fundo cavens. Pliny, iii. 16. M. Bullet says, that in Gaulic
Bod is bottom, and enc, or inc, without. — M em. sur le Lang. Celt.
i. 447. 4 bljy Fundum.
5 Ve particula turn intensionem signifieat, turn minutionem.
Aulus Gellius, 1. xvi. u. v.
6 Vecors et Vesanus privationem significant cordis et saniatis 
Macrob. Sat. 1. vi. c. viii.
H 2

100 ON BUDDHA.
from the same root an Arabic word is formed,
which signifies a stone lifted up \ and also the first
month of the year ; and since grammarians say
that Ve in composition is intensive as well as priva
tive, the whole word may have signified, originally,
the rock which was left bare by the waters in the
first month ; in the same way as Vesuvius is, pro
bably, the burning mountain, from a Syriac word
Shub, signifying to burn.2 The Ve, however, may
have borne a more important sense, if it can be
allowed to have had a common origin with two
Celtic words ; for Fou in Welsh, and Vou or Vau
in Cornish, signify a cave. But if a recent author
is to be trusted, there is yet another sense of that
little word, still more to the purpose ; " The Per
sians, it is stated, used to prefix the syllable Veh,
sacred, to their rivers." 3 If this be so, the mean
ing of Vesul will be the sacred rock. But Bodincus
also is capable of another interpretation, and may
mean, the young Budh 4, who, when he left the ark,
1 Under the root ^g/, Castell gives the Arabic nouns Shiwal
and Shewal, Lapis qui extollitur, and Mensis decimus, primus
Arabum. 2 «*"> » Arsit, inflammavit. — Castell.
If Paisana, the name of the town near the source of the Po, be
no modern invention, but a remnant of antiquity, it may be sup
posed that the river was once called Pison, i. e. the Ganges, for so
that river was interpreted by Eusebius and Jerome ; and the oriental
origin of the natives is shown in their name Taurini. The inhabit
ants of Paisana were indeed called Vibienses by the Romans, which
may have implied the people of Bud or Bo.
3 Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Geography, p. 83.
4 Incus from ft y infans : one of the Arabic names for Noah is
Inguc. Inachus has probably the same origin.

ON BUDDHA. 101
was supposed to have been born again, and com
menced another avatar, notwithstanding the Li-
gurian interpretation given by Pliny ; for probably
he knew nothing about it, and was easily satisfied
with any explanation which tended to magnify
"the king of rivers." This very title, however,
must have been derived from some other cause
than its magnitude : for what is the Po compared
with the Rhine, or the Rhone, or the Danube, all
rivers well known to the Romans ? much less was
its importance sufficient to exalt it to the heavenly
sphere ; and whatever might be the partiality of
Italians for their largest river, if the figure of Eri-
danus had been drawn by the astronomers of Greece
from the river Po, they would have hardly assigned
to it a situation south of the equator, and reaching
almost to the antarctic circle, where it never could
be seen by the inhabitants either of Italy or
Greece. The astronomical poet Aratus calls that
constellation " the remnant of Eridanus, the stream
of many tears." ' If Eridanus be nothing more than
the river Po, these words have no meaning : but if
it be a vestige of the deluge, a memorial of that
woful catastrophe, the description is significant
and forcible. Ovid makes Phaeton, when the
course of nature was disturbed by his driving the
chariot of the sun, fall into the river Po : he refers
to some vague tradition of a day of entire darkness
1 Kd^avov 'Roilamn itoksKKaia-rm ntnaiuiio. Arat. Phaenom.
p. 47. Ox. 1672.
H 3

102 ON BUDDHA.
at that time \ and describes the waters quenching
the three-cleft flame that consumed him.2 Why
was the Po selected for this purpose ? Why not the
Adriatic, or the Mediterranean, if it were not a
type of something greater than either ? And why
should the flame be trifid ? It is no character of
fire; and though lightning is said to be forked, no
one imagines it to be three-pointed. But the Indian
Meru, or Ararat, was divided into three peaks,
which were immersed under the deluge : if it had
not been for the stubbornness of a tradition which
he did not understand, there was reason enough
for his keeping clear of the Po. Amber was said to
come from the Po ; and accordingly he is forced
to metamorphose into amber the tears of Phaeton's
sisters, dropping from Italian poplars into its
waters ; and yet he must have known perfectly
well, that not a particle of amber is to be found in
the Hesperian river of that name. Herodotus ex
plains this difficulty : he had heard that Eridanus
flowed into the northern ocean : any great river
might bear that name as a type of the deluge ; but
perhaps it was the Baltic, and the Veneti who dwelt
there collected the amber, which they carried to the
Veneti ofthe Adriatic, who sold it to the Greeks ;
and so it came to be concluded, that the Padus of
Italy was the Eridanus from which the amber
1  et si modo credimus, unum
Isse diem sine sole ferunt.
2  trifida fumantia flamma. L. ii.

ON BUDDHA. 103
came ; but Ovid must have known better. Never
theless, since Eridanus in the heavenly sphere
flows from the foot of Orion, I cannot but suspect
that the true name is, by a very slight transposition
of the letters, Bodicnus ', signifying, like the Sree
Padum, on the high peak of Ceylon, called Sama-
nella, the sacred footstep of Buddha, for another
name of this river is Padus, and Pad2 in Sanscrit is
a foot. It is not a local superstition, nor confined
to India, for there was one of these impressions at
Mecca before Islamism prevailed : in the time of
Herodotus there was one near Tyras, on the
banks of the Syros or Dniester s ; another, on the
authority of a Hindoo traveller, near the north
west corner of the Chinese wall, and memorials of
the same kind have been found on the banks of the
Ohio. At Chemmis, in Egypt, the priests of the
temple of Perseus4 showed what was said to be the
mark of his foot, two cubits in length : at Ponoo-
dang, the stone is six feet in length, and three
wide. That the foot bears the name of the
1 The i%«j? of Bod ; the right spelling, therefore, would be Bo-
dichnus. 2 From Pad comes pes, wou;. Colonel Franklin remarked round
the summit of the Pars' wanat'ha mountain twenty small Jain
temples, in shape very much resembling an extinguisher (i. e. conical),
and containing Vasu'pa'dukas or sacred feet. — Trans. As. Soc. ii. 530.
3 L. iv. c. 82.
4 Perseus, as well as Hercules and Mercury, was the son of Jupiter
Picus, i.e. the Peak, and named Tarsus Ik tov Kf/io-/Aov tov <§iou ccvtov
iroSo?. — Malal. Hist. Chron. 43. The name of the mountain was
sometimes transferred to the priest of the mountain. Thus Bogdo
is the name of a mountain in the Steppes of Tartary and of the
Grand Lama of Thibet. The Dalai Lama lives in a temple on
Mount Putala.— Zwick and Schill. Account of ' Calmuc Tartary, 1831.
H 4

104

ON BUDDHA.

person supposed to make the impression is evi
dent, from the manner in which it is spelt by
the Siamese, Shra Baat1 : for among the Battas, in
the Indian archipelago, one of the gods in their
second triad is called Seri Pada 2, which seems to be
a connecting link between Pater and Buddha ; and
if that personage was indeed Phut, as I have en
deavoured to show, it is very remarkable that his
name is to this day preserved in our English word
foot. This Seri Pada was said to be a great navi
gator, an invariable attribute of the Noachidae ;
and if we would learn the origin and meaning
of the superstition, we must consult the Kams-
chatdales, who have a tradition of a universal
deluge, and to this day point out the spot on
the summit of a lofty mountain, where Kutka,
who is also their supreme deity, is said to have
stepped out of a boat, and peopled the world
with human beings. 3 This is the true solu
tion of a mystery which has never been satis
factorily explained. It may easily be imagined
that the spot on which, after a twelvemonths' im
prisonment in the ark, its captives first regained
their liberty, and the patriarch impressed the mark
of his foot upon the yet slimy soil, that spot must
have long continued to raise emotions in the breasts
of those who remembered the event, which can

1 In a paper read before the Royal Asiatic Society by Captain
Low. 2 Sir Stamford Raffle Memoirs, p. 435.
3 Second Voyage round the World by Sir O. von Kotzebue.

ON BUDDHA. 105
be scarcely understood by persons who have not
floated like them upon a shoreless ocean, amidst the
wrecks of a ruined world. Near that spot would
the altar be raised which Noah builded unto the
Lord, and which was afterwards placed among the
constellations ; and often would his sons bring their
children to that spot to imprint upon their minds
an awful recollection ofthe tremendous catastrophe,
to warn them of the consequences of sin, and to
offer with them a sacrifice of thanksgiving for their
deliverance from the horrors of that period. The
footmarks retained by the hardened clay would
be thus associated with ideas of solemnity and re
ligion, and attachment to a place accustomed to be
regarded with reverence would soon produce
imitations of them in situations where some resem
blance was observed to the diluvian mount. In
process of time the stones on which the imitations
were carved, being considered sacred, would be
conveyed to other places less difficult of access ',
but chiefly to the banks of rivers, partly because
they also were sacred memorials, and partly be
cause the religio loci would have been imperfect
1 " At Allahabad/' say the missionaries Tyerman and Bennett,
" we were introduced into a subterranean temple dedicated to an
idol, which we cannot name." It will be seen in the progress of
this work, that they had no real occasion to be so much shocked by
the idol, since, in spite of the Brahmins and their coarse meta
physics, it was only an emblem of the diluvian mount. " In a large
chamber, 120 feet by 60, multitudes of images were discoverable
in recesses of the walls and on the floor ; but at length the sibyl
brought us to a place where there was nothing to be seen, but the
forms of two human feet cut upon a flat stone." — Journal of Voy
ages in South Sea, ii. 327-

106

ON BUDDHA.

without a supply of water ; for so singularly is the
original association of ideas preserved, even to the
present day, that " the Shra Baat, worshipped by
the Siamese, is generally covered with water, which
the devotee sprinkles over his body to wash away
the stain of sin. On each ofthe toes, moreover, is
a double figure of the lotus \ the emblem of the
ark ; hence in situations where there was no water
naturally, tanks and reservoirs were made to fur
nish it : thus Beernagurgh, an ancient city, and
therefore probably of a date anterior to the refine
ments of the Brahmins, has in it " 300 idolatrous
temples, each of which has a reservoir of water2;"
and on the same mountain of Ceylon, where the
print of the sacred foot was to be seen, there is an
extensive miry cavity, called Bhoput tank. Here
again the word Put3, the foot of Bho, or Fo, or
Buddha, approaches very nearly in form and sound
to the biblical Phut. This reservoir was also
called the tank of Rabana 4 ; but Rabana is not in
strictness a proper name ; for it means a tyrant. It
is therefore a term of reproach, intended to de
grade, and perhaps conceal, the real object of some
proscribed worship ; and who that object was it
will not be difficult to discover from his history.
The hero of the Ramayana is said in that poem to
have constructed a bridge across the strait between
1 Captain Low's paper, R. A. Society.
2 Ayeen Akbery, ii. 65.
3 It is written Sreepud as well as Sreepad. — As. Res. v. 3Q.
4 Rabana, or Ravana, hence perhaps the Raven ; the b and v being
pronounced indifferently in various part of India. — As. Res. vol. v.

ON BUDDHA. 107
the southern point of the Indian continent and
Ceylon ; and having defeated Rabana in a trial of
strength, like Ulysses among the suitors of Pene
lope, by bending the bow Danush, to have effected
the rescue of the captive Sita. Now the fabled
contests of pagan gods are often the real contests
of rival sects : the votaries of Brahma record with
triumph their victory over the more ancient deity
of Ceylon, the god of the insular conical hill, of the
rock basin, and the Sreepadum ; for previous to
this conflict he was all-powerful, and Brahma was
no better than his herald. To despoil him of his
insular honours Rama is represented to have con
nected the island with the mainland ; for Ceylon \
like other islands, was considered holy ; and when
the Mahommedans established themselves there,
they fell in with that ancient superstition by deter
mining that it was the paradise of Genesis, and
that the divine foot was Adam's : wherefore the
mountain is still called Adam's Peak ; and an in
scription that no one can decipher is supposed to
be his epitaph. But " it seems to me," says the
author of Roggewein's voyages 2, " that it regards
Noah or some of his family, who established their
dominion in this island, and who for that reason,
by a figure natural enough in any oriental language,
might be styled the father of mankind." The
natives, according to Marco Polo, refer it to the
1 It is called by the natives Lamca, or the Holy Island — -Harris's
Voyages, ii. 677-
2 Harris's Voyages, i. 289-

108

ON BUDDHA.

first introduction of idolatry into that country,
which brings us back again to Hind or Buddha.
The name they gave him was Sogomon Barchan. l
Whatever may be the meaning of the first of these
words, the latter is evidently his title as Khan,
Commander, or Priest, ofthe baris or ship. Sita2,
the prize of victory, was plainly the sacred cha
racter of the diluvian or Boudhist worship trans
ferred to the religion of Brahma by the success of
his champions ; for, being an incarnation of Lak-
shmi, she was produced by the agitation of the
ocean round the mountain Mandara, and the lotus,
the emblem ofthe ark, was her habitation, and she
is said to have been adored by the whole universe.3
One of her names is Sri ; another is Padma, which
is sometimes pronounced in the vulgar dialects
Padam or Pa tarn. 4 Thus by securing Lita, Rama
subjected to his power the Sree Padum itself.
1 Harris's Voyages, i. 622.
2 From Sidh, Saint, in Hindoostanee.
3 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 132.
4 Wilford, As. Res. iii. 6l.

109

CHAP. VI.
ON BUDDHA.
HIS CONNECTION WITH THE LOTUS BY ITS INDIAN NAME
' PADMA.'  HIS TEMPLE PADMA MANDIRA.  HIS NAME EN
TERS INTO THE COMPOSITION OF MANY EASTERN WORDS
CONNECTED WITH HIS WORSHIP. — IN THE WESTERN
POMONA HE IS AMALGAMATED WITH HIS FATHER HAM. 
HIS CONNECTION WITH MON, MOON, MUN, MAN, MANA,
MENI, MENU, MANDARA, AMMON, MINOTAUR. — MEANING
OF TAURUS AND BARIS.
Padma is the Indian name for the lotus1, or water
lily, the solitary flower of which floating, on a
vast expanse of water in its unexpanded state, pre
sented the idea of the diluvian mount appearing
above the surface of the deluge ; and therefore
in the Hindoo representations of those Avatars,
which plainly preserve traditions of that event, the
lotus is always to be observed above the waters of
the ocean. Hence the island in the yEgean, where
St. John resided, was denominated Patmos, and
hence the temple called Padma Mandira2 took its
name, being built on the banks of the Cumudvati,
or Euphrates, in Mesopotamia, which was an
ciently called Padan Aram, and was probably in
sulated by communications between the Tigris and
1 Nympha?a Lotus, Linn. 2 Wilford, in Asiat. Res. iii. 124.

110 ON BUDDHA.
Euphrates, before the deluge ; for those rivers
being two of the four that watered Eden, by com
mon consent, the two others must join them to
complete the circuit, if it be true, as some suppose,
that they flowed round rather than through the
garden ; and if this be so, it would give additional
strength to the veneration for islands, and might
be the reason why Mesopotamia was chosen by
the builders of Babel, which perhaps was the true
Padma Mandira. That it was a temple built,
like most other very ancient temples, in comme
moration of the deluge, and in some sort of imita
tion of the diluvian mount, may be inferred from
the addition of the word Mandira1 ; the very ap
propriate designation of the mountain, by which
the ocean was figuratively said to have been
churned, and signifying the water-piercing peak,
as well as the residence of the gods. Besides the
Indian Mandara, there was another in the centre
of that district, in Egypt, called Meroe, which,
according to Suidas, means an island in the ocean.
It was surrounded by low hills, as the germ is by
the expanded petals of the lotus ; and Bruce says,
it was once the residence of the Shepherd, or Palli,
kings. Now the ancestors of the Palli2, or Bhills,
are described as particularly attached to the wor
ship of Mahadeva, under the symbol of the Linga3,
1 From 'Man,' water, and 'Dara,' to pierce. — Wilford, As. Res. iii.
74. An insulated conical mountain. — Heber s Journal, i. 283. The
other etymology is Man, divine, and Dar, to inhabit, of which more
will be said on another occasion.
2 Phallus from Palli, Bhils from Baal.
3 As. Res. iii. 60.

ON BUDDHA. Ill
which, however it might be perverted afterwards
to a baser meaning, was originally nothing more
than this same Mandara. The Bheels of India
were the original inhabitants of Rajpootana, that
is, the country of the Rajah Pout, or Buddha :
these Bheels, then, were " the Danavas, or children
of Danu, who came into Egypt from the west of
India under Beli, who lived at the time when the
Padma Mandira was erected." • In order to as
certain who Danu was, it is of importance to
observe that a deity of that name was worshipped
in the Malayan archipelago, and that his name is
associated with a mountain and a lake. The in
habitants of Pulo Nias worship Batu Ba Danaw.2
Batu is the name of a hill, like the rock in Ceylon,
which is called Prabat.3 The history of this name
is explained by a passage in Kgempfer. " Wistnu,"
says he, " is styled by the Sianiites ' Prahpuditnau,'
i. e. the saint of high descent ; ' Sammana Khu-
tama,' the man without passions ; ' Prah,' the saint,
or Budha, or Phutha, in one syllable, according to
their guttural pronunciation like that of the
Hottentots4:" so that when Ezekiel says, "They
of Persia, and of Lud, and of Phut, were in thine
army5," there can be little doubt, that the lat
ter term was applied to the Indian worshippers
of Buddha. The Prahbat has been retained by
i Wilford, As. Res. iii. 124.
2 Sir Stamford Raffles, Memoirs, 448.
3 In the Asiat. Res. the interpretation given is the venerable
foot, i. e. of Sommonacodom, a king of Ceylon, and idol of the
Siamese, i. 170.
4 Hist, of Japan, p. 33. 6 Ezekiel, xxvii. 10.

112

ON BUDDHA.

the Brahmins, with little alteration, in their Meru
Paravada1, which the Burmans call Mienmo, or
the Mount of Vision, and imagine it surrounded by
seven chains of hills, like so many belts, between
which flow seven rivers called Sida, which in the
dialect of Arracan is applied to the sea.2 Here
then we have additional evidence, that Sita was a
diluvian goddess ; and is further confirmed by a
mythological tradition, that when Rama bent the
bow of Siva3, the condition of obtaining Sita in
marriage, the earth sank, and the waters of the
seven seas were united into one4: now that bow
of Siva was named Dhanu, derived perhaps from
Deona, which is synonymous to Argha, in the
same way as arcus is from area6, on account of
the curvature of its shape. But Danith, in fact,
signifies a ship ; and if any reliance could be placed
on similarity of sound, it is remarkable that in
English there is the same sort of relation between
Bow and Boat, and the same connection of both
with Po or Bho, Bat or Pout. When the grand
son of Noah came to be confounded with the Pa
triarch in succeeding ages, his votaries sometimes
bestowed his own titles upon rivers, which they
had learned to consider sacred emblems of the
deluge ; hence the river of Piedmont was called
not only the Po, and the Padus, but Eridanus6,
1 Hence the Himalayan mountains were called Parvetoi.
2 As. Res. vi. 176.
3 Or Shivu, as Ward writes it.
4 Ward's Hindoo Mythology, 99. ,,
6 So arch from ark.
6 Heri, in Sanscrit, is Lord, one of the names of Siva.

ON BUDDHA. 113
the Lord of the Bow, or Boat ; and there were
two or three other rivers known by the same ap
pellation. Pausanias says, that Eridanus runs
through the country of the Galata?, or Celts, who
inhabit the extremities of Europe, and border on
a vast ocean not navigable in its remoter parts,
and there the sisters of Phaeton bewail his fall.1
This is probably the Rhone, since altered into
Rhodanus. There was also an Athenian river of
that name2, and one that fell into the Baltic, pro
bably the Vistula, or, as Pomponius Mela writes it,
Visula3, flowing through Po-land and Pomerania.
Dantzic, or Danus Vicus, was anciently Gedanum,
and one of its streams is still the Rodaunus4 : and
therefore D'Anville rightly places there the Elec-
trides Insula?, of which Strabo denied the ex
istence5, because he looked for them in the wrong
place, at the mouth ofthe Po in the Adriatic. The
Veneti6 had settlements at the embouchure of
both rivers ; and it may not be amiss to show, in
another instance, how much of diluvian supersti-

1 Pausaniae Attica, Li. 10. : 'Ew< SraXdao-ri itoXkij, kcu le rd ttipara
ov -n-XceifAU tiapt%zra.i Se a/ATmriv Kai pa%lav x.cu Ssijpta ovUv ioiKora to?;
h &aXdo-o-ri rf Xotitfj.
2 'HpiBavp tS KeXtiko? Kara, to. avra ono/xa i%mi. Ibid. 45.
3 It is unnecessary to point out the resemblance between Visula
and the Vesulus Mons, from which the Italian Po springs.
4 Moreri in voce Dantzic.
8 Ov& yap rovroiv ovUv iariv Iv toi"? toVoi;. I. v. 215. He was
equally puzzled by the name Eridanus. Tov ^rjSa^ou >yrjc ana,
ts\tjO-im \l tou Tiahov Xeyifiwov. Ibid.
6 OueWci y&oc aXko nam itoikouh. Polybius Hist. 1. ii. 105. To?;
eOetrt kou T$ m<rp'? fyayp focupepovTec KeXtSd, yXarrri ft aKKoia xpa^evof.
Ibid. VOL. I. I

114

ON BUDDHA.

tions that people retained. At the bottom of the
Gulf, says Strabo, there is a remarkable temple of
Diomed, which has seven copious springs of water
falling immediately into the sea, in a broad and
deep stream, and the natives call the place the
fountain, and mother of the sea ] ; and he refers
to some fables that were current among them con
cerning the Daunii and Hippian Argos. To un
derstand this, it must be observed, that there is a
well near the mountains of Namole, which the
Hindoos worship, and when the Tith of Amavus
happens upon a Friday, the water, they say, flows
over at sunrise.2 Some emigrants from Hindostan,
struck, perhaps, by a resemblance to their native well
at the period of its overflow, gave this the name of
Timavus. A Hindoo etymology may perhaps be
thought too far-fetched, though that objection has
been already refuted ; but let those who think so
explain, if they can, why Diomed should have a
temple there, and especially a temple of this sort.

1 'Ev avro) rS fJv%oy rov 'A^ptov Kal Upor rov Aio^hovc io~r)v aljiov
[/.v-rip'/ic, to Tipavov. AifA&va yap E%£t Kal a\croc EvirpEitec, Kal Ttqyds ito-
ra[/.L0v v^aroq svdvi; £i; r\v OdXaa-a-yv iKitiirrovroi;, irXarsT Kal /3a#£? iro-
Tay.5). — itfiyviv koi y.i\ripa QaXdrr'fjq ovof/.dc^£tv tov roitov. V. 214.
Xylander thinking Ttorapuov vtaroc, a useless pleonasm, proposes
to read itori^ov, and Casaubon approves of it, absurdly enough : for
so far from being potable, Strabo expressly states, that six out of
the seven springs were salt. It refers to the Potan, or Patan, who
presided over it ; for, according to Col. Wilford, the word worapo;
itself is derived from Padma, pronounced Patam ; and in Cornish
Celtic Tam being river, every potamos may be considered as a river
Po. 3 Ayeen Akbery, ii. 39- It will be recollected that the final
consonant is often quiescent, so that Tit Amavus would easily suffer
that contraction.

ON BUDDHA. 115
Again we must have recourse to India ; and if the
language and tlie customs of that country can be
traced still farther westward, it can be no matter
of surprise to find relics of them in Italy. It is
obvious that Diarmut might easily be mistaken for
Diomed by a quick pronunciation. Now, that is
a name to which many an altar is consecrated in
Ireland, under the name of Leaba Diarmut : he is
called Ruad ro fios, the most wise Governor ; he is
the Diarmutu of the Brahmans, a most wise and
upright judge : they now adore him as the Irish
did, and show a large flat stone for his bed, as the
Irish do.1 Ruad was certainly the deity presid
ing over the waters, and consequently a most
proper person to own the temple with seven
springs. But to return to Danu : the lake of
Sincara, considered as the lake of the Gods, from
which all rivers flow, is called Danau ; here is the
source of Indragiri, which obviously takes its name
from the mountain itself, the hill of heaven. It
lies amongst the Barisan, or mountains of the Baris;
on one of which a steep and three-peaked hill, the
city of the hill of Po, i. e. Pageruyong, is built ;
and another, equally three-peaked, is called Berapi,
the Baris of Po, and one of its summits is Gunung
Bempo, the sacred mountain.2 I have the less
i Vallancey on the Ancient Irish, p. 67.
Dile ruad, the diluvian king; in Chaldee piTl Radah. Nomen
Angeli pluviis et irrigationi terrs prtefecti.— Buxtorf.
2 Address to the Batavian Society, 1815, by Sir Stamford Raffles.
There are some other indications here of Brahminical arkite tra
ditions. Somawung, the City of the Moon, is built above the source
I 2

116

ON BUDDHA.

hesitation in insisting upon these derivations,
because there is a kindred propensity among the
natives to revert to the aera of the flood. The
Malays, says Sir S. Raffles, in their literary com
positions, seldom go further back than the intro
duction of Mahommedanism, except to give an
account of Noah's ark. And at Oodeenuggur, a
city now in ruins, near the Hydaspes, the tradi
tions ofthe people are said, by Lieutenant Burnes,
to be vague and unsatisfactory ; " for they referred
us to the deluge and the time of the prophet
Noah."1 In Europe, again, the Danube is called
by the Germans Danaw, and it passes by the
city of Buda (Pest) ; there is reason, therefore,
to suspect, that in the Malayan Budo, the origin
of the Grecian Danaus may be traced. Among
the innumerable other localities which have re
tained his name, it may suffice to mention a few of
the most obvious. The Nerbudda, or river of
Buddha, flows from a mountain lake.2 The Ganges
is called by the natives Puddah ; a cavern in a hill
upon its banks is Puttur3 Gotta ; Puttur having
on that account acquired the meaning of a rock ;
whence also the Greek Petra. Pokur is the name
of the Indragiri, and the country is called Pasumah Lebar, and Pa
sumah ulu Manna. Suruasa, from Surya, the Sun, is built on the
Selo (Sol), which falls into Indragiri. The natives believe that a
superior order of men inhabits the sky, whom they call Barucki, the
navigators of the Baris.
1 Vol. i. 58.
2 The Saone, which flows from the same lake in a contrary direc
tion, is also called Budda. Rennell's Memoirs of Hindostan, p. 22.5.
3 Heber's Journal.

ON BUDDHA. 117
of a celebrated temple near Ajmere, on the river
Puddar1, in the country ofthe Rajpoots; and
since Curocurr and Currach are ancient expres
sions of a ship2, it signifies the ship or temple of
Po. The same meaning may be assigned to Po-
waghur in the same district of Guzerat, which
Rennell writes Poggurrah : the ancient capital of
this district was Puttan, where Edrisi expressly
mentions that the idol Bodda, or Bud, was wor
shipped. There was another Puttan on the shore
ofthe ocean in the districts ofthe harbour of Deo,
distinguished by the addition of Sumnaut, from a
very ancient Paghoda, which stood there, before it
was destroyed by Mahmoud3 ; for Sommono in
Palee, which Captain Mahony calls the language
of Boudha, means Saint ; whence also the Latin
deity Summanus, whose history was buried so deep
in antiquity, that Ovid could make no guess what
he was4, undoubtedly derived his name. Sommo-
nakodom, or Poatisat as he is called in Siam, is ac
knowledged by the Cingalese to be the same holy
character as their Sommona Gautemeh, or Gau-
1 The other name of the Puddar, Butlass, is only another form
of the same etymology.
2 In ancient Irish ; in Arabic Kurcur ; in Spanish Carraca : at
Ajmere also is Taraghur on a lofty hill. Tor being a Prince, it may
be rendered the temple of the Prince. Du Fresne explains Curuca
navis, alias Carrucha, nostris Carache. Kerig, in Celtic, is a rock.
Mr. Bryant says, that Gur is a house both in Persic and in the
Gypsey or Zingari language.
3 Rennell's Memoirs of Hindostan, p. 22(i.
* Reddita, quisquis is est, Summano templa feruntur. Fast. vi. 731.
His honours were restored in the time of Pyrrhus ; therefore they
must have been more ancient.
I 3

118 ON BUDDHA.
temeh Boudha1 ; the paghoda therefore was the
temple of Summona Nat ; for the Nat of India is a
demigod. The word has been adopted, or pre
served, in the Latin Natta2, and it is easy to account
for the filthiness charged upon him by Horace, and
of dissoluteness by Persius3, when it is recol
lected, that it is also written Nacca, and that the
Nachs are the dancing girls in the impure rites
grafted on tbe worship of Boudha.4 Paghoda
itself means the temple of Po5, or Pow, the deity
to whom sacrifice is still offered before a journey is
undertaken by the Puharrees, inhabitants ofthe hills
in the north of, India ; of whom Heber says, at the
same time, that " they offer frequent prayers to
one Supreme Being, called Budo Gosaee ;" 6 and
since it has been shown, that other forms of his
name have been applied to islands in various
parts of the world, we are prepared to find
this too employed in the same way : in point
of fact, in the Western Ocean we recognise it

¦ 1 As. Res. vii. 39. and he is thus connected with the deluge by
a small anachronism of tradition. It is said, that the guardian angel
of the earth used her utmost endeavours to prevail on the enemies
of Sommonakodom to adore him as a God, but at last finding them
inattentive to her repeated remonstrances, she squeezed her watery
locks, and poured forth such a deluge as totally destroyed them.
(Picart's Religious Ceremonies, iv. 55.) The diluvian divinity is
here confounded with the true God.
2 Immundus Natta, Sat. vi. 1. i. v. 124.
3 Non pudet in morem discincti vivere Nattae ? Persius. Sat.
iii. 31.
4 Heber's Journal.
5 Paghoda is from the Persian Pout, idol, and Ghoda, temple.
— Maurice' s Ind. Ant. ii. 141.
8 Vol. i. 279. Heber's Journal.

ON BUDDHA. 119
at Fernando Po1, and among the Orcades, or
Ark Islands, in Pomona ; for no one can ima
gine that the Goddess of Orchards had any thing
to do with that barren island, where scarcely
a gooseberry ripens its fruit. Perhaps, too, the
Menapii of Ptolemy in the eastern part of Ireland,
were Po-monans in a reversed order — Mona Poin ;
for Mona, says Vallancey, in the heathen mytho
logy of the Irish, is derived from Mana2 (death),
who, they say, was saved from the flood, and wor
shipped as a deity, which corresponds with the
Menu of the Brahmins, explained by Sir W. Jones
to mean Noah. On the summit of the high moun
tain, Sliabh na Mann, in the county of Tipperary,
are the ruins of a very large altar dedicated to
Mana : hence he infers, that the libations poured out
to Meni, and the table prepared for Meni, were the
feasts of the dead, sacrifices to the manes, called by
the Hindoos Prasita, and frequently mentioned in the
laws of Menu. 3 Abundant testimony will hereafter
1 The origin of Fernando, and its connection with Po, it is not
easy to explain : it is probably a corruption, and perhaps from
Pharan Duw, the glory of God.
2 On the Ancient Irish, p. 41.
Mana, in Chaldee, is to flow, which shows the nature ofthe death
to which it alludes, by the flood which destroyed the earth ; and in
like manner his other name Po, has been transferred in the islands
of the South Sea to the figurative death, which he underwent in the
grave of the Ark ; for it signifies the world of darkness, from which
Taaroa, the principal God of the Tahitians, emerged at the begin
ning ; concerning whom some of their wise men hold, that he was
only a man deified after death. By some it is stated, that the ex
istence of the land or universe was anterior to that of the Gods ;
which would be quite true of those who were not older than the
deluge. Ellis's Polynesian Researches, ii. 191.
3 Sir W. Jones's Works.
I 4

120 ON BUDDHA.
be produced that the holy water in the rock basons
on the tops of hills, and the other branches of Celtic
idolatry, looked back to the deluge for their origin;
and accordingly, Man or Mon gives name to many
places where druidical temples are always to befound;
as for instance, in the Isle of Man, in Mona, or An
glesey, and in Menai Strait, and in Pomona. In par
ticular, several mountains are sacred to him, and he
is also called Mananan, i. e. Mann an Ann, the god
of the waters. * The Irish mythologists give him
the name of Mac Lir, the son of the sea, and say
that he was the best pilot of the western world, and
settled in the Isle of Man ; that he is powerful in
the heavens, and assists in the disposal of good and
bad weather, conjointly with Bad, the god of the
winds, and with Re, the moon.2 Prom him, Ar
menia, the peculiar land of Meni, because it con
tains Ararat, derives its name, and Harmonia, other
wise called Hermione, a city on the Argolic gulf,
famous for its temple, and the Hermiones, a Ger
man tribe, inhabiting Pomerania, who worshipped
a hero-god, called Mannus.3 And finally, to his
tutelary name we may trace the origin of Mons,
Monte, Mountain ; and in the language of Owyhee
Mouna.4 It may be observed, that in Ireland,
where antiquity has left deeper footsteps than else
where, Mann is distinguished from Bad, or, in other
words, Noah is distinguished from his grandson
1 Ann, or Onn, in Irish, is water.
2 Vallancey's Vindication, Collect, iv. 507-
3 Moreri, in voce Hermiones. ' Ellis's Researches.

ON BUDDHA. 121
Boudh, or, as it is written in the Greek version,
Phoud. But the Oriental doctrine of the trans
migration of souls from one generation to another,
and consequent re-appearance of the same person in
several bodies, perpetually confounds the characters
of those who were only known to them through
the medium of tradition : to this cause we owe the
seven or fourteen Menas, and no less than twenty-
two incarnations of Buddha. Thus Brahma is some
times the self-existent Swayambhuva ; sometimes
the son ofthe self-existent Swayambhuva : the first
Menu is sometimes the Father of Menu, Vaivas-
wata ' ; sometimes his grandfather. It is no won
der, therefore, that the heads of families after
the flood lose their individuality, and are bound
together in a complex mass of diluvian tradition,
which it is extremely difficult to unravel. We must
be satisfied with the discovery of separate clues
here and there, and with the certainty that we
cannot be far wrong in attributing to the persons,
of whom these scattered notices remain, a proximity
to the deluge. Let us proceed then to investigate
the character of Buddha, and his connection with
Mana or Meni. Sir Stamford Raffles, in his ad
dress to the Batavian Society, 1815, giving an
1 Vaivaswata is the child of the sun. Institutes of Menu. This
Swayambhuva, be it observed, is also called Adima ; so is his wife
Satarapa : another of her names is Iva, and she is descended from
I, which is the same as the Welsh Hu pronounced He : they are
obviously Adam and Eve. Again, Swayambhuva is conjointly and
individually Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadeva ; and yet the Puranas
say, that these three gods sprung in a mortal shape from the body of
Adima, or Swayambhuva. — Wilford's Essay, As. Res. vol. v. art. 18.

122 ON BUDDHA.
account of Boro Bodo in Java \ a temple built so
as to crown the upper part of a small hill, and
terminated by a dome, says, " Bodo is either a
term of contempt cast on it by Mahommedans, or
erroneously so pronounced, instead of Budho,
which in its general acceptation in the Javanese
language is synonymous with ancient or heathen : "2
and Franklin observes, that in the language com
monly employed in Hindostan, Boodha signifies an
old and venerable man ; and a Jeyne3, being asked
by the author of " The religion of the Hindoos,"
why they honoured him as God, replied, " It was
an act of homage to exalted merit." 4 Now in
Thibet he is worshipped as Mahamoonee, or Mahi-
man, the great Moonee, or Muni, i. e. Saint.5 Mr.
Eliot tells us, that in the language ofthe Garrows,
who inhabit the mountainous country N.E. of
Bengal, and worship Mahadeo, which is the name
of a mountain, as well as the sun and moon, and
believe that their God resides in the hills, Mun
signifies a man 6 : on the other hand it has been
shown, that in Hiberno-Celtic Mann is a God ;
1 Boro is evidently Baris ; for so Ararat was called. It is re
markable that in Irish, too, a dishonourable meaning has been at
tached to Bod, plainly derived from the eastern linga — mem-
brum virile.
2 Memoirs of Sir Stamford Raffles, p. 159.
3 The Jeynes are a sect of Boudhists.
4 Franckhn on the doctrines of the Jeynes and Boudhists, 164.
5 The inhabitants of Boutan suppose him to reside on the sum
mit of a square rock, above the region of the sun and moon, sur
rounded by the ocean, which is divided by seven stripes of dry land,
and contains some islands, the residence of mankind. Davis, in
Trans. As. Soc. ii. 493.
6 As. lies. iii. 36.

ON BUDDHA. 123
they both designate the same deified mortal.
Moreover Mana, who, as we have seen, is the Nep
tune of Ireland, was worshipped by the idolatrous
Arabians in the form of a large rude stone ', and in
the Indian Peninsula Boodh was represented by a
stupendous stone idol, called Sommonacodom, and
his followers took delight in erecting to his honour
temples and high monuments, as if, says Mr. Knox,
in his account of Ceylon, they had been born
solely to hew rocks and huge stones, and lay them
up in heaps.2 It is a remarkable instance of the
permanence of superstitious rites, that the Arabs
at this day not only venerate the black stone in
the Caaba3, which was probably the idol Manah,
but the pilgrims of Mecca are obliged to visit a
mountain in the neighbourhood, called the Holy
Monument4, and to throw seven stones, (Pococke
says seventy,) and at different times and places, in
the valley of Mina5 : to this subject we shall have
occasion to revert in a future chapter. The anti
quity of the Caaba, and of the black stone which
it contains, is strenuously maintained by the Ara
bians, who carry it back so far as Adam. Two of
their other pagan idols were Wadd and Sawa :
1 Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 24, and 27.
2 Maurice's Ind. Ant. vi. 81.
3 The Caaba was said to contain an image of the moon, and
therefore, although Sir W. Jones thinks the derivation must excite a
smile, it seems very probable, that Mecca is only an abbreviation of
Mahcadah, the Temple of the Moon. See his Works, iii. 62.
4 AI Masher al haram. Sale's Discourse, p. 160. Remember
God near the holy Monument. Koran, c. ii. 34.
5 Ibid. 154.

124 ON BUDDHA.
they are said to have been antediluvians, and men
of great piety ; but the deluge is a boundary not
easily passed, and other circumstances fix them to
that aera. Wadd, which is only a variation of Bad,
or Bud, like the Scandinavian Woden, was supposed
to be the heaven under the form of a man. Now
Bud and Byd in Celtic, both signify the world ' ;
and Sawa is said to have lain under water for some
time after the deluge, and, when discovered by the
devil, pilgrimages to it were instituted.2 The
name of the hill called the Holy Monument 3 is
Kazah ', a name which it shares in common with
the great ranges of Caucasus and Imaus ; for the
former is the mountain of Casa, and a peak of the
latter has nearly the same meaning, Khaisa Ghur.
Two other circumstances serve in some degree to
connect the ancient religion of Arabia with that
which, according to Kaempfer, pervaded all the
East: — 1. A stone is carefully preserved, exhibiting
the footsteps of Abraham5, who in this instance has
been substituted by the Mussulmans for Buddha.
2. The Arabian Sawa. is the name of a sacred lake
in Thibet, which is called by the natives Bhote. A
certain Fakeer travelling through that country
crossed some hills called Lungoor, the hills of
Luan, Luna, the moon, and passing the mountain

1 Lloyd's Archaeologia Britannica. 2 Sale's Prel. Dis. p. 25.
3 Cau, or Coh in Persian signifies a mountain, and Kazah is
perhaps derived form Cush, the brother of Phut. Casi is a name
of Benares, which some say was the first land that appeared above
the waters of the deluge.
4 Sale's Koran, p. 35. in a note. 5 Sale's Prel. Dis. p. 157.

ON BUDDHA. 125
Patala ', came to the lake Maun Surwur (the Hin
doo Manasarovera) ; round which are twenty or
twenty-five temples. If, however, we would know
something of the real history of the great Muni,
or Man, we must have recourse to the Hindoo
legend, denominated by Gladwin, in his transla
tion of the Ayeen Akbery, the Mutch Owtar;
which is a far greater deviation from the ordinary
spelling of those words, Matsya Avatar, than the
alteration of Man into Mun or Meen. It is there
said, that in the month of Phagun, during the Sut
Jowg, Rajah Mun was told by the deity in the
form of a fish, " After seven days a light shall shine
forth, and the earth shall be deluged with water.
Embark on board a certain ship, taking with you a
few righteous persons with the divine books, and
the choicest medicines." 2 That this was no partial
deluge, may be inferred from the time during
which it is supposed to have lasted, namely,
1,718,000 years, and still more from the fuller and

1 The priests of Boodh are called in Thibet Lama.
Akbery, p. 432.
Patala is the seat of the Delai -Lama., probably Pad Ila : seven days'
journey to the south is Cailasa Lungri. Lungur means a peak ex
ceedingly lofty ; on the summit there is a Bhowjputr tree, from the
root of which gushes a small stream, which the people say is the
source of the Ganges. There is a loftier summit whither no one
goes, on which there is a fountain or cavity. The Fakeer's name
was Praun Porg. As. Res. v. 49-
Patala is the infernal region of the Brahminical Hindoos.
That fhe Pada?i of Herodotus were the Buddhists of Thibet, there
is this singular evidence — that among both, a man was deemed
guilty of the basest dereliction of filial duty, who refused to eat his
father. Ancient Geography, in Lardner's Encyclopaedia, i. 267.
2 Ayeen Akbery, p. 497-

126 ON BUDDHA.
more distinct account of it preserved in the Bhag-
vat Purana ' ; which shows the identity of this
Muni with Menu : it is there stated, that when a
daemon had stolen away the Vedas, which flowed
from the lips of Brahma, or, in other words, when
mankind had lost sight of the laws of God,
a holy king, named Satyaurata, reigned, a servant
of the Spirit which moved on the waves 2, and so
devout, that water was his only sustenance. As
this pious king was making a libation in the river,
the preserving power, Heri, under the form of a fish,
appeared to him, and said, " In seven days from
the present time the three worlds will be plunged
in an ocean of death ; but in the midst of the
destroying waves, a large vessel, sent by me for
thy use, shall stand before thee. Then shalt thou
take all medicinal herbs, all the variety of seeds,
and accompanied by seven saints, encircled by
pairs of all brute animals, thou shalt enter the spa
cious ark, and continue in it, secure from the flood,
on one immense ocean without light, except the
radiance of thy holy companions. When the ship
shall be agitated by a tempestuous wind, thou shalt
fasten it with a large sea serpent on my horn, for I
will be near thee, until a day of Brahma (a year)
be completely ended." When, therefore, the sea
had deluged the whole earth, augmented by
showers from immense clouds, the pious king
1 Translated by Sir W. Jones.
2 Vishnu the Preserver, or Pervader, i.e. the Spirit of God,
called also Narayan, or moving on the waters. Moor's Hind. Pan
theon, p. 9- and 26.

ON BUDDHA. 127
invoked the assistance of the preserving power,
who again appeared on the vast ocean in the form
of a fish, blazing like gold, and with a stupendous
horn on which he tied the ship, as he had been
taught. When Heri and Brahma had slain the
daemon, and the deluge abated, Satyaurata, in
structed in all divine and human knowledge, was
appointed by the favour of Veeshnu the seventli
Menu, surnamed Vaivaswata, or the child of the
sun. But the appearance of a horned fish to the
religious monarch was Maya, or delusion.1 And
so it was ; but the real meaning of this figurative
language is sufficiently apparent, when it is con
sidered, that the old Indian philosophy imagined a
vast golden mountain, called Sommeir, or Sumeru,
rising from the centre of Jambudwipa 2, i. e. the sea
girt earth, which the Siamese say was once over
whelmed with water to the depth of nine miles ; and
thus it is a poetical description of the ark ground
ing on Mount Ararat, mountain peaks and rocks
being often denominated horns. These events are
said to have happened in the month of Phagun :
in that month the Hindoos bathe in the Ganga for
the remission of mortal sins, and celebrate the

1 As. Res. i. 234. A Brahman of Cashmeer also told Wolff" the
missionary, that according to the account of the deluge in the
Shaster, the pious Rajah Sat Prit prayed, and God appeared to him.
God became like a fish, and inundated the world : he placed the
Rajah in a ship, and that fish, which had horns, saved the vessel
from the raging of the waters, by binding it on his horns. —
Journal, 341.
2 Or Jamboo Deep. Maurice's Hindustan, i. 480. Trans. As.
Soc. iii. 84.

128

ON BUDDHA.

festival called Phalgutsava, or Huli ', which is also
the name of a branch of the Ganges. There is a
singular confusion in the Ayeen Akberry con
cerning the place of this festival in the calendar,
which, however, throws considerable light upon the
subject to which it refers. " The sages of Hin-
dostan," says this author, " divide the year into
three parts, beginning with the month of Pha-
gun 2 ; " and again, " the Hooli falls out dif
ferently between the time of the sun's arriving at
the end of Aquarius to the 15th of Pisces.3 Now
Sir W. Jones affirms, that Aswina was the first
month of the ancient lunar year, and in the calen
dar which he compiled from Sanscrit almanacks,
Phalguna is the seventh. In fact, the one be
longed to the vernal, and the other to the autum
nal equinox, and each had been at different times
the commencement ofthe year.4 Supposing, then,
after a season of neglect, a zeal to spring up for
the commemoration of an event, which tradition
assigned to the first month of the year, it would
be very natural for some to choose one equinox,
and some the other, and for both parties at last to
unite by keeping the festival at both periods5;
1 Sir W. Jones on the Lunar year of the Hindus, iv. 146.
2 Ayeen Akbery i. 267. 3 Ibid. 307-
4 From the Hubeeb Ul Syur, a Mahommedan work, quoted by
Major Price, in his history of the Mahommedans, it appears that an
error of surprising magnitude was detected by Naser-ood-deen in
the thirteenth century, in the mode that had hitherto been ob
served for adjusting the commencement of the new year. Malcolm's
Sketches in Persia, p. 253.
6 The Tithoreans held a vernal and an autumnal solemnity in
honour of Isis. Clarke's Travels, vii. 280.

ON BUDDHA. \og
and this would more readily occur among the Hin
doos, than with any other people, because they
had months consisting of fifteen days. For since
moons usually coincide with months, and are some
times expressed by the same term, the twelve
moons' duration of the deluge might easily be con
tracted into twelve of the abbreviated months.
But if this be so, we should expect to find a se
cond celebration of the Huli at the end of six
months: now this is actually the case. In the
month Aswini it was celebrated under the name of
Durgotsava; for that must be the festival which
Heber witnessed at the end of February, and to
which Abul Fazil alludes, when he places it under
the sign of Pisces. It might not be difficult to
show, that all the signs of the zodiac are indeed
signs or memorials of that catastrophe, which threw
all other events into the shade in comparison with
its terrific magnitude. But the asterisms, to which
the commemoration of it were assigned, are pecu
liarly significant, and both of them have a close
relation to the moon, which in its crescent form
was held to be an emblem of the ark. The sip;n
belonging to the month Phalguna was Virgo ; the
meaning of which, perhaps, is not immediately ap
parent ; but in the Hindoo zodiac her figure is thus

The mysteries of the Phrygian Ma (mother), were solemnised
at the autumnal equinox. — Sir W. Jones, iii. 180. Phrygia was
one of the supposed sites of Ararat in Africanus.
VOL. I. K

ISO

ON BUDDHA.

described ' : she " stands on a boat in water, in
one hand a lamp, in the other an ear of rice-
corn." In the Egyptian zodiac she was called
Isis 2, and wore a crescent on her head ; and
in the Indian solar year, the month correspond
ing to Phalguna was Isa ; a title of Siva, or
Mahadeo, who also wears the crescent, and is
sometimes represented standing erect in the middle
of the argha, like Virgo in the boat.3 Now Isis
was the same as Io, and Io was the moon. We
may also arrive at the same result by a different
route. Isis with her ears of corn was the same as
Ceres, and under that title the moon is addressed
by Virgil. " Vos o clarissima mundi lumina, Liber
et alma Ceres." But both Caras and Essis are
Celtic names for a ship.4 The Durgotsava or fes
tival of Durga, which followed six months after
wards, was consequently celebrated when the sun
was in the sign Pisces. Now who was Durga?
Colonel Francklin, who has well considered the
subject, says that she corresponds to the Greek
Damater, i. e. Ceres, and to the Egyptian Isis.5
One of her names is Yoogadya, or she who existed
1 By Sri'peti, author of the Retramala in some Sanscrit verses 
Sir W. Jones on the Indian Zodiak, iv. 76.
2 Lucian insists, that the Egyptians first divided the Zodiac into
twelve signs. — De Astrologia, p. 540. Opera.
3 As. Res. vi. 523. and it is the opinion of the Hindoos, that at
the time of the flood the two principles of generation assumed the
shape of a boat with its mast, in order to preserve mankind. Is-
wa is hence called Argara-at'h, Lord of the boat-shaped vessel.
vii. 274.
4 Vallancey, Collectanea.
5 On the Jeynes and Budhists, 177- he spells it Doorgah.

ON BUDDHA. 131
before the Yoogh, i. e. the postdiluvian age : ano
ther is Pudma, sitting on the water lily : another is
Swudha, or she who presides over the Manes ;
another is Tara, or the Deliverer ; another is the
daughter of Himaluyu ', on which mountain also
she slew the giants, and destroyed the demons
who fought against the gods, when the world was
covered with water. In her we have a singular
instance, with what indifference to confusion the
Hindoos clothed with the same designation the
most contradictory ideas, if they chanced to be
strongly associated together by tradition. Doorga
was the name of a giant who had dethroned the
gods, or at least usurped their power 2 ; i. e. the
evil spirit, to whom the flood was attributed ; and
Doorga was the name of the being fabricated by
the gods, who slew him, and cut off his head3, in
other words, the Deity of the Ark, who saved her
constructors from destruction. Sumbha is the
name of one of the demons that she destroyed,
and yet it is the name by which she is herself ad
dressed in an inscription found among some ruins
at the foot of a hill called Durga. The stone
bears the representation of a pillar surmounted by
a sun and crescent, and part of it runs thus : " I
1 Ward's Hindoo Mythology, i. 133. 143. She was also called
Kali, or time, i. e. Chronus, Saturn.
2 The Chandee or Doorgah Path or Legend.
3 Ward endeavours to make a distinction by writing one Doorgii,
and the other Doorga ; but, as they are pronounced exactly alike, the
distinction is artificial, and good for nothing.'
K 2

132 ON BUDDHA.
prostrate myself before Sambhu l, whose glorious
head is adorned with the resplendent moon, and
who is the chief prop of the three worlds, who de
stroyed the state and arrogance of the demons."2
In another inscription found at Chitradurg, she is
mentioned as graced with the beautiful moon
crowning her head, herself the pillar which upholds
the origin of the three worlds 3 : the three worlds
are, no doubt, the earth in its three states of
existence before the flood, during it, and after it.4
The sign to which the festival of this deity belongs
is called in the Indian zodiac Min, or Meen, and
was originally represented by a figure half human
and half fish 5 ; desinit in piscem mulier formosa
superne. It was the picture of the Chaldasan
Dagon, the Syrian Oannes, the Indian Vishnu,
as he is represented in the Matsya Avatar ; the
human part being separated from its fish-formed
1 Sambhu and Sumbha are evidently the same : all Sanscrit names
are written with either a or u, indifferently. Ward generally uses the
latter where others employ the former.
2 As. Res. ix. 484.
3 lb. 417.
4 It is worthy of observation, that Chandee is used as a synonom
for Doorgah in the Legend, which bears both those names, and
Canya is the Sanscrit name for Virgo. Khan, or Rohan, is the
title of a Mongolian chief. Cohen is a priest, Conn is in Irish the
Moon, and Chandra in Hindostani.
5 In the ancient zodiac of Egypt, in the Barberini Museum,
among the capitals of the pillars in the church of Montivilliers in
Normandy, Knight discovered the figure of a mermaid : of which
he doubts whether it was a northern divinity, or an ornament copied
from the Syrens of classical celebrity. We shall see, that it was a
sacred form both in the north and in the south, in the east and in
the west, barbarian and classic ; he himself attests that he observed
it more than once in the Lombard churches of Italy, and often in
France. — Tour in Normandy, 184.

ON BUDDHA. 133
vehicle, we recognise it again in the Egyptian
king Menas, or Menes, who was saved from
drowning by a crocodile. l The name is still re
tained in the Greek Mene, signifying the moon,
and that moon itself has the same origin will
scarcely be doubted, when it is considered that
one of the days, on which this festival of the sign
Meen began, was denominated from the great
Moonie of India Bodhanam.2 Some, we are told,
begin on this day, and continue till the ninth of
the new moon, the great festival called Durgot-
sava, in honour of Durga. Others, it is true,
observe it not on this ninth of Bhadra, the month,
which, though it is called Aswina, closes the calen
dar, but on the sixth of that Aswina, which opens
the year under the sign of Aries. 3 But that day,
too, is called Bodhanam, and the Egyptian zodiac
again discloses the original figure of the sign,
which has since been altered into a ram. It was a

1 Mani is the name of the alligator in Malabar, and the tor
toise, which supports Mandara, is probably a crocodile or alligator,
with its head and tail abbreviated by some unskilful designer ; and
the exterior figure of the sign called Cancer, would never have been
mistaken for any thing but a crocodile, if the artist had not unfor
tunately given it six legs. Certain it is that the crocodile was deemed
sacred. 2 Apud Saxones Luna Mona. Mona autem Germanis superi-
oribus Mon, alias Man ; a Men, abas Man veterrimo ipsorum rege
et Deo patrio, quem Tacitus meminit et in Luna celebrabant. — Spel-
man's Glossary.
3 Sir W. Jones, on the lunar year, from the Calica Purana.
The astrological sera is reckoned from the commencement of the
world, at which time, they say, all the planets were in the sign
Aries.  In the sera of the flood, the year commenced when the sun
entered the sign Aries. Abul Masher places it by calculation at the
distance of 4096 years.— Ayeen Akbery, i. 269.
K 3

134

ON BUDDHA.

man with horns upon his head in the form of a
crescent, and his name was Amun or Hammon.
Of this figure Ham is usually supposed to be the
prototype ; and this is only another proof of the
fact already noticed, that the characters immediately
subsequent to the flood are so blended together by
tradition that it is difficult to distinguish them. But
it is evident that the title of Moon is sometimes
applied to the human, or upper part of the biformed
animal, and sometimes to the lower part, the cres
cent-shaped vehicle or recipient ; in the former case
it is masculine, in the latter feminine 1 ; thus Mona,
and the Grecian Mena, i. e. Luna, were feminine ;
but Meen, to whom the Arcadians or Arkites
built temples 2, was a male ; perhaps the most re
markable deflection from the usual course of my
thology is to be found in the Tainay dialect of the
Siamese language, where Moon signifies the Sun ;
in the Tayay dialect it is Loen 3, which is obviously
the same as the Celtic Luan, and the Latin Luna ;
and when we further find that the sun is some
times considered a female, the consort of the moon,

1 Ex hoc lunam masculino (ut Hebrsei) dicunt Saxones genere,
Der Mon. hine et idolum lunae viri fingebant specie. — Spellman's
Glossary. In many Asiatic languages, and in all the northern languages of
this part of the globe which we inhabit, and particularly in the
Anglo-Saxon, sun is feminine, and moon is masculine. — Epea Ptero-
enta, 76.
2 'Upcoo-ivij tic Myvoc 'ApKaTov. Strabo, lib. xii. 865. And at Cabira
in Pontus, the royal seat of Mithridates, he says, "E^ei 8e Kal iapov
Mijvo;, — eo-ri Se Kal rovro rye ^eXyvrjC to Upov — Kaddirap — Kal to ' Ap-
KOilOV. — 835.
3 As. Res. v. 228.

ON BUDDHA. 135
the method of interpreting the theological enigmas
ofthe East by a physical philosophy, and resolving
them all into the active and passive principles of
nature, seems to be quite subverted ; and we are at
a loss to understand this inverted order of things,
tdl upon further examination it appears that the
sun is also entitled Area and Varuna, the deity of
the waters. : Another of his titles was Yama,
which brings us back again to Ham, and to Mina
in Minos, who, like Yama, judged the dead. The
Minotaur again presents us with another astro
nomical combination, erroneous indeed, but easily
explained. 2 It is a common fault among those
who interpret oriental mythology, that they look
for accurate science in its popular fictions, when,
in fact, it is far more reasonable to expect a great
deal of confusion and mistake. The word Mino
taur signified, perhaps, no more at first than Minos
the chief, for Tor still retains that sense in the
Cornish Celtic. " Bad Tor," says Borlase, " means
the Governor's house."3 But Minos being the
same as Menu (Meen Nuh, the fish-god Noah),
was also the chief or ruler of the diluvian mount ;
hence the tutelary genius being often identified in
name with the place over which he presided,

1 Bhadra, also from Baris, the month of the Durgotsava.
2 I call it an astronomical combination, because both the mem
bers of which it is composed have been made subservient to astro
nomy, though not combined by astronomers ; Mina being Pisces and
the other half Taurus.
3 Borlase's Antiquities of Cornwall. Bad, is abode ; Tor, a Go
vernor.
K 4

136

ON BUDDHA.

almost every high peak in Asia, from Caucasus to
Imaus, obtained more or less the name of Taurus,
and the common origin of some primitive roots,
the remaining traces of a universal language, will
scarcely be denied, when we observe this word
retained in the same sense by nations the most
separated from one another, not only by distance,
but by difference of language. Tor is still the de
signation of several hills in Britain ; and one of the
names of Sinai, in Arabia, is El Tor, the Mount.
Tauromenium, a compound similar to Minotaurus,
was a city built upon Mount Taurus in Sicily, near
a river of the same name, and both, doubtless,
sacred to the same diluvian deity. Let us next see
whether we can discover in what way Taurus ac
quired the meaning of a bull. ' It is said that there
was a time when the zodiac possessed no more
than eleven signs, the place of the twelfth being
filled by the claws of Scorpio. It is possible that
the horns of Corniger Ammon may have served the
same purpose at a still earlier period ; but if this be
not allowed, they must then have been repeated in
the adjoining sign, standing alone as the repre
sentative of the crescent-shaped ship, the navis
biprora of Isis : for Vrish, which is the Sanscrit
name of the sign, is nothing more than Baris, a
little altered and softened, that great sacred Baris
or Ark, of which Champollion saw a bas relief in

1 In the Welsh poem called Gododin, princes are called Hawks
and Bulls of the host. — Davies's Celtic Mythol. p. 371.

ON BUDDHA. 137
the temple of Ammon Ra at Thebes. ' He has
also described some bas reliefs at Luxor, which
confirm the strong connection between the Baris
and Ammon. " They show," says he, " the wor
ship paid, 1. to Ammon Ra (i.e. the king), the
supreme god of Egypt : 2. his secondary form,
Ammon Ra the generator, called mystically the
husband of his mother, and represented under a
priapian form : 3. the goddess Thamoun or Tamon,
that is to say, the female Ammon, one of the
forms of Neith considered as the consort of Ammon
the generator. 4. The goddess Mouth, the divine
grandmother, the consort of Ammon Ra. 5. and 6.
The young gods Khous and Harka, who complete
the two great triads adored at Thebes. The king
(Amenophis) is represented making offerings to
these divinities, or accompanying their Bari, or sa
cred arks, borne in procession by the priests." 2 Now
it is plain that the four first of these divinities are
all one and the same Ammon, who, like the moon,
was sometimes male and sometimes female. Khous
seems to be no other than the Greek Chous 3, or
the Persian Coh, a mountain, and Harka is
evidently the Argha of the Hindoos, so that the
two triads may be reduced to one ; Ammon, the
Armenian mountain, and the Ark. With respect
to Neith, he further informs us that on the 25th of
the month Hathor she was worshipped as Menhi,
1 Champollion's Fifteenth Letter from Egypt.
2 Champollion's Twelfth Letter.
3 Xou; is tumulus ; it is also Scyphus, vas aquarius.

138 ON BUDDHA.
and on the 31st as Isis. Baris is the name of a
vessel much used upon the Nile in the time of
Herodotus, formed of a thorn resembling the lotus ',
and Bochart, speaking of the lotus, informs us that
it was called Pharis or Paris. 2 Thus by another
route, and from premises altogether different from
those assumed before, we arrive at the same con
clusion, that the ark was the prototype of the
mystic lotus in the fables of the Hindoos. From
Tacitus we learn that the Suevi worshipped Isis 3,
and that the image had the figure of a ship. 4 He
may be, and probably is, mistaken in the name of
the deity ; but he recognised the ship, which he had
been accustomed to see depicted upon the fore
head of Isis, that navis biprora 5 which, under the
name of Neith, as it is written in the Oriental
fashion from right to left6, or of Athena, as it was
read by the Greeks from left to right, she is said to
have made for Danaus when he fled to Argos. 7
1 Ta 8e 8)jirXo(a crfi eor< €K rye aKdvivje •xotev'fieva, t?j; y poppy ft.lv
itrn 0//MHJ Tp Kvpvjvaloi XoirS. — ^ fA.lv S-^ Ovpyj eAkei rrjv fidpiv. toZto yap
8ij ovvofia eo-Ti roto-t irAo'ioio-» tou'toio-i. — Euterpe, 96. p. 124.
2 ia-rift.lv ovv iv rrf vqtroy rij XwrotpayLTri ^fapfbi Ka\ovft,evvj tco\vc.
Theophrastus de Loto, Hist. Plant. 1. iv. c. iv. on which Bochart
observes, that Insula Pharis est insula Zizypha, seu, quod idem est,
insula Loti, for in Hebrew -p"l£ is Zizyphus — Geographia Sacra,
Pars Post. ldi. c. xxv.
3 De Mor. Germanorum, p. 603.
4 Signum in modum Liburnse figuratum.
5 Hesychias gives this explanation of aft.ifmpvfi.vov — wXoiov ekci-
TEoaSev Ttpifkvac, 'i%ov. Soph. Androm. Kal ra, iwl aoirijpta ittft.iiofi.iva
itKoTa. 6 Hamilton's Cabinet of Antiquities contains a vase to which
M. D'Hancarville gives the date of 658 B.C., with the writing
from right to left, i. 163.
7 Tunc primum dicitur Minerva navem fecisse biproram, in qua
Danaus profugeret. — Hyginus, c. clxvii. 100.

ON BUDDHA. 139
The Egyptians sometimes had recourse to extra
ordinary methods of exhibiting to view the lunar
horns, which decorated alike the fronts of Isis
and of Ammon without their natural vehicle, the
living animal on whose head they grew. It is
said that in Egypt there was a place where, if
an ox were buried so that only his horns should
be seen, and they were sawn off, bees would
fly out.1 The fables of the ancients are not
to be rejected as mere inventions : there is usually
some groundwork of truth ; this, for instance,
is an opinion that never could have entered
into any one's head without some cause ; and
yet it is an experiment which no one would have
tried upon speculation. Superstition only can ex
plain it. Now it has been shown, that Isis was the
same as Ceres, or in Greek, Demeter, whose name
is acknowledged to signify mother-earth2 ; and she
is identified with the earth by Orpheus3, and Eu
ripides4 ; wherefore the Egyptian month Athyr, in
which Isis was said to have mourned for the en
trance into the Ark, was denominated by the

1 Antigonus Carystius. Historiarum mirabilium Collectanea.
c. xxiii. 2 Quasi r5j fMjTvjp.
3 T!j fiyrrip itdvrav, AijjWtfnjp itXovroioreipa. — Euseb. Prcsp. Evan.
1. iii. c. 3.
4 Aajidrrip 6la, aitdvrav
' Avao~o~a, ccitav-
-tbv yd rpocpoc. Eur. Phteniss.
Hence she is called the Terrene Goddess, and her priestesses, rye
xSovlac Beds ftvcrrfec. — Porphyrius de Antro Nymphorum, c. xviii.

140 ON BUDDHA.
Boeotians Damatrian. There can be no difficulty in
understanding why she was called the universal
mother ; for every living animal issued from the
body of the crescent-shaped ark. Since then Por
phyry assures us, that the bull was considered by
the ancients as a vehicle of the moon ', it is plain
that he was sacrificed to her, in her twofold cha
racter of earth and moon. The body, buried in
the ground alive, was a sacrifice to the earth ; but
the horns were kept above the ground, because
they were a sacred emblem ; which being after
wards sawn off together with the frontal bone in
order to be preserved, the cavity of the skull might
easily be filled by a swarm of flies feeding upon the
brain, or of bees after it was gone. The priestesses
of Ceres were called Melissa?2, Bees ; and so was
the Moon : the priestesses obtained that name
from the practice of hiding themselves in sacred
cavities in the celebration of their Mysteries. But
what connection had the moon with bees ? none
whatever : but the crescent was the representative of
the ark, and the cleansing of the world from sin
was commemorated in the purifying virtues which
were supposed to belong to honey : for, " with
honey," says Porphyry, "they cleanse their tongue
from all sin :" 3 for which reason the Prophet Isaiah

1 'Ewe! ravpov ft.lv a-ehrjVff Kal v\po)ft,a o-eAvjn)? i ravpoc. — Porph. de
An. Nym. c. xviii.
2 Ibid. Proserpine also was called Koptj ^eXit^Sij.
3 KaBatpovai t\v yXSao-av to peXtrt oiro itavroc afkaproikov. —
Porph. de An. Nym. c. xv.

ON BUDDHA. 141
introduces it in his prophecy concerning Christ : —
" Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may learn
to refuse the evil and to choose the good." l It is
not easy to say what motive the Egyptians could
have had for bringing down the moon from heaven,
and seating her on the earth ; but if the moon was
particularly sacred in her first quarter, because at
that period she bore the greatest resemblance to
the luniform ark, then they had a very intelligible
motive for calling to remembrance the time when
the ark grounded upon Mount Ararat. In the
superstitions of other countries there are instances
of a similar design : Thus at Padua, among a
people where, as I have shown, the memory of
the deluge impressed upon their hills and rivers
long maintained a lingering existence, there was

PATAVII
APUD BASSIANOS.

T. LIVIVS T. L

OPTATVS.AN.XV

an altar, or monument, exhibiting a crescent
mounted upon a hill.2 Thus, too, in the celebrated
temple of Juggernaut in India, when the images
1 is. vii. 15. 2 Gruteri Inscriptiones, ii. 982.

142

ON BUDDHA.

are stripped of their ornaments to be bathed, the
reason appears of the concurrence of all sects in
the worship there : they are memorials of a wor
ship far more ancient than that introduced by the
Brahmins, or by the modern usurpers of Budha's
name. Three of them are thus represented. l

It is a singular and curious fact, that the mystical
character, which expresses the name of the Deity,
bears a striking similitude to these idols ^jj : it
is pronounced Pranava, which seems to be com
pounded of Pra, an indeclinable particle used in
tensively'2, and Nava, or Noah.3 Here we have
the crescent-shaped boat in one instance float
ing above, in the other reposing on the side of
the mountain ; and it has been remarked that the
crescent is like the horns of the cow of the moun-

1 As. Res. viii. 62.
2 It is very common in India to prefix the particle Pra to proper
names of holy men, and more particularly so among the Boudd'hists.
— Wilford, As. Res. viii. 255.
3 Quasi, o itavv Noah.

ON BUDDHA. 143
tains called Gayal or Gayava ; but there is other
testimony to the diluvian origin of these idols
besides their shape. A Brahmin, it is said, was
directed to build the town of Pursorem by a crow,
which he observed to plunge into the water, and,
after washing its body, pay obeisance to the ocean ;
and afterwards he was informed, in a vision, that
a piece of wood would arise out of the water, which
had the true form ofthe Deity : this the Rajah called
Jaggernaut, (or Jagan Nath, Lord of the universe,)
and deposited it in the temple there. It is de
scribed by Mr. Hamilton as an irregular pyramidal
black stone: an image of an ox projects from the
centre ofthe building.1 It is, no doubt, from this no
tion of a crescent placed upon the mountain's brow,
that the Mahabarat speaks of Meru reflecting the
sunny ray from the surface of its gilded horns 2 ;
and the Jewish tradition is only another version of
the same story, which says, that God once plucked
up the mountain of the world by the root, and
raised it into the air, and made it shine like a
mirror.3 It would have been impossible to guess
how these incoherent fancies could have occurred
to any one, if we had not had a sufficient explana
tion in the association of the mountain with the
moon, through the medium of the ark. The
Chinese are said to shape their tombs in the form
1 Maurice's Indian Antiquities, i. 241.
2 Translation by Mr. Wilkins.
3 Targum of Jonathan on Exod. xx. 17.
Eradicavit mundi montem et sustulit ipsum in aerem et lucebat
tanquam speculum. — Wetstein on Luke, xvii. 6.

144 ON BUDDHA.
of crescents, and to place them in high situations l ;
and yet they are not worshippers of the moon, but
of Budha Foe.2 It appears, therefore, that the
Bull was denominated Taurus, from the circum
stance of his horns representing the residence of
the chieftain of the ship.
1 Narrative of a Residence in China, by Peter Dobell, ii. 298.
2 Dobell joins these synonoms together, ii. 252.

145

CHAP. VII.

HORNS CALLED SIMA BECAUSE THEY WERE A SAMA OR
SYMBOL OF THE TWO-PEAKED MOUNTAIN AND OF THE
CRESCENT-SHAPED SHIP. HENCE, SAMA WAS THE NAME
OF INSULATED MOUNTAINS.  THE SHEM OF THE
BUILDERS OF BABEL EXPLAINED.  A STAR BETWEEN
HORNS A DIVINITY.  ZOROASTER.  ASTARTE.  EXPLAN
ATION OF THE STAR OF REMPHAN AND CH1UN.  ORION
AND SIDE. — OSIRIS.  JANUS.  SATURN.
The researches of Kircher into Egyptian hierogly
phics, though they fall far short of modern dis
coveries, and sometimes are not to be trusted, yet
have thrown some additional light upon this subject.
He says, the Egyptians believed that Osiris taught
men many necessary things under the form of an
ox, and therefore the characters by which they
expressed his name were these ', lst.w, from the
curvature of the horns, which they called Sima.
Here, then, we find it expressly stated that the
crescent was a representation, not ofthe moon, but
1 Osirim sub bovis forma varias res ad humanam vitam susten-
tandam necessarias homines docuisse crediderunt ; unde, &c. —
Kircheri, Historia Obelisci Pamphilii.
VOL. I. L

146

SIGNS OF THE ARK

of horns : indeed, since Osiris, according to the
astronomical mythology, was invariably the sun,
he had no business with the crescent, except on
his bovine front ; and since Sima, in Greek,
means ' heights ', ' it is an allusion either to the
two-peaked heights of Ararat, or to the two-prowed
vessel invariably associated with them. But it
seems more appropriate to the other characters,
which are, 2ndly, J\ , and y\ i.e. an ox 2 ; but it is
evident that the first of these is no more than the
representation of a hill, and the second a pointed
hill, with the vessel resting upon the side. The
third character is depicted thus ^ ; a figura bovis,
says Kircher : he would have been nearer the
mark, if he had said a figura tauri montis ; for
it surely bears more resemblance to a two-horned
hill than to an ox. It is very remarkable that this
emblem of Osiris, as well as Alpha and Omega,
seems to have been adopted by the Greeks as a
supplementary character, at the end of the alpha
bet, to make out their numerals. It was called
Sanpi ; and, according to the scholiast upon Aris
tophanes, was compounded of Sigma and Pi : now
Sigma, in the very name of which we seem to de
tect an allusion to the silence of the Mysteries,
was the same as San or Sam3, from the Doric
sama, a sign, and anciently had the figure of a
crescent raised up on one end, that is to say, the
1 Ta <Tift.d, loca ardua et acclivia, apud Arist. et Xen.— Scapula.
2 Alpha is an ox, but in Chaldee a large ship.
3 Veteres San et Sam pro Sigma dixere. — Hoffmann. Lex.

AND THE MOUNTAIN. 14<7
figure of the Roman C. It was the sign impressed
upon the side of Apis ', the bull sacred to Osiris ;
and it was the sign impressed upon the haunches
of the horses, called Samphoree 2, in the Circensian
games. Anacreon calls it a character of fire ;
principally, no doubt, because it was burned upon
the skin by a hot iron ; but it may also allude to
the sun, of which it was an emblem, and to which
the horses were sometimes consecrated. But it was
a sign of the sun only because it was a sign of the
ark. They were confounded together ; and, there
fore, Arka is one of the names of the sun in Hin
doo mythology. If we inquire what could be the
reason of this confusion, it is to be observed, that
the sun viewed in Osiris, or, which is the same
thing, in Ammon, was the vehicle of the crescent,
in the same way as the mountain was the vehicle
of the ark. But the mountain was as much a sama,
or sign, as the ark itself; for the ridge of Ararat,
being terminated at either end by a lofty peak,
presented the same appearance of two horns ; and
there is reason to think that the Hebrew word
Sham, or Shamah, originally signified a mountain.
In Arabic it is a verb signifying "to be lofty3,"

1 On the authority of Pliny and Pomponius Mela : for the same
reason the bull Mnevis was sacred at On, or Heliopolis, the City of
the Sun.
2 Hesychius, in voce Saftpipac.
'Ev Xtrxioic ftlv litnoi
Vivpoc xapayp iyflviri. — Anacr.
3 Radix Arabice ^D Sama eminere et excelsum esse sonat.
— Bocharti, Geographia Sacra, 378. h <Z

148 SIGNS OF THE ARK
and Shamaim, the Hebrew word for the heavens,
and differing from it only by the plural termination,
derives its meaning from their height.1 Hence
we obtain an illustration of a difficult passage in
Genesis. The builders of Babel proposed to make
themselves a name 2, lest they should be dispersed
over the face of the earth. But how was that con
sequence likely ? Let Moses be his own interpre
ter : he tells the Jews, that, when they should pass
over Jordan, " There shall be a place which the
Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to
dwell there." 3 That place was ultimately the holy
hill of Sion ; and it is always called the place which
he chose, to put his name there. The place, where
his name was, was the place of worship. But the
place of worship immediately after the deluge was,
undoubtedly, the altar built on Ararat by Noah.
There was the name of the Lord, and thither the
sons of Noah repaired to offer sacrifice ; but in
process of time, when their families increased, and
a separation was necessary, and their dispersion
was commanded for the sake of replenishing the
earth with inhabitants more speedily, the patri
arch, in communicating to them the will of God,
may be supposed to have given them his parting
instructions after this manner : " Beware that you
never forget the awful catastrophe from which my
family has alone escaped, nor that the cause of it
1 Q'QJy a^ altitudine nomen habent. — Cuxtclli, Lexicon.
2 Gen. xi. 4. , •¦
2 Deut. xii. 11.

AND THE MOUNTAIN. 149
was the impiety of men. Construct your altars
upon those hills, which may serve to remind you
of this spot, and there sanctify the name of the
Lord." Thus, every high place devoted to religion
would become a sign or emblem of Ararat, and a
place of God's Name ] ; and how numerous they
were the number of mountains bearing the name
of Tor, or Taurus, is no inconsiderable evidence.
All, indeed, who retained any reverence for the
patriarchal precept would avoid a long residence
upon extensive plains, because it would deprive
them of their hill altars. When, therefore, the
rebels of Shinar, in opposition to the divine will,
determined not to be dispersed, their leaders could
not devise a more politic plan for keeping them
contentedly in the plain, than by building an arti
ficial mountain to be their place of worship, that
the name of the Lord might dwell there. It is too
common in all ages for men to make a compromise
with their duty, and to lay the flattering unction
to their souls, that, by obedience to one precept,
disobedience to another becomes less intolerable.
The Name, therefore, or Shem, which they proposed
to make, was that great pyramid of earth and
bricks, the remains of which are still visible 2, and
. which I shall have occasion hereafter to describe.
1 In a Samaritan Targum the builders of Babel say : " Paciamus
in medio ejus adorationis locum et simulacrum." — Kircherus, De
Instit. Hierog. 1. ii.
2 Captain Keppel says, that the ruins of the tower of Babel, at
first sight, present the appearance of a hill with a castle on the top.
— Travels, i. 192. L 3

150 SIGNS OF THE ARK
Hence the Phoenician colonists, when they spread
themselves westward, gave the name of Sami to
several mountains, especially when they were insu
lated, because they were then more exact types of
the diluvian mount. The Thracian Samos ', after
wards called Samothrace, where Ceres was peculiarly
honoured, and where the Cabiri were worshipped,
whose connection with the deluge has been illus
trated by the learning of Faber, was so lofty that
Homer places Neptune on its summit to survey
the field of battle upon the plains of Troy. 2 It is
not without reason that the God of Ocean is seated
there. The Ionian Samos was mountainous, and
peculiarly sacred to Hera 3 ; but Hara was a title
of the Indian Mahadeva, who, like Ammon, bore
a crescent on his forehead, and was invoked by
people in great distress.4 A third Samos, or Same,
as Homer calls it, supposed to be Cephalonia5,
contains a lofty mountain, which was called Cerce-
sus, apparently a corruption from Caucasus. In
like manner we are assured that the ancient Greeks
denominated all high places Samoi.6 This may be
1 Threiciamque Samum, quae nunc Samothracia fertur.
Virgil, vii. 308.
'Ti^oiJ eV aKporuTijC Kopvtpvjc T,dfA,ov vX-qEo-a-rjc
®p-ljiKil\C.  II. T. 13.
3 -2.dft.oc Xft.tpLio-0-a HcXao-ythoc 'iSpavov "Hp-qc. — Dionysius, v. 534<.
4 O ! worthy man, — O ! Hara, Hara, ascend into thy cave, &c.
— Sanscrit Inscription, by Wilford, As. Res. v.
5 Canter observes, from L. Auratus, that between Corcyra and
Ithaca lies Samos, quae est <nj/*a, seu tumulus. — Novar. Lect. lib. v.
c. xiv. 6 Bochart cites Strabo, Eustathius, and Constantine Porphyro-
• genneta, to show that of iraXatol "EXAvjve; adft,ov tov {np-ijXov IkuXovv
toW. — Geog. Sac. 376.

AND THE MOUNTAIN. 151
the reason why the numeral Sanpi was called Epi-
semon, being a sama upon a samos ', and it was
probably written thus"]"} • It appears, then, that
the horns of the crescent are sometimes the horns
of the ark, and sometimes the horns of the moun
tain ; and by the help of this observation some dif
ficult knots of ancient mystery may be unravelled.
Bryant, for instance, observes 2, that the sacred bull
of Egypt was described with a star between his
horns ; and, accordingly, a Byzantine coin with the
name of Diana has a star within a crescent, thus 3
<s&? ; for coins retained much of uncomprehended
mythology, — cows, and horns, and prows of ships,
and grapes, and cones, and pillars, and fish, — much
in the same way as many persons use the Free
masons' arms, without the least knowledge of the
emblems, or as heralds preserve in armorial shields
achievements long since forgotten. Again, a coin
of Heraclea represents a bull's head supporting a
crescent, in the centre of which a perpendicular
line connects two stars JL. He further contends
that the meaning of Zoroaster's name is thus ex
plained, Taurus and Asterius being the same4,
which, however, is not exactly the case, at least
when they are used in combination. Asterius and
Zoroaster are indeed to be referred to the same

1 Zaft,a eici 0-afJ.ov.
2 Analysis of Ancient Mythology, ii. 123.
3 Ludovici Nonnii, Comment, in Hub. Golzii Graeciaa Nomismata.
4 See Lycophron, v. 1301.
L 4

152 ZOROASTER.
period ; for Asterius ' was an Argonaut, that is, a
sailor in the Argha, or ark, and he was the father
of Minos2, who has been proved to coincide with
Menu and Menes, both diluvian personages. The
antiquity of Zoroaster has been disputed, but since
history is unable to decide the matter we are driven
of necessity back to the age of fable. The author
of the Recognitions, that go under the name of
Clement, identifies him with Ham, who is there
fore reported to have been addicted to astrology.
An ancient tradition says, that having studied that
science before the flood, and knowing that he
should not be allowed to introduce his books into
the ark, he engraved his sacrilegious inventions on
metals and rocks, which he found again after the
flood, and so perpetuated the knowledge of them. 3
With respect to his name, the first part of it is un
doubtedly derived from Zorus, which, according to
Bochart, is the same as the Phoenician Tsor, cor
rupted afterwards into Tyrus4; and this is con
firmed by Jerome, who says, that, in the Hebrew
language, Tyre is called Zor.6 But what has Tyre
to do with Zoroaster ? Tyre was so called be
cause it was an insulated rock, and Tsor means a
rock ; whence also Tor and Taurus have been

1 He is called Asterion by Orpheus in Argonauticis, v. l6l.; and
by Apollonius, 1. i. 35.
2 Asterius nomen Patris Minois. — Hoffmann.
3 Cassianus. Collatio, viii. c. 21.
4 Zorus est idem quod -^\J Tsor Phcenicium Tyri nomen. —
Geog. Sac. Op. ii. 468.
5 Hieron. de Nom. Heb. Opera, torn. ii.

ZOROASTER. 153
derived. The latter part of the word is doubtless
the Persic Ster1, an aboriginal word which has
been preserved in the Greek Aster and the English
Star ; but in Egyptian hieroglyphics a star was
used figuratively to signify an attendant or minis
tering spirit2; therefore, if the same meaning may
be inferred in other symbolical language, the sense
of Zoroaster was, The Spirit of the Rock; the
propriety of which will be more apparent when
we come to the consideration of Mithratic caves.
The same key will serve to unlock the difficulty of
a curious passage in Sanchoniatho, who relates
that the Phoenician goddess Astarte found, in her
travels round the world, a fallen star, which she
consecrated in the sacred isle of Tyre.3 The
sanctity of this island resulted solely from its re
semblance to the rock of Ararat, encompassed by
the ocean, and the purport of the passage is, that
the worshippers of the moon, under the name of
Astarte, had introduced into the sacred symbols
there the picture of a star. "Who, then, was Astarte ?
Augustine says she was the same as Juno4; and it
1 " Nos scimus," says Scaliger, " verissimum esse, Ster Persice
esse darpov aut do-ripa, unde Esther dicta fuerit."
2 Dr. Young, Article Egypt, Supplem, to Encyc. Brit. Horus
Apollo says, that a star signified sometimes a god, and sometimes a
spirit, ipvxv-
3 YlEptvoa-Tovo-a- rqv otKOvftEv/jV, Evptv aEponETrf dcrrEpa, ov Kal dvEXo-
[t.Evn Iv Tvpoi T7J ayla vtjo-ai dtpupoicre. — Euseb. Prce. Ev. 1. i. p. 38.
The Hindoos have a notion that the stars are individuals, raised
to that honour for a time proportioned to the sum of their merits :
this being exhausted they descend to earth, often visibly, as in the
case of shooting stars. — Wilson's Select Specimens of the Theatre of
the Hindoos.
4 Augus. Locutionum, 1. vii. c. xvi.

154

ASTARTE.

is so far true, that they were both the same as the
Indian Hara. Ovid calls her Venus, or, rather,
Dione, and tells a story of her being changed into
a fish to escape the rage of Typhon, which very
fish was on that account transferred into the zodiac.1
Lucian asserts that she was the moon ; but how
does he describe the image of her which his own
eyes had seen ? certainly not much like the moon :
it was human upwards, and fish-like downwards.2
Desinit in piscem, again ; certainly, however, she
is not handsome above, for she has horns upon her
head like Ammon. In Sanchoniatho's time she had
the whole head of a bull upon her shoulders3;
and the Phoenicians in Euripides seem to identify
her with the heifer Io, when they claim her as the
common mother of themselves and the Thebans4,
whose city in Hebrew signifies the ark, and in
Syrian a heifer.5 Moreover the shape of a crescent
is said to have been impressed upon the cow which
determined the site of Thebes. Grecian fable in
general metamorphoses Io altogether ; but Ly-
cophron describes her, like Astarte, with the head
of a bull 6 and the body of a woman : they resemble
1 Ovid. Fast. 1. ii. p. 461.
2 De Dea Syria : he calls the idol Derceto ; but Bochart has no
doubt that they were the same. Phoenicum Astarte (sic illi Vene-
rem vocabant, alii Dercen seribunt et Derceto et Atergatin) supe-
riora mulieris habuit, inferiora piscis. i. 44.
3 'H Se Aa-rdpTij iniSriKE rrj Bta KEtpaXij ^aaOkEiac, itapdat\f>.av ke-
tpaXifv. — Euseb. Pra. Evan. p. 38.
4 Kod'oi' alfta, Koivd TEKva
Ta; KEpao-pipov iceJivkev 'love. — Eurip. Phceniss, 258.
5 ©rfia Zvpio-rl XeyErai ^ fiovc. — Isacius in Lycophronem.
6 Tyv fiowmv .avpoirdpStvov mp-tp, — Lycoph. Cassandra.

ASTARTE. 155
one another in their wanderings over the face of
the earth ; and if Astarte was the moon, so was
Ioh in Egypt.1 When, therefore, the Phoenician
chorus exclaims,
'la Xdft.npo'jaa irerpa icvpoc
AiKovpov treXac. 2
I am tempted to doubt whether Io is an inter
jection, and to think it rather the name of the
rock which shone like fire with a double horn of
light. Asteris was the name of a rocky island
near Samos.3 Asteria was a name given to the
sacred islands Crete and Delos4 ; another island
was called Astarte 5 ; and Ashtoreth was the name
of a city situated between two lofty mountains,
whose extremities resembled horns, and having
very little light from the sun 6 ; so that, by the
contrast of their own darkness, the tops of the
mountains would seem, when the sun shone, to
blaze with light, like those which the Phoenician
women apostrophised. But Ashtoreth was also
one name of the island Erythia, the etymology of
which puzzles Bochart ; and he has recourse to
1 Dr. Young, in Sup. to Encyc. Brit.
2 Phcenissa;, 237. Inachus is said to have raised in Iopolis
a brazen pillar, with this inscription : IS paKapa Xaftma^popt. —
Johan. Malal. Chronographia, p. 31.
3 Homer, Odyss. iv.
4 'Ao-TEpi-q. vj Kp-qr-ri Kal -t\ AtjXo; ovrwc EKaXovvro. — Hesychius.
5 Bochart, ii. 688.
6 Castell' s words are, "Nomen urbis sitae inter duos altissimos
montes, perparum lucis a sole habentis, cujus extrema cacumina refe-
rebant cornua." The extrema cacumina must surely belong to the
mountains, and not to the city ; and the reading should be quorum,
unless mosques were built to Astarte.

156

ASTARTE.

a conjecture, that the Greeks, not understanding
Astaroth, supposed it to be Asta Erythes, the city
of Erytha.1 But be " plane nescit," the meaning
of the word Erythia, which Vallancey assures us
in ancient Irish implies a ship 2 ; and Aorth in that
language is a ship, which is also an Armenian title
of Ararat. Astarte, therefore, being equivalent to
Erythia, is equivalent to Isis, not only as they both
wear a crescent, but as they are both connected
with a ship through the medium of the same an
cient language, Eiss and Essis being both Irish
names for a ship ; and also as they were connected
with stars, Astaroth even in name, and Isis by her
symbol, which was the dog-star. 3 This star is said
to have been the dog of Isis, translated to the
sphere, and its hieroglyphic was the figure of a
sitting dog, with a crux ansata4; the right ex
planation of which is to be found in the equivocal
meaning of the Greek name Aa-rpoxumv, which
signifies either the sidereal dog5, or the pregnant
1 Grsecorum antiquissimi, cum quid essent Astaroth vel Astoreth
plane nescirent, videntur divulsis vocibus inde fecisse ao-rv 'EpvS-qe,
quasi sic diceretur oppidum in insula 'Epv6-rj. — Op. ii. 613.
2 Collect, de Re. Hib. v. iv.
3 Mnaseas, Anticlides, Plutarchus, et Eusebius Isidi Sirium at-
tribuunt. — Kircher, 1. iii. de Instit. Hieroglyph.
4 Kircher, Historia Obelisci Pamphilii. Isis, says Horus Apollo,
is a star called by the Egyptians Sothis, by the Greeks Astrokyon.
8 The Kapxapoc, kvuv of the sea, mentioned in Lycophron as the
devourer of Hercules, was certainly the ark, though jumbled with a
tradition of Jonah's story ; for Corcur, says Bochart, is Arabice navis
magna, whence the Gordycean mountains of Armenia were also
denominated Corcyrean, 1. i. c. 3. If the crux ansata is, in fact, as
Maurice supposes, an allusion to the Indian emblems of active and
passive nature, there is no difficulty in accounting for the addition of
this hieroglyphic, since, according to Hesychius, kvuv, signifies both.

REMPHAN. 157
planet,' i. e. the ark, pregnant with all living animals.
If, therefore, this object of traditional idolatry was
to be represented between the horns ofthe diluvian
mountain, it was natural enough to express it by a
star within a crescent : but a star is sometimes
also, as above stated, used in hieroglyphics for an
attendant or ministering spirit.' If, therefore, it
were proposed to exhibit the deity of the ark
besides, the impression on the Heracleot coin
would exactly serve the purpose : the upper star
would be the presiding spirit 2, and a naval cha
racter would be given to the lower one by the
connecting mast. OZumenius imagines that the
star of the god Remphan, mentioned by Stephen
in the Acts of the Apostles 3, was a star upon the
forehead of Moloch, whose idol was cornigerous
like Ammon, whether we behold him in the
zodiac, or in the character of Jupiter, as he is
described by Orpheus, having the golden horns of
a bull on either side of his head.4 Bochart con
tends that Remphan was the planet Saturn 5 : his
very name, however, implies that he had horns ;
for Ram, Rem, and Rim are all old Irish words
for a horn : thus Ramesses was, undoubtedly, the
horned ship ; Rimmon, the horned moon ; Rem-
1 Dr. Young, in Suppl. to Encyc. Brit., art. Egypt.
2 Thus, when Julius Caesar was supposed to have been admitted
into heaven, Suetonius says, that " simulacro ejus in vertice additur
Stella." 3 Acts, vii. 43.
4 Tavpsa 8' du^oTEpoiSE tvo yipv<TEia KEpara. — Euseb. Prcep. Evan.
1. iii. c. ix.
5 Boch. Geog. Sac. 1. i. c. 15.

158 REMPHAN.
phan, the horned Pan ; for so Pan is described by
Porphyry, and very truly ; but, unconscious ofthe
truth, he observes, that his horns were symbols of
the sun and moon.1 They were proper symbols of
the moon ; but, upon any physical principles, not
at all proper for the sun ; nor would they ever
have been applied to him if he had not himself
been a symbol of something else. Pan is no
doubt the same as Phanes the sun 2; but then he
is also the god of Arcadia 3, which was peculiarly
Arkite, and he was a wanderer over the sea4, and
he had bulls sacrificed to him on rocks, or, rather,
some part of the animal in a curve fastened to the
rock 5, than which nothing could be more signi
ficant ; and, in a derivative sense, he was the uni
verse, i. e. the universe of living creatures contained
in the ark.
Vallancey says, that Fen, or Phen, are Irish
names for the sun, and the same as Pan.6 We
know, however, that Pen is a Celtic term for a
mountain, and hence the Apennines derived their
1 Hd ftlv Y.ipy.ra So'vtes, GVf/&oXa 'HXiov Kal TsXyvvic. — Euseb. Prcep.
Evan. 1. iii. c. 11.
2 <bavqc, Sol ; in the Orphic hymns described as born of Erebus
and Chaos from an egg ; and is the same as Eros, Love, called by
the Hindoos Camadeva, the god Ham. — Crawford's Res.
3 Pan, Deus Arcadia?. — Virg.
4 'AXlnXayKTE, Sophocl. in Ajace, v. 704.; and he is invited to
appear from the rocky top of Cyllene. TlErpalac duo ^Eipatoc pavtfi' .
The latter word is particularly appropriate. Why should he appear,
but because he is the Sun ? The mystic dances of Nysa and of
Crete, Dionysiac and Corybantian, are also ascribed to him. NiWia
K«oo-<7ia 'Opx'rift.ara.
5 Tvpovc ravpoiv nerpr) irpoer&EiTE rivovrat;. — Apollonius SmymcBUS.
6 Ancient Hist, of Ireland, p. 504.

REMPHAN. 159
name ; and hence the monument on the Little St.
Bernard in the Alps was dedicated Deo Penino.1
It is true that Remphan is also written Rephan, or
as in the version of the 70, Raiphan, which, if it be
not a mere corruption from the other, must signify
the royal Pan : the first syllable bearing the sense
which it has retained in the Italian Re, the Spanish
Rey, the French Roi, the Latin Rex, and the
Egyptian adjunct to the name of Ammon, who is
perpetually called Ammon Ra. But, since Pan was
always represented with horns, it is of no conse
quence to the argument which of the two be the
true reading. It may be thought, however, that
Pan was only a Grecian deity, and not worshipped
out of Europe : but the fact is far otherwise.
Diodorus Siculus bears witness that his images
were in every temple of Egypt2; and Osiris is
said to have associated him with himself in his
expeditions : no wonder, for they were the same
person.3 There was a city in the Thebaid called
Chemmis, which, being interpreted, says Diodorus,
is the city of Pan. Now, literally, Chemmis is,
without doubt, the city of Cham 4 ; for Egypt is
1 On ne scait pas preeisement quel est ce dieu Penin, les uns
pretendent que c'est le Soleil, les autres veulent que se soit Jupiter.
— Diet, des Cultes.
2 Tom-oj dyaXft-ara Kara icav Upov. — Diod. Sic. 1. 1. p. lb.
3 Or at least father and son.
4 XEfiftEV, fi.E%Epft.rtvEvofi.Evr(i 11 Tlavoc itoXiv. — Diod. Sic. 1. i. p. 16.
The hieroglyphic name of Pan was Khemms or Hemms. — Wilkin-
son's Thebes, p. 395.
A priscis incolis JEgyptus vocabatur Chamia, vel Chemia, id est,
terra Cham ; et in iEgypto urbes Chemmis, &c. Nota Cophtitas,
qui vetusta nomina pertinacissime retinenf, iEgyptum hodieque
vocare Ohemi. — Boch. Gcog.-Sac. 1. i. c. 1

160 REMPHAN.
called the land of Ham repeatedly in the Psalms.1
Pan, therefore, was one with Ham, the father of
Mizraim, the acknowledged colonist of Egypt ; of
Phut, who was worshipped there as Buto, or
Budha 2 ; of Cush, who is supposed to have been
the prime author of idolatry ; and of Canaan, who
gave his name to the land where Remphan had
his tabernacle. The astronomical character still in
use for the planet Saturn « much resembles the
ancient hieroglyphic for Osiris, and, since both
belonged to the same era, was probably transferred
to it together with the name ; for the mythological
names of the planets are comparatively modern,
and the ancient name of Saturn was Phainon.3
Although, therefore, it may be true, as Aben Ezra
asserts, that Chiun, which is the word used for
Remphan by the prophet Amos, signified Saturn
among the Persians and Ishmaelites, yet this must
be understood, not astronomically of the planet, but
of the deity so named, by whatever emblem he was
mysteriously expressed. That emblem was some
times, as we have seen, a star — the star ofthe god
Remphan ; but Chiun was not the god, but the
star between his horns. In our English version we
i Psalms 78. 51. 105. 23. 27- 106. 22.
2 JVIr. Grey sent a sarcophagus to the British Museum bearing
an inscription, in which it is a matter of controversy whether Phutus
or Buto should be read. See xivth vol. of the Journal of Science,
p. 259- , ,
3 Aristoteles De Mundo, c. ii. o to? fyalvovroc, dfta ko.) Kpovov *a-
Xoift.Evoc kUXoc : it seems as if, in his days, the mythological names
were not quite settled. Thus, it was doubtful whether Pyroeis be
longed to Mars or Hercules ; Stilbon to Mercury or Apollo ; Phos
phorus, or Lucifer, to Venus or Juno. Jupiter was Phaeton.

AND CHIUN. 161
read the passage thus : — "Ye have borne the
tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun, your images,
the star of your god, which ye made to your
selves." ' But from this sentence it is difficult to
extract any tolerable sense, and the first part of it
seems to have no connection with the last. The
Greek version is different : " Ye have taken up
the tabernacle of Moloch 2, and the star of your
god Raiphan, their types which ye have made for
yourselves ; " as if the tabernacle was the type of
Moloch and the star of Raiphan or Remphan. A
Chaldee word, derived from the same root as that
which is translated " a tabernacle," signifies a club
or a column : what bearing this has upon the ques
tion will be seen in a future chapter ; but in the
mean time I may observe, that a portable tent or
tabernacle must have been a conical shrine re
sembling a pointed hill, and a star probably upon
the top of it. The translation of the Vulgate is
more exact : " Ye have borne the tabernacle of
your Moloch, and the image of your idols, the star
of your god, which ye have made for yourselves."
In the Hebrew it is " the Chiun of your images or
idols." Chiun, therefore, was the star — any star,
no doubt, at first ; but, at last, the dog-star in parti
cular ; for its own root, Chun, is apparently the

1 Amos, v. 26. It is very remarkable that the History of the
Afghans, by Neamet Ullah, translated by Dorn, relates a tradition,
that Melek and Kious were the parents of Noah.
2 Moloch is the same as Melek, a king, so much so, that Arias
Montanus has rendered it in this place, your king.
VOL. I. M

162

ORION

root also from which the Greek xuwv has borrowed
its oblique cases. There was a throw of the dice
among the Romans, which they called either Chius,
or Canis or Canicula, the name of the dog-star ; and
perhaps it was figured like a star ; for it corresponded
to our ace, and was unlucky, like the dog-star,
which, for that reason, is denominated by Homer,
xaxov o-7)[jLa. But Canis, according to Hoffman, is
only another mode of writing Cham ] : from this
equivocation, the dog became the common object
of worship in Egypt 2, the land of Ham.
The mythologists having turned Chiun into a
dog, their next care was to find out a master for
him : and so they attached him to Orion ; for Orion
was supposed to represent Nimrod, the great hunter
of Babylon, and therefore it was not an unnatural
alliance ; but though the flatterers of the tyrant, if
such he was, might be willing, no doubt, to exalt
him above his predecessors, and thrust him into
their place, yet many circumstances of his fabulous
history combine to prove, that the original Orion
existed at an earlier period. He was a native of
Chios ; his father was said to be Neptune3, or the
Deity of the Ocean, and iEnopion4, or the wine-
drinker, because Noah was celebrated under both

1 " Canis nonnullis scriptoribus dicitur, qui aliis Cham." He
means, it is true, the Tartar Prince, who is commonly called the
Khan ; but if in one instance the word may be so corrupted, why
not in another ?
9 Juvenal says : " Oppida tota canem venerantur." — Sat. 15.
3 "Ovte kvv 'Clptoivoc eniKXyaw KaXeovtrt. Horn. II. p. 22.
4 Dorion in lib. de piscibus. 6 Palaphatus de Orione.

AND SIDE. 163
characters : but he was also called Hyreus ', from
his connection with the mountain (Ararat), and he
came out of an ox's hide, in which he had been
buried nine months. The ox's hide means a ship,
for it was used in the construction of boats ; and
the nine months show, that his issuing from it was
considered a second birth ; for which reason Dio-
nusus was always represented as a child. He took
up arms against his father, and would have.invaded
his mother's bed 2, which is only a different version
of the indignity offered to Noah by Ham. Flis
wife was Side, the Boeotian name for the Pome
granate, which was said to have sprung from the
blood of Saturn, or Noah ; the other name of that
fruit among the Greeks was Rhcea ; and Rhea, or
Rheia, was the wife of Saturn. Bryant takes her
for the Ark, and supposes the fruit to have been
chosen for an emblem, on account of the multitude
of seeds which it contains 3, but it is also possible
that the small cup on the top of the fruit may have
suggested a resemblance to the mystic Sima, or the
astronomical character of Saturn. Rhea was cer
tainly the magna mater, who has been identified
with Isis ; and in this sense of the word Sidi was
long retained by the Celts of Wales. The se
condary and perhaps more frequent meaning ofthe
word was a Sanctuary, in which the rites of Ce-
ridwen or Ceres were performed ; rites from which
those who were initiated derived this privilege : "Nei-
1 Ovid. Fast. 1. iv. 2 Agatharcides quoted by Athenaeus.
3 Bryant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology, ii. 380.
M 2

164

ORION

ther disorder nor age will oppress him that is within
it." ' But the real prototype of the Druids' sanc
tuary may be determined by the bard's description :
" The currents of the deep compass it about, and
the copious fountain is open from above." Hence
Davies scruples not to assert, that Caer Sidi was a
British name of the Ark ; and in a poem of
Taliessin, called " The spoils of the deep," it
cannot bear any other construction. In this poem
Noah is called Arthur, probably from Athair, a
father2: it is, no doubt, the root of Arcturus; for
it was only a blunder of the Greeks, who always
looked for etymologies in their own language, that
turned that constellation into a bear's tail. Sir W.
Jones indeed ascribes it to another mistake. The
Hindoos, he says, call it Maharesha, the great con
stellation ; but Ricsha in Sanscrit means also a
bear, and the Greeks gave it the latter sense ; but
he justly observes, that no one who had ever seen
a bear would have given it a long tail.3 The
burthen of Taliessin's song is, that only seven be
sides Arthur escaped from the inclosure of Caer
Sidi ; but in all the stanzas after the first, the word
Sidi is exchanged for others of similar import,
which leave no doubt of its meaning : in the second
it is called the inclosure of the inhabitants of the
1 Davies's Celtic Mythology, p. 295.
2 Vallencey's Specimen of an Irish Diet. Cormack's Glossary.
3 Sir W. Jones' Works, iv. 68. It might almost be supposed
that the Teutonic name of the animal was derived from this mis
conception of the constellation, which is in fact shaped like the Egyp
tian Baris. In Voss's translation of the story of Phaeton in Ovid,
he calls it : Der nordlich stiirmenden Baerin. — Heinsius's Barden-
hain, iii. 115.

AND SIDE. 165
world1 ; in the third, ofthe royal assembly2 ; in the
fourth, the gloomy inclosure3; in the fifth, the
inclosure resting on the height4; in the sixth,
the inclosure, whose side produced life.5 The
third stanza is remarkable : "In the quadrangular
inclosure in the island with the strong door, the
twilight and the pitchy darkness were mixed to
gether, whilst bright wine was the beverage placed
before the narrow circle. Thrice the number that
would have filled Prydwen 6 we embarked upon the
sea ; excepting seven, none returned from Caer
Rigor." Now this quadrangular inclosure, " the
prison of Gwair (the just man) in Caer Sidi," cor
responds with the square Cromlechs of the Celts,
and with the Cibotus figured on some ancient
coins. According to the description of Bishop
Heber, the Bengalee boats of the present day have
some resemblance to the fashion of the Ark, as it
is portrayed in Celtic tradition. He says, they
are " decked throughout their whole length with
bamboo, and on this is erected a low light fabric of
bamboo and straw, exactly like a small cottage
1 Caer Bediwyd. 2 Caer Rigor.
3 Caer Golur. 4 Caer Vandwy.
5 Caer Ochren. — Davies's Celt. Myth. p. 51 6.
6 Davies thinks, that Prydwen means the ark, from Prud = ko-
c-fMc, and Wen a female : the Lady of the world. I am more dis
posed to think the bard means Britain, and that the Druids
adorned their own island with a name which has since been univer
sally adopted. In the poem Mic Dinbych, Ysgrifen Brydain is
translated, the writings of Britain ; but a note suggests, " The writ
ings of Prydain, who was the same as Hu-God." The two words
are certainly interchangeable ; for in the preceding stanza, Britain
is written Prydain, which is surely the same as Prydwen. — Davies'
Celt. Myth. p. 510.
M 3

166

ORION

without a chimney." ¦ If to this account be added
the further statement, that the Maldivian, Ben
galee and Chittagong vessels have very lofty heads
and sterns, we have the exact image of the crescent-
shaped Ark, or Baris, in which the Egyptians de
posited the coffin of Osiris. Plutarch has a con
fused 2 account of this, in which however there are
some lineaments of truth. On the nineteenth day
of the month Athyr, the priests went down to the
sea, and brought out the sacred ark, which con
tained a golden chest, and into it they poured clear
water, and all that were present shouted out, that
Osiris was found. Then mixing oil and spices with
the water, they formed the image of a crescent,
which they robed and adorned.3 This then was
the Sima, which, being placed on the top of the
quadrangular inclosure, makes the fourth hiero
glyphic of Osiris, as above mentioned ; and then,
if the orb of a star without its rays be placed in
the centre, and the whole image clothed, the pro
cess for manufacturing one of the Jaggernaut idols
is complete, the horns of the crescent being the
arms, and the orb the head of the idol. At
Luxorein, near Carnac, in the Thebais, the ship
of Isis, with its double beak like a new moon, is

i Vol. i. of Journal, p. 108.
2 It is a confused account, because in this place he calls the ark
a /c/o-Tt), or chest ; but the vessel in which the a-opoc, coffin, is laid at
the discovery of Osiris must be the same in which it was deposited
at his entrance into it. And this is properly described as an ark
shaped like a crescent ; Xdpvaxa pjvoEiSrj, iv. 507-
* De Isid. et Osirid. iv. 502.

AND SIDE. 167
sculptured on the walls of a temple l : it is carried
by ten persons, and contains a chest or ark ; for
here it must be observed, that although the con
taining crescent is called the Baris, Ark, or Ship,
because it was moveable and had the same shape,
yet, in fact, it represented the two peaked ridge of
Ararat, containing the real ark within its horns ;
for the chest, or quadrangular enclosure, which
was the coffin of Osiris when he entered it, and
while he remained in it as in the grave, is called
a Cibotus when he is found again.2 Now Cibotus
is the word used by the Greek translators of
Genesis for Noah's ark, and the Sybilline oracles
mention an Ararat on the borders of Phrygia 3, ap^
parently for no other reason than because Cibotus
was built there. Cibotus was a town encompassed
with three rivers 4, where a coin was struck, similar
to those already mentioned, with the name of
Noe on the chest or ark.5 Another town, not far
1 Copied by Bishop Pocock. — Bryant's Analysis, i. 251.
2 2opoc, when he enters it : K&urtov, when found. Plut. De Is.
et Osir. So likewise Apis, the hving image of Osiris, covered with
crescents (Do. 508) was deposited after death in Sorus. from which
the reviving Deity was called Soroapis, or Sarapis. — Nymphodorus
in Euseb. Prcep. Evan. 1. x. 499-
3 P. 180.
4 The three rivers are the Marsyas, Obrimas, and Orgas.
8 Three coins of Philip the elder, struck at Apameia, or Cibotus,
as it was once called, bear on the reverse a square machine floating
on the water, in which two persons are seen, and on one side two
who have just quitted it, and above the dove bearing a branch. Upon
the ark is the word Nbs. Bryant's Analysis, ii. 230.
Upon some medals coined at Apamaea, in Phrygia, about the time
of Septimius Severus, an ark is represented floating on the waters,
in which a man and woman are to be seen. A bird is sitting on
the ark, and another flying towards it holding a branch in its feet.
M 4

168

ORION

from it, is called Baris. In the Celtic tradition,
the top ofthe mountain becomes more appropriately
an island, as, indeed, it was, when it first emerged
from the flood ; but yet the same confusion of
emblems appears again, the consequence of obscure
and corrupted knowledge. The island, like the
Baris, embraces a double meaning : for an island,
with a door, can be neither an island of earth,
nor yet an ordinary ship : it can be nothing but
the ark, the door of which is specially mentioned
in Scripture, and was commemorated among the
pagans by opening the door of Janus ; for this deity,
who had two faces, one before and one behind, to
signify that he could look backward upon the ante
diluvian world, as well as forward upon the present,
carried in his hand a key ', the memorial of his
opening the door of the ark : wherefore, also, he
was thought the most proper person to open the
year, and January became the first month in lieu
of March. Plutarch mentions an ancient coin,
that bore his head on one side, and on the other,
half a vessel. He observes, " It was the common
opinion that this was in honour of Saturn." 2 They

Close by are the same two persons on the dry land, with their right
arms held up. The name of No is on the ark in Greek letters. —
W. Eckel of Vienna, Doct. Numism. Vet. t. iii. 132.
1 Albericus, de Deorum Imaginibus, says, that Janus is repre
sented carrying " in dextra. clavem, in sinistra vero baculum, quo
saxum percutere et ex illo aquam producere videbatur." This is not
the only instance in which tradition has confounded Moses with
the older patriarchs ; but still Janus, the rock, and the water, are
associated. 2 Queest. Rom. p. 274.

AND SIDE. 169
were, in truth, the same person ; and that which was
expressed in one case by giving him a double coun
tenance, was expressed in the other, by supposing that
he might have the appearance of a young man as well
as of an old man.1 Both were described with keys
and ships upon their coins ; both were the same as
Bacchus, and inventors of wine 2, and the Saturnalia
were celebrated in the kalends of January. A
river and a mountain bore his name (Janus), be
cause he is said to have lived on that mountain,
and to have invented ships and navigation.3 Tra
dition affirmed, that once a flood of waters burst
from his temple, and swallowed up whole hosts.4
The Janiculum was the highest hill of Rome, and
probably the same which was formerly called Sa-
turnian ; some accounts, indeed, make them con
temporary wanderers over the sea, which they cer
tainly were, and founders of separate cities, which
they were not. Others give Janus so much later
a date, that to him they attribute the plan of
stamping a ship upon coins, in honour of Saturn, a
practice so common, that boys at play would cry,
as they tossed up a denarius in the air, " heads or
1 Ipsius canities pruinosis nivibus candicabat, licet etiam ille puer
posse fieri crederetur. — Martianus Capella, 1. i. u. 2.
Quem Graeci et Latini Bacchum et CEnotrium vocant, eundem
ilium Syri et Aramei omnes appellant Janum, a voce Jain quae
vinum significat. — Observationum Libellus Anonymus in Mytho-
logiam. 3 Athenseus, 1. 15.
* Fertur ex aede Jani per hanc portam magnam vim torrentium
undis scatentibus erupisse, multasque perduellium catervas — de-
voratas rapida voragine deperiisse. — Macrdbii Saturnalia, 1. i.
p. 194.

170 ORION
ships," as with us they cry " heads or tails." ' Even
this modern custom (may I venture to suggest it ?)
might have been fetched from Phoenicia ; for there
Janus was represented by a serpent biting his own
tail.2 However, one thing is clear, that the an
cients knew nothing about him ; his antiquity was
beyond their records : but Janua, or the door, seems
to belong more properly to a female, who bore the
same relation to Janus as Luna 3 to Lunus, or Isis
to Osiris. Her name was Jana, which, pronounced
hard4, became Diana: consequently she was the
moon in her crescent state, the figurative recipient
of the patriarch. The door, which was closed
after the conclusion of a war, was the door of the
ark, which was closed on those who issued from it
after the strife of the elements was over.
Again, the darkness of the ark 5, while that door
was closed, has been faithfully copied in all its
commemorative cells and institutions, in caves, py
ramids, and mysteries. " Memorials of the deluge,"
says Colonel Francklyn, " are visible in various
parts of the noble ruins at Persepolis, at Darab,
and at Makhshi Rostum, where the dark exca-

1 Pueri denarios in sublime jactantes, Capita aut Navia, lusu, teste
vetustatis, exclamant. — Macrobii Saturnalia, 1. i. 194.
2 Phoenices in sacris imaginem ejus (Jani) exprimentes draco-
nem finxerunt in orbem redactum caudamque suam devorantem.
p. 193.
3 Jana erescens et senescens. — Varro de Reb. rust. 1. i. c. 31.
4 Thus, in the Ban de la Roche, a patois is spoken, which turns
Chers into Dchers, and Je into Dje. — Extract from a Letter in the
Memoirs of Obelin, p. 88.
¦' The ark, it will be remembered, had but one window for its
three stories. Gen. vi. 16.

AND SIDE. 171
vated chamber, and the narrow door at the entrance
of each, exhibit a memorable allusion to the ship
of the deluge, as wedged in the crags of Mount
Ararat."1 Hence an ancient design represents
Ceres, who, it has been shown, was synonymous
with Isis, mounted on a car formed like a boat or
half-moon, and drawn by dragons, holding lighted
torches in her hands 2, &c. ; and hence Brimo, who
is equally Rhea and Hecate, the threefold repre
sentative of the moon, Jana or Diana, and Proser
pine the goddess ofthe regions of darkness, is said
by Lycophron to be propitiated by torch-light
sacrifices.3 The tablet of Ceres is surrounded
with twelve short pillars, on which are depicted
the twelve signs of the zodiac ; intimating that
her wanderings on the ocean lasted through the
revolution of a year ; and, agreeably to this opinion,
the Celtic bards constantly allude to the completion
of the year, and the return of a particular day,
when they treat of the history and rites of Cerid-

1 Prancklyn on the Tenets of the Jains and Boudhists, p. 112.
2 M. de Gebelin's Monde Primitif, iv. pi. 7-
3 Bpift.o) rplfMgtpoc &/}<TEra.i tx iitomida
KXayydurt rapt'tjcova-av €Vvv%otc fiporovs
"Oaroi jKeSouVvj? "Lrpv/iovoi; ZypvvSiac,
AEiKtiXaft.il ire€ov<ri Xafticaiovxiatc
©i/VSXoi; $Epa!av lHaKEv'ft.EVOi Sedv. —
Lyc. Cassan. 1177.
Pherae is the name of a town in Arcadia which was peculiarly
Arkite, and of another among the Magnetes, of whom Bryant says,
that wherever they were, some history of the ark will be found.
Their coins bore the impress of a ship, and the inscription Argo
Magneton. But the goddess of the crescent doubtless obtained her
name from yiptiv, to carry.

172 ORION
wen, i.e. Ceres, which were celebrated in the
sanctuary of Caer Sidi. Hence, it was not till the
end of the year that the light of the Baalteine was
to be kindled, a memorial of returning light, as
much as a worship of fire : for, on that occasion, all
fires were wont to be previously extinguished, in
order that they might be rekindled from the sacred
flame of the Druids, and then the masses of light
that gleamed from every hill top were magnifi
cently contrasted with the pitchy darkness of a
November night. The miraculous appearance of
the holy flames in the sepulchre at Jerusalem,
which deludes and maddens the superstitious
Greeks on Easter Eve l, is an undoubted remnant
of this more ancient rite ; for with minds as dark
as the vault from which it issues, they extinguish
every light, and wait in total gloom for the easiest
of all miracles. With great reason then the Celtic
Ceridwen is made the mother of Avagdu, or utter
darkness, who could not be illuminated till the
regenerating cauldron, like the cauldron of Me
dea, the daughter of Hecate, had boiled for a com
plete year.2 Taliessin's introduction of wine into
the ark may be thought an anachronism ; but it
points to the inventor of that beverage, the
Dionusus of Greece ; and it is part of his cha
racter, which the Celts would be sure to preserve,
addiction to wine being a very prominent feature in

1 See Maundrell's Journey through Palestine.
2 Davies's Mythology of the British Druids, p. 203.

AND SIDE. 173
their own.1 Thus every thing concurs to prove
that the Caer Sidi of the Welsh bard was the
diluvian sanctuary, whether applied to the ori
ginal ark, or to those imitative cells of initiation,
which abounded wherever Arkite rites were es
tablished. The religion of the Burmese in par
ticular retains not only the mystic cell, but the
very name. For the sages, or hermits, worshippers
of Godama, that is, Budha, ought to live in caves
and subterranean buildings, of which there are many
remains in the neighbourhood of Graungoo 2 :
but his temples above ground are usually in the
form of a pyramid, and so are doubly commemo
rative ; having within, the dark chamber, and
without, the form of one of the Armenian peaks.
They are called Bura, which has a remarkable
affinity to Baris 3, the name both of the mountain
and the ark ; but their proper name in the Burman
language is Zedee, i. e. Sidi ; pronounced as every
nation in Europe but the English would pronounce
it. The name of Bura is also applied to some
stones held in great veneration by them, and
peculiarly characteristic of Budha. They are of
considerable dimensions, carved with various hiero
glyphics, and said to represent, or to be the im
pressions of his foot ; corresponding therefore to

1 Diodorus Siculus.
2 Asiatic Researches, vi. 295.— Dr. Buchanan.
3 Jerome says, that Baris is the name of a mountain in Armenia ;
and Nicolaus Damascenus, that it was the name of Ararat, where^
according to Strabo, the goddess Baris had a temple.

17^ ORION
the Prabat of the Siamese, and the Paduka 1 of the
Hindoos. Their names in Burman is Kye do
Bura, the royal foot. In this instance, it would
almost seem as if the vessel had been confounded
with the person whom it contained, and that Bura
was the name of both. For so in Ceylon the same
sort of temples are indifferently denominated Boud-
destaneh, and Siddeestaneh 2 ; they are alike the
monuments of Bouddh, and of Siddee ; for in Hin-
dostan Sidha expresses those who after death have
become gods.3 In Irish too, Sidh 4 signifies a good
genius, and in5 the collection of Tirechan, Sidi is
the word used by the king's daughters for the gods
of the earth, in their address to Patrick and his
companions. These Celts long retained the Boudhist peculiar
ity of regarding with veneration the mark of afoot.
" When they elected their captain," we are told,
" they placed him upon a stone commonly upon a
hill, and on some such stones was engraved the
measure of their first captain's foot." 6 The coin
cidence of meaning between the Irish Sidh and the

1 Paduka, says Francklyn, is the holy feet of Jeyne, or Boodh,
p. 80. where it may be observed, that Boodh is the same as Jeyne
and Janus.
2 Captain Mahony, in As. Res. vii. 39- Sidhi, together with
Buddhi, was the wife of Ganesa, the son and champion of Parvati,
the mountainborn.
3 Buchanan's Journey in the Mysore. They were eight in
number. 4 Vallancey on Ancient Irish; and Sad, in Celtic, is a fore
father. 5 Betham's Antiq. Res. in Miss Beaufort's Essay on Ireland.
6 King's Munimenta antiqua, i. 148.

AND SIDE. 175
Indian Sidha is the more curious, because Sida
being a name of the pomegranate in the Boeotian
language, which doubtless passed from Asia with
the Phenicians into Greece, it is expressed both in
Irish and in Hebrew by the same word, and that
too a word of mythic stamp, Rimmon.1 It was
the name of a Syrian idol ; and when Naaman had
been cured of his leprosy by the God of Israel,
and vowed never to sacrifice to another, and yet
feared to forfeit his master's favour, he entreated
indulgence for his dissimulation in bowing down
in the house of Rimmon.2 And since the Ben
jamites retreated to the rock of Rimmon, as an
asylum3, we may conclude, that there was the
Ararat over which he was thought to preside. It
is probable, therefore, that something more than
the grace or beauty of the fruit, for which indeed
it is not remarkable, recommended the pome
granate to the attention of Solomon, when he
adorned with them the tops of his brazen pillars
before the porch of the temple 4 ; especially when
it is considered, that these pillars themselves, with
their mysterious names 5, had nothing else to bear,
and were of no use, and that one of the other ves
sels framed by him was called a molten sea, and
notwithstanding its vast capacity was elevated on
the backs of twelve oxen ; a sufficient proof, that
something more than mere utility was kept in view,
1 Vallancey on Ancient Irish. 2 2 Kings, v. 18.
3 Judges, xx. 47. " 1 Kings, vii. 18.23.25.
5 Jachin he shall establish, and Boaz in it is strength.

176

ORION

since, for any ordinary purposes, the height of the
sides was already too inconvenient ; for the depth
was five cubits. He had married an Egyptian
princess, and on the borders of that country an
idol stood, to which the name of Jupiter Cassius
was given, holding in his hand a pomegranate, in
which, according to the observation of Tatius, a
mystery was couched.1 But the mystery may be
guessed by attending to the site of the temple : it
was built on " Mount Casius old," near the Ser-
bonian lake, where the remains of Typhon, the per
secutor of Osiris (Arabice, AI Tufan, the deluge),
were said to be buried. Apollonius' account is,
that there is a Typhonian rock in Caucasus, where
Tuphaon was struck by the thunderbolt of Jupiter,
and plunged into the waters of the lake.2 At first
there seems to be no obvious connection between
this Serbonian lake and Caucasus ; no good reason,
why, if the lightening scathed the giant in Cap
padocia 3, he should walk so far as Egypt to cool
his burning head. The connection however is
neither historical, nor geographical, but mytho
logical. Cau-casus is in fact the same in meaning
as Mons Casius, the Patriarch's Mount. For Casis
in Hebrew is an old man 4 : both are on the con-

1 XIpoGetXyrai Se tjjv %Eipa, Kal e^ei poiav eV airy ; rijc Se poiac o
Xo'70; ftvariKoc. — Achilles Tatius, 1. iii.
2 Apollonii Argon. 1. ii. 1213.
3 ®Epft.ov aito Kparoc ard^ai tpdvov. He came to the weS/ov Nwnji'ov.
But Nyssa was in Cappadocia, and has evidently the same origin as
Dio-Nusos, or Deo Naush in Hindostan.
4 W2 Senex.

AND SIDE. 177
fines of lakes, remnants and types of the deluge,
and in both the mystic pomegranate has retained
its place. For the Caphtorim, or Cappadocians ',
were so denominated from the Hebrew Caphtor, a
Pomegranate ; and they had a city named Side 2,
and a people called Sidenes. They were in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Colchi, a people
so nearly resembling the Egyptians in their lan
guage and manners3, that they have been con
sidered an Egyptian colony. But it is more likely
that the family of Mizraim, the son of Ham, de
scending from Caucasus through Colchis and Cap
padocia into Egypt, retained their other character
istics longest, where they retained their original
sacred mysteries. Colchis, it will be remembered,
was the scene of the labours imposed upon the
Argo's crew4, and Sybaris was their metropolis,
which Bochart derives from Baris.5 That there was
nothing idolatrous or offensive to God in the my
stery of the pomegranate, is plainly to be inferred,
not only from its introduction into the adornments
of the temple by Solomon, but still more from its
having been selected for one of the ornaments of
1 Mons Taurus, on the borders of Cappadocia, was sometimes called
Caucasus by the ancients, the reason of which will be readily under
stood from what has been said on this subject ; and therefore Sal-
masius is right in his observation, that there was also an Indian
Caucasus, sufficient traces of which are still retained in Chaisa
Ghur. Aristotle mentions a lake under Caucasus which the natives
call the sea. — Meteor, 1. i. c. 13.
2 Strabo, 1. xii. 548. Plinius, vi. c. 4.
3 'H ^Sr) itdaa Kal if yXScra-a Eftpepyc iurl dXXrjXoun. — Herod. 1. ii.
4 Diodor. Sic. 1. iv. 251.
6 Nomen videtur compositum ex ignoto Zu et fiapic,. — Geog. Sac.
1. iv. c. 31.
VOL. I. N

178 ORION
the high priest's ephod by the inspired legislator
of the Jews. 3 In succeeding times, when it was
converted into Sidus, or a star, then indeed it be
came an object of idolatry, and provoked the jea
lousy of the Holy One of Israel, and drew forth
indignant expostulations from his prophets, and
threats of severe punishment.2 Enough has been
said to show that Side, the wife of Orion, was a
mythic character coeval with the flood, and there
fore as much may be concluded of her husband ;
but there is another circumstance in his history yet
remaining, which is quite decisive, and that is the
fable of his enormous stature. It is said, that
when he walked through the greatest depths of the
ocean, his head was still above the water.3 What is
this, but a pointed allusion to that miraculously
preserved family, who alone of all mankind could
look over the unbounded expanse of ocean, in
which the rest of the world found their destruction ?
Upon the astronomical theory, this part of the fable
is quite inexplicable : for as the constellation be
longs to the southern hemisphere, no part of it is
always above the horizon in those latitudes to which
his history belongs. On the contrary, it sets in the
month of November, the month in which Osiris

1 Exod. xxviii. 33.
2 Ahijah, 1 Kings, xi. 33. Amos, v. 26.
3 Cum pedes incedit medii per maxima Nerei
Stagna, viam scindens, humero supereminef undas.
Virgil. Mn. x. 764.
He is also feigned to have obtained from his father, Neptune, the
power of walking upon the surface of the sea.

AND SIDE. 179
was mourned, the month of mourning in Irish1, the
month which, it has been shown, was assigned by
some traditions to the commencement of the deluge.
And therefore Horace may have had some motive
besides the gloominess ofthe season for calling him
the mournful Orion2 ; and as the entrance of Osiris
into the ark was considered his death, so, for the
same reason, Orion was said to have been killed by
a scorpion 3, that being the Novembrian sign. For
the same reason probably it was reported, that his
sight was taken from him, and restored again by
the sun. But the loss of his eyes inflicted by
OZnopion may have originated in the imprecation
pronounced by Noah upon his undutiful son. Dio
dorus attributes to him the entire formation of the
Pelorian Promontory 4, in Sicily, on the summit of
which he built a temple to Neptune, which was in
high esteem among the natives. Pelorus 5 may be
interpreted the Hill of Bel, and was consecrated
by the descendants of Orion, or Ham, to him who
1 The Mi Saman of the ancient Irish fell on the month of
November. It was also named Mi Du, that is, the month of mourn
ing. — Vallancey's Collect, iii. 444.
2 Tristis Orion. — Hor. Epod. 10.
3 Palaephatus.
4 At least Hesiod is said by him to have affirmed, 'ilptoiva irpo-
a"xfc<rai to Kara r)]V itEXcaptdia KEi.ft.Evov aKpor'/jptov, Kal to riftEvoc rov
TIoa-EtoSvoq Y.arE<jy.Evd<jai rift.ojft.EVOV viro rwv iyxaiptoiv y-iapEpovruc. —
Diod. Sic. 1. iv. 284.
5 Bochart imagines that o UiXoipoc, was in the Phoenician language
jyjOn b^lH' Hobel Haros, vel etiam Hobel Horos; nam apud
Syros camets sonat o. Gubernator sive nauclerus ducis. — Geog.
Sac. 1. i. c. 28. But if the etymology is correct, the meaning is
rather Gubernator dux, the pilot chief. But I prefer Bel and Har,
or Hor, a hill.
N 2

180 ORION AND SIDE.
was at once Neptune and Baal. This then being
the history of Orion, the following passage in the
prophet Amos, and his allusions to the deluge, will
be better understood. " Seek him that maketh the
seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of
death into the morning, and maketh the day dark
with night ; that calleth for the waters of the sea,
and poureth them out upon the face of the earth." l
1 Amos, ch. v. 8.

181

CHAP. VIII.
ORION.
explanation of the stars mentioned in job. 
pleiades.  hyads.  arcturus.  bootes.  eric-
thonius.  dardanus.  samothrace.  danaus. ' 
Deucalion's flood compared with noah's. — pelasgi.
— capella.
There are only two other passages in Scripture,
besides that above mentioned, in which Orion is
introduced, and both of them deserve some consi
deration. Job speaks of God as the maker of
"Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of
the south." ¦ These of course are not the Hebrew
names, which are represented by our translators in
the margin thus, Ash, Cesil, and Cimah. How
little certainty there is of the precise meaning of
these words, is sufficiently proved by the diversity
of opinion exhibited by translators and commenta
tors. The Vulgate and the Chaldee Paraphrase
render them Arcturus, Orion, and the Hyades :
the Syriac and Arabic, the Pleiades, and Arcturus,
and the Giant, i. e. Orion : the Septuagint has, the
Pleiad, and Hesperus, and Arcturus. There can
be little doubt, that they are intended either for
i Job, ix. 9.
N 3

182 THE STARS IN JOB.
constellations, or for single stars ; and therefore
some of the most conspicuous have been selected.
But as they had no connection with the astronomi
cal fables of the Grecian sphere, it is difficult to
identify them ; but it may not be so difficult, by
investigating the origin of their names, to trace
their connection with a period much more remote.
The root of Ash is Hush, to congregate, or break
forth : the former meaning has induced translators
to interpret it of the Pleiades, because they are a
remarkable cluster. But it is necessary to look a
little further. From the same root comes the
Arabic, Aswah, a dark and perilous business ; As-
waton, the twilight; and Asjah, the evening. From
the same root come Husis, and Husma, in Greek,
which signify rain or water. Hence certain stars
were called Huads, or Hyads, which Tiro placed
upon the head of the bull ; but Aulus Gellius,
correcting him, affirms, that they were within the
circle of the zodiac ', and arranged in such a way as
to look like the head of a bull ; so that the whole
head was formed by them alone. The Greek
Upsilon (o) is supposed by some to be imitative of
a bull's horns, and in fact on some globes the horns
of Taurus have precisely that form, with a star
upon each tip. These stars, whose names are
plainly commemorative of the bursting forth of the
waters, when the flood-gates of heaven were
1 Ita in circulo, qui Zodiacus dicitur, sitae locateeque sunt, ut ex
earum positu species qusedam et simulacrum esse videatur Tauri
capitis. — Aul. Gell. Noct. Att. 1. xiii. 9-

THE STARS IN JOB. 183
opened, and the horned ark was the only object
left visible, were sometimes confounded with the
Pleiades ; as by Ovid, who says, that " the seven
radiant stars shine on the forehead of the bull." !
The situation of these indeed was so little deter
mined, or at least so little generally known, that
Hyginus places them between the head of Taurus
and the head of Aries ; Aben Ezra in the tail of
Aries ; Proclus on the back of Taurus ; Aulus
Gellius supposes them to form his body. The
truth is, that there never was any idea of a resem
blance between the constellations, and the things
whose names they bore : there was no reference to
the pictorial art : there was no imperial standard of
drawing, to which all the delineations upon the
heavenly globe were to be reduced ; but the first
astronomers, having divided the stars into clusters,
for the convenience of distinction, gave to each the
name of something which they regarded with re
verence, or which they wished to consecrate in the
memory of future ages : and therefore, in the
southern hemisphere, where in all probability as
tronomy was first cultivated by the navigators of
the Indian ocean, most of the names allude to that
catastrophe which filled their minds with awe,
while its horrors and its mercies were forcibly im
pressed upon the imagination by the liveliness of a
recent tradition. Hence the largest of the con
stellations, with which they were acquainted,
1 Ore micant Tauri septem radiantia flammis
Sidera. East. iv.

184 THE STARS IN JOB.
obtained the name of, The Ship.1 It may be, that
the Indians called it Argha, from whence the
Greeks formed their Argo. It certainly can have
no connection with the Grecian fable, except the
real history from which they were both derived 2 ;
for no part of it was visible from any Grecian
observatory. The next in magnitude was the
Bull3, or rather, according to the Scholiast on
Homer4, the forepart only of the bull, with his
mystic horns ; next in importance came the Fishes,
and Orion, and the Centaur, who may either
represent the ship in another form, in the same
way as a Venetian galley is called Bucentaur, or,
what is perhaps more probable, he was the son
of Saturn or Noah 8 : the Greeks called him
Chiron. He is in the act of sacrificing, for near
him is Ara, the altar, and the Triangle, the Egyptian
symbol of divinity, and the beast to be sacrificed,
improperly called Lupus, since Ptolemy uses the
word Shjplov, a beast, and the Arabic name is ren
dered by Hyde fera : then there is Hydra, which
has been interpreted ofthe inundation of the Nile,
and the diluvian Eridanus, from which Orion is

1 In Ulugh Beg's table of the stars, it is called Stella navis.
2 L'imagination des poetes n'a pu depasser un evenement, dont
la memoire eflrayait encore ; mais ils aimaient a tout s'approprier
sans s'embarasser des epoques, et, sans respecter la verite, ils em-
bellissaient leurs descriptions de tous les recits que la tradition avait
pu leur transmettre. — De Tressan, Myth. comp. a THist. ii. 93.
3 44 stars in Taurus. — Ptolemy.
4 'O ravpoc, truoc, ovk avqa-ripto'rai, dXX' so)C ruv tcrxiuv. — //.
vi. 486.
5 Maurice's Indian Antiquities, p. 32.

THE STARS IN JOB. 185
emerging, and the Crater or cup of libation ', and
Corvus the raven, that was sent forth from the ark.
The relation of the dog to this subject has been
already explained. Cetus, the monster of the sea,
from which the Celtic Ked has been derived, was
an emblem of the ark, as I shall have occasion here
after to show, and Lepus is perhaps derived from the
equivocal meaning of the Hebrew original, Arn-
beth, which certainly signifies a hare, but may also
be interpreted, Aron Beth 2, the mansion of the ark.
The prolific character of that animal too may have
furnished an additional feature of resemblance, in
the same way as the all-prolific cow is a production
ascribed to the churning of the ocean, i.e. to the
deluge, in Hindoo mythology. The hare has always
had a certain degree of sanctity attached to it in
the Levant, and, even to this day, so far has super
stition survived all changes of empires and man
ners, that it is never used for food. Formerly some
of the islands were so overrun by those animals,
that a famine was apprehended ; for the inhabitants
would not kill them, till they had consulted the
oracle, and received the sanction of a divine com
mand. The only remaining constellation known
to the ancients in the southern hemisphere was
Corona Australis. Now, the first use of the crown
in sacrifice is universally referred to the Patriarch ;
for Pherecydes says, that Saturn was the first man
1 The Crater beneficus Osiridis of the Egyptians.
2 roriN- yna is ^^ r\2 is domus-

186 THE STARS IN JOB.
crowned.1 Pliny says the same of Dionusus 2 ; and
Athenasus numbers it among the inventions of
Janus.3 If it were worth while, the same might
be proved of most, if not of all, the asterisms in the
zodiac, even where there is the least apparent
connection. Thus the lion was the Egyptian hiero
glyphic for the inundation of the Nile ; and a
scorpion or crocodile signified any thing hostile or
destructive.4 I decline the common notion, that
the hieroglyphic was taken from the sign ; partly
because, in the latter case, it does not hold good,
and partly because other myths connected with the
Arkite worship exhibit the lion in a mysterious
character, wholly independent ofthe Nile or zodiac.
The Avatar of Vishnu in Nara Sinha, exhibits him
springing like a lion from the centre of a pillar, to
vindicate it from the insults of those who denied that
a deity resided there. In another chapter, I shall
have occasion to show how intimately the worship
of pillars is connected with the deluge. Then the
Chinese Sakya, who is undoubtedly the same with
1 Pherecydes Saturnum primum coronatum refert. — Tertull.
de Cor. Mil.
2 Plinius primum hominem Liberum patrem coronam imposuisse
capiti ex hedera scribit, lib. xvi. c. 4. — Hoffman.
3 Inter Jani bifrontis ponitur inventa et usurpata est olim in
sacrificiis. — Apud Athen. 1. xv. Lactantius, 1. vii. c. 6.
4 Horus Apollo, translated out of Egyptian into Greek, by Philip-
pus. In the Egyptian zodiac, Scorpio is a man with a double fish tail.
The man, who holds Libra, has a crescent on his head. Pisces is
a human figure, with a fish's tail. Cancer is a crocodile, called
Campsa, i. e. the Ark. Aries is a man with horns on his head. —
Sir W. Jones, iv. 252. The soffit of the gate of the temple at
Palmyra presents a zodiac, the signs of which are the same as ours.
— Volney, ii. c. 30.

THE STARS IN JOB. 187
Satyaurata, i. e. Menu, i. e. Noah, was entitled
Sinha, the lion, and Hercules is always invested
with a lion's skin. It will not be contended, that
the lion of the tribe of Judah ' had any thing to do
with the zodiac or the Nile : it was the emblem of
a person, or of a family ; but what person, or what
family is designed by any emblem, must depend
upon collateral circumstances. Since then it is
most certain, that memorials of the deluge are to
be found abundantly in the heavens as well as upon
earth, it will not be unreasonable to refer to that
source the names of the Hyads and Pleiads, if their
history contains allusions to that era ; especially if
there is an indistinctness and confusion in that
history, which savours strongly of a remote antiquity,
and at the same time betrays a common origin.
In the first place, both those asterisms, both the
stars on the front of the bull, and those on his
back, are in the form of the letter u 2 ; in other
words, they are both like a pair of horns ; straighter
indeed than those which form the crescent, but a
very common variety of that sacred emblem. In
the next place, Timaeus makes them all sisters ; all
the daughters of a mountain, and granddaughters
of Japhet by one parent, and of the Ocean by the
other.3 They had a brother Hyas, who being
1 Gen. xlix. 9. The lion is supposed to have been the banner
of the tribe.
2 KaXovvrai 'T«Se; 8«x r\v icpoc to v o-roix^"v oftoiorrira. — Scho
liast, in Horn. II. xviii. 486.
3 " ArXavn yap rov 'laiiErov Kal "AtBpa Ti) 'ilKEavov Slvyarfpsc, Zoi^ekx,
Kal vioc "Tut. Ibid.

188 THE STARS IN JOB.
killed by a serpent, five of them died for grief, and
became Hyades, and were placed among the stars.
The other seven obtained the same honour at their
death, under the name of Pleiades. Again the
Hyades are said to have been nymphs of Dodona,
the nurses of Dionusus, when he issued from the
Meru of Jupiter1, i.e. Ararat. But the priestesses
of Dodona were called Peleiades 2, and the daugh
ters of Atlas, flying from Orion, were changed into
Peleiades, doves, and therefore called Pleiades.3
Pherecydes makes them the nurses of Dionusus ;
but Dionusus and Hyas were one and the same ;
at least Plutarch says, that the Greeks called him
Hyes, as the Lord of moist nature.4 The Argives,
who knew more about the matter, invited him out
of the water, and fabled that he was born of a cow.
This Dionusus he owns to be no other than Osiris5,
whose ark the Egyptians say is the ship among the
stars called Argo by the Greeks.6 Upon the whole
then it appears, 1st, that the Hyades have quite as
good, if not a better right than their sisters, to be the
representatives of Ash ; 2dly, that the two asterisms
being so much confounded in popular belief, it is
not likely that both would be mentioned separately,
and, therefore, that though both the names occur in
1 'Ek rov ft'/ipov yEvvrjdivra. — Scholiast, in Horn. II. xviii. 486.
2 See Hesychius. HeXemIec.
3 Hoffman.
4 TyJc vyodq Qvosac. iv. 493. fiovyEvyc iiciKXijv iariv. 495.
5 'Of/c irEpov ovra tou 'Otr/piSoq, 494. — De Iside et Osiride.
•> To nXoTov o KuXovatv "EAXtj^e; 'Apyo) rijc 'Oalpitoc veo)c EiSoiXoy iiil
riftij Kari)o-rtpio-ft.(vov. 475. which ship is, in other places of the
same treatise, called Aapval, an ark, and 0-0005, a coffin, or chest.

THE STARS IN JOB. 18.9
different versions of the original, yet they signify
the same thing ; and, thirdly, that neither of them
is any otherwise entitled to be considered the true
signification of the Hebrew word, than by their
relation to the history of the deluge, a relation
which they share in common with many other
groupes of stars.
Setting aside therefore, for the present, both of
these, I would fain know whether, when the sacred
writer aimed at magnifying the power of God in
the creation of the heavenly bodies, and for that
purpose enumerated some of the most glorious
constellations, it is at all probable that he would
omit the largest groupe, to which a name had
been assigned. Now the ship was the largest con
stellation then known, the whole of which was
visible in Arabia. What hinders then, but that
the Hebrew word may be received in the sense of
the Celtic word, to which it bears a close affinity ;
especially since, according to the analogy of He
brew pronunciation in other instances, it might
actually be written as in Irish — Ess ? For thus the
form, in which the garden of Paradise is presented
to the English reader, is not Aden, but Eden, and
yet the first letter is the same.1 Suppose, how
ever, that our translators were right in choosing a
northern asterism to be assigned to the word Ash ;
still, the further we pursue this enquiry, the more
we may be convinced that, however science might
1 py is Eden, therefore JJJJ/ should be Ess or Esh. vy, Ets
or Ess is the word used for a vessel of wood. — Exod. ix.

190 THE STARS IN JOB.
find it convenient to retain the names of the
popular astronomy, and to circumscribe the limits
of their import, yet that popular astronomy itself
had no other aim than to record among the stars
the objects of a rooted veneration, with little
attention to accuracy, and with little anxiety be
yond preserving the memory of those sacred things
or persons. And though succeeding ages have
lost sight of the first intention, yet enough cir
cumstantial evidence may be picked up out of the
ruins of tradition, to show what it really was. A
striking proof of this is furnished by the researches
of Upham1 and Humboldt, who are agreed, that
though the twelve signs of the zodiac, whether in
the east or west, are not the original emblems, yet
the fish god seems common to all the oldest ; it is
the Cipactli of Mexico, and the Mackara of Bud-
hism, in addition to which the latter has the
Raven.2 If then Arcturus, which is our English
version of the word Ash, be considered as an
astronomical definition of certain stars, there is
not light enough among all their orbs to dispel the
obscurity ; but if we are contented to look for
some one, who was honoured among the Arctic
stars, the mist soon clears away : for Arcturus had
no fixed signification among ancient writers ; it
1 History and Doctrines of Budhism, by Upham.
2 The Indian zodiac has the Virgin Canya floating in a boat,
the Bow Dhanus held by an archer Centaur, a water-pot born on
the shoulder of Aquarius, and pouring out water, the sea-monster
Maccara and two fishes, each bent into a crescent, besides the Bull,
the Lion, and the Crab  Sir W. Jones's Works, iv. 76.

THE STARS IN JOB. 191
was sometimes the seven stars, called the Wain, a
portion of Ursa Major :, and sometimes it was a
single star in Bootes2, and sometimes it was the
whole of that constellation. In the former accept
ation, it has been already considered sufficiently ;
but the two last deserve some further notice.
Who is Bootes ? 3 Homer identifies him with
Orion, not in position, but in name. For he says,
that Arctus observes or obeys Orion 4 ; which,
it is plain, cannot be understood of the constellation
in the southern hemisphere, but of the neighbour
ing figure of a man, Bootes, who on that account
is also called Arctophylax, the guardian of Arctus,
which may possibly be derived from Arech, Persice
Arx, the stronghold of those who were saved from
the deluge ; for, as Homer proceeds to observe, it
alone is never beneath the waters of the Ocean.5
Moreover, because, after that this enormous fabric
became fixed on the summit of Ararat, it came to
be regarded as a part of the mountain, and there
fore was often confounded with it, as I have
already shown, another name of Arctus was Helice,
1 Oj kitra, do-repEC bft.ov KaXE~rai 'ApKrovpoc. Xeysrai Kal "Aft-a^a.
— Hesychius. This has been already noticed.
* 'ApKrovpoc. Se XeyErat Kal avroc oXoc o Bourse. fStoi? Se Kal o v-no
r\v ^wvqv avrov dcrr-qp. Xeytrat Kal ' ApKrofvXaq. — Suidas.
3 A certain Panduan conqueror is called Boote Pande Raj ; upon
which Col. Tod remarks, that Boote is the name of Budha prefixed
by the Pandus to their own. — Trans. As. Soc. iii. 195.
4 'Clploiva ookevei. — II. xviii. 488.
8 "Otij ft dft.ft.opoi io-rt XoErpSv 'ClKsavoto, 489- The Greeks have
turned it into a waggon, Amacsa. Aft.ala is from the Syriac, Amma,
Mater, and Acas, fntfj Comprehensor, or from the Chaldee HDD
Casa, i. q. Heb. Q^ Calix salutum, Scyphus, Castell. 'Aft,ft.d, vj
rpofot;, Kal ij fui\rf\p Kara. inoKopia-ft.a, Kal '/j Via. — EtymologuS in
Bochart. 1. i. c. 7.

192 THE STARS IN JOB.
for Halica in Arabic signifies a lofty mountain ' ;
and, what is still more remarkable, there is another
constellation that twists its serpentine figure round
Arctos, just as the serpent in Hindoo mythology
is twisted round the mountain Mandara, at the
churning of the ocean ; and there was a general
opinion among the ancients, that it resembled a
stream, or torrent 2, and so it is described.
According to Ovid, Bootes was Areas, the
Arkite, who was transferred to the heavens with
his mother.3 The fable makes him the hunter of
the bear, and Ursa Minor is also called his dog,
Canicula. No wonder, therefore, that when Orion
was turned into a hunter, the two should be con
founded. But indeed Bootes has a much better
right to that title ; since, whatever English gen
tlemen may think of it, the ancient men of renown
would not have condescended to hunt the hare,
which is the only animal of the chase near Orion
and his dogs. Again, he is said to have been the
1 Ab Arabico Halic, vel Halica, quod montem sublimem sonat.
Giggeius, np/Ni"! mons sublimis. — Bochart. Geog. Sac. 1. i.
c. 16. Therefore the river Halycus, on which a city is said to have
been built, first called Macara, then Minoa, and lastly Heraclea, all
Arkite names, must have been so denominated from an Ararat from
which it flowed.
2 Ta; Se SI dft.porkpac,, am noraft,oto ditoppd!;
"ElXETrat (jtAeya SraujUa) hpaKuv i:Ep\ r dft.pl r1 \ayo)c
Mvptoc. Arati Phenomena.
Virgil also says, that, in morem fluminis e labitur ^anguis. —
Georgie. 1. i. 244.
3 Vulnifico fuerat fixurus pectora telo :
Arcuit Omnipotens, pariterque ipsosque nefasque
Sustulit, et celeri raptos per inania vento
Imposuit coelo, vicinaque sidera fecit. — Ovid. 1. ii. fab. 6.

BOOTES. 193
inventor of wine, and to have slain some Athenian
shepherds, because intoxication in those simple
times was supposed to be the effect of poison.
But whence did he get his name ? not certainly
from the Greek Boos, as some say ; though if it
were so, it would not be quite foreign to our pur
pose. But nothing in his history connects him
with oxen. It may assist our research to observe,
that the Scottish island of Bute is spelt by Latin
geographers Boota. Now Bute was the island of
Budha, who also gave his name to a city in Egypt
in the insulated Delta l, and to a temple in the
floating island of Chemmis.2 They were called
Boutus, and his name is written by Clemens of
Alexandria, Boutta.3 No doubt, therefore, he was
the same as the Butes of Grecian fable, the grand
son of Neptune, and Melia, i. e. the sea4, and
contemporary of the Argonauts ; for he was
reckoned one of their number by Orpheus, and
by others he is said to have been driven by them
from his paternal kingdom in Bithynia. The
Athenians used to offer sacrifice to Butus 5, and
these circumstances serve to account for the
1 Herodotus Euterpe, sect. 59-
2 Bryant, i. 164. Pompon. Mela, De Situ Orbis, c. 9.
3 EiV» Se rSv IySiy 01 rote Bovrra i:Ei66ft.Evoi irapayyeXfAanv ov Se Si'
virsptoXriv a-EfAvor'/jroc eIc &eov rEri.ftA\Kao'i. — Clem. Alex. Stromata,
l.i. p.359.
4 Classic authors have made Amycus, the first king of Bithynia,
the son of Neptune, by the nymph Melia, that is, the sea (n^D)-
Apollodorus calls her Bithynis, and the son of Amycus was Butes —
Bvrov, fioiaiTov, £?outoi/ — for the Greeks wrote the name variously.
— Vallancey's Ancient Hist, of Ireland, p. 9-
5 Pausanias in Atticis.
VOL. I. O

194

BOOTES.

notions entertained by the Gnostics of their
Buthus. For Irenasus justly observes, that they
drew their system from the pagan mythology.1
The Valentinians, he says, spoke of a perfect
.ZEon at the beginning of all things in the in
describable loftiness of invisible existence3, whom
they named the forefather, and Buthus 3, and he
accounts for this strange fancy thus : — " Thales,
the Milesian , attributed the origin of every thing
to water 4 ; but it is all one whether you say
water, or Bythus : and Homer taught, that Oceanus
and Thetis were the parents of the gods ; which the
Valentinians have changed into Bythus and Sige." 5
If, however, it should be contended, that Gnosti
cism came from countries further east, there also
the same reverence of the primaeval water will be
found.6 The Brahmin is directed to say, " We

1 I am aware, says Burton, in the notes to his Bampton Lec
tures, p. 409-, that Irenseus charges the Gnostics with having bor
rowed their generations of iEons from the fables of the Poets (Hasr.
xxxi. 3.). Epiphanius says the same. — De Oct. Hcer. 7- and 30.
2 Iren. contra Hsereses, 1. i. u. 1.
3 Ylpondropa Kal BvSov KaXovcrtv. Ibid. p. 5.
4 Heraclitus Ponticus says, that Homer was the occasion of this
opinion of Thales by that line of his :
ilKEavoc, oo-HEp yevEa-ic. irdvrEo-o-i rirvKTctt.
Tov WKEavbv Ipaaav dpx'iyov Elvai irdvroiv.
Phornut. de Nat. Deor.
6 Iren. con. Hser. 1. ii. c. 14. Sige is perhaps only another ver
sion of Side, which, it has been shown, was employed to signify the
ark. 6 Mr. Colebrooke, in his essay on the religious ceremonies of the
Hindoos, has shown that the mysterious monosyllable Om, of which
Menu taught that it upholds the universe, is nothing more than
water. It is said, that all rites ordained in the Vedas, oblations to
fire and solemn sacrifices, shall pass away, but that which passeth

BOOTES. 195
meditate on the adorable light of the resplendent
Generator, which governs our intellects, water ; "
where the confusion may be observed between the
sun, and the ocean, which prevails in the western
mythologies. Prayers are offered to water, as the
element from which the three worlds proceeded, as
in the following instances : "Water, thou dost pene
trate all beings ; thou dost reach the deep recesses
of the mountains ; thou art the mouth of the uni
verse, and thou art light, taste, and the immortal
fluid." " Salutation to the regent of water ; past
are the fetters of Varuna ! ; Water, mother of
worlds, purify us.2 The Om of the Hindoos may
be recognised in Omphis, an Egyptian name for
Osiris, and therefore probably the same as Mophta,
the genius of the waters ; for Kircher affirms, that
confounding Osiris with Neptune, the Egyptians
believed him to be the Ocean.3 Omphis is the
name of an Indian river in Quintus Curtius, which
Diodorus Siculus calls Mophis.4 The critics want
to bring them to an agreement by altering the
former reading ; but they are mistaken ; for both
words give the same sense. Both Om and Moi

not away, is the syllable Om — that is to say — the purifying effects
of water, as exemplified in the deluge. The absurdity of a literal
interpretation compels us to look for a mystical meaning. Om from
^"Jjy Sam. Mater, or nSfc?; a watercourse.
1 As. Res. v. 355.
2 P. 360.
3 Osirim cum Neptuno confundentes Oceanum credunt. — De
Institutione Hieroglyphicarum, 1. iii.
4 Diod. Sic. 1. xvii. 0 °2

196 BOOTES.
signify water, and Phtha is a divinity l ; but it is
softened down after the. Grecian manner for the
sake of euphony, and furnished with a Greek ter
mination. When, therefore, we find in this same
country a certain Butus held in reverence, or as
he is sometimes written Boiotus, it is easy to
understand the otherwise discordant genealogies,
which make him at one time the grandson of
Deucalion and Pyrrha 2 ; at another, the son of
Neptune and Arne, the Ark ; and at another, the
son of Erectheus the god of Erech, or the ark 3 ;
for Erech, the city of Nimrod, is rendered by the
Arab interpreter, AI Bars, i. e. Baris, the ship.
Erichthonius, which is a gross corruption of
Erechtheus 4, had a son Butes, who was priest of
Neptune, and his grandfather was Dardanus, the
chieftain of the ship.6 Of Erichthonius there is a
mysterious tradition, that Minerva shut him up in an
ark, or chest, which was committed to the custody
of Pandrosus with strict orders, that it should not

1 Genium aquarum Mophta dictum — hoc est a Moi et Phtha ;
quorum illud aquam, hoc Coptice Deum sive genium notat. —
Kircheri Obelisci Interpret. Hieroglyph.
2 Stephanus. Nicocrates, in Raphael's Scholia on Ovid, 1. iii. Fab. 1.
3 Bryant's Analysis, ii. 523. Erechtheus seems to have been con
sidered a title of Neptune. For in the Erechtheium at Athens,
there were three altars of Poseidon on which they sacrificed to
Erechtheus Ik toP ftoovrEvftaroc. — Pans, in Attic.
4 'EpEx^oc — tou Kal 'Efi^fiowov KaXov/tivov. — Scholiast. Horn.
B. 547.
5 Daire in Persian, Japonese, and Irish, is a king : it is synony
mous with Fo. Daru, in Persian, is Sapiens, Magus. — Vallancey
Vind. of Ireland, Collect, iv. 411. Hence Daire da neos was the
chieftain of the ship ; in the sense of a temple, Naos has been pre
served by the Syriac, and Da is the Chaldaic sign of the genitive.

BOOTES. 197
be opened, except by herself ; but female curiosity
prevailed over the dictates of wisdom, and the ark
was opened, and he was found with a serpent
coiled up by his side. When Minerva heard of
this premature discovery, she threw down the
mountain Lycabettus, which she was carrying to
Athens, on the spot where it now stands.1 This
dark history seems to relate to some attempt to
introduce the Arkite worship at Athens, which
was frustrated by the precipitancy of the priests.
For I cannot but think that Pandrosus 2 is a Greek
corruption of the Draoin, the Druids, or priests of
Pan, or Phanes ; especially as Lycabettes may be
interpreted the mansion of the sun.3 Of course
this refers to a period before the divorce of
Arkitism from Sabianism. It is very probable
that such an attempt would be made in the neigh
bourhood of Bceotia, which derived its name from
Bootes, or Butes, the son of Neptune, and the

1 Amelosagoras, the Athenian, in Antigonus Carystius. Historiarum
Mirabilium, 1. xii. Apollodorus, 1. iii. Lycabettus is a lofty, iso
lated, pointed hill in the neighbourhood of Athens, the Anchesmus
of Pausanias, now called the Hill of St. George. It preserves there
fore its sacred character. — See Wordsworth's Athens, p. 55.
2 ti>~n, is to consult de rebus divinis ad Deum pertinentibus ;
l*jy"n Concionatores. — Castelli Lexicon.
3 From the Chaldaic KJT^j Domus, and DpV' in Greet: Avkoc,
which is used for the sun : whence also Lux ; but because it also
signifies a wolf, Lycaon was said to have taken this form : and
the fablers, in order to account for the transformation, invented
some crimes that might deserve it. But his sera was that of the
deluge, and he was son of Pelasgus, and king of Arcadia : i. e. he
was an Arkite. The Lycaean mountain in Arcadia, on which Ly
caon built his altar, was sacred to Pan. Ipse nemus patrium
linquens saltusque LycKos Pan ovium custos. — Virg. Georgie. 1. i.
O 3

198 DARDANUS.
Ark, and in fact all the diluvian emblems are
here assembled together, the Ark, the serpent, and
the mountain. This story has a great affinity to
another dressed out with a great many absurd
circumstances by the Hindoos, who say that
Ravunu carried a linga, i. e. a mountain, from
Himaluyu to Lukka, i. e. Ceylon, which fell into
the world of Hydra's, and the top is visible at this
day, where the river Khursoo rises.1 Here we
have not only the mountain, with the water
running from it, and the serpents surrounding it,
but even the very name of the Athenian hill,
Lukka. Troy is said to have been founded both
by the father, and by the son of Erichthonius.
Virgil maintains the former.2 He says expressly,
that Dardanus was the founder, and calls the city
Dardania. Homer, on the contrary, ascribes it to
his son Tros ; and yet unable to deny Dardanus
some share in it, to avoid the inconvenience of a
double founderwithout any intervening destruction,
places Dardania higher up on Mount Ida.3 But
the whole history of this city is so deeply enveloped
in the mists of fable, that both are very likely to be
but two names for one person, Dardanus not
being the distinctive appellation of an individual,
but descriptive of a family of Patriarchs. Virgil
seems to have considered them as one ; for when
iEneas, in the shades below, sees his most eminent
1 At Voidyu Nathu in the Zillah of Beerbhoom. — Ward's Hindoo
Mythology, p. 70.
2 JEneid. vi. 650. and iii. 156. Dardania incensa.
3 Iliad. T. 216.

DARDANUS. 199
ancestors, he mentions only Ilus, Assaracus, and
Dardanus, the founder of Troy.1 Tros, therefore,
is included in Dardanus. Considering him therefore
as the son of Erichthonius, it is further to be
observed, that he was the grandson of the moun
tain Atlas, who landed after a deluge on Ida, the
mountain of many waters.2 In Lycophron's Cas
sandra this flood is ascribed to rain sent by Jupiter ;
the clattering storm destroyed the whole earth ;
towers fell to the ground ; men swam for their
lives with death in full view ; whales and dolphins
fed on acorns, and beechmasts, and fruits ; and
Dardanus alone escaped in a coracle to the sacred
mount3, which being the highest in that neigh
bourhood has, like Atlas, been personified, and
turned into an Argonaut. Homer calls him the
most powerful of mortal men ; but that he was
not an historical personage, the strange tra
dition concerning him is enough to show. A
stone vessel 4 being broken in a storm by the force
of a deluge of water, a head three times as large
as human, and with two rows of teeth, fell out.
1 Virg. Mn. vi. 650.
1 itoXvicil-aKoc "iSij;. — Horn. II. T. p. 218.
3 Cassandra laments for her country and rdfovc 'ArXavriioc
Avirrov y.eXoipoc, o; itor iv paurS %t;TEi
'Aa%£ ftovypyc dft,<pEXvrp&crac iiftMc
Z'/jptvOov dvrpov rye Kvvoo-tyavovc &Eac
Aiirav, Epvft,vov Krlo-fta Kvp^dvroiv Idov,
'Ot' '/]ft.d6vvE icacrav ofiSp-lja-ac x^ova
Xyvoc KaxXa^oiv vacrftoi, of Se icpoc sreSw
Mvpyot KarypEi-Kovro, Tot Se Xoio-8iav
Nij%oj/to ftoipav mpovftftArav SeSookotej.
4 IT/flo? Xibov wETrooi/xe'vo;. — Phlegon Trallianus, c. xi.
o 4

200

DARDANUS.

The inscription was, Usw, by which the Mes-
senians knew it to be the Ida of Homer, who
drew his bow against Apollo in behalf of a nymph.
The lady under his protection was the Ark, and
the bow was the rainbow seen from the hill in the
opposite quarter to the sun.
The flood, on which Dardanus floated, is sup
posed by some to have been a local flood, the
history of which has been preserved by Diodorus
Siculus. He affirms, that the Euxine was once a
lake without an outlet, till the accumulated waters,
which the rivers supplied, burst their way first
through the Bosphorus, and afterwards through
the Hellespont.1 It is not impossible, that such an
event may have occurred ; but not in the way here
related. For if those straits were closed, as Dio
dorus supposes, the water rising to so great a height
above their present level would have overflowed a
great part of Europe and Asia, till, all the surround
ing steppes and plains being covered, it would have
worked its way through the valleys by a hundred
channels, till it reached the other seas. The length
too of those straits would oppose too strong an em
bankment to give way all at once. It is far more
probable, that they always formed the passage
through which the waters escaped, though possibly
by a cataract at the southern extremity from a
* TotJ HEpl m; Kvavkac aroftaroc, payevroc, ft.Erd Se ravra rov 'EAXvjcr-
movrov — iv rZ leovrop uiXayoq XifAV/jc. e%oj/ rdqiv, ft-ixpi rovrov 7r£?rX^-
puo-Qat S;a ruv EtcrgEovroiv %oraft.wv, ftexpic orov S;a to irXydoc Traps*-
%v8lv to pEvfua XdSpoic i%liiEo~Ev £;; toV 'EAAvjsttoktoi'. — Diod. Sic.
1. v. p. 322.

DARDANUS. 201
higher level than their present bed. In that case
they would cut their way backwards, like the St.
Lawrence at Niagara, till only a thin partition re
mained between the bason and the sluice, which
then indeed yielding to the pressure of the mass,
which it had before sustained, a torrent of de
structive magnitude would rush to the Mediter
ranean, and inundate all the low coasts along its
course. If this event actually occurred, it might
be expected that the story would soon mingle its
details with those of the more ancient catastrophe
in the traditions of the neighbouring countries.
And thus it appears, that in Samothrace they were
accustomed to speak of this flood as one much older
than those which were recorded in other places.
It has never yet been shown, that the shores of the
Euxine exhibit any evidence of a higher water mark :
but even if it were an established fact, the circum
stances that must have attended such an event are
wholly incompatible with the story of Dardanus's
voyage. For he left Saos, and the Zerinthian cave,
and landed at Ida : so that the raft, which Diodorus
gives him for a vessel ', instead of drifting down the
Mgetm Sea, where it would have difficulty enough
to escape from the velocity of the impetuous cur
rent, is supposed to cross its foaming path directly
from west to east, and to arrive at the very point
which of all others it was most impossible for it to
reach without circumnavigating the globe; for
1 'Ew) o-%e8<a; hanEpaimBivra. — L. v. p. 322.

202 DARDANUS.
the Zerynthian cave was in Samothrace, and Saos l
was a name of the island. That this Dardanus was
not an historical personage, or rather, that the de
scription of his voyage is the corruption of a much
older history, other circumstances conspire to prove.
Jupiter is said to have appointed him to preside
over the mysteries, which had anciently been prac
tised in that island ; which tradition had some how
preserved, and which none but the initiated might
hear. 2 That these mysteries were connected with
Druidical institutions, I shall endeavour to show
in the sequel. At present, I will only observe on
this subject, that the first intimation of a Druidical
circle in Pagan history represents it to be the me
morial of a flood. 3 Terminal stones were erected
by the Samothracians in a circle all round the island,
and altars or cromlechs were formed ; and the reason
assigned for it is, that their ancestors were saved
when the flood ascended to the tops of the hills by
praying to the Gods. Now in the mystic cell of
the Zerynthian cave the Corybantes inculcated the
utility of invoking the Daemons, or as an Hindoo
would call them, the Pitris; and those, who were ini
tiated into their mysteries, believed that they might

1 The Scholiast on Lycophron calls Saos a mountain, or cavern,
of Thrace. Canter is aware that it was an island ; but Potter ac
knowledges it to be Samothrace. All the Thracian Samos, says the
Scholiast on Nicander, was called Saos.
2 Diod. Sic. 1. v. p. 322.
3 T5j< Se %SaXdo-<ri\c ava€atvovaijc dtl ft-aXXov Evfaadai roTc &eo7c rol/c
iyXOJptovc Kal ^lao-coOivtai; kvkXoj irept oXi}V rvjv vtjo-ov opovc. SioSai ri\q
a-urriptac Kal fitoftavc. l^pva'ao'&ai. — Ibid.

DARDANUS. 203
thus be saved from dangers and from storms. ' The
Corybantes were the priests, or rather perhaps the
priestesses of Rhea, whose connection with the
deluge has already been noticed : and it is to be
observed, that the mountains, on which the ark is
said to have rested, were called Corcyrean from
the Arabic Corkur, a large ship. From the Hebrew
root, Kur2, which signifies the descent of water,
comes Makor, a flood; the Syriac Makrah, a pool ;
and the Arabic Karah, a huge rock or hill; and
from Cor 3, the largest vessel to measure dry things,
come the Chaldee Caura, and the Punic Caur, both
signifying a fish, and the Chaldee Caureth a hive,
or ark, or chest/ Erpenius calls the mountain of
the Ark, the mountain Kurud. Hence we may
collect the reason, 1. why the Corybantes were
also called Curetes ; 2. why there was a promon
tory, and an island called Cory (now Comorin and
Ceylon5), and a river on the borders of Egypt,
Corys ; and, 3. why the Corybantes were called
Cory Banoth, the daughters of the Ark, of the fish
God, of the mountain, or of the flood : for with
all these diluvian memorials the name is intimately
1 'Ev Ktv^vvotc ovv yEvoft-Evot iitaKaXovvro rove SaifKovae Eiupavyjvai Kal
aXE^rjcrat ; Hokovv Se 01 ft.EfAvqft.EVOi. ravra, eK rSv SeivSj' o-u^EcrSai Kal
iK %e(|Wwvojv. — Suidas.
The Scholiast on Aristophanes, In pacem, 276. adds to this, Si-
Kaiol re Eivai, which certainly was one of the principal objects of the
judgment represented in those mysteries.
2 "Tip, manavit, effodit venam aquae.
3 y\j, Corus. frm^, Piscis. — Castell.
4 miD' Alveus, Area, Capsa. Bochart. Geog. Sac. Li. c. 3.
5 Ceylon, it is to be remembered, is one of the strongholds of
Budhism ; so that this may be considered another independent
evidence of its diluvian origination.

204 DARDANUS.
connected. Samothrace was particularly well
qualified to act the part of the Armenian mountain
to all who lived in its neighbourhood : for Clarke
speaks of having seen its snow-clad summit from
New Ilium towering with prodigious grandeur be
hind Imbrus.1
According to Diodorus, the first legislator of
Samothrace was called Saon, from the name of the
island ; but in this, he has probably reversed the
fact. It is more likely that the island took its name
from him, whose preservation was there comme
morated, and to whom all the earliest nations
looked up as the founder of society ; for Saos 2 is
literally the preserved one : and we have the addi
tional testimony of Apollonius, that preservation
amidst the most turbulent storms, was supposed to
be conferred by initiation into the Samothracian
mysteries.3 That it was not a local preservation only,
may fairly be inferred, from finding in a far different
country similar monuments, similar institutions,
and a similar name. Sais was the name of a district
in Egypt, where, in the sacred area adjoining to a
temple of Minerva, great obelisks of stone stood
up 4, and against the walls of the temple there
1 Travels, iii. 135. 2 2ao?. Salvus, Incolumis.
3 Scripsit Apollonii enarrator, solennia qusedam apud Samothraces
celebrari solita, quibus si quis fuisset initiatus, inter turbulentissimas
tempestates servabatur omnino. — Natalis Comes. Metam. 1. v.
4 'Ev ra TEfiEVEi o€eXo\ ia-rdui fAEydXot, XiSivoi XifM/t) ri eVti ixoft,Evq,
k. r. X. — 'Ev ravr-q Se ra hsiK-qXa ruv ita^kwv avrov wktoc. iroiEvai, rd
KaXiovo-i juia-r-qpia. Aiyvitriot. — Herod. Euterpe, s. 170.
Ilao-Ta; XtBlvq fieydXn — Iv Se t^ itao-rdii hi^d Ssvpuft,ara I'ar-qKE iv
Se rot<n hvpufj.ao-i y &-qK'q icm. — Ibid.

DARDANUS. 205
was a tumulus, or cromlech, of some one whose
name was not to be mentioned ; and there was a
circular pond, in which they enacted, by night, a
representation of his sufferings, which the Egyptians
called the mysteries. In the court of the temple,
too, there was a stone chamber, and within it two
pillars or posts, and between them a chest, or ark.
Here, then, was type within type ; the mystic
cell and the ark between the two pinnacles of the
diluvian mount. The priests of Egypt had pe
culiar motives for turning these rites into mysteries,
and shutting up the knowledge of them from the
common people ; for that nation had a superstitious
abhorrence of the sea ', and it is said that the only
ship admitted into their system of hieroglyphics
was the sacred Baris ; the bark that carried Isis
across the Nile, or flood ; the ark in which Osiris
floated ; the vehicle of their gods and departed
souls. Their feeling upon this subject may be thus
explained. As soon as the history of the ark be
came, by a corrupt tradition, the property of their
own Nile, the Baris was an object of veneration
to them ; but accustomed, as they were, to consider
inundations the greatest source of blessing to their
country, they could not endure to look upon a
flood as the instrument of ruin and malediction.
These ideas they associated with the waters of the
1 JEgyptii a mari religione quadam ducti abhorrebant. And, In
toto hieroglyphicorum ambitu nulla prorsus navis prseter solam
Barin, quod sacrum quoddam navigii genus, quo Isidem Nilum
trajecisse memorant, atque quod ea de causa solum inter sacra sym-
bola locum invenit. — Kircher, 1. ii. De Instit. Hieroglyph.

206

DANAUS.

ocean, and therefore viewed them with abhorrence ;
but the Nile was their ocean, for so it is termed by
Homer, and therefore the priests were under the
necessity of using considerable caution in comme
morating the period when its overflow destroyed the
earth. From them these mysteries were copied by
other nations. Herodotus asserts, that the daughters
of Danaus taught them to the Pelasgian women,
who continued to practise them till the Dorians
drove their race out of every part of Peloponnesus,
except Arcadia, where the rites were still retained.1
The idle tales of these Danaidae deserve no atten
tion, except that which regards their fabled punish
ments. When the diluvian rites of the Pelasgian
priestesses were driven out of the greater part of
Peloponnesus by the prevalence of other super
stitions, their defeat was prettily represented by the
elder mythologists, under the image of a vain at
tempt to fill their casks with water, which flowed
out as fast as it was poured in. But who were they ?
— They were the daughters, or, in other words,
the votaries of Danaus, who was the son of Bel or
Baal, and the grandson of Neptune, or the Deity of
the ocean. If, then, Baal was Ham, who, together
with his son Canaan, was worshipped under that
name in Palestine ; and if his brother iEgyptus was
Mizraim, the principal founder of the Egyptian na
tion, so that, in Scripture, Egypt is called the land of
Mizraim as well as the land of Ham 2 ; and if Cush
1 Herod. Euterpe. Sect. 171.
2 Gen. x. 6. Exod. i. 1. Psalm cxiv. 1.

DANAUS. 207
was retained there among their gods under the name
of Khous, Danaus, who left Egypt, must have been
Phut, or Budha.
Since, however, Phut seems rather to have tra
velled so far eastward \ that Moses either knew
nothing of his descendants, or thought it useless to
mention them, it is perhaps more probable that
Cush was confounded with his own grandson
Dedan. A branch of that family seems to have
settled at Dodona, where the oldest oracle in the
heathen world was established, and where the
priestesses were called Peleiades, or doves.2 The
only good reason for using this term is to be dis
covered by comparing the declaration of the priest,
when he presented himself to the people in the
celebration of the mysteries, with the office of the
dove after the deluge. As that bird brought back
to the ark the first intelligence that the danger
was past, and the earth was once more habitable,
so the priest announced to the people, " I have
escaped the evil : I have found a better state of
things." 3 The priestesses of Dodona were female
Druids, who delivered their oracular responses
1 Captain Low observes, that among the Siamese the tiara of
Budd'ha, or Phr'a Ph'ut, is peaked, or pyramidal. — As. Trans.
iii. 73. Now Budd'ha, being thus acknowledged to be Phut, it was
natural enough that the mountain peak should be chosen for his
crown, and the custom which the Siamese have of erecting small
conical pyramids of earth once a year can only be an allusion to the
same event.
2 The Abb^ de Tressan affirms, that the Phoenician or Arabic
word Himan, or Heman, signifies both a priest and a dove. 
Mythol. comp. avec VHist. p. 134.
3 Pausan. in Cor. p. 568.

208 DEUCALION.
from a grove of oaks. Deucalion consulted them
immediately after the flood ; and Ovid calls them
Corycian nymphs \ as if from the Corys already
mentioned, and seems to consider them synonymous
with the tutelary genius of the mountain. He is
guilty indeed of a great anachronism, as the poets
often were, in giving Deucalion a date posterior to
these half-deified nymphs, and an inferiority of rank;
but that the deluge described by him was nothing
less than the Noachian deluge, all the circumstances
ofthe description conspire to show: we might almost
imagine they were copied from the records of
Moses. Thus Moses says, that the earth was filled
with violence, and that the wickedness of man was
great, and every imagination of the thoughts of his
heart only evil continually.2 Ovid says, that vio
lence reigned as far as the earth extended, and that
all men seemed to have entered into a compact to
be wicked.3 In Genesis God says, " The end of all
flesh is come before me, and I will destroy them
from the earth." 4 In Ovid, Jupiter says, " Let all
instantly suffer the punishment which they have
deserved." 3 Of Noah, Moses says, " that he was a
just man, and perfect in his generations, and right-
1 Corycidas nymphas et numina montis adorent.
Ov. Metam. 1. i.
2 Gen. vi. 5. 11.
3 Qua terra patet, fera regnat Erynnis
In facinus jurasse putes. Ibid. 241.
4 Gen. vi. 13.
6 Dent ocyus omnes,
Quas meruere pati (sic stat sententia) pcenas. Ibid. 242.

DEUCALION. 209
eous before the Lord." : Of Deucalion and his wife
Ovid says, that they were the best of mankind,
innocent in their lives, lovers of justice, and fearing
the Gods.2 Moses mentions, that it was the pleasure
of God to bring a flood of waters upon the earth to
destroy all flesh, inconsequence of which all the foun
tains of the great deep were broken up, and the win
dows or floodgates of heaven were opened.3 Ovid
states, that it was the pleasure of Jupiter to destroy
the whole race of mortals by a flood, and for that
purpose the clouds poured down rain from every
quarter of the heavens, and the fountains of the
great waters were broken up by an earthquake.4
Moses declares, that all the high hills under the
whole heaven were covered ; that the waters pre
vailed exceedingly upon the earth, and covered the
mountains ; that they prevailed an hundred and
fifty days; and that the fowls were destroyed, as
well as the cattle and beasts.5 Ovid represents the
unbounded riot of the ocean covering the hills, and
the strange waves dashing on the mountain tops,
and the birds falling into the water from fatigue,
because there was nothing left on which they could
1 Gen. vi. 9- and vii. 1.
2 Non illo melior quisquam, nee amantior aequi
Vir fuit, aut ilia metuentior ulla Deorum. Ov. Met. 1. i. 322.
Innocuos ambos, cultores numinis ambos. Ibid. 327-
3 Gen. vi. 17- and vii. 11.
4 Placet — genus mortale sub undis
Perdere, et ex omni nimbos dimittere caelo. Ibid. 260.
Densi funduntur ab eethere nimbi. Ibid. 269.
Intremuit (terra) motuque sinus patefecit aquarum. Ibid. 284.
5 Gen. vii. 19, 20. 23, 24.
VOL. I. P

210 DEUCALION.
alight to rest their wings : ; and though he does not
specify the exact duration of the flood at its height,
yet he supposes it to have lasted long, because he
makes length of hunger from want of food, destroy
all those whom the water spared ; namely, those
who, availing themselves of rafts, or boats, con
trived to float above the flood, but being taken
unprepared for so long a voyage, necessarily died
of famine.2 Lastly, the ark grounded upon the
mountains of Ararat. The plural number is used,
because though Ararat is but a single mountain in
the Armenian range, yet it is terminated at either
end by a lofty peak. The name by which the
natives distinguished it was Baris, the ship, or ark,
because the remains of that huge fabric were said
to be still visible among its crags.3 In like manner,
Ovid lands Deucalion on a mountain, which rises
above the clouds in two lofty peaks 4 : he calls it Par-
nasus ; but his annotator, Raphael, observes, that its
original name was Larnassus, from Larnax, the ark, in
1 Obruerat tumulos immensa licentia ponti,
Pulsabantque novi montana cacumina fluctus.
Ovid. Met. 1. i. 309.
Quaesitisque diu terris, ubi sidere detur,
In mare lassatis volucris vaga decidit alis. Ibid. 307.
2 Maxima pars unda rapitur : quibus unda pepercit,
Illos longa domant inopi jejunia victu. Ibid. 311.
He had before spoken of some sailing over the tops of houses, and
rowing where they used to plough. — Ibid. 294.
3 Theophilus says, the remains were shown even in his days on
the Armenian mountains. — Ad Autolycum, 1. iii. 340.
4 Mons ibi verticibus petit arduus astra duobus,
Nomine Parnasus ; superatque cacumine nubes.
Ovid. Met. 1. i. 31 6.

DEUCALION. 211
which Deucalion was saved ' ; others, however, make
Olympus the diluvial mountain. Thus Pausanias
says, at Olympia is the hole through which the
flood retired, and honey and cakes were thrown
into it as a eucharistic sacrifice, and there Deuca
lion built the first Arkite temple to Olympian
Jupiter.2 For the same reason, no doubt, Olympus
was considered the abode of the Gods, and "eternal
sunshine settled on his head. " 3
Plutarch has picked up the story of the dove,
and applies it boldly to Deucalion. " Myco
logists," says he, " report, that a dove was sent by
Deucalion out of the ark to show him the state of
the weather, by returning while the storm raged,
and flying away when it subsided."4 Philo there
fore had good reason to say, that he whom the
Greeks named Deucalion was called by the Chal-
daeans Noah.5
1 Prius autem Larnassus appellatus fuit, quod illuc Deucalionis
area, quae Graece Larnax dicitur, fuerit appulsa. — Raphael Regius,
in loco.
Apollodorus mentions the Larnax of Deucalion.
2 Pausanias in Atticis, 1. i. 43. To dpxatov Upon. Archaios may
fairly be rendered Arkite : since it evidently owes its other meaning
— ancient — to this fact, that the Ark was the beginning and
most ancient of all things in the postdiluvian world.
3 OvXvftitov oOi (pao~t 8eSv eSo$, k. r. X.
dXXa ftaX' ai9pvj
niirrarai dvvE<p£Xoc, Xevktj S* Ein.tE^poft.EV aiyX'q.
Horn. Odys. Z. 42.
4 01 ft.lv ovv fivQoXoyoi rw AEVAaXiuvi (patri itEpio-TEpav ek rye, Xdpva-
ko; d<piEft,£vqv , t-/iXo>ft.a yEviar8ai, ^Ei^oiVo; ft.EV eutoi iraAiv Evtvoft£vqv,
sviiaq Se dirovrdo-av. — Plutarch, Op. Mor. viii. 390.
5 The identity of Deucalion's flood with the Noachian deluge,
has been asserted by the Abbe" Banier, and by M. Court de Gebelin.
p 2

212 DEUCALION.
Theophilus of Antioch has discovered for his
Greek name a most absurd etymology : he sup-

The former says, that Ovid peint le deluge de Deucalion sur les
ide'es de eelui de Noed The other, that poets and historians have
done the same, only substituting the name of Deucalion for that of
Noah. Stephanus, and the author of the Etymologicon, say that
his vessel (Deucalion's) grounded upon a high mountain. Berosus
and Nicolas Damascenus go so far as to affirm, that it was upon one
of the mountains of Armenia. Plutarch makes mention of the
dove, and Abydenus of certain birds, which went out of the Ark,
and thrice returned, because they found no place of rest. Enfin pour
dernier trait de ressemblance les anciens dirent, que Deucalion,
homme pieux et virtueux, etant alle a Athenes, sacrifia a Jupiter
conservateur, et lui batit un temple. He further remarks, that the
Parian marbles attribute the flood not to the bursting of any lakes,
according to modern speculations, but merely to abundant rains. —
Mythologie, 1. i. c. ult. M. de Gebelin enters into a much more
minute comparison of the descriptions given in sacred and profane
history, and considers it impossible to doubt, that they relate to
one and the same event. He thinks that Lycaon, who was changed
into a wolf, represents the savage and perverse race to be destroyed.
Nyctimus, the name of his son, who survived the entire dectruction
of his race, and in whose reign the deluge came, is a word derived
from Nye (in Hebrew n"0)j which is the same name as Noah.
Tim is the Hebrew []j"|, the perfect, or just one, the surname of
Noah ; that sublime epithet to which he owed his exemption from
the ruin of mankind, and became the father of a better race. He
is Areas, or the Prince of Arcadia, because he was the possessor of
the ark, or Argo, le vaisseau par excellence. Larnax, the Greek
name for an ark of wood, is equally the name of this vessel in the
language of the east. L, being a Frenchman, he not unnaturally
takes for the article. Am is the name of an ark, and Ax (vy !) means
wood. " Phriq-sien (for sacrifice was offered by Deucalion to Iou
Phryxius, or the Saviour) est forme de 1' oriental p~\Q, Phreq, sauver,
et Is, celui qui sauve, qui delivre. Phryxus est done celui qui est
arrache a un peril imminent, le sauve. II est mari de Pyrrha,
mais en oriental, "iJfQ, Pyrr, designe la terre depouillee de sa gloire,
nue, fletrie, sans habitans." He proceeds to say, 'that Areas
divided his empire between his three sons, Azam, Aphidas, and
Elatus, who are the sons of Noah. For Azam "repond manifeste-
ment a Cham, Aphidas a Japhet, et Elatus l'eieve, a Sem, qui
signifie exactement la meme chose. Areas est done le meme que
Nyctimus, que Deucalion, que Noe. Ce qui trompa les re'dacteurs
des anciennes traditions, e'est qu'en voyant qu'on y parlait d'un

DEUCALION. 213
poses that the preacher of righteousness was con
stantly exhorting men to repent in Greek, and
using this sentence ', Come — God calls you to
repentance2; the two first words of which in
Greek sound something like Deucalion. The true
origin of the name is to be sought further in the
east ; for Plato has the candour to acknowledge,
that the Greeks derived many of their names from
the barbarians.3 The Hindoos then have a fable,
that Krishna fought eighteen battles with Deva
Cala Yavana, who in common language is called
Deo Calyun 4, but at last Krishna resorted to stra-

Parnasse, ou montagne flevee, d'une Arcadie, ou contree dans la-
quelle l'Arche etoit s'arretee, et autour de laquelle on s'etoit etabli,
d'une Athene, ou ville qu'on avoit construite pres de la, ils s'ima-
ginerent que c'etoit le Parnasse, l'Arcadie, l'Athene qu'ils con-
noissoient, et ils transporterent inal adroitement la scene des ces grands
eVenemens. Mais nous serions autant et plus mal-avise's qu'eux,
si nous commettions la meme meprise, si nous nous trompions aussi
grossierement." He then traces the history of the deluge in the
southern constellations, the Ship, the Mountain, the Dove, the
Raven, the Altar, the Wolf or Lycaon, i. e. the exterminated race,
the Hydra which describes the ravages of the deluge, the Centaur,
or Noah. L'homme beeuf, le mari de la terre, qui avec le thyrse
orne de feuilles de vigne et d'epis, foule aux pieds et acheve d'ex-
terminer l'homme loup sous le signe du scorpion." But there is
one etymology called in to his assistance, which never could have
entered into the head of any but a Frenchman. Ancsaus, the pilot
of Argo or the Ark, being transformed into Ancee in French, he
resolves it into the two letters N. C, the latter of which is to
correspond to the Hebrew Cheth, and so the vowels being as usual
omitted, he arrives at the name of Noach. — Origine Grecque, Dis-
cours Preliminaire au Monde Primitif, p. 149- et seq.
1 Philo Judaeus de prae. et poe. ed. 1552. 626.
2 AEtJTe, KaXEi ift.dc. o ®eoc ei? ftErdvoiav. — Theoph. ad Autolycum.
lib. iii. 'Atto rov KaXETv, says he, in order to bring in the final n.
3 'EvvoS yap ot< noXXd ol "EXXvjvec ovoftara itapa rSv fiaptdpoiv iiX-q-
paa-i. — Plat. Cratylus. concerning itvp and v^oip.
4 As. Res. vi. 509.
P 3

214 DEUCALION.
tagem, and he was slain by the fire of Muchu
Kunda's eye in a cave where he was asleep. He
is worshipped by numerous tribes who execrate
Krishna. 1 But it may be asked, what has this to
do with Deucalion ? With his real history indeed it
has no connection, but with respect to the rites in
which his memory was concerned, it is very in
structive. Deo Calyun, or as the Greeks called
him, Deucalion, was doubtless a diluvian deity, and
worshipped probably (for so the name implies)
under that singular corruption of the diluvian rites,
which will be explained in a subsequent chapter,
in the form of a black stone. 2 When Krishna
began to be worshipped as the sun, or God of fire,
his votaries made repeated attempts to supplant the
ancient rites ; in which they were invariably de
feated, till some Brahmin or Rajah of greater power
succeeded in suppressing them, and substituted the
fire of the Mithratic cave, which is therefore said
to have slain Deucalion. Another exploit of
Krishna confirms this interpretation. At the bot
tom of the ocean he slew the serpent Calija3, not
withstanding the entreaties of sundry female Da-
gons, or Nereids, who interceded for his life. Now
the serpent is the emblem ofthe ocean, coiled round
the world, the bed on which Vishnu reposes during
the night of the Gods. And the same plate shows
1 Moor's Pantheon, p. 214.
2 Kala Yavana is literally the black man, or Juvenis. Budha
was sometimes represented by an image of a black man ; but a black
stone answered the same purpose.
3 Moor's Pantheon, p. 199. pi. 62.

DEUCALION. 215
that there was once a time, when he had the better
of his antagonist ; for in the centre Krishna stands
completely encircled in his folds from the head
downwards. Since, therefore, Kaliya-Van signifies, in Hin
dostanee, a son of the serpent Kalija, i. e. a son
of the ocean, it is evident that Kalyun may be so
rendered, being equally an abbreviation of both
compounds.1 Thus it appears, that the history of
the rites, with which Deucalion was honoured,
was confounded with the history of his own event
ful life ; and this is the real reason, why there
were several of that name. But his connection
with Dodona may be pursued still further. Achilles,
praying to Jupiter, calls him, Dodonaean, Pelasgic
king, ruler of Dodona, infested by storms ; or, as
some prefer rendering it, by excessive cold 2 ; a
strange description surely of a place situated in the
39th degree of N. L., not far from the sea, and
amidst a forest of oak. It was not true literally, but
mystically : for he proceeds to say, that round it
dwell the Selli, the ministers of the oracle, who
washed not their feet, and had their beds upon the
earth. Hercules, in Sophocles, speaks of oracles
which he heard from the paternal and many-
1 The name may be read either Kala Yavana, or Kalaya Van.
2 Zeu ava AaSoivdiE, IlEXao-yiKE, tvjXo'9; vatuv,
Aoi&umjs ^eSeow lv<r%Eift.EpoV dfiipi Se SeMio;
Soi vatovcr' ivoffirai, aviicroitoliEC., %ariattv'iiai. Horn. II. n. 233.
P 4

216

DEUCALION.

tongued oak, i. e. Druid ', in a grove of the Selli.
The Scholiast would alter it to Elli, who are
described as living in mountains, and having their
bed on the ground. Their mystic cells of initiation
were either Cromlechs, or Kistvaens, or Cyclopean
subterranean structures, such as Greece and Ireland
still display ; and therefore Pindar says, that Deu
calion and his wife built a stony progeny.2 They
might, perhaps, pride themselves on not allowing
the water to touch their feet, in allusion to those
in the ark, whom the waters could not reach ;
and their name may be derived from the Hebrew
Sala3, and signify the saved. But, besides, these
cells were usually constructed on the top of some
mound, natural or artificial, which secured them
from the incursion of water ; and, accordingly,
Lucan speaks of the ancient Sellae abandoning
their silent oaks on the Chaonian Mount.4 An
other proof of the antiquity popularly ascribed to
this people is furnished by Virgil, who supposes
that the earth was first brought into cultivation
near Dodona5, and that bread food was substituted

1 A tSv opEtoiv Kal xaft.aiKoiruv iyo)
"LeXXccv eicteXBwv dXo-oc Eio-£ypaipdft.-qv,
Tlpoe tij; itarpiac Kal noXvyXuaaov hpvoe. — Trachinice, 1182.
2 %T-to~d<r6av XiBivov yovov. Xaol S' ovofAaoSEV. — Olymp. 9*
3 J-^jy, Salvus fuit.
4 Quercusque silentes
Chaonio veteres liquerunt vertice Sellae. — Luc. iii. 179.
5 Prima Ceres ferro mortales vertere terram
Instituit: cum jam glandes atque arbuta sacra?
Deficerent sylvae, et victum Dodona negaret. Virg. Georg. i. 147.

DEUCALION. 217
for the acorns of the sacred wood at the same
time that wine was invented ', that is, in the time
of Noah. The Chaonian mount was so called from
the mysteries there celebrated ; for in the enumera
tion of persons and places which they commemorat
ed, Archite Chaos holds the very first place.2 In the
Gnostic creed Chaos and Buthos, i. e. Budha, were
synonymous 3 ; and we find him in company with
Cronus, Phanes, whom we have recognised in Pan
and Remphan, Hercules, Hecate, Osiris, the Cory
bantes, and Cabiri; all of them diluvian.
Another name of him who presided at Dodona
was Pelasgic, that is, say the commentators, Thessa-
lian 4 ; but why ? When Achilles is dwelling on so
many minute particulars of his connection with
Dodona in Epirus, it is not very likely that he would
introduce in the middle of his description the name
of another country, the mention of which was quite
irrelevant. But it is said the Pelasgi had settled at
Dodona ; who then were these Pelasgi ? Histo
rians acknowledge with Strabo, that they were the
most ancient people of Greece ; but when they
consider them a distinct race or family of people,
they fall into strange inconsistencies. Gillies, for
instance, divides the earliest population of Greece

1 Vestro si munere tellus
Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista
Poculaque inventis Acheloia miscuit uvis. — Virg. Georg. i. 7.
2 Orp. Argonaut, v. 12.
3 Epiphanius says, Chaos and Buthos were the same.
4 TlEXao-yol 01 ©ecro-aW, — Hesychius.

218 DEUCALION.
into Pelasgi and Hellenes ; the Pelasgians being
the family of Inachus, the son of Io or Isis, the
moon or ark, and the others being descendants of
Hellen, the son of Deucalion. But Deucalion was
the man of the ark, and the man whom the Dodo-
naeans regarded as their founder ; and accordingly
they were both Elli, or Hellenes, and Pelasgi.1
Strabo affirms that they were Arcadians originally ;
which is so far true, that they came from the
country of the ark, and that they descended from
Lycaon, the son of Pelasgus. It is somewhat
strange that he should deduce their origin from the
son, whose name they did not bear, rather than
from the father, whose name they did bear. The
truth is, that the one was a real person, and the
other was not. It seems also that there were two
Lycaons ; one who ruled Arcadia with so much
ferocity, that the fable-mongers 2 turned him into a
wolf, and he being a Pelasgian, it came to be re
ported that Pelasgus was the first man who offered
human sacrifices to Saturn or Noah. But he was
no otherwise the son of Pelasgus 3 than as Dodona
was the daughter of Oceanus ; for Pelagus and
Pelasgus were probably the same word, the sigma
being inserted only to lengthen the syllable. The
1 iEscbylus, in his Danaides, supposes them to have come from
Argos ; i. e. the Ark. Euripides also says, that the people of Argos
were called Pelasgiotse, till Danaus came from Egypt, and changed
their name. — Fragment of Arehelaus.
2 Or at least the Pelasgi. — Rosinus, Antiq. Rom. 1. iv. c. 16.
3 M. Kreuser identifies the Pelasgi, or sea-farers of antiquity,
(from itiXayoc, with the iEolic, or Ionic o-, itEXao-yog) with the
Phoenicians. — Vorfrage uber Homeros, seine Zeit und Gesange.

DEUCALION. 219
other Lycaon was plainly a fictitious character,
sometimes the personification of evil, for he lived
in the age of Deucalion's deluge, which the wicked
ness of his sons provoked : at other times identi
fied with Pelasgus, and accounted the first inventor
of temples', which accords with the belief that
Deucalion, immediately after the deluge, founded
the temple at Dodona. He was the grandfather of
Areas2, from whom the Arcadians derived their
name, and who, it has been shown, was catasterised
in Bootes. He was the father of Horus, and con
sequently the grandfather of Orion ; he was called
Nycteus, from the darkness of the ark, and Cetos,
because he was the monster of the sea ; and, as
Pelasgus, he married a daughter of the ocean, and
some sacred rites bore his name.3 In short, it is
evident that Pelasgic was no distinction of country
but of religion ; and accordingly Homer numbers
Pelasgi among the Trojan forces, as well as among
the Greeks.4
1 Hygini Fab. c. 225.
2 Eumelus says, that Callisto, the mother of Areas, was his
daughter. " Aertoe Se Nuktew?. ^EpEKut-qe Se K-qrkoie. Nuctis seems
to be formed from Nux, darkness ; and Cetos is the Ked of the
Welsh. Nyctimene was the daughter of Nyctis ; and Nyctimus
the son of Lycaon. His other sons are equally fabulous. Horus,
Stymphalus, Pallas, Genetor, Leon, and Titanas. These were pre
served from the destruction that overtook the rest, and with himself
the number was eight. Like Danaus, he had in all fifty children.
Apollodorus, 1. iii.
3 Some Sibylline verses cited by Phlegon Trallianus enjoin
a sacrifice of cows to be offered by the Romans with Pelasgian rites
thrice nine times.
Et totidem ritu peragant hsc sacra Pelasgo.
De Rebus Mirabilibus.
4 Horn. II. K. 429. yenc. n voXunXavEc., says Didymus.

220 DEUCALION.
Great is the perplexity which has arisen from
not perceiving the true source of the name, Pelas-
gic. The authors of the Universal History allow
them to have been one of the most ancient nations
of the world, very numerous and powerful ; but
with regard to their origin the learned are not
agreed.1 Some make them Celts, others Phoeni
cians, and others descendants of Peleg. Vallancey
thinks they were Magogian Scythians 2, and that
the title of Pelasgus was only given to their leader
by themselves. Banier is nearer the mark, when
he says, that they were well acquainted with the
mysteries of the Cabiri, which they learned from
the priestesses of Dodona 3 ; yet he would have
done well if he had attended more to an opinion
of the ancients recorded by Strabo, that these
rites were introduced at Dodona by the Pelasgians,
who brought the oracle with them there.4 Hesiod
indeed seems to have considered Dodona the chief
seat of the Pelasgians5, as it was of the Pelasgian
rites ; and therefore, the Dodanim 6 have been in
terpreted Dardans, and they are the Dadanns
whom Irish history traces up to Chus, the grand
son of Noah : though the patriotic resolution of the
learned Irishman to find that celebrated grove in
1 Vol. xvi.
2 Collect, de Reb. H. — Preface to No. xii.
3 V. ii. 82. Banier's Mythology.
4 Strabo, 1. vii.
5 Ao&oiYqv (pyjyovre itEXao-ycov Ihpavov ijkev.
Hesiod. in Strabo, 1. vii.
6 Gen. x. 4. Dodanim Chaldaei Dardanos, recentiores Dodo-
na?os interpretantur. — Bochart. Geog. Sac. 1. iii. c. 6.

DEUCALION. 221
Ireland may provoke a smile. The Boeotians, and
all who dwelt in the vicinity of Thebes, or the
ark, (for Thebah is the very word used by Moses,
in speaking of Noah's ark,) were of course Pelas
gians at first, and amongst the rest the Athenians.
It puzzles Herodotus to account for these barba
rians, as he considers them, having left no trace of
their language behind them i, which would indeed
have been marvellous, if they had been a distinct
people altogether : for we hear of no extermination,
except of their religion. It fortunately happens,
that Thucydides lets us into that secret. There
was a building under the acropolis, called the
Pelasgic temple, which had long been closed, and
an anathema had been laid upon those who should
venture to use it, and by a trick, common among
rivals in state policy, the Pythian oracle was sup
posed to have recommended that it should continue
empty.2 It is not easy to make out much that is
satisfactory from the fraction of a line in which
that recommendation was conveyed ; but it seems
that the oracle, as usual, paltered with a double
sense ; for it might mean, that the Pelasgic Argos,
or ark, would be, or was superior. Argus, the first
born of Jupiter among men, was a Pelasgian.3
Hesiod makes him the offspring of the earth ; and
1 Herod. 1. i. c. 56.
2 To', te JUeXao-'yiKoi' Ka.Xoifi.Evov to visa r-qv aKpoitoXiv, o Kal hcdparov
te \v fttq oIkeTv, Kal ti Kal TIv9ikov fiavTEiav aKporEXEvnov tow'vSe S<ek&-
Xve, Xkyov aS; — to TlEXacryiKov dpyov afttivov. — Thucyd. 1. ii. c. 17.
3 Niobe was his mother, according to Apollodorus, and it was
Jupiter's first amour, 'li; Se 'AKOvaiXaoc, fqcn, Kal neXao-yo?, 1. ii.

DEUCALION.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus tells us, that the Area-
dians, who were also Pelasgian, sprang out of the
earth near Argos.
The different stories of Argus mentioned by
Apollodorus, illustrate the way in which many
of the ancient myths have been constructed.
Some restorer of the Arkite rites under that
designation became the hero of a religious ro
mance, and was fabled to have slain, 1 . A bull that
laid waste Arcadia, i. e. the tauric worship, which
had encroached on the domains of the ark ; 2. A
satyr, who injured the Arcadians by taking from
them their herds, i. e. the Priapeian or Baal Peor
worship, which had taken many of their cattle for
sacrifice ; and, 3. A serpent engendered of the
earth by Tartarus, that seized wayfaring men ',
i. e. the Ophite worship, which is in truth the
worship of the infernal serpent, the seducer of
mankind. In like manner, on the top of a moun
tain 2, at the instigation of the Argive Juno,
who is sometimes crowned with a crescent, and
sometimes worshipped as the deliverer3, and always
considered, like Ashtaroth, the queen of heaven,
he watched with the hundred eyes of jealousy the
motions of the heifer Io, whose priests, after
many ineffectual struggles in various parts of
1 Apollodorus, 1. ii.
2 Ipse procul montis sublime cacumen
Occupat, unde sedens partes speculate in omnes.
Ovid. 1. i. fab. 12.
3 Sospita was one of Juno's names, and under the same notion she
became Lucina. Perhaps called fiauttic, from having bovine horns.

DEUCALION. 223
Greece to establish that perversion of the ancient
rites, transported them at last to Egypt with
success. But the Ophite superstition, having
allied itself to more recent fictions, finally pre
vailed ; and therefore the son of the Pleiad Maia
(which in Sanscrit means delusion), whose caduceus
had two serpents twined round it, was called the
slayer of Argus.1 Lastly, he was the builder of
Argo ; the original Argo was the ark, and the
original builder Noah 2 ; but subsequently some
Arkite, who built the first ship fitted for distant
discovery, gave it the same name, constructed a
sanctuary on the poop, of Dodonean oak, which
was said to have a voice 3, because the oracle
uttered its responses there ; and the crew was
composed of heroes whose exploits and parentage
are wrapt in the obscurity of fable. Some of
them seem to belong to the age preceding that
of the Trojan war; but their history is so com
plicated with gods and goddesses, that the whole
has the air of a romance, founded upon tradition ;
and others are connected by a single link with the
Patriarch himself 4, the sons of Liber or Dionusus,

1 ApyEitpovr-qc..
2 For Minerva, says Hyginus, placed Argo in the sphere, be
cause it was built by herself, and was the first vessel ever launched
upon the ocean.
Quod ab se esset aedificata ac primum in pelagus deducta est haec
navis. — c. 168.
3 Kara r\v itpapav Iv'qpfMrTEV 'AB-qvd <poivrj pqybv rye. A&iSojmSo; ZvXov.
— Apollodorus, 1. i. 17-
4 Lynceus, saved by Hypermnestra the Danaid, was an Argonaut.
Argus was the son of Polybus and Argia, or, as others say, of
Danaus. He was pelle toarina lanugine adopertus: some of the

224

DEUCALION.

of Danaus, and Minos. The name of the last,
indeed, is Deucalion, of which one probable ex
planation has been already given ; butVallancey says,
" that, in Irish, it bears the same (sort of) signification
as Ogyges, which is compounded of Og, or Oig, a
leader or hero, and Uige a ship. Deucalion, he
thinks, is from Deuc, the floater, and Lion, of the
sea ; and hence the name may refer to Noah." l
Whatever may be thought of this learned author's
conjectures in general, yet certainly in this case
there can be no objection to an Irish etymology
from those who object to look for it in the east;
for it is acknowledged, that Deucalion was a Scy
thian, or Celt, and Lucian gives evidence, in ad
dition to that which has been already stated, that
neither his name nor his deluge were confined to
Greece. In his account of Phoenicia, having mentioned a
temple of Astarte, or the moon, and another, which
came to them from the city of the sun, very ancient,
he adds, that the greatest was in Hierapolis, which
most said was sacred to Deucalion the Scythian, or
Celt, in whose time the deluge happened, which

other names were Orpheus, Polyphemus, Admetus, Theseus, Piri-
thous, Oileus, Peleus, Telamon, Tiphys, Hercules, Castor, and Pollux;
Asclepius, i. e. JEsculapius, and Philoctetes. — Hygin. Fab.
1 Vallancey's Ancient Hist, of Ireland, p. 27. Collect, v. 4. He
also derives Neptunus from the Egyptian Nebi, natatio, or Noph
nauta, and Tonn, the ocean. Cecrops from Cia Cairb, or Crab,
which was a name of Noah, the man of the ships. Canopus, from
Cia Naiob, also the man of the ship. From the latter name of a
ship comes Niobe.

DEUCALION. 225
destroyed the former generation of men, because
they were full of violence, and committed wicked
ness.1 They were perjured, inhospitable, and un
merciful : wherefore the earth threw up much
water, and great rains descended, and the rivers
swelled, and the sea rose, till the deluge covered
every thing, and all men perished. Only Deuca
lion, on account of his piety, was saved, with his fa
mily, in an ark, where all sorts of animals were shut
up by pairs, till the waters subsided, and lived there
most harmoniously. Twice every year the inha
bitants of Syria, and Arabia, and beyond Euphrates,
bring water from the sea in memory of this catas
trophe, and pour it into the temple, from whence
it runs into a cavity, where the deluge is supposed
to have been absorbed. 2 This is the oldest account
of the temple. The Greeks said it was the work
of Dionusus, i. e. Noah. Be it observed, that all
the votaries who frequented this temple came from
the east, and not from the west. They had no in
terest in a Grecian deluge, and cared little for
Grecian mythology ; neither was it a Hebrew
sanctuary, though the history accords so well with
that of Moses : for it contained abundance of ido
latry. There were two golden statues, which the
Greeks would fain have assimilated to their idols ;
one was like their Jupiter, but had a different name;
1 "ttpia-rai Kapra — dBkfua-ra ipya kitpao-crov. — De Dea. Syrid.
2 The same absorption, as we have seen above, is carried by the
Greeks to their own Olympus. There are some other stories about
Semiramis, Derceto, and Attes : but Bryant has shown that all these
relate to the Ark.
VOL. I. 0.

226

DEUCALION.

the other had some resemblance to half a dozen
goddesses, but most to Juno : in other words, it
differed from them all. There was also a golden
shrine, which had no proper name, but the As
syrians called it a Sign : ; and it contained statues
of the other gods, probably the Ogdoad, shut up
in their Ark. On its top was seated a golden dove,
and it went down twice a year to the sea to bring
back water. Some referred it to Dionusus, and
others to Deucalion. Within the temple so many
sacred animals were kept, as to present a lively
image of the Ark, — cattle, and horses, and eagles,
and lions, and bears. Behind the throne of the
sun his image stood ; but it was not the Grecian
Apollo, for it had a beard. There were also figures
of Atlas, the mountain deity, of Mercury, the
Ophite deity, and of Eileithyia, the prolific deity.
The priests, like the Druids, were clothed in white,
and they were Galli2, or priests of the magna
mater, which was in truth the Ark. Of the Ophite
worship I shall have another occasion to speak more
at large ; at present it is enough to remark, that it
was derived from the person already noticed under
the name of Erichthonius, the father of Butes or
Phut, and the inventor of idolatry.
One of the fables by which this is intimated is
told by Euripides. When he had recently sprung
1 ^.'qft/qwv.
2 Lucian commits a vile pun, when he says, that the sealed ves
sels of water brought back from the sea were opened by a sacred
AlectryoD, meaning a Gallus, who was perhaps a Celtic Druid. At all
events they were Corybantes, the meaning of which has been shown.

ERICHTHONIUS. 227
from the ground, i. e. soon after he had appeared up
on the face of the renovated earth, two dragons or
serpents v were coiled round him by Minerva, the
goddess of wisdom, or cunning, for his protection ;
and so it became the practice of the Erechtheidae, in
imitation ofthe ancientErichthonius,to wrap golden-
headed serpents round their infants ', like those
which adorn the caduceus of Mercury. Another
tradition actually incorporates him with the animal,
and gives him the nether parts of a dragon ; and to
hide that defect, he was supposed to have invented
chariots.2 His form, therefore, was that of Dagon
or Derceto, as the former is described by Kimchi,
and the latter by Diodorus and Lucian. Desinit
in piscem ; for the Draco is an animal of the sea
as well as of the land. Whales and serpents have
the same name in Hebrew. Thannin 3 is used for
both in that language, and in Chaldee, and in Syriac,
and in Arabic. And Taautus 4, or Mercury, who

1 ApaKOVTEC. dpxaiov rt irayxpvo-qj ykvoi
Aapijft.' 'ABdvaq, i] tekv ivrpktpEiv XkyEt
EpixOoviov ys rov iraXat ftift-qftara. Ion. 1448.
The story is told at the beginning of the play, v. 20. and it is re
markable, that Creusa exposed her son in an ark, iv dvrivqyoc kvkXoi
— i. e. Kia-r-q, says Hesychius, or Kitoiroc.
2 Inde natus est puer draconis pedibus, qui appellatus est Eri
chthonius : hie ad tegendam pedum fceditatem junctis equis usus est
curru. — Servius in Virgil. Gcorg. 1. iii.
3 V^Pi) Thannin ut Hebraice, ita etiam Chaldaice, Syriace, et
Arabice, tam pro Ceto, quam pro dracone sumitur. — Bochart.
Hironzoicon, 1. i. 48.
4 Taautus, the Phoenician God, the discoverer of letters, was the
Thoyth of the Egyptians, the Thoth of the Alexandrines, and the
Hermes of the Greeks. — Euseb. Prcep. Evan. Li. 32.
Q 2

228

ERICHTHONIUS.

first ascribed some sort of divinity to the nature of
the dragon, and of serpents, was also supposed by
Sanchoniatho to have given to the image of Dagon
the form under which he was worshipped.1 Hence,
both these forms occur among the Hindoo idols.
A figure of Buddha given by Moor 2 terminates in
the folds of a huge serpent ; while Vishnu, in the
Matsya Avatar3, has the tail of a fish, and at an
other time he is enveloped in serpent folds, or
stands between two, which are twined together at
fhe bottom, and rise on either side of him, like
those on the rod of Mercury. So familiar to the
ancients was this impression of the dragons' equi
vocal character, that the prophet Isaiah blends
both the forms in one description, as if they were
but one animal. " In that day, the Lord with his
sore, and great, and strong sword shall punish le
viathan, the piercing serpent, even leviathan, that
crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that
is in the sea." 4 By the guidance of this light, the
history of Cecrops becomes somewhat more intelli
gible. There seems to have been an Athenian
prince, the brother of Erectheus, who was named
after one ofthe Noachidaa, and his partizans being
anxious to confer upon him a similar rank among

1 1)]V ftiv ovv toC ApaKOvroc, <pio-iv Kal r£v ofkoiv avroq eHeOEiatrEV o
TaavToc. — Euseb. Prcep. Evan. 1. i. 40.
Tuv SteW oxpEic Kpovov ra Kal Aayuvoe — ^ietviccoo-ev. — p. 39.
2 PI. 76. from a ruined temple at Siva Samudra in an island ia
the Caveri, and PI. 48. from images in the Museum of the India
house. 3 PL 62. and 75. 4 Isaiah, xxvii. 1.

ERICHTHONIUS. 229
the demigods, described the first man, of whose his
tory they knew any thing, by his name. Now,
they had heard of an ancestor who floated so long
upon the ocean, that it seemed to be his native
element, the first sacrificer and first civiliser of
the world, and on that account represented to be
half man, half dragon ' ; but the emblem not
being understood, they supposed him to be com
pounded of a serpent instead 2 of a fish. They ac
knowledged that he was among the first of men,
and far beyond their computations of genealogy.3
But they were unwilling to admit Bceotia, Egypt,
and Crete to that share of property in him which
they justly claimed; and so they contended that,
like Erichthonius, and the family of Deucalion 4, he
was sprung from the earth itself. 5
There is one other point in the history of Erich
thonius which connects him with the deluge, though
only indirectly, through the medium of Hindoo
fable. Minerva gave him two drops of the Gor-

1 Ovid calls him, geminus Cecrops ; and it may be doubtful,
whether he alludes to the double form, or the double person, whom
he represented. < — Metam. l.ii.
2 Ii KeVpoi^, ypoie d'va%, ra irpoc. itotuv tpaKovritij. — Aristoph. in
Vespis. The Scholiast observes that he was u-upvd and rd y.dro> ofEoic
i^xyKEvai. 3 Strabo, 1. ix. Euseb. Chron. 1. i. Plautus in Trinummo.
4 De Tressan notices the statements of various writers, that
Cecrops first established the worship of the Gods, and that Deucalion
was the first builder of temples in Greece, quite unconscious of the
inconsistency which can only be reconciled by owning them to be
impersonations of the same character.
5 KtKpoijt avroxSoiv, crvftipvEc. i%oiv to oSfia, dvftpoc kc.I dpaKovroc. —
Apollodorus, 1. iii.
Q 3

230' ERICHTHONIUS.
gon's blood, one of which was fatal in its touch,
the other cured all diseases.1 These bear so strong
a resemblance to the poison and amrita or liquor of
immortality, produced much at the expence of the
unfortunate serpent Sesha, that it can scarcely be
a casual coincidence. But these were two of the
jewels obtained by the churning ofthe ocean, which,
undoubtedly, is only another version of the deluge.
Such, then, being the history of the father and
grandfather of Butes or Budha, may it not be
affirmed that the grandson of Noah shines in Bootes,
and in Arcturus his principal star ? and may not his
Hebrew name be an allusion to the gathering
together or bursting forth of the waters which had
so recently destroyed the earth ? If, however, he
should be thought a generation too late for that
association, what if his father should be intended by
Ash, commemorated under the name of Erichtho
nius the inventor of chariots 2, and catasterised in
Auriga. At least this is the opinion of one who is
a great authority in matters of Oriental astronomy.
Hyde observes that in the Syriac version Iyutho is
the word here used, and in the Arabic, Aiyuk,
which are only successive corruptions of the an
cient Ash, pronounced by the Syrians Ath, or
Aith 3 ; and he produces one of the Talmudists

1 Euripid. Ion. 1020.
2 Primus Erichthonius currus et quatuor ausus
Jungere equos, rapidisque rotis insistere victor.
Virg. Georg. iii. 113.
3 j£>y Ash, vel fflV Aish, Syris ac Chaldseis proferendum esset

ERICHTHONIUS. 231
cited by Buxtorf, who asks, what is Ash ? Rabbi
Jehudah answered : it is Yutha. Iyutho then is the
same as AI Aiyuk, which Ulugh Beigh and all the
Eastern astronomers allow to be the star Capella ;
for the Greeks, always ambitious to dress up, after
their own fashion, foreign terms which they did
not understand, turned Aiyuk into Aiga a goat,
i. e. Capella, to the great inconvenience of Auriga,
to whom that large and conspicuous star properly
belongs. When, however, we consider the extreme
uncertainty of this word's signification ; that some
confounded it with Orion ], and others with Alde-
baran ; that some said it was the tail of the Ram,
and others the head of the Bull ; it may be reason
ably concluded, that a superstitious reverence for
the fathers of the human race was more consulted
than astronomical accuracy, and the feeling was
that which Dryden expresses in his ode on Anne
Killigrew : —
" But look aloft, and if thou ken'st from far
Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star,
If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
'Tis she that shines in that propitious light."

jyy Ath, vel f"|'y Aith, et interposito "|, Ayuth, vel Iyuth, quod
prorsus convenit cum Syr. 17n i \ Iyutho, et hoc cum Arab.
Aiyuk, mutato Thau in Kaph. — In Ullugh Beighi Tabulas Stellarum
Fixarum Commentarii, p. 28.
1 Isa Bar Ali sic legit. Iyutho est AI Aiyuk — et dicitur AI
Gjauza, i. e. Orion. Bar Bah Cul, sic explicare conatur ; AI
Aiyuk in alio quodam exemplari est AI Debaran. Rabbi Jehudae
testimonium tale est. Quid est Yutha ? Dicebant ipsi, Cauda Arietis.
Dicebant alii, Caput Tauri. — Hyde's Syntagma Dissertation.,^, i.
ft 4

232

CHAP. IX.
CHESIL.  MAZZAROTH.  SCORPIO. — SERPENTARIUS. 
THE ZODIAC.
From the same source we may obtain the best in
formation with respect to the next Asterism in Job,
Chesil, which our translators have rendered Orion ;
but there is reason to think it was not the cluster
of stars now known by that name. Aben Ezra,
supposed it to be Cor Scorpionis ; but he is quite
wrong, says Hyde. Kimchi has given the sense of
the more learned Jews, in conjecturing it to be a
star of the first magnitude in the rudder of Argo,
called Canopus ' ; which, stripped of its Grecian
disguise, is the Egyptian Cneph, or Cnouphis, de
rived from a Coptic word, signifying golden 2, and
consequently a very appropriate name for a very
brilliant star : but Cnouphis, or Canopus, was also
a deity worshipped in a human form by the Egyp
tians. According to Porphyry, they considered him
as the Demiurge, from whose mouth the world
1 Scripsit Rabbi Jona, quod Chesil est Stella magna, quae vocatur
Arabice, Soal (pro Soheil). Sic etiam Rabbi Ishak Israel ; Chesil est
Soheil. 2 Aristides in oratione, quae inscribitur Alyvicnoc, a Sacerdote
quodam JEgyptio se accepisse ait, quod Kdvoitoe significet Xpvo-ovv
"taipoe,, Aureum solum ; et D. Salmasius dicit, Xwi/£ denotare Aurum
apud Coptitas.

THE STARS IN JOB. 233
issued in the shape of an egg, which immediately
disclosed the God Phtha, or Vulcan, i. e. the God
who was worshipped in fire.1 It is observable,
that he is not supposed to have been the framer
or the father of the world ; but the knowledge of
the world, of its past history, its present capabilities,
and its future destiny came out of his mouth, and
his era was antecedent to the idolatry of fire. At
a subsequent period, he became the subject of
Ophiolatry, and was represented under the form of
a serpent. Yet it was no deification of the natural
animal ; for it had the head of a hawk 2, and con
sequently must have been symbolical ; perhaps,
however, the bird's head was only a device to ex
press more easily the winged serpent, which, in
Hebrew, is Seraph 3, and which some suppose to
have been the form assumed by the tempter of Eve ;
for then a more obvious meaning is given to the
curse, — "Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life 4 ; " and the
allusion of St. Paul becomes more intelligible,
when he says, that Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light 5 : for the Seraph was fiery
and shining. When he is represented in a human
form, he still retains his wings ; not, however, as
they are usually attached to the human body by
1 Euseb. Prsp. Evan. 1. iii. 115.
2 Alyiitrioi Kvijip EHOvoft,dX^ovaf irpocrriBeaai Se avrS UpaKOc. KEfaX-qit.
"Ope. ia-rh, IkpaKoc, £%o>y ft.opoyqv. — Ibid. 1. i. c. 10.
3 In two passages of Isaiah Pp$J? is translated a fiery flying
serpent, xiv. 29- and xxx. 6.
4 Gen. iii. 14. 6 2 Cor. xi. 14.

234 THE STARS IN JOB.
poets, and painters, but surrounding the head. -
This seems to have suggested the Egyptian hiero
glyphic for the Agatho-daemon, which consists of a
huge pair of wings, supporting something of a
round form, which may either be a serpent, as that
animal is sometimes represented, with his tail in his
mouth, or else by the insertion of features, it may
become a human head : and then it would be ex
tremely like those absurd representations of the
seraph or cherub, which disgrace the taste of our
monuments and churches.
It was no unnatural transition from the worship
of this fiery seraph to the worship of the sun ; and
accordingly the Egyptian Hierophant, Epeeis,
makes him also subservient to Heliolatry. The
eyes of the hawk-headed serpent were said to
diffuse light through the universe, and darkness
followed when he closed his lids.2 The share which
the hawk had in the corruption of diluvian worship
may, in some measure, be collected from an old
fragment of mythology. Hierax is said to have
been changed into a hawk through the anger of
Neptune, because he had substituted the rites of
Ceres for those of Ocean, and had encouraged the
Teucrians to withhold their sacrifices 3, and relieved
them with corn, when a famine and a sea-monster
had been sent by the offended deity to avenge his
1 'Ew< Se t5j$ KEfaXifi; irrtpov fiaalXEiov itEpiY.Eift.Evov. — Euseb. Prcep.
Evan. 1. iii. c. 11.
2 Euseb, Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
3 Ette* Kal eXvev avrov rdc rifAac. ov'a dirEhiboGav Upd Woa-Ei^avt. —
Antonini Liberalis Metamorphoses.

THE STARS IN JOB. 235
dishonoured altars. Now Ceres is acknowledged
to have been the same as Isis, and hence it is, that
several of the Egyptian gods wear a hawk's head ',
and if Horus Apollo is to be trusted, that bird
was the hieroglyphic of a god and of victory.2 A
different combination of forms, however, sometimes
marks a nearer approach to the original truth ; the
serpent of Cnuphis, or, as some write it, Chnubis, is
represented on the amulets with a human head ;
a combination not uncommon in the tablets of the
manuscripts 3 ; but the hieroglyphic denoting it
speaks still more intelligibly : it is a long undulated
line. Now Kircher affirms, that the hieroglyphic
for water was formed by the tortuous lines of a
serpent's body in motion, in order to express the
undulations of the waves 4 ; and one of his in
stances seems to include the notion of a boat.
t^y^s^p jf} therefore, his character is at all to
be inferred from his hieroglyphic, it is evident
that he was the presiding genius of the diluvian
waters, and one victory which those who wor
shipped him under that character obtained over
the votaries of fire, is particularly recorded by
Rufiinus. Some Chaldean priests '" had challenged
1 Arueris, or Apollo, Osiris and Ptha, or Vulcan.
2 Horus Apollo, translated by Philippus.
3 See the article on Egypt by Dr. Young, in the Supplement to
the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
4 Aquam denotantes serpentem pingunt tortuoso corporis tractu
undaruin volumina exprimentem. — Kircheri, Obelisci Interpretatio
Hieroglyphica .
6 Perhaps they were Persians who followed Cambyses into Egypt ;
but that species of idolatry, though most prevalent in Persia, was not
confined to it.

236

THE STARS IN JOB.

all the other false gods to a contest for the superiority
with their own sacred fire ; and great was its success.
The unfortunate idols, whether formed of wood, or
stone, or metal, burned, and cracked, and melted
away before their invincible antagonist, and nothing
could resist his force till Canopus entered the lists.
His head was the image of a pilot, vulgarly sup
posed to have brought Menelaus to those shores ;
but Aristides was very truly informed by one of his
priests in the city of Canopus, that he had been
known by that name many ages before the arrival
of Menelaus : he was, in truth, the pilot of Argo,
whose rudder he still holds, — the man of the Ark,
the Neptune of Egypt, the god ofthe waters.1 His
body was hollow and filled with water, some holes
having been previously drilled in the bottom and
stopped up with wax. The enemy advanced and
took his station, as usual, underneath, and the
flames, eager to destroy, leaped up to assail the
filter ; but their ardour was soon extinguished, for
the wax gave way, and the exulting waters, rushing
down to the conflict, obtained an easy conquest.2
If this occurrence was known to the worshippers
of Baal, when Elijah called down fire from heaven,
which licked up all the waters that had been
1 Canopus autem, cum sit Nauclerus, pro Deo aquarum habitus
est Egyptiis, qui etiam Neptunum eum vocabant. — Hyde's Com-
mentarii in Ulugh Beighi tabulas, p. 71.
At Rome, too, he had a temple so surrounded by water, that
Piranesi concludes it must have belonged to Neptune rather than
to any other deity. Avanzi del Tempio del Dio Canopo nella villa
Adriana in Tivoli. — Antiquit. Rom. torn. xii. pi. 88.
2 Ruffini Hist. Eccles. xi. 26.

THE STARS IN JOB. 237
poured in treble profusion on the sacrifice ', the
miracle must have been much more striking to
them ; and the difference between the fire which
was idolised on earth, and that which was the mes
senger of heaven's Almighty Lord, must have been
most distinctly seen. Perhaps it was in consequence
of this triumph of Canopus, that some of the
Egyptian women, who had been Belides, or wor
shippers of Bel i. e. Baal, became Danaides, votaries
of Danaus, the man of the ship : and hence their
enemies invented for them the punishment of per
petually pouring water into jars from which it was
perpetually running out. It is remarkable that
the only one of their husbands who is said to have
been spared by them was an Argonaut.2 But if
Cnuphis, or Canopus, was thus successful in discom
fiting one rival, he was not so fortunate with another.
The worship of the sun acquired a permanent as
cendancy in Egypt ; and therefore, though he is
acknowledged to be the same with Ammon Ra 3,
and both have the water jar for their hieroglyphic,
yet he is only considered in the inscriptions and
paintings of that country as the secondary form of
that superior deity, and all the original peculiarities
of his character are kept out of sight. Nevertheless,

1 1 Kings, xviii. 33. 2 Lynceus. See Hyginus.
3 Dr. Young calls the secondary form of this deity, Hieracion —
why, I know not ; but his hawk's head, together with the serpent and
the water-jar, in the hieroglyphics representing him, sufficiently prove
him to be Chnuphis : at the same time he observes, that, in one of
the pictures, he is leaning over one of those jars which were called
Canopi.

238 THE STARS IN JOB.
enough has been disclosed by the investigations of
M. Champollion to show, that the real history of
Ammon was not forgotten, though it suited the
policy of his priests to veil it under obscure allu
sions ; or perhaps they were unconscious of what
they were doing, and we owe the remaining traces
of truth to the pertinacity with which tradition sur
vives in spite of art.
It has been shown that the earliest mythology
of Egypt contained many vestiges of diluvian re
miniscence, which were almost obliterated, when,
in succeeding ages, a more artificial idolatry drove
out the simpler faith of their less-refined pro
genitors, and the study of natural phenomena and
the onward march of time had diminished their re
verence for tradition. It would have been strange,
indeed, if these facts could not have been elicited
by enquiry ; for Sir W. Drummond, who had no
theory of this kind to support, observes, with great
truth, that, " of all the nations of the Pagan world,
the Egyptian was that which might have been ex
pected to preserve the most exact accounts of the
universal deluge, an event at once so astonishing
and so disastrous." l But historical truth, being
entrusted to tradition, was soon corrupted by the
advancement of science, which was first cradled in
Egypt ; and when it had taken Osiris into the
service of the sun, and Sira for the dog-star, the
Persians and Arabians concluded, that Sir or Seir
1 Origines, p. 81.

THE STARS IN JOB. 239
must mean Fire, and in that sense they adopted it.
But the worship of fire never prevailed in Idumaea,
and therefore the meaning of mount Seir there
cannot be accounted for in that way. It may have
been the mount, where the imprisoned were set
free ! : for all hills were doubles of Mount Ararat,
and Egypt was so closely near, that her language,
and her traditions, and her knowledge must have
been imparted to a neighbour, who could not avoid
regarding her superiority with habitual deference.
This is a point of more importance than the first
view seems to promise : for if the state of science
in Idumasa was governed by its progress in Egypt,
then it would not matter whether the book of Job
was written by Moses, or by an Idumasan author.
The same notions with respect to the stars would
prevail in both countries, and the state of astro
nomy in one will be some sort of measure of its pro
gress in the other. Now there are no indications in
theacknowledged writings of Moses, who was skilled
in all the learning of the Egyptians, that much
attention had been paid in his days to astronomical
observations ; at least it was not a popular science,
and if it was followed at all, it was confined to the
cells of a few studious priests. Not a star is men
tioned by name in the Pentateuch ; his years and
months are lunar, and no rules are given for in
tercalation; no reference to any other mode of
computing time, than the observation of the new
1 ~\VV!> Porta.

240 THE STARS IN JOB.
moon. The eleven stars in Joseph's dream, which,
together with the sun and moon, made obeisance to
him ', are strangely supposed by some interpreters2
to be the signs of the Zodiac, Joseph himself being
the twelfth. The young patriarch must indeed
have studied the stars with singular attention, if he
could picture to himself, even in a dream, all those
fantastic groups which encircle the sphere, all
visible at the same time, and necessarily jostling
one another out of their places to bow before Jo
seph ; and this departure from the plain meaning
of the words is recommended by nothing but the
accidental coincidence of number ; for Moses ex
pressly says, that they were eleven stars. 3
Still it may be thought, that there is some diffi
culty in imagining how even single stars could make
obeisance. The objection, indeed, is trifling ; for
the falling of a star may be considered a sufficient
sign of homage. But it is possible, that Joseph
may have designed to speak of the presiding genius
of each star ; for it was a common superstition to
transfer to those shining orbs the souls of deceased
ancestors, and judicial astrology, absurd as it is,
may probably have had a less senseless origin in the
persuasion that the stars were governed by spirits,
who took an interest in human affairs and in the
fortunes of their descendants. Moses, describing
the creation of the world, says, that the heavenly
1 Gen. xxxvii. 9-
2 Drusius, for instance, and Dr. Hales.
3 D':iDi3> stellae-

THE STARS IN JOB. 241
bodies were set for signs, and for seasons.1 It is
certain, that the word here used for signs, has no
relation to the zodiac, neither is judicial astrology
intended : for all such arts of divination are ex
pressly prohibited by the Mosaic law.2 Virgil and
Hesiod have shown how they were signs to the agri
culturist ; but perhaps in the age of Moses they
were also signs in a higher sense, and he may have
spoken of them proleptically with an accommoda
tion to his own times. The rainbow was the sign
or token of the covenant with Noah, appointed by
God himself.3 But whatever reminded men of the
deluge, might also be memorials to them of that
covenant of mercy. The rainbow was of rare oc
currence ; and the Egyptians, in particular, had the
image of the flood before their eyes every year ;
but the token of the covenant never ; for they have
no rain. Hence a religious feeling might induce
them to multiply the signs in heaven, by giving
names to the most conspicuous stars, directly or
indirectly commemorative of the deluge ; so that
they might perpetually read the promise of God
in the vault of night, and contemplate the cata
strophe from which their forefathers were graciously
delivered. If, then, such was the view of those
who imposed the names which were still retained
in Egypt when Moses wrote ; and if there is no
appearance in his writings, that they were ever
applied to any scientific purpose, or, at least, that
' Gen. i. 14. 2 Deut. xviii. 10. Lev.xx. 27- 3 Gen. ix. 13.
VOL. I. R

242 THE STARS IN JOB.
such application was popularly and commonly
known ; it is not to be supposed that more exact
observation of the heavens would be found in Idu-
maea at an earlier period, or more advancement in
the science of astronomy.1 Dr. Hales, therefore,
calculates the antiquity of the book of Job upon
false principles, when he assumes not only that
Chesil stands for Scorpio, but that it was twice in
troduced by the Author, because Taurus and
Scorpio were the cardinal constellations of spring
and autumn at that time : there is no reason to
suppose, that any allusions to philosophy were
present to the writer's mind. His poetry is more
natural and unconstrained.
In the 38th chapter, which is the second in
stance in which the stars are mentioned, and
which on that account I propose to notice, he
calls our attention to some of the most remark
able stars that spangle the midnight sky, and
challenges us to compare human strength or
wisdom with the power and intelligence which
created those luminaries, and clothed them with
splendour, and ordered their distances, and their
revolutions. The whole passage in our English
version is rendered thus : " Canst thou bind the
sweet influences of Pleiades, or loosen the bands of
Orion ? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his
season, or canst thou guide Arcturus with his

1 Even at the present day we are told the astronomical science of
the Bedouins consists in a mere nomenclature of the constellations and
planets. — Burckhardt's Notes on the Bedouins and Arabs, p. 74.

THE STARS IN JOB. <243
sons ? " l In the last verse, our translators have
retained one of the Hebrew words, because they
could not assign to it any satisfactory meaning.
Perhaps they were aware that the state of science
in those days would not justify them in talking of
the signs of the zodiac, which is the explanation
usually given.
Lexicographers, however, are unanimous in giv
ing Mazzaroth another meaning, the northern
winds ; a meaning of which Parkhurst gladly avails
himself according to his usual system. But it is
plain from the context that stars, and not winds,
are here designed, and accordingly, Castell inter
prets it by Plaustrum Sydus, and Arcturus 2 ; and
this view of it has been adopted in the Syriac and
Arabic versions. Mazzaloth is a various reading
in this place, which betrays an Egyptian indif
ference to the sounds of L and R. But it may be
objected, that Arcturus occurs in the next clause :
perhaps, however, it has no business there. In
Ulugh Beigh's description of the constellation
Argo, a word occurs, which puzzles his com
mentator Hyde3, Tur Yeish. Sir William Drum
mond corrects it into Tir Besh, navis magna 4 ; but
Yeish is obviously the same word, however obsolete
in other languages, which the Irish Celts have re
tained in their Ess, a ship, and from which the
1 xxxviii. 3 1, 32.
2 See the words -|JQ and HIT- D^TO is useiJ m tne preceding
chapter for the north generally.
3 In Ullughii Beighi tabulas stellarum fixarum commentarii, p. 71'
4 Origines, p. 120. R 2

244 THE STARS IN JOB.
Egyptians took their name of Isis, whose constant
connection with a ship has been already noticed.
Now Yeish, as nearly as possible, represents the
sound of the letters l used by the author of Job, in
the passage under consideration ; so that instead of
Arcturus, the translation should rather be Canopus;
which being a title of the first pilot, and of the
Egyptian Agathodsemon, or good genius, who has
been sufficiently identified with Noah, the chal
lenge to guide his vessel may include a mystical
allusion to the perils of that voyage. But if it be
next to certain, that the astronomy in this book
must have been Egyptian, a much greater mistake
has been made in the preceding verse ; and a most
extraordinary mistake it is, if the meaning of the
translators is rightly interpreted by their commenta
tors : nor is it less extraordinary, that the com
mentators should go on, like sheep, one after
another in the same track, and not one of them
appear to suspect an error. In Mant's Bible, for
instance, the explanation which has been selected
is this : " The ' sweet influences ' are the pleasant
season of spring ; ' the bands ' are the rigours of
winter, when the earth is bound with frost." And
in like manner, Scott talks in his commentary of
the genial spring and the dreary winter. From
all which the unavoidable conclusion is, that the
two constellations are placed in widely distant
quarters of the heavens. But what is the fact ?

p»y-

THE STARS IN JOB. '245
Orion, says an ancient astronomer ], rises next after
the Pleiades. It is easy to understand, how men,
who lived much in the open air, might frame an
almanac to themselves, and remark how the seasons
followed the rising of certain stars ; or they might
compare the changes that occurred, when those
stars reached the zenith : but it is quite incredible,
that for this purpose they would take one asterism
at its heliacal rising, and another at its setting, or
its culmination.2 Perhaps unscientific men are
most likely to take notice of a constellation, when
it describes the greatest arch in its course, and
seems to occupy the middle of the sky. But
if Orion has obtained a bad name for lending
himself to storms and tempests3, the Pleiades,
far from having any credit for sweet influences,
have come in for a large share of the same im
putation.4 Statius even goes so far as to call
them a snowy constellation.5 Valerius Flaccus, how
ever, is most hard upon them ; he seems to con
sider no ship safe under their influence 6, and hints
that they impart a character of ferocity to the sign
1 Moschopulus. His words are iicirkXXei ovroe ftsrd rae TlXeidbac.
2 Caesius says of Orion : " Nocte media meridianum accedit mense
Decembri." 3 Virgil calls him Saevus (iEn. vii. 719-)j and Nimbosus (iEn. i.
539-)> andAquosus (JEn. iv. 52.). Horace calls him Tristis, Ep.x. 10.
4 Propert. ii. 16. Hor. lib. iv. Od. xiv. Lucan. lib. ix. Stat.
Theb. 9.
5 Pliadumque nivosum
Sydus. Sylv. i. 3.
6 Spumanti qualis in alto,
Pliade capta ratis, trepidi quam sola magistri
Cura tenet, rapidum ventis certantibus aequor
Intemerata secat. Argonauticon, lib. iv. 268.
R 3

246 THE STARS IN J06.
of the Bull.i Upon another passage, in which he
mentions their cloudiness, Burmann remarks, that
at the rising of this constellation, rain and clouds
were usual.2 Now, whatever pleasing ideas of fer
tility we may associate with April showers, there
is certainly no room for such associations in Egypt
at the same season of the year. From the end
of January to the end of May is the season there
of drought, or, as Professor Ideler terms it, of dry
and unwholesome heat.3
In the next place, the received interpretation
is objectionable, because it is quite at variance
with the style of the writer in, the context. The
Almighty is represented challenging Job to do
what he has done ; not to undo it : to imitate
him ; not to oppose him : to equal him ; not
to defeat him ; for it is a greater abasement of
man, to show him how far he is beneath the
level of Omnipotence, than merely to argue that
he is not superior. When Moses changed his
wand into a serpent by divine command, the Magi
cians of Egypt contrived to imitate him with theirs ;
but they could not defeat the miracle, as Moses
did their trick, by causing his serpent to swallow
up theirs.4 That was a stretch of power far beyond
their reach. If then he had wished to convince
them of their inferiority in those subsequent plagues,
where their enchantments totally failed, he would
1 Non meus Orion, aut saevus Pleiade Taurus
Mortis causa novae. Argonauticon, lib. i. 647.
2 Lib. ii. 357. 3 Techr. Chronol. Bd. i. s. 94.
4 Exodus, vii. 10 — 12.

THE STARS IN JOB. 247
have defied them, not to remove the flies or the
locusts, but to produce them ; to do, not more, but
as much as he had done. This is precisely the line
of argument adopted by the author in the subse
quent verses. " Knowest thou the ordinances of
heaven ? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the
earth ? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds,
that abundance of waters may cover thee ? Canst
thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say
unto thee, Here we are ? " ' Job is not asked
whether he could reverse the ordinances of heaven,
whether he could dry up the clouds, and stay the
passage of the lightning ; but whether, like God,
he could control the meteoric phaanomena, and
prescribe laws which they would obey. The mere
analogy, therefore, of the context would lead us to
expect an interrogation of this sort ; " Canst thou
tie the knot of the Pleiades ? " in allusion to its
clustered form : and this is precisely the sense in
which the oldest version renders the passage. In
the Septuagint, it stands thus : " Dost thou under
stand the bond or the knitting together of the
Pleiad?"2 The Chaldee Paraphrast must have
viewed it in the same light : for the Targum pro
poses a similar question ; " Canst thou fasten the
bands of the Pleiades ? " 3 It is a remarkable instance
of the force of prejudice, that his Latin translator,
assuming it to be impossible that the " bands "
1 Job, xxxviii. 33 — 35.
2 Zuvrj/ca; Se hEo-ft.ov IIAEiaSo; Kal <ppa.yft.ov 'Clptoivoc '¦qvoJiac-
3 «nz?o n'tp ¦nitopnn R 4

248 THE STARS IN JOB.
could belong to any thing but Orion, has inserted
his name here, although the word in the original,
Chimtha, is obviously the same as the Hebrew
Chimah ' ; and although the introduction of Orion,
in the first clause, occasions him no small difficulty
in the second, where meeting with Niphla, which
is commonly taken for Orion, he is compelled to
render it Arcturus. But, it may be asked, how is
it possible to extract this sense from the Hebrew
text ? The two meanings are not so far asunder as
might be imagined at first sight; for surely, the
"bands" of matrimony are not without their "sweet
influences," and, in point of fact, the same word has
both significations. The ancient Hebrews, says
Castell, explain it of bands, or fastenings, and the
Rabbinical writers certainly use it in that sense.2
Another passage in the Bible might possibly be
improved by rendering it in the same way. Agag,
the king of the Amalekites, is said to have come
before Samuel delicately 3 ; which is not very in
telligible : but as he was a prisoner, it was natural
that he should make his appearance in chains,
bearing his bonds, as St. Paul did, when he was
allowed to plead his cause before Agrippa.4
The remaining clause of the interrogation is
somewhat more difficult : " Canst thou loose the
bands of Orion?" perhaps it might be translated,
1 Which in Job ix. 9- is translated Pleiades.
2 f3*Ty]D> Vincula — Nodus. Kelim, c. xx. 7. Succa, xiii. 2.
Schab, xxxiii. 2.
3 1 Sam. xv. 32. 4 Acts, xxvi. 29.

THE STARS IN JOB. 249
" Canst thou open the prison of Chesil," /. e. Canst
thou frame the constellation, which commemorates
his release from the Ark ? If Chesil be Orion, that
release is shown by his issuing forth from Eridanus,
the emblem ofthe deluge, which is called by some
astronomers the river of Orion. l But it has been
already shown, that it was a name for any remark
able stars, or groups of stars, and the first post-
diluvians multiplied their sidereal signs of deliver
ance without regard to system ; and therefore,
though Dr. Hales was wrong in attributing to the
Idumaeans or Egyptians of that age any exactness
of science or observation, yet on other grounds he
was not perhaps, far from the mark, in assigning the
term Chesil to Scorpio. At least it has this recom
mendation, that the poet would then appear to have
selected the principal stars from the four quarters
ofthe heavens, Arcturus from the north, Canopus
from the south, the Pleiads from one extremity of
the equator, and Antares from the other : for this
is a star of the second magnitude in the sign of
Scorpio ; not, however, by any means in the middle
of it, and therefore it cannot on that account have
obtained its Arabic denomination of Kalb, which
signifies the Heart, or centre. 2 An opinion very
commonly prevailed in those days, that the moun
tain, on which the Ark grounded, must be the
1 Ptolemaeo : U.oraft.ov do-TE(icrft.oc. : aliis 'BpHavoc and noTa,«o;
'Clpiuvoc;. — Hyde in VI. Beigh, tabulas, p. 6l.
2 Kalb AI Akrab, i. e. Cor Scorpionis : vel simpliciter, Kalb, Cor.
— Hyde in VI. Beigh, p. 52.
It seemstobe derived from the Hebrew particle 3, and yj, quasi

250

THE STARS IN JOB.

centre of the earth.1 Hence among the Hindoos'
Mount Meru occupied that position, not only in their
mythology, in the circle of Ilavratta, but even in
their geography. In the Vidalaya school at Be
nares, an astronomical lecturer exhibited to Bishop
Heber a terrestrial globe elevated to the meridian
of that place.2 Mount Meru he identified with the
north pole, and under the southern pole he sup
posed the tortoise Chukwa to stand, on which the
earth rests. Hence, too, Mount Parnassus, on which
Deucalion was said to have landed, obtained the
same reputation3; and Plutarch reports a tradition,
that the fact was determined by some birds, which,
flying from the different extremities of the earth at
the same time, met together there.4 If the critics
had attended to this fact, they would have been
less puzzled by a passage in Pausanias, who de
scribes a very ancient temple of Hercules at Ery-
thrae, in which the object of veneration had no
counterpart any where, except on the Egyptian
monuments 5 ; that is to say, it must have been a

1 If Kalb were that central mountain, which was perpetually
represented by pyramids, and cones, and obelisks, it is easy to see
its connection with the Scorpion. TKopmoc. enim Graecis dicitur
quicquid in metam ac conum fastigiatum est. Hence, too, we see
the connection between the Dii Termini, and Druidical stones • and
even the conical mounds, raised expressly to separate lands, had in
their name a mythical allusion. Monticelli ex lapide congesto qui
pro terminis erigebantur, ab auctoribus de agris limitandis vocantur
Scorpiones. — Martinii Lexicon Philologicum.
2 Life and Correspondence of Heber, i. 390.
3 '¥.KaXEtrav r^e, yvjc oftfaXov — Strabo, 1. ix.
Delphos — umbilicum orbis terrarum. — Liv. 1. xxxviii
4 De defectu oraculorum, s. i. Op. v. 4.
5 E%e8/« yap %vXwv.

THE STARS IN JOB. 251
Baris ; for it was the ship in which he sailed from
Phoenicia. The nature of this voyage seems to
have been totally forgotten ; but tradition preserved
the fact, that he had reached Hera ', i. e. Ararat,
which was called Mesate, because it was supposed
to be the middle of the world. In one sense, there
fore, Pliny was not wrong in asserting that it was a
desert island. The story of a competition between
Chios and Erythraa for the possession of this relic,
is evidence that it had a sacred character in their
eyes ; and the supposed difficulty of drawing it out
of the water without the assistance of a cord formed
from the hair of the Thracian women, is no more
than an ungracious acknowledgment of their mas
ters, that they were indebted to their female slaves
for instruction in Arkite rites. A cord was cer
tainly associated in some way with the idea of
opening, as well as of confining. The terms for it,
both in Greek and in Chaldee, are . derived from
a root which signifies to open. 2 Perhaps the door
of the Ark was opened by the action of a rope.
In the Mexican calendar, the month, which the
Latins consecrated to the key-bearing Janus as the
opener of the year, was represented by a cord 3,
and a hand pulling it. The Thracian women, too,
1 Sylburgius proposes without any authority to read Aera. Certe,
says he, Junonis nomen parum hue videtur quadrare. Pausanias
suggests, that it was called Mwanj, because it was halfway between
Chios and the Erythraean harbour. — Achaica, p. 534.
2 iTViV Solvit- Passionei Lexicon, which is evidently connected
T T
with frfVty Ch- Catena, and the Greek 2E:pa.
3 Cullen's Mexico. Titell is the name of the month.

252 THE STARS IN JOB.
were probably from Samothrace, where, on account
of its insular situation, the memory of the deluge,
and the Cabiri or great men, who survived it, was
long preserved.1 Even Egypt had this ambition
to be centrical. She thought herself intitled to thajt
privilege on account of her annual inundations, as ::.
being peculiarly the region of the flood ; and to '•
make her title more complete, she built those
mimic mountains, the pyramids. An Egyptian
writer observes, that his country, being the middle
of the earth, like the pupil of the eye, is the only
one that has a summer inundation.2 If, then,
Kalb signified that central point, from which the
earth was repeopled, it might be expected that the
rest of the constellation, and perhaps some of the
adjoining asterisms would have reference to the
same great transaction. Now, if we examine the
groupings of the celestial sphere in that quarter of
the heavens, we shall find the figure of a man
treading upon Scorpio, in whom it is impossible

1 See Faber on the Cabiri.
2 Horus Apollo, translated out of Egyptian, by Philippus.
Clarke says, that at Se'l Hajar, which he takes for Sais, he came
to an immense quadrangular inclosure, nearly a mile wide, formed
by mounds of earth, so lofty as to be visible from the river, and
which from the irregularity of their appearance might be taken for
natural eminences. In the centre another conical heap supported
the ruins of some building, the original form of which cannot now
be ascertained. The water of the river had obtained access to this
inclosure, so as to form a small lake round the conical heap of ruins
in the middle of the area. — • Travels, v. 288. At this day it is a
common opinion in Egypt, that the ocean which surrounds the earth is
encompassed by a chain of mountains called Ckaf. — Lane's Modern
Egypt, i. 281. The central hill, therefore, in the middle of the inun
dation surrounded by mountains, was Ararat.

THE STARS IN JOB. 253
not to recognise the Orion of Grecian fable. For
he is said to have been slain by a scorpion, for the
violence which he offered to Diana1 ; and the
Kelb or dog at the heels of Orion is only a cor
rupt version of the Kalb near the heel of Serpen-
tarius. A similar blunder has introduced a dog:
into the shoulder of this figure.2 Orion's uplifted
club, which the poets have turned into a sword,
was near his shoulder ; but when the first astro
nomers altered the name, and made a different
arrangement of the figure, and gave a different
employment to his hands, the star retained the
name of Kulab, though the club itself was with
drawn. 3 If, then, Kuleb, or Kulba, which is
the same thing, were really the name at first, and
it has since been metamorphosed into Kelb, there
is another remarkable agreement between the two
asterisms. Both Kulba and Kesil signify a fool.4
It is not easy to account for the acquisition of this
sense ; but perhaps the Shemitic families thus sig
nified their contempt for Ham, when they found
that his descendants had elevated him to the rank
of the patriarch of the deluge, to the exclusion of
his father. Hence he was regarded both as father
and as son ; and Osiris may be taken for either.
1 Palaephatus, de Incredib. v.
2 Stella secunda (in humero) appellate Kelb al Rai, i. e. canis
pastoris. — Hyde in VI Beigh, tabulas, p. 30.
3 Dr. Sharpe observes that in Flamstead's Catalogue, and in Pto
lemy's, two stars are assigned to the Club of Orion, which Boyer
calls his Clava. ^70, Ch. Clava ^SDj Heb. canis.
i And this is equally the case whether it be written with a Kaph
or with a Koph.

254 THE STARS IN JOB.
For, in Cornish Celtic, Sira retained the meaning
of Father ', and it is still preserved in the French
and English Sire. Be this as it may, if Serpen-
tarius was originally Orion, before astronomers in
troduced their bill of reform among the stars, it
might be expected, that as now he is seen stepping
out of Eridanus, so then some emblem of the
deluge would not be wanting. Now the Scorpion
answered this purpose in three particulars : 1st, it
was a noxious animal ; 2dly, one species of it was
deemed aquatic ; and 3dly, the form of the claws
was sufficiently semilunular to make them emblem
atic of the navis biprora. The same circumstance
recommended to notice the Bull, the Ram, the
Crab, and, in sacred hieroglyphics, the Scarabaeus.
And, in the case of Scorpio, the claws were of so
much importance, that, before the invention of
Libra, they filled its place in the Zodiac, and con
stituted one of the twelve signs.2 Mure says, "that
the Scorpion was figurative among the Egyptians
of the Typhonic influences, appears probable from
the very nature of the animal 3 ; " and therefore
the same writer concludes that Serpentarius may
be considered trampling upon the evil genius of
1 Borlase's Antiquities of Cornwall.
2 Servius on Virgil, Georg. i. 32., observes, that the Egyptians,
meaning the modern Egyptians, those, who lived after the com
pletion of their system, assert that there are twelve signs, but the
Chaldeeans only eleven ; for they make the claws of Scorpio a sign
instead of Libra, and, accordingly, Aratus, the oldest Greek author
on astronomy, never mentions Libra. It is always Chelae, the
Claws. 3 Mure on the Calendar and Zodiac of Ancient Egypt, p. 81.

THE STARS IN JOB. 255
the season. He should rather have said, of the
waters, for the sea was peculiarly Typhonic. • The
idea is the same as that which was expressed on
some Samaritan medals, on which the Assyrian
Astarte is represented treading a river under foot.
Buckingham, who mentions them in his Travels,
can see nothing in the emblem beyond an abun
dance of water on the hill of Samaria, where,
they were found.2 But Astarte had nothing to do
with water, except as she was the genius of the
Ark. The truth is, that the hill being conical,
and insulated, and full of springs, was reckoned a
fit type of Ararat, and Astarte was the female
Serpentarius trampling on the flood.
The Scorpion, however, was not originally, or at
least not the only animal, employed to chronicle
the flood by the stars of that sign. It must have
been an animal of much more considerable magni
tude, which Aratus described as the great beast
trodden under foot by Ophiuchus 3, (the Grecian
name for Serpentarius). The name, indeed, is still
applied to the sign in compliance with common
usage ; but the astronomer must have had some
1 Pythagoras ab iEgyptiis doctus mare lacrymam Saturni vocat —
sacerdotes Typhonis spumam. — Kircher. I. ii. De Institut. Hiero-
glyphicarum. The figures of Isis at Paestum grasp a serpent — emblematic per
haps of that grand catastrophe, the flood, alluded to in the fable of
Isis and Osiris, and the preservation of the species from Typhon,
the destructive power, typified in the serpent. — Trans. Asiat. Soc.
ii. 562.
2 Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, p. 409-
3 Yloa-crlv iirtSXt^Ei ftiya %-qplov diAtporEpoicn TLKopnUv. — Phcenomen.
v. lxxxiii.

256 THE STARS IN JOB.
other image in his mind ; for he could not think,
that even the licence of poetry would justify such
an abuse of language, in describing a creature
which is considered of very formidable size, if it
reaches the length of one foot. Now on the
quadrangular zodiac of Denderah, the scorpion is
accompanied by the Hippopotamus, which, as
Mure observes, was the familiar emblem of Typhon1,
and is himself represented with the tail of a scor
pion. On him, then, the title of a great beast was
well bestowed ; and there can be no better proof,
that the nomenclature of the stars, was, till a period
much later than that of which we are treating, in
an unsettled state, and that he who takes for granted,
that they were mapped out then with the same
distinctness as now they are, will involve himself
in many difficulties and errors. On the Zodiacs of
Esne, says the same writer, some signs are omitted,
others repeated, and the whole appear under so
many varieties of form and position, as to suggest
rather the idea of astrological enigmas, than Zodi
acs : on that of Denderah 2, he concludes that the
symbols are signs of the zodiac, although the ir
regularity of their arrangement bears little or no
reference to the corresponding seasons ; and this
1 On the Calendar andZodiac of Ancient Egypt, p. 81.
2 P. 63. M. Visconti endeavours to prove, in the second edition
of the translation of Herodotus by M. Larcher, ii. 567., that the
two Zodiacs of Tentyra or Dendera cannot be more ancient than
the Ptolemies ; but inclines to place them between the 12th and
1 32d years of our aera. — Etudes de I'Histoire Ancienne, par P. C.
Levesque, i. 272. Wilkinson makes them about 1800 years old.
No zodiacs in the most ancient temples. — Thebes, 403.

THE STARS IN JOB. 257
circumstance leads him to infer some mysterious
signification. The mystery, however, is not of very
difficult solution : the symbols belong to the Arkite
worship. There is Isis, and there is a bull, with
horns studiously imitative of the crescent, and
very unlike him of the zodiac ; and there is the
crocodile, the shape which Typhon assumed in his
flight ', crouching and dying from a mortal thrust
inflicted by the genius of the ark ; and there is the
lion, which was the sign of the month Epiphi,
which has been identified by Champollion with
Apophis 2, the great serpent of the waters, the
personification of Typhon 3 ; and there is the
scorpion, and the Phoca, or sea monster, and the
water jar of Canopus, and the Hippopotamus, which
was another form of Typhon 4, a form which the
Egyptians used to impress upon the cakes used in
sacrifice on the day when they celebrated the
arrival of Isis in Egypt, i. e. of her rites. On this
occasion the animal was represented bound 5 ;
which is only another mode of signifying, that the
evil genius of the flood was conquered. Virgil
speaks of the Pleiads flying into the wintry ocean
from the sight of some aquatic monster, which he
calls a fish 6: but the sign which rises when they
1 Plutarch. De Isid. et Osir. c. 50.
2 Champol. Pre'cis du Syst. Hie'rogl. 111. 113.
3 Jablonski Panth. 1. v. c. 2. Mure, 130.
4 Plutarch. De Is. et Osir. TvtySvoc. dyaX/Aa "mtov icordfuov,
c. 50. 5 Ibid.
6 Sidus fugiens ubi piscis aquosi,
Tristior hybemas ccelo descendit in undas. — Georgie. iv. 234.
VOL. I. S

258 THE STARS IN JOB.
set is the Scorpion. A commentator suggests, that
he must have meant Hydra, the water serpent ;
and so he may : but not in the position which it
occupies at present. For there could be no reason
why the Pleiads should take a sudden antipathy to
a constellation, which had been following them
quietly all along at the moderate distance of fifty
degrees. But the poet might very well describe
one star as flying from another, which disappeared
from view as soon as that other rose.1 Now, it is
probable that, as the month of November obtained
its Hebrew denomination, Chisleu, from the rising
of Chesil, so the Egyptians gave it the name of
Paophi, because the Ophis, or serpent,' rose at that
season : it was the month of the Agathodaemon,
or sacred snake ; for Pa, or Pha, prefixed to a
Coptic word, conveys to it a signification of pro
perty.2 It is possible, therefore, that the Arkite
priests may have given different names to the
symbol, on which the venerated Patriarch trod :
sometimes it was Eridanus ; sometimes a Hippo
potamus ; sometimes a scorpion, or a crocodile, or
a serpent. In an engraving of Hindoo mythology,
in Francklin's possession, two of these were called
into requisition at once. It is, indeed, a most
emphatical device.3 A naked child, i. e. the new-
1 Taipov dvaTEXXovroc. hvvei ^Kopirtoc. — Gemini Eisagoge in Pha-
nomena. And, consequently, vice versa.
2 On sait que dans la langue Copte, <fra, ou ITa, place" en tete des
mots, signifie — qui pertinet ad. — Memoires Geographiques sur
I'Egypte, par E. Quatremere, 1811.
3 Francklin on the Boudhists and Jains.

THE STARS IN JOB. 259
born man, holds in each hand a double-headed
serpent, to show that he has mastered Typhon ;
and he stands with one foot on an enormous ser
pent, and with the other on an alligator : his
pedestal is the rock of Ararat. In an Anaglyph,
copied from a pillar, formerly in the collection of
the Due de Choiseul Gouffier, a serpent is obvi
ously the representative of the flood ' ; 4-^ }
in the middle of the Baris, above the flowing
line here represented, stands a bird with a human
head: now, in the system of Phonetic hierogly
phics, a hawk, an ibis, and three other sorts of
birds, are constantly employed for the first letter
in the alphabet.2 Is it, then, too much to suppose
that the bird with a human head signified the first
man, or, at the least, him who was so regarded by
the Egyptians ? It follows, too, from this discovery,
that Hieracion, though under a different mask, was
the same personage as Thoth ; for Plutarch must
have been mistaken in his assertion, that the Egyp
tians consecrated the first place in the alphabet to
the Ibis, because it belonged to Hermes 3, unless it
could be shown that the other four birds belonged
to him likewise. It is plain, that he has inverted
the facts. When these birds became signs for the
first letter in the alphabet, and so acquired a sense
of priority, their heads were transferred to the

1 Hieroglyphics collected by the Egyptian Society, 1823, p. 37.
2 Champollion. Lettre a M. Dacier, p. 38.
3 Plutarch. Op. ii. 738.
s 2

260 THE STARS IN JOB.
shoulders of Thoth, as the first legislator and first
astronomer ; and hence his name was given to the
first month in the year, and the first sign of the
zodiac.1 The simplicity of that primitive age had
no better means of expressing intensity of action,
than by a repetition of the same idea ; and in
Hebrew composition emphasis is conveyed by
using the same word twice over. Thus, God says
to Abraham, " In blessing I will bless thee," that
is, I will bless thee exceedingly ; " and in multiply
ing, I will multiply thy seed, as the stars of the
heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea
shore." 2 As, therefore, in the Indian drawing above
mentioned, each hand grasped a snake, and each
snake had two heads, and each foot trod on a
different symbol of the flood, so, in assigning names
to the stars, the priests were not content with one
mode of expressing the great deliverance which
they wished to record. They not only repeated

1 An astronomer of that name is commonly supposed to have
invented the Canicular, or Sothic period of 1460 years, at the end
of which the solar year of 365 1 days coincided again with the
moveable year of 365, because then Sirius rose in the morning
twilight of the 1st of Thoth. But it has been shown by Ideler,
that the period in question was not formed at its commencement in
1322 B. C, but subsequently computed backwards to that date.
The rise of Sirius was of importance to the Egyptians, because it
gave them notice of the approaching inundation ; and for that reason
was naturally associated with their traditions of the flood : but that
it had nothing to do with Osiris personally as a king or a god, is
evident from this, — it was dedicated to Isis, and had one of its names
from Thoth ; for many of the ancients assure us that it was called
by the Egyptians Sothis, or Seth ; and Toth, Seth, and Sothis are,
as Ideler says, incontestably one word. — Lehrbuch der Chronologie
von Dr. Ludwig Ideler, p. 69.
2 Genesis, xxii. 17.

THE STARS IN JOB, 26l
the same design in different quarters of the heavens,
as in the case of the double Orion, the double
Sirius, the double Pisces, the double Gemini, and
the more than double Hydra, but sometimes they
gave a compound force to their devices. Thus
Serpentarius obtained the name of Ophiuchus, be
cause he was seen not only trampling on the dilu
vian symbol, but untwisting with his hands the
folds of the Typhonic serpent, who had twined
around his waist. This emblem of the evil spirit,
who resided in the deep \ fastening himself round
the earth, or the diluvian mountain, is of very
common occurrence in Egyptian and Hindoo
mythology.2 The serpent Asootee, or Typhon, is
frequently seen enfolding the globe, or a rocky
pinnacle. But the most remarkable instance of it is to be
found in the story of Vishnu's incarnation as a tor
toise. For the mountain Minder havingsunkintothe
ocean by its weight, the Dewtahs, it is said, could
not recover it till the God appeared, in the form of
a tortoise, and raised it upon his back.3 The mean
ing of the tortoise is best illustrated by the Chinese
1 Ksempfer says, the Japanese believe that the dragon dwells at
the bottom of the sea, as its proper element ; and Isaiah alludes to
this superstition, when speaking of the power of Satan to be broken
by Christ, he says, " In that day the Lord shall punish Leviathan
— he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea," xxvii. 1.
2 See instances in Faber's Pagan Idolatry, and Deane on the
worship of the Serpent. A Tyrian Medal, in Maurice's Indian
Antiquities, shows a serpent twined round a Petra ambrosia, with a
sea shell by the side, vi. No. 5.
3 Ayeen Akbery, ii. 497. Minder is here written for Mandara,
and Kowrum Owtar for Kurmavatara.

262 THE STARS IN JOB.
tradition, that a tortoise first taught letters to man
kind ' ; and lest there should be any doubt to what
era this teacher of mankind is to be referred, the
tradition goes on to say, that their famous flying
dragon sprang from him.2 Now the dragon, by one
of those strange jumbles of good and evil which
perpetually recur in mythology, has been converted
by the Chinese into the preserving power, and is,
in fact, the same as the snake in the Sri Bhagavata
made by Krishna, to save him from destruction by
receiving him and his into its capacious mouth.3
For even at the present day a dragon, with a ser
pent's tail, is the form of a Chinese vehicle used on
those occasions which are most retentive of mythic
usages. A bridegroom seated in a car of this de
scription, the hollow body of a green dragon with
hideous head and gaping jaws, is borne on the
shoulders of several men.4 The tortoise, then, was
the deity of the flood : but the inventors of this
device were not contented with making him bear
up the mountain above the waters ; for the same
Vishnu appears also seated on its top in human
form, which shows how entirely idolatry had con-

1 Kircher's China Illustrata.
2 The genius of the watery element is denominated, in China,
the Black Dragon, Davis's Chinese, i. 397-, and therefore is
the good genius of the flood; but in Hindoo mythology, the
Kalinaya, or Black Dragon, is more usually the evil genius, and is
said to have been slain by Crishna and by Heri in the waters of
Yamuna, or of Ham  Trans. As. Soc. ii. 311.
3 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, plate 64.
4 Tierman and Bennett's Journal of Voyages in the South Sea,
ii. 278.

THE STARS IN JOB. 263
founded the God ofthe Patriarch with the Patriarch
himself. But let us proceed to enquire what was
going on, while the mountain was thus safe under
the guardianship of the preserving power : the sea
is violently agitated by the conflict of the gods and
daemons ; for both parties are pulling the diluvian
monster in opposite directions. This is called the
churning of the ocean; but neither have they
quite lost sight of the fact, that good and evil were
both instrumental to the catastrophe ; for the ser
pent is twisted round the neck of the mountain,
like the bow-string in the hands of Turkish exe
cutioners; and the poor world would have little
chance of escaping from destruction, did we not
discover again Vishnu, the Preserver, not only above
and below the mountain, but also on one side en
gaged among the gods in their double work. He
wears on his head a three-peaked tiara; while of his
coadjutors one has three faces, and the other a
crescent on his forehead, and a rainbow at his back ;
all so many allusions to the threefold parents ofthe
human race. In like manner at Permuttum, where
Mallecarjee, i.e. Melee Argha, the king of the Ark,
is adored in the figure of a rude stone, one of the
groups sculptured on the outside of the temple is
thus described : several people are pulling at the
head and tail of a great snake, which is twisted
round a lingam.1 There can be no manner of doubt
that the lingam here is the mountain Mandara, al-
1 As. Res. v. 304.
S 4

264 THE STARS IN JOB.
though the gross metaphysics of the Hindoos have
given it a very different meaning.1 Little, indeed,
did they adhere to the primitive use of the symbols
which were handed down to them by their fore
fathers ; and many of the traditions which they re
peated they did not understand. Thus, in enumer
ating the jewels, as they are termed, ofthe deluge,
which are all delineated in the same drawing, the
ship or ark, though sufficiently conspicuous, is omit
ted altogether ; and, on the other hand, two females
are introduced, one of whom is Rhemba, the Venus
Anadyomene of the Hindoos, seated on a lotus, as
she is described in the Ramayana ; but the other
no where appears 2 : her name, however, will ac
count for her not having a female form. Sri is a term
applied both to Ceres, i. e. Isis 3, and to Parvati,
the mountain-born goddess. She is, therefore, the
same as Siri or Sirius in Egypt ; the place of con
finement; the great ship; and in no other way
can the description be made consistent with the
picture. The whole of the fourteen products of the
deluge may be thus explained ; the male and fe
male figures are the patriarch and his wife : the
eight-headed horse represents the total number of
1 Ipsa quoque vulgaris superstitio communis idololatries, cum in
simulacris de nominibus et fabulis veterum mortuorum pudet, ad
interpretationem naturalem refugit, et dedecus suum ingenio adumbrat,
figurans Jovem in substantiam fervidam, &c. — Tertull. con.
Marcion, 1. i. c. 13.
2 Moor's H. P. 183.
3 Ceres is Isis — Isis is Io — Io is the moon — the moon is the
Ark. These identities have been already made out.

THE STARS IN JOB. 265
the preserved family. The ship is the ark: the
circle, the moon, the sea-shell, and the horns of
the cow or bull are well-known emblems of Arkite
worship. The elephant is Ganesa \ the Janus of
the Romans ; perhaps one of the sons of Noah :
for Fil, in Ethiopian, signifies an elephant ; but it is
also probably the root of Filius, a son. The Bow
is undoubtedly the rainbow. 2 Wine was the in
vention of Noah. The tree, the poison, and the
Amrita, or beverage of immortality, point to ear
lier traditions, which are only referred to the
deluge by confounding the second with the first
origin of mankind. They seem to record the
trees planted in the garden of Eden, the tree of life,
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The Persian zodiac offers another clue for the ex
plication of Ophiuchus.3 There, the figure repre
senting the planet Saturn holds also in his hand a
serpent. Now of Saturn, whose very name im
plies his concealment in the ark4, and who was
1 He was the God who presided over the beginning of all under
takings, and the first libations of wine and wheat were offered to him.
These, and many other coincidences, serve to establish the identity of
Janus and Ganesa as initial deities. The final letter of the Hindoo
name is seldom used in conversation. — Moor's Hindoo Pantheon,
p. 173. In the Ganesa of the Hindoos, we discover the Janus of
the Romans : the god of wisdom in both. — Crawford's Researches
into the Laws and Theology of India. The sounds of G and J are
interchangeable. — Jaffa is written by Volney, Yaffa, and by Ben
jamin of Tudela, Gapha ; so Kelembe is written by Thevenot,
Djelembe. 2 The Iris is called the bow of Indra in the Institutes of Menu,
c. 4. v. 59-
3 A painting in the Debistaun, in Sir J. Malcolm's History of
Persia. 4 From -|]~ID latuit. Hence Italy, which was the land of Saturn,

Q66 THE STARS IN JOB.
fabled by the mythologists to have been confined,
or bound, till the close of the year ], when his fes
tival was a signal for the relaxation of all ties,
and even the bonds of slavery were loosed, and
the slave placed on the same footing with his
master 2 : of him, Bochart says, it is almost out of
question, that he was the patriarch Noah.3 It has
been shown before, that the form of the Caduceus 4
borne by Mercury was a sort of Egyptian ana
glyph representing the Baris floating on the surface
of the deluged globe ; but that was not the only
inuendo of the mystery. Its value was enhanced
by complexity ; and its relation to the same event
might be viewed in another light. If the Ca
duceus destroyed repose, it also gave it5; it was
the signal of peace and safety, and the bearer of it
claimed to be secure from violence : hence the
Privernates are said to have carried it before them

was also called* Latium. Dicta fuit Latium terra latente Deo. Ov.
Fast. 1. The Germans worshipped him by the name of Seatur ;
and Verstegan describes him as standing on a fish. — See Bryant's
Analysis. 1 Apollodorus says, " Saturnum alligari per annum laneo vinculo,
et solvi ad diem sibi festum."
2 In Saturnalibus exaequato omnium jure passim in conviviis servi
cum dominis recumbunt. — Justin, lib. xliii.
3 Noam esse Saturnum tarn multa docent, ut vix sit dubitandi locus.
Bochart. Geograph. Sacra, lib. i. c. 1. Vossius is of the same opinion.
— De Orig. et Progr. Idololatrice, p. 118.;
4 Salmasius supposes that Caduceus is derived from KapiKEiov : if
so, the original root is probably the same from which come the
Chaldee Qip>")3 (Carcom), Propugnaculum, and I'lDIp")!? (Car-
comin), Catenae, Naves. — Castell.
8 Dat somnos, adimitque  Virg. Mn. iv. 244.

THE STARS IN JOB. 267
when they surrendered to the Consul Plautius.1
For this character of the Caduceus no probable
reason has ever been assigned ; but by recurring
to first principles we may account for it sufficiently.
The lower part of the figure displayed the evil
principle embracing and fastening itself round the
pole, like the Hindoo serpent round the moun
tain 2 ; and in the upper portion, the separation of
the serpents' heads imported the opening of that
closely-twisted coil, the giving of freedom to those
confined within the inclosure of the ark, the un
tying of the knot, which was called the knot of
Hercules 3 ; for to undo this knot was equivalent
to untwisting the close embraces of the serpent,
and to that loosening of the bands of Orion, which
is spoken of in the book of Job.
1 Lib. viii. c. 20. Caduceum enim gestantes ab omni violentia tuti
erant. Quippe cum pacis insigne esset apud Graecos. — Varior.
not. 2 The king of the assurs or demons, was also, in Hindoo my
thology, the prince of the nagas, or snakes, who reigned in Patala,
below the waters. In the Siamese representations of the ten states
of the existence of Buddha previous to his last appearance, Rajah
Naga is represented climbing up, or twisting round a pyramid of
earth, emblematical of Siva. — Trans. Asiat. So. iii. 97-
3 Herculanus nodus. 'HpaKXeiorriKov dftft-a, vel ypaKXtioc, SEo-^of,
qui in congressu serpentum spectatur, ex matris magna? mysteriis
Celebris et sacer habitus est, et in caduceum Mercurii translatus. —
Jacob. Nicol. Loens, Epiphyll. lib. v. c. 13.

268

CHAP. X.

HERCULES. — BELUS. — BALI. — BALISWARA. — HINDOO
AND GRECIAN MYTHS CONCERNING HIM.  HIS CLUB
AND LION'S SKIN.  COINCIDES WITH OSIRIS.  HIS
TOMB AT PHILE. — VOYAGE OF HIS SON TO PEKGAMUS.
 EXPLANATION OF IT.  WHY FROM ARCADIA. 
DEUCALION, HOW FAR HISTORICAL. — HIS DELUGE NOT
TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY THE BURSTING OF THE
EUXINE.  THE CUP OF HERCULES.  THE CUP OF
THETIS.  SIMILAR MYTHS OF ACHILLES.  THE MEAN
ING OF HYLAS CALLED HIS SON, AND OF HIS ARROWS
GIVEN TO PHILOCTETES, AND OF THE TROJAN WAR.
The next inquiry therefore is, who was Her
cules ? Voltaire observes that, since every nation
had its Bacchus and Hercules, they must have
existed ; but he professes himself utterly at a loss
to fix within several centuries, the time when they
lived.1 The very circumstance, that they were
claimed by such various people, should have taught
1 Tant de nations en parlent, — on a cele'bre tant d'Hercules et
tant de Bacchus diflerents, qu'on peut supposer qu'en eftet il y a eu
un Bacchus, ainsi qu'un Hercule. — Nouveaux Melanges, v. i. Je
suis si ignorant, que je ne sais pas meme les faits anciens dont on
me berce ; je crains toujours de me tromper de sept a huit cent
annees au moins; quand je recherche en quel terns sont vecu ces
antiques he"ros, qu'on dit avoir exerce les premiers le vol, et le bri
gandage dans une grande etendue de pays, et ces premiers sages qui
adorerent des etoiles, ou des poissons, ou des serpents, ou des morts,
en quel tems vivait le premier Bacchus, ou le premier Hercule. —
Ibid. vol. iv.

OF HERCULES. 269
him to look to the common ancestor of all. By
Manetho he is numbered among the deities before
the commencement of the first Egyptian dynasty.
By Sanchoniatho he is commemorated as the Me-
licarthus l of the Phoenicians, who also called him
Archies.2 An author well versed in both the
Celtic and the Oriental languages, and therefore a
competent judge of their affinity, has suggested
that the etymology of one of these names was
Aireac Aoul Ess, Primus rex navis, and of the
other, Melee Aorth, or Arthrac, king of the ship. 3
Aurth, says he, was the Armenian name of Ararat ;
and accordingly, among the ruins of Luxore in
Egypt, Hercules is figured in a boat, which eigh
teen men bear upon their shoulders.4 But not
only was he claimed by Egyptians, Phoenicians,
Greeks, and Celts ; he was also a Scythian 5, and a
Zealander 6, and, in short, no less than forty-three
of that name have been reckoned up.7 In India,
the ancients recognised him under the name of
1 MEXKapBoc o Kal 'HpaKXrjc, says his translator, Philo Byblius apud
Euseb. 2 Africus and Eusebius (?) prove that the Carthaginian name of
Hercules was Archies. — Beauford's Druidism revived, p. 289.
3 Vallancey's Collectanea, vol. iv. — Introd. 26.
Bochart supposes it to be Melee Cartha, whence Melicerta.
Beauford proposes Mil Cathair, with the same meaning, Lord of the
city ; but this is far too local and puny. If he was Milcathair at
all, it was Melee Athair — the Royal Father.
4 Wilford in As. Res. vol. iii.
5 Ne voila-t-il pas encore Hercule dans Scythie  Bailly's Lett.
sur I'Atlantide, p. 309-
6 Gallaeus contends that the Hercules Magusanus of Zealand is
from WJQ transvehentes.
7 Cicero de Nat. Deor. lib. iii.

270 OE HERCULES.
Belus ; and since we have become more acquainted
with the traditions of that country, we find him
as Bali, occupying three of those tales which relate
to the human character of Vishnou ', whom the
Balinese themselves consider as the God of the
waters.2 Bala Rama is represented with a club,
and sometimes with a lion's skin 8 ; and as Bala
signifies strength, so it has been thought that his
statues resemble those of the Theban Hercules.
Maha Beli4, acknowledged to be a virtuous
monarch, and to have power over heaven and earth
and hell, is represented pouring the water of the
Ganges, i. e. of the flood, upon the hand of Vish
nu, and the head of Siva. Now Siva, who must
be the same as the Egyptian Sevek with the cro
codile's head, was born again under the character
of Baleswara, or Iswara the infant5, and he is

1 Coleman's Mythology of the Hindoos, p. 349-
2 Sir Stamford Raffles mentions four gods worshipped in Bali ;
the first of whom is Bitara Guru, which seems to be the great
mountain preceptor; for the Battas speaks of him as a great navigator,
and own that he was created; then follow Brahma, Wisnu, and
Siwa ; but Wisnu is the spirit of water.
3 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 194.
4 The name of Beli is also found in Celtic mythology. Maes
Beli is the field of Beli, near Caer Conan in Yorkshire, where the
Saxons under Hengist were defeated by Ambrosius, the Roaring
Beli. — Davies, p. 352.
This name is written Bolee by Mr. Wilkins. — As. Res. vol. i. ;
so that he must be the person whom the pilgrims to the Ganges
and the water carriers combine with Siva, when they call out in a
deep tone, as described by Heber, " Mahadeo B61 B61 B61." — Me
moirs, ii. 132.
6 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 389.
Siva, who, in his infancy, was Heri, and slew the serpent or
Hydra in the black waters of the Yamuna, is said to have had four
brothers, who, however, were only himself repeated under different

OF HERCULES. 271
usually drawn with serpents twisted round him.
Thus, too, Hercules was an infant when he con
quered the serpents, that came to destroy him.
Champollion describes Sevek as the most terrible
form of Ammon : in like manner, Siva is the most
terrible form of the Hindoo Trimurti, which is
sufficiently testified by his rosary of skulls.1 Of
the three figures, therefore, introduced in this
Avatar, one is the Patriarch historically ; the others
are mythologically related to him, as the deity of
the flood, his preserving power, and his destroying
power ; of which the former, on the present occa
sion, is significantly delineated as a dwarf; but yet
through his hands alone is full power imparted to
the agent of destruction. I entirely set aside the
puerile explanations of a later age, invented by the
Brahmins. The designs themselves were doubtless
far more ancient ; and if any one doubts the truth
of such allegorical allusions to the deluge, in the
earliest specimens of Indian art, let him consult
the 18th plate in Moor's Pantheon. There Siva,
otherwise called Mahadeva, i. e. the greatest of

names, for all had the same wife, Drupdevi ; the first, was Yudishtra ;
the second, Arguna, famous for his bow : the thirds Baldeva, the God of
strength, distinguished by his club ; and the fourth, Bhima, whose
name is borne by the multitudinous uninscribed columns scattered
over India. They are termed Bhim-ca-sula, and Bhim-ca-tir, the
pillars or arrows of Bhim ; also Taila-ca-lath, the oilman's staff,
from the custom of pouring oil upon them : these were so many
pillars of Hercules. — Trans. As. Soc. vol. iii.
1 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 187.
Borlase suggests, that Hercules is derived from the Corno-Celtie
word Erchyll, dreadful.

272 OF HERCULES.
those "mere mortals, who were deified in con
sequence of their eminent virtues V is shown with
a pensive countenance in an inclosure, meditating
on the deluge. His wife offers him a cup of Am-
rita, or Ambrosia, to cheer him ; and for the same
purpose, the celestial band prepare to tune their
instruments of music. His trident, the symbol of
preservation 2, has fallen to the ground ; the waters
of the diluvian Ganges are rushing from their lofty
source, and the Bull Nandi, i. e. the Ark, is half
immersed in water ; for the same word in Chaldee,
signifies a bull, and a ship 3, which sufficiently ac
counts for the exaltation of that animal into the
sphere. Brahma, the creator, is seen anxiously
looking around him : Vishnu, the preserver, is
hastening on his winged courier, to Mount Meru,
where the scene is laid. His doubly threefold son,
is in an attitude of supplication, as well as some
Brahmins at a distance ; a three-headed serpent is
twisted round his waist, and the jet of water from
his hair has a serpent's head. In the background
stands Ganesa, or Janus, with his elephant's head,
of which some account has been already given ;
but Captain Wilford throws much light upon it,
where he observes, that the mountain of the

1 Wilford. As. Res. iii. 374.
2 Virgil makes Neptune use his trident for the deliverance of the
Trojan fleet. And though he also calls it seevum tridentem, per
haps that is only a paronomasia from its being the instrument of
Siva, the terrible.
3 Alpha or Alphi. Alpha was also the Phoenician name of Her
cules. — Vallancey's Vindic. of His\. of Ireland, p. 60.

OF HERCULES. 273
Elephant is famous all over the western parts of
India for its holiness ' : its name is Bal, Bil, or Pil,
which, in Persian, is an elephant. The deity of the
place is called Bal Nath. It is evident, therefore,
that a mere play upon words has given the idol his
grotesque mask. Bal Nath is the same as Bal Ram,
a terrestrial appearance of Siva, the description of
whom in one of the Puranas is, that he came to
combat and destroy the Daemons, riding on a bull
with a trident in his hand, a vast serpent for a ring,
and a crescent for a gem. He has the title of Giri
Iswara, or, Lord of the Mountains ; and his wife
Parvati is so called from Parvat, or Parbat, a
mountain.2 Pausanias mentions a marriage between
Hercules and Auge, which is evidently a translation
from Prabha, a title of Parvati 3 ; to whom Siva was
united, and equally signifying light. But it may
be questioned, whether Prabha be not either a
wilful corruption, introduced when Sabianism ob-
1 Asiat. Res. ix. 52.
2 Colebrooke in As. Res. vii. 61. 63. 85.
3 If so, it is another mistake of the same nature, although the
natives have adopted it, to suppose that the mountain range of Coh
Suleiman, called Montes Parvetoi by Ptolemy, were so called from
Paravat, a dove, a form which Parvati is said to have assumed under
the name of Sami Rama, or Semiramis, the consort of Baleswara.
In either case, however, she is sufficiently connected with the ark ;
and the victory of her priests over the fire worshippers seems to be
implied in this fable. When the Cusha or long grass, which
covered the world, was consumed by fire, she as Anayasa (? from
Anas water, or Ani navis) ordered the clouds to gather, and pour
their waters on the land, which was soon overflowed. — As. Res.
iv. 392. and vi. 524. Hercules was also said to be married to the
sea, and to Erythra, which Vallancey derives from Arthrac, or
Arthar, the ship. — Collect, iv. Introd. xxxii. He himself was
named Erythrus, i. e. Arthruck, the Navigator. — Vind. 63.
VOL. I. T

274 OF HERCULES.
tained the ascendancy, or a mistake from similarity
of sound for Parbat, the final consonant being often
mute ; as in Tho, for Thoth ; and Fo from Bod.
I am much inclined to conjecture, that the original
word was Pra Bat, or Pad, and, like Sri Pad,
signified the divine foot, or the royal foot, and,
consequently, the mountain on which that foot was
impressed ; for Praw, in the language of the Bur
mese, like the Egyptian Phra, signifies a lord ; and
Herodotus mentions, that a foot of Hercules was
shown near the river Tyras, like that of Buddha
in Ceylon ; and ancient inscriptions show that, if he
was not identified with the mountain rock, he was
at least supposed to have a close connection with it :
for we have inscriptions to Hercules in Petra, and
to Herculi Saxano.1 In the drawing of another
Avatar of Vishnu, where he appears under the
name of Ballaji 2, the many-headed hydra stands
up above his head, and is wreathed around his
body, and forms a coil on which he sits, and one of
its heads is trodden under foot. His connection
with the ocean is also declared by two marine
shells, which he exhibits in his hands, and a scollop
jon which the serpent is coiled. Here there is a
great resemblance to the Hercules of the northern
sphere, who has Draco beneath his feet, and Ser
pens behind his back and above his head ; and his
other name, Miles, is deduced by Vallancey 3 from
1 Gruter's Inscriptions, i. 49-
2 Plate, 97. in Moor's H. P. sculptured in brass.
3 p[^,«, Nauta. Irish, Mellach ; Arab. Malah.

OF HERCULES. 275
Mel Ess, i.e. the Navigator of the Ship. Perhaps
the Egyptian colonists may have altered this name
to Melon •, by which name he was known at Athens,
meaning the navigator Sun ; for the Egyptians
always represented the sun on board a ship : and
hence arose the mistake of the Greeks, who never
went beyond their own language, when they paint
ed him with three Mela, or apples, in his hand.2
To the same cause may be attributed the difference
observable in the delineation of the figure in the
sphere ; for sometimes he is depicted carrying a
Ramus, a threefold branch bearing a fruit on each of
the three extremities ; at other times he grasps in his
hand a three-headed serpent, which is called Cer
berus. The body is not shown ; but may be sup
posed coiled round his body. But why is it called
Cerberus ? We may with more reason inquire, how
it ever came to be imagined that Cerberus was a
dog ; for he was said to be the progeny of two
serpents, Typhon and Echidna. A passage in
Lycophron may possibly explain it ; for many a
myth may be founded on no better basis than
some vague expressions of the earliest poets.
Hercules is there called the Lion, whom Triton's

Miles est un constellation septentrionale, qu'on connait sous le
nom d'Hercule. — Religion des Gaulois, i. 440.
Miles septentrionalis est notior sub Herculis nomine. — Jerom.
i. 672.
1 Hercules was called Melon by the Thebans. — Hesych.
2 Herculem istum pingunt tria tenentem Mala. — Cedreni Annal.
Lat. Ver.
T 2

276 OF HERCULES.
rough dog once crushed within his jaws.1 Such at
least is the ordinary import of his words ; but the
old commentator Tzetzes 2 suggests a different
sense : he makes the monster only conceal the
hero, just as the mouth of the Indian serpent
became an asylum for Krishna. Now Triton being
the god of the Ocean, another name for Neptune,
his dog, or the monster supposed to follow him as
a dog, must be a marine animal ; and since we are
compelled to look for an allegory here, because
it is not pretended by any biographer of Hercules,
that either of these events literally befel him, why
may it not be, " the dragon that is in the sea, the
crooked or twisted serpent," who is also called by
TpiEtritipov Xkovroc, ov icote yvdBoic.
Tpiroivoc. 'qftdXa^is Kapxapoc kvoiv. Cassandra, 33.
2 The explanation of Tzetzes is, ixpvipE. With respect to Triton,
Phornutus (De Natura Deorum) observes, that it is a name of Posei
don, or Neptune, when he is represented half man, half Cetus, that is,
like Dagon. Kapxaplac dicitur canis marinus, and Xapxapkot xvvec
iidem qui et -/.dpxapoi. — Scapula Lexicon. Now this Carcharus is
not a word in common use, and has all the appearance of being
a foreigner naturalised by the addition of a Greek termination:
an Arabic etymology has been already suggested (p. 156.) ; but
should that be rejected, since the retailers of religious mysteries
loved to deal in equivocal terms and double senses, it is not unrea
sonable to suppose, that the original word is the Hebrew "pip,
which in Numb. xxiv. 17. signifies to destroy — vastavit, destrux-
it. Ita (says Castell) recentiores Hebrsei omnes ineptissime. Rec-
tius Onk., dominatus est. From whence I infer, that Carcarus
signified either a Destroyer, or a Conqueror. Kvoiv, too, had a double
sense ; for the same word was sometimes spelt with a k, or a x,
indiscriminately": as for instance, this Carcarus. Kvav, then, was
praegnans ; x^av torrens, from %uo), the form of %eo>, from which
KvjAa, a wave, is derived. The combination of these words, then,
might mean either a destructive torrent, corresponding to Typhon,
or the victorious mother, i. e. the Ark, which, whether viewed alone,
or between the peaks of Ararat, was usually represented like Cer
berus, rpiKap-qvoc., three-cairned.

OF HERCULES. 277
Isaiah Bariach, or the serpent of the Baris ? Our
translators have rendered it, Piercing, with no
sufficient reason that I can perceive ; but their
marginal reading is, " Crossing like a bar." It
might be better to say, Crossing the axis of the
earth, just as the three-headed serpent of the
Hindoos crosses the mountain Mandara ; for Be-
riach is the axis in Chaldee.
It was a vulgar error, therefore, originating in
some such expression as that which Lycophron has
here repeated, to imagine that Cerberus was a dog.
Hesiod has given him a brother, who is evidently
only a duplicate of himself — Orthus being from
Aurth, Ararat ; for he was the dog of the three-
headed Geryon, who carried in one hand a cone1,
which was a similar emblem ; but the rest of the
family have preserved their genuine character —
the Lernaaan Hydra, the Dragon of the Hespe-
rides, and Chimaera with a serpent's tail and lion's
head. All these had the same origin, and accordingly
they are all said to be the offspring of Typhon and
Echidna.2 The name of Cerberus may possibly be
derived from the Arabic root Ker3, a fetter or rope,
andBaris; andTibullus seems to have touched upon
the truth, when he describes him girt with a snaky
chain.4 It might be supposed that Hercules is
1 Validam torquebat tertia conum. Sil. Ital. 1. xiii.
2 Hesiodi Theogonia, 308. et quae seq.
3 This root has been retained in the Chaldee Korka, vinculum,
and in the Latin Career.
4 Nee canis anguinea. redimitus terga catena. — 1. ii.
T 3

278 OF HERCULES.
called a lion1 poetically, or, like our first Richard,
on account of his courage, were it not that the
lion's skin, which is an almost invariable Appendage
of his effigies, indicates an under-current of some
less obvious mystery ; for the story ofthe Nemsean
lion may be set aside as a foolish fiction. Consider
it as a matter of history, and it has been already
shown, there must have been many heroes of
that name, and certainly the Nemaean lion could
not have been slain by all of them. Hence Ce-
drenus was satisfied that it was emblematic of some
thing ; but his explanation is ludicrous enough.
He discovers that all the emblems prove what an
excellent person he was. His club was the philo
sophy, by which he conquered the arguments 2 of
many an evil desire ; the lion's skin was a symbol
of his generosity3; and the three fruits in his hand
intimated that he was neither irascible4, nor sensual,

1 It is usually supposed, that he is called Triesperus in allusion
to the absurd- story of Alcmena. It is more probable, that the story
was invented to account for the meaning of this title, which was
forgotten by those who used a different language. The Chaldaean
tradition, quoted from Berosus and Abydenus, by Josephus contra
Apion. 1. i. and Antiq. Jud. i. 4., and by Eusebius, Prcep. Evan.
ix. 12., mentions a place called Sippara, in which Xisuthrus, i. e.
Noah, buried written accounts of the ancient world. They call it
the City of the Sun ; but it is manifestly the same word which after
wards became Sphaera, and probably Hesperus. Tara }fl]"|j m
Chaldee, is Vinculum, Catena. Hence the real meaning of the word
derived from the radical consonants, t, r, s, p. v. may have been
Vinculum Sphaerae ; or from ]/""|J"b rupit, the breaker of the sphere,
which is sometimes represented by a bull breaking an egg.
2 Tov itovypov Kal hoikiXov r-qe. tm9vft.lac, XoyicrftOov.
3 TsvvaTov <ppovqfAa.
4 To ' fttq opyi^EcrQai, to [atj (DiX'q^ovETv, to [Ay tpOXapyvpEiv. — Georg.
Cedren. Historiar. Compend.

OF HERCULES. 279
nor covetous. These are gratuitous assumptions, un
supported by any sort of evidence or by any sort of
verisimilitude. Besides, they are liable to the same
objection as the historical hypothesis. It is quite
incredible that the Hercules of every nation was a
sage as well as a hero, except upon the supposition,
which however seems never to have occurred to
him, that all were copies from one common original.
Even Palaephatus, who has a ready knack at ex
plaining away myths in an easy manner, was so
much perplexed by the story of Hercules bearing
leaves or branches, that he doubted whether any
individual were intended.1 It is, indeed, a circum
stance which might well puzzle one who could see
nothing in all those fables beyond this, that once
upon a time a certain man lived, whose name was
Hercules, and who occupied his whole life in killing
wild beasts and robbers — an occupation, by the
way, not very consistent with his high attainments
in philosophy. To arrive at the truth, we must pay
some attention to the other legends which relate
to him. 1st. Then he is said to have returned
from the Tasnarian cave, where the Arkites acted
their mysteries, crowned with poplar, which, Pierius
affirms, was an hieroglyphic of funereal rites, and of
religion, and of time2; i. e. Cronus, i. e. Saturn,
i. e. Noah. The tree was dedicated to him— 1 . Be-
1 'Ep' kavra tpiXXa. Collectio proverbiorum Tarraei, &c. The ex
pression is, Et Kal iSiomj; virqp%EV.
2 Funeris, temporis, ac religionis hieroglyphicum. — Hoffman.
Macrobius says, that xpovoc. and %poVo; were the same.
T 4

280 OF HERCULES.
cause its head, like his club, had the shape of a
cone ; and 2. Because it grew in water *, and espe
cially near the Eridanus, where the daughters of
Clymene (so named perhaps from Clysmus, the
deluge2) were metamorphosed into those trees after
the failure of their brother's attempt to claim the
office and honours of Apollo. The conversion of
one emblem into another is a proof that they both
relate to the same thing : therefore the club has
the same imports the poplar ; for Hercules, after
his victory over the giants, consecrated his club to
Mercurius Polygius3 (perhaps it should be Pela-
gius), and it presently became a remarkable tree.
The poplar was a convenient tree for this pur
pose, on account of the facility with which it takes
root, not, indeed, after being employed some time
in demolishing giants' heads ; but supposing it cut
down for a maypole, and planted in the earth as a
symbol of Ararat, it might readily grow again, and
its revirescence would be more remarked as a type
of the renovation of the world. It is plain that
the club had something of a sacred character, inde
pendent of the man who bore it ; for it is some
times exhibited in ancient monuments alone, or
1 Fraxinus in sylvis pulcherrima, pinus in hortis,
Populus in fluviis. Virg. Eclog. vii. 65.
2 Theophilus ad Autolycum mentions a Clymenus, who lived iv
livrkpa KaraKXva-ftS, upon which Fell remarks : Clymeni adhaesit
nomen, diro tou kXvew, scaturire. He supposes him to be Ham,
1. iii. 334.
3 Fama est, post e gigantibus victoriam Herculem suam clavam
Mercurio, cognomento Polygio, consecrasse : it became an insignis
arbor. — Natalis Comes, 1. vii.

OF HERCULES. 281
with the adjunct of other mysterious symbols.
One medal, for instance, has the club as a conical
pillar, with a caduceus upon it.1 Sometimes the
same medal represents the pillar alone, and on the
other side a man leaning on it, as in the coins of
Cyprus, where it is moreover connected with the
diluvian crescent.2 On a coin of Perdiccas, the
club is exactly like the Indian representation of the
mountain Mandara ; and accordingly when the
Hindoos delineate the infant Hercules grasping in
each hand a serpent 3, his back is with far greater
accuracy supported by a black stone pillar.4 On a
frieze of black basalt from Egypt, in the British
Museum, votaries are seen kneeling in adoration,
who hold in their hands, not clubs, but certain
conical forms or pillars, with the summit either
quite pointed /\, or rounded, [[ Q.5 This is
what in India is erroneously called a Lingam, to
which offerings are still made by the Hindoos in
their sacred caverns, without any sensual ideas or
impure emotions.6 In the sanctuaries at Canara in
Salsette, near Bombay, this emblem is displayed in
a conical form, just as Mount Meru is generally

1 Montfaucon, ii. 225.
2 Ludov. Nonnii Comment, in Hub. Goltz. Graec. Nomismata.
The figure holds fire in his hand ; for Hercules had then become
a fire worshipper.
3 Aio-o-aib-j ioiovc avxkvccv
Mdpipaic. dfvKTOic, XEpo-li/ lai? 'otpiac.. Pindar. Nem. i.
4 Francklin on the Boudhists and Jains, p. 40.
5 Hieroglyphics collected by the Egyptian Society, 1823, p. 7-
6 Francklin on the Boudhists and Jains, p. 64. and 71.

282 OF HERCULES.
represented by them : whereupon Captain Wilford
observes1, that formerly kings were fond of raising
mounds of earth in that shape, which they venerated
like the divine Meru. Their perversion of the
truth in this case is the more remarkable, because
the original meaning was not so far forgotten, but
that they still considered the germ of the lotus em
blematic of Meru as well as of the Linga. The
Japanese, who have a very different mode of sig
nifying the active and passive principles of nature 2,
like the Arabians and many other nations, retain
their reverence for a black stone, as a miniature
emblem of that which columns, and steeples, and
pyramids represented on a larger scale ; and at
Siam it is remarkable that the cone, like the poplar
of old, is a funereal hieroglyphic, and connected
with other diluvian types. " The chancellor's
coffin," says Kasmpfer3, " was an oblong square
chest, and at the side of the boat which carried it
there was another of equal length, but crescent-
shaped, with a beautiful gilt pyramid, built in form
of a steeple." If the origin of this custom is to be
1 As. Res. vii. 291. In Picart's Religious Ceremonies, too, the
figure of the mountain Mandara is exactly what in other instances
they call a Lingam.
2 In Daibod's temple near Miaco, the active and passive principles
of nature, generation and corruption, are represented by two giants,
called Awun, or Irjo, or Niwo Black ; one with open mouth and
stretched out hands ; the other with the mouth shut, the hand close
to the body, and a long staff which it holds half backwards. —
Kcempfer's Hist, of Japan, ii. 601. They seem however to me to
point rather to a period of silence and confinement, and constraint,
contrasted with the freedom of speech and action which followed it ;
for it was a temple of Buddha.
3 History of Japan, i. 15.

OF HERCULES. 283
dated so far back, it may doubtless be expected
that traces of it should be found in Egypt, the land
of mimic mountains — the land in which similar
traditions and usages were deeply rooted ; and ac
cordingly it appears that the tomb of Osiris was an
oblong trunk ', with an arched cover, and a pillar
rising a little at each angle. Thus it was that the
ark, which it represented, obtained the name of a
Cista, a kist or chest. At Mavalipuram, or Maha-
balipoor, the city of the great Bali, i. e. Hercules
Belus, the towers are all pyramidical 2 ; and a lion
is sculptured on the rock, so much more like the
animal than the figures made by the modern Hin
doos, that it must be many centuries more ancient.
One very old temple stands immediately on the
brink of the sea ; and amidst the dash of the spray
a tall pillar is conspicuous, said to be a remnant of
the old city : but that must be only the opinion
of those who cannot account for its position other
wise. The ruins of the old city are half a mile
inland, and the sea rather recedes than advances
on the coast of Coromandel.3 Every thing bespeaks
it to be a remnant of Arkite worship. It is in
deed called by some a Linga ; but then, in the
opinion of those who compiled the Puranas, this
emblem was first publicly worshipped by the name
1 Hieroglyphics collected by the Eg. Soc. 115. So also the temple
at Chittore, which has the trident of Siva on its front, has also a
close square shrine surmounted by an ornamented Pyramid. —
Heber's Memoirs, ii. 482.
2 Chambers in As. Res., vol. i.
3 Heber's Memoirs, iii. 21 6.

284 OF HERCULES.
of Baleswara ] linga, on the banks of the Cumud-
vati or Euphrates. Now Baleswara means the
mighty Lord Belus, Bali, or Baal ; for Iswara is
lord2 ; and it is a title of Mahadeva, whose emblems
are the crescent, and all obelisks or pillars, what
ever be their shape. But Mahadeva is the great
Deva, to whom the titles of Cala, or time, and
Chronus, i. e. Saturn, have been given3 ; and those
who follow the Purva Mimansa insist that all the
Devas were mere mortals, deified in consequence
of their eminent virtues. Mahadeva then, being
Noah, justly says in the contest between Vishnou,
the representative of the old earth, inasmuch as it
was preserved, and Brahma, the representative of
the new earth, inasmuch as it received a new exist
ence, " It is I who am truly the first-born." Brahma
calls the first-born cow, i. e. the ark, to witness that
he had seen the head, i. e. the beginning of Noah,
in the former world. For this falsehood Mahadeva
decrees that no sacred rites shall be performed to
Brahma. Vishnou acknowledges that he could not
see the feet, i. e. the end or last state of Maha
deva, who then told him that he was the first-born
among the gods, i. e. older than Brahma4, which,
1 Balah, says the Abb6 de Tressan, signifie egalement " en-
fermer," et " deVorer." Hence the fable of Saturn devouring his
children instead of shutting them up. — Mythologie comparee avec
I'Histoire, 84. Beleswara, therefore, may be the imprisoned Lord.
2 As. Res. iii. 136. 143. In Picart's Religious Ceremonies, he is
called Ixora.
3 The Phoenicians and Syrians call Cronus El, and Bel, and Bo-
lathen. — Damascius apud Photium, c. 242.
4 As Res. iii. 148.

OF HERCULES. 285
to be sure, he was. It is no wonder, therefore,
that he has the title also of Arganatha, Lord ofthe
boat-shaped Vessel, or that his sceptre is a trident,
as lord of the ocean. And here we have another
approximation to Hercules l ; for the trident is
sometimes called Trip'hala, which reminds us ofthe
Irish trifolium, sacred, no doubt, to Hercules
Ogmius2, and thence called the shamrock3: and
since Phala means fruit, the three points of the
trident will signify either three fruits or three phalli,
each of them being an emblem of the mountain
peak. As the phallic worship was attributed by
the Hindoos to Baleswara, i. e. to Belus, so it was
by the Greeks to Dionysus.4
Now, according to Herodotus, Dionysus was
Osiris 5, and almost the only deity worshipped at
Meroe, which so nearly resembles the Indian Meru,
that we have the more reason to trust Captain Wil-
ford's statement, when he says, that the Nile was
known by the name of Nous, or Nus, which is ma
nifestly corrupted from Nahush, or Naush, from
the person usually entitled Deva Nahusha, and in
the spoken dialects Deonaush, the Dionysius of
1 The Milesians, says Keating in his History of Ireland, p. 143.
from the time they first conquered Ireland down to the reign of
Ollamh Fodhla, made use of no other distinction in their banners
than a serpent twisted round a. rod, which is exactly the appendage
of Hercules of Tarsus in Montfaucon, 1. i.
2 Ibid. 135.
3 For Oidhche Shamhna is the eve of Saman, or affliction, the 1st
of November. It corresponds to the mourning for Osiris. — Val-
lancey on Ancient Irish, p. 24.
4 Ta Aiovvo-o) 'hraro o tydXXoc. — Alexandrian Proverbs, Plutarch,
x. 1263. and Herod, ii. 49.
"Oo-ipic Be eo-Ti AioWo?. — Euterpe, 29- and 144.

286 OF HERCULES.
the ancient Europaeans : ; for it has been shown
that Siris was also a name of the Nile. But again,
" we learn from Ptolemaeus Hephaastion, that Ni-
lus was the name of the Egyptian voyaging Hercu
les;" and Vallancey infers from his own premises2,
that the Irish Niul, i. e. Nilus, and Ce Bacche, i. e.
Bacchus, were the same. It is true, that their
features, as they are usually delineated by poets,
artists, and mythologists, have not much resem
blance, because they sketched from their imagina
tion without consulting the oracles of ancient my
stery ; yet one of the poets has by accident pre
served some considerable fragments of the original
truth. In an ode of Horace 3, Bacchus sits drip
ping upon solitary heights, binding the disordered
tresses of the Thracian women in snaky knots.
Rivers and seas obeyed his rule, and Cerberus let
him depart unhurt, crouching at his feet. Like
1 As. Res., iii. 59.
2 Vallancey 's Vindication of Irish History, p. 276.
3 Tu flectis amnes, tu mare barbarum:
Tu separatis uvidus in jugis
Nodo coerces viperino
Bistonidum sine fraude crines.
(Sine fraude, without any of those tricks used by jugglers to disarm
the serpent.) Te vidit insons Cerberus aureo
Cornu decorum, leniter atterens
Caudam, et recedentis trilingui
Ore pedes tetigitque crura.
Tu cum parentis regna per arduum
Cohors Gigantum scanderet impia
Rhcetum retorsisti leonis
Unguibus horribilique mala. Lib. ii. Od. 19.
Instead of Rhoetum the older reading seems to have been Rhcecum.
— 'P01K05, from 'Pe'iu, fluo. Qui profluvio labunt.

OF HERCULES. 287
Siva he wears the emblematic crescent ; and in the
form of a lion he repulsed the attempts of the
giants to scale the walls of heaven. This is just
the story of the Indian Dourga, when, mounted on a
lion, she rescued the gods from the giants' power;
and as there the same title is given to the attacker
and the attacked :, so, by a similar inconsistency,
the lion was reputed an enemy to Hercules. Two
ancient writers2, of whose works only fragments
have descended to us, relate that Juno in her wrath
against him solicited the assistance of the moon,
who filled an ark with foam, from which the Ne-
mean lion sprang ; though others with more fidelity
to facts simplify the story much, by saying that he
descended from the moon ; that is, the moon,
or the moon's ark, was the unsubstantial representa
tive of that real ark, which was framed in the form
of a crescent, and the wrath of Juno was the rage
of the elements, which occasioned its production.
The lion is next conveyed by Iris, the token of
deliverance to mankind, closely fastened with his
own proper bands3 to a mountain, once called a
mountain of the moon, i. e. an Arkite mountain,
but afterwards Apaesantus, or rather Apesas4, of

1 Ward's Hindoo Mythology, p. 107. Doorgu the Giant. Doorga
is Parvati, the mountain-born goddess.
2 Demodocus in Plutarch, or whoever was the author of the tract
De Fluviis, x. 1033. and Chrysermus in Natalis Comes. — Mytho-
logia, 1. i.
3 Ta7c Ihiaic X,uvaic iici(rfly(ao-a.
4 Pausanias mentions an Apesas :
Mons erat audaci seductus in aethera dorso,

OF HERCULES.
which Apesantos is the genitive case. It was on
the river Inachus \ and in the immediate neighbour
hood of another mountain, called Mycenae, from
the bellowing of Medusa's sisters on its top, when
they could not revenge their sisters' death upon
Perseus — in other words, when they sought an
asylum there from the persecution of the fire-
worshippers ; for the bellowing beast was always
an Arkite symbol, and originally the name of the
hill was Argium.
Aphesas was also a sacred mountain in the
estimation of the Argolic tribes ; and though it was
supposed to take its name from a person, who, ac
cording to one tradition, was slain by the lion 2,
and according to another, like Hercules 3, by a
serpent, yet the designation given it by the Ler-
naeans, who held the serpent sacred, may be de-

(Nomine Lernari memorant Aphesanta coloni,)
Gentibus Argolicis olim sacer. Statii Thebais, iii. 46l.
Accordingly, the augurs took their stations on it to learn the future
event of the war.
1 Ancient stories pretended that the Inachus was once fa
mous for suicides committed by persons, who had precipitated
themselves into its flood. — Plut. de Fluv. p. 58, 59. Yet it is some
times entirely dry. — Clarke's Trav. vi. 453. Agathocles reported,
that it became dry, because thunderstruck by Jupiter. The fatal
character of its waters is evidently to be understood in a mythic
sense ; and the occasional failure of those waters is naturally repre
sented as a punishment inflicted by the rulers of the rival idolatry,
because their emblematic character was thus destroyed.
2 n£f>< SXoraftMv, c. xviii. ss. 4. and 9-
3 For the Lernaean Hydra's blood was the cause of his death.
The arrows, which poisoned the blood of Nessus, drew thence their
venom.

OF HERCULES. 289
duced more probably from Phasas, to conceal ',
because Arkite sanctuaries were places in which the
initiated were shut up ; and from some such sanctu
ary on its banks, the river Phasis received its name
from the Egyptian colony settled there.2 But
farther, it had yet a third title : it was called the
Opheltion mountain ; for which no reason is as
signed, neither is it in common use ; and therefore
it may be assumed, that it was of foreign extraction.
Now the Pyramids of Egypt, whose very form
carried back the reader of hieroglyphics to the
origin of the existing world3, and which were
studiously, and with immense labour, insulated
either by aqueducts, or by opening a channel round
them for the waters of the Nile, in order to imitate
the diluvian mountain, were said to be the work of
Philition 4, who, like Apesantos, was a shepherd ;
for he belonged to that shepherd race of kings,
the last of whom mentioned by Africanus and
Eusebius was Arckles. The oldest works in Egypt
may probably be attributed to them, during the
century of their domination ; but many seem to
1 "lfS> Samar, Secessit, Abscondit se. Gen. iii. 8. or &Q,
copia (sc. aquarum), .TT^'fJ, Ganges 'fl. Gen. ii. 11. Ar et A
Sa, Nilus. potius Phasis. — Castell. Lex.
t'Q, Roboratus est. 1f£)», Gen. xlix. 24. conturbata, soluta,
dispersa sunt.
2 Valerius Flaccus says, that Sesostris defeated by the Getae
returned with part of his army to Egypt, and with the other founded
Colchi. — Argonauticon, v. 420.
3 Per ipsam figuram pyramidum signabant materiam primor-
dialem. Verba sunt Abenephii, c. 4. — Kircheri Obelisci Interpretatio
Hieroglyphica. 4 Herodot. Euterpe, c. 124. 127-
VOL. I. U

290 OF HERCULES.
have been destroyed by their successors, on account
of the hatred with which they were regarded, and
the materials used for the construction of other
temples devoted to another worship. The island
of Philas, however, which was afterwards translated
into Elephantis, still continued to be held one of
the most holy places : ; for there, in a remote
and sacred, and inaccessible spot, was the tomb, or
at least the most celebrated tomb (for there were
many in Egypt) of Osiris, the reputed founder of
Thebes ; the ark, in which he was inclosed, being
always styled his coffin, or Sorus : whence the
temple of Serapis, that is, of the ark, or Sorus of
the great father, was confounded with the temple
of Osiris, and they became convertible terms.
PhilaB was also the name of an island in the Tri-
tonian lake of Argonautic celebrity, whereon stood
the city of Nysa, i. e. of Nahusha, which was the
name of the greatest city in India 2 ; and the Phi-
lasnian altars are another Lybian monument, which
may look for its origin in the same religious rites.
An idle story was invented, that two brothers had
1 Savary observes that the temple of Cneph in Elephantine may
be considered the most ancient in the country. — Letters sur
VEgypte, p. 273. Jomard states, that Fil/or Phil, in Ethiopian, is an
Elephant : so is Phila, tfVfl, in Chaldee. Elephas, indeed, is
nothing but Phile read invertedly in the Oriental manner, or by
reading the eastern characters in the western order, from left to
right, with a Greek termination added to it. But Phila is also iziX-q,
janua (Castell. Lexicon) ; and hence Ganesa, i. e. Janus, obtained his
elephant's head.
2 Pomponius Mela, 1. iii. c. 7- Nahushi was also a name of the
Nile, from Deva Nahusha, called in the spoken dialects Deonaush,
i. e. Dionysius. — Moor's Pantheon, p. 1 54.

OF HERCULES. 291
suffered themselves to be buried alive there, in
order to terminate a dispute between Carthage and
Cyrene ; in honour of which noble self-devotion
their countrymen, the Carthaginians, erected pillars
to their memory.1
The story is absurd in all its circumstances ; and
Strabo testifies that no such pillars existed in his
day ; and there is no level and sandy plain without
rivers or mountains, where they are supposed to
have been erected. But there are hills of solid
stone, from 400 to 600 feet in height 2, which were
doubtless these altars of the Philaeni (Bomoi
from Bama, Heb. a high place) ; and their allowing
themselves to be buried alive was only a version of
their repose in the mystic cells, and an appeal to
the oracle, as an authority recognised by both
parties. The monument of Osiris, at the Egyptian
Phila? was of the same kind. An Arabic writer,
Abou Selah, describes two remarkable rocks on the
summit of a mountain, in the middle of the Nile,
near a building which was then a fortress, but
originally, no doubt, the temple of Osiris ; for the
island was so sacred, that none but the priests
durst enter it.3 It contains, he adds, a great many
Berba's 4, that is, ancient temples. The proper
1 Sallust. Bell. Jugurth. 79-
2 Captain Beechey's Expedition to explore the northern coast of
Africa, p. 223. The Psylli may possibly be derived from the same
root ; for the tomb of their king Psyllus was reported by Agathar-
cides to be some where in the great Syrtis, p. 215. They were re
markable for their power of charming serpents.
3 It was"A£aTo; kXijv role Upevm. — Diod. Sic. 1. i. 19.
4 Entre la Nubie et le pays des Musulmans, on voit deux pierres
u 2

292 OF HERCULES.
orthography would be Berber ; which, as I have
already shown, was perhaps a contraction from
Baris, Baris : and if further confirmation be needed,
it will be enough to look at the nature of the rites
performed there. Every day the priests, appointed
for that purpose, filled 360 vessels, called Choae,
with milk, uttering lamentations, and calling upon
the names of their gods. If he had paid more
attention to these ancient usages, M. Denon need
not have inquired how it came to pass, that the
Egyptian priests knew nothing of the founders of
their sacred rites, and had no notion of the epoch,
when the sea, which has every where imprinted its
traces, and irrevocably attests the pressure of its
waters, disgorges itself from that immense country.1
The Egyptian priests were not so ignorant as he
supposes. They knew that epoch to be the epoch
of the deluge, and that the founders of their reli
gious rites were the Noachidas ; and if their ancient
monuments exhibit little of that subject, it is be
cause they were constructed, or reconstructed for
the most part at a period, when Sabianism had
become the popular creed, and only some rags and
tatters of the ancient truth were preserved in the
mysteries of a few temples. The daily lamenta-

posees sur un montagne, au milieu du Nil. Vis a vis est un
chateau fortifie' et eleve", qui se nomme Bilak. — L'ile de Bilak
renferme un grand nombre d'idoles et des Berba, des temples
antiques. — Arab. MS. Memoires Giographiques sur V Egypte,
par E. Quatremere, 389- In the Coptic Martyrologies Phila? is
written Pilakh, HiAa/A.
1 Voyage d'Egypte, par Denon. — Appendix, xliii.

OF HERCULES. 293
tion and the offerings of milk cannot be accounted
for on any astronomical theory, or with relation to
the worship of the sun ; but they were both in
timately connected with that period of fear and
destruction, when the terrified prisoners of the ark
subsisted in great measure upon milk, and the
recollection of their debt on this account to the
cow may be added to the equivocal signification
of Nandi already noticed, as a principal cause of
the superstitious veneration, with which she was
regarded both in Egypt and in India. The 360
vessels pointed out the twelve months of confine
ment ; a calculation, which, though quite inac
curate, if referred to the course of the sun, is yet
a very natural expression for a year, when the year
was counted by twelve lunations. And since the
sun was nearly lost to them during all that period,
and found again at its expiration, it is easy to
understand how the story of Osiris was corrupted,
and the luminary confounded with the Patriarch.
That Osiris was Hercules too, some indirect
evidence may be adduced from Italy to prove.
Siris, says Bayle, was a river of Italy, at the mouth
of which there was a town called Siris ] : but this
town is called by Cluverius Heiacleum. Neither
can this be deemed a mere fortuitous coincidence ;
for on the western coast also there was a Petra

1 It had several names : according to Stephanus Byzantinus, it
was called Polieum by the Trojans, and Leuternia by Lycophron,
Strabo, and Tzetzes. — Diet, de Bayle.
u 3

294 OF HERCULES.
Herculis on the Siraean mountains \ and a temple
of Hercules looking down upon the waves. Before
it was rebuilt upon a grander scale2, Statius de
scribes it as a small chamber, covering the grave of
Hercules ; and, doubtless, it was originally designed
for nothing more than a mystic cell, in which the
initiated were confined. Hence arose the fable of
the Sirens, and of that " hidden chain of harmony,"
which detained the navigators on their voyage.3
It is very likely, at the same time, that robbers
availed themselves of this superstition to enrich
themselves, and that many travellers never returned
home. The prudence of Ulysses enabled him to
defeat their evil designs ; but even he describes
himself as suffering a species of confinement in
passing those rocks ; and though Homer has given
1 Baldassare Parascandolo describes the Ager Surrentinus as
reaching from the Petra Herculis to the delubrum Minervae. The
mountains around it were first Sirei, then Sireniani, then Sur-
rentini, and in Strabo J-voolHov. Augusto (says he) assegno a. soldati
Augustani, i monti Sireniani, cioe quella porzione delle montagne
Siree, indi dette Sireniane, e poi Surrentine, che all' oppidum Sur-
rentum si appartenevano. The inhabitants were called Sireni, cioe
i Pastori. — Lettera I. sull' Antica Citta di JEqua, p. 59. Which
connects them with the shepherds of Egypt.
2 Ingenti dives Tyrinthius arce
Despectat fluctus. Statii Sylvarum, 1. iii.
Stabat dicta sacri tenuis casa nomine templi,
Et magnum Alciden humili lare parva premebat. Ibid.
3 Gesner observes, Dicuntur Selves, a tElpa, catena. Etiam
Hebraeis, Tjy, et catena est et cantus. In Hor. Epist. 1. i. 2. 23.
He says to his companions — aXXd jae $£<r|Ko7
AijO-ar Iv dpyaXeai o<pp' ejaice$ov airoBi ft.ift.voi.
And accordingly they ii-qa-av ojaov %e7o»? te iro'Ja; te. — Od. M. 160.

OF HERCULES. 295
the transaction a more poetical turn, yet tradition
constantly maintained \ that he not only landed,
but founded the temple of Minerva, which, Horace
says, looked loftily from its stormy elevation over
the sea.2 Dionysius Alexandrinus must have im
agined that cliff itself to be the Sirenian rock ; for,
in a geographical description of the coast, he says,
that, after rounding that foreland, in proceeding to
the south you perceive the mouth of the Silarus 3 ;
and Pliny affirms that it was the seat of the Sirens.4
Now it was the temple of Minerva, only because
she was Athena, which, we know from Plato, was
an inverted reading 5 of the Egyptian Neitha 6 :
and this is probably the deity intended by Empedo-
cles of Agrigentum, when he wrote that Neistis
steeped the earth in tears.7 If this be so, it was
evidently an Arkite temple ; and it is certain that
a great deal of sanctity was imputed to a shrine in
that neighbourhood, which was testified by the
number of offerings left there, the acknowledg-
1 Strabo.
2 Alta procelloso speculatur vertice Pallas.
3 rifo; 8e No'tov fuiXa itoXXov vittp Y.iEp'qviia itkrp-qv
<fratvovrai itpoxoal TXevKEvrtvov "LiXapoio. De Situ Orbis.
4 Surrentum cum Minervae promontorio, Sirenum quondam sede.
Lib. xiii. 5.
5 Les Grecs 6criverent d'abord de la gauche a la droite ; ensuite
alternativement. — Bova-rpocp-qliv. Telle est l'inscription de Sige'e
rapportee par Chishull. — Antuj. Asiat. 102. Geographie de la Mer
Noire, par A. Dnreau de la Malle.
6 In Timaeo. Nijiflrj apud Hesych.
7 N^o-ti; 9' r\ h-aKpvotc, rkyyti KporlvwfAa /Sjjoteiov.
Phumutus, or Cornutus, de Natura Deorum, who says, that Ntjo-Ti? is
water ; and supposes the whole of Homer's mythology to be an allegory.
u 4

296 OF HERCULES.
ments of past deliverance.1 At all events, it could
not be the natural position of the Sirens' rock,
which Homer described, when he called it an
island ; for he could not mean one of the Sirenusae,
the three islets near the promontory, because they
are mere barren rocks, and have none of the flowery
meads which he mentions.2 He could only allude
to its mythological character3, the diluvian mount
surrounded with water. Minerva had a temple too
at Siris, on the Tarentine bay ; for Strabo remarks,
that the image was called Ilias, as if it came from
Ilium 4 : but it appears the name was common to
several of her images, at Rome, at Lavinium, and
at Luceria. Were they all of Trojan manufacture ?
it is more likely that Pallas, herself only a cor
ruption of the Indian Phala, was called Ilias, from
some connection with Ila, who is represented as the
wife, the daughter, and the son of Noahs; and
since there is another temple of Minerva in the
1 'Ek rov irpoc Y.ipaiov fAEpovc. Upiv ri hitKVvrai Kal dvaB'qft.ara ita-
Xatd rtftrnvroiv tov mX^criov roiiov. — Strabo, I. V.
2 -Ztip-'qvoiv — Xeijauv dvOsftoEvra and N'^o-ov 2,Eip-qvoi'iii — M. 159-
167- Strabo calls them N»;o-i8a? Ip-qfAove wetoojSei;.
3 Evander the Arcadian (Areas) tells iEneas :
Non haec solemnia nobis
Has ex more dapes, hanc tanti numinis aram
Vana superstitio, veterumque ignara Deorum
Imposuit : saevis, hospes Trojane, periclis
Servati facimus, meritosque novamus honores. Mn. viii. 185.
Hercules conquered Cacus, the son of Vulcan, who was ore
vomens ignes ; that is, the Arkite votaries conquered the worshippers
of fire.
4 luph&i. — Strabo, vi. 182.
•s Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 112.

OF HERCULES. 297
island of Phla, or Phila, in the lake Tritonis ',
whence she was called Tritogeneia, there is reason
to suspect that Polieum, the name of Siris, attri
buted also to Trojan, that is to say, to an Oriental
origin, is only a version of Philas, which Forster
derives from Phoue alei; in Coptic, a lofty mansion.2
Zoega, however, suggests another etymology, which
only shows how many associations of ideas arose
from the same sound, and destroyed the original
simplicity of language. According to him, the
Coptic Phel, or Phole, signifies to strike, to dash
against 3, and so might be well applied to the tem
pest-beaten rock. The latter reading reminds us
of Pholus, who received Hercules in a cavern, and
of Pholoe, the name of one mountain in Thessaly,
and of another in Arcadia, both of which were
reported to be the scene of his contest with the
Centaur. The former points out the manner in
which thePhilition mountain, or Philae, was changed
into Opheltion. If it be asked, how it could be
both Argive and Egyptian, on the banks of the
Nile, as well as on the banks of the Inachus,
Homer furnishes the required explanation. He
introduces Jupiter, scolding Hera for having once
endeavoured, by means of a north wind, to carry
away Hercules to Coon 4 ; on which occasion, he,
1 Beechey's Expedition to the coast of Africa, p. 274.
2 <bovqh, or <bovoh aX-qi, habitatio alta. — Epist. ad Michaelis,
p. 36.
3 *eU, or $u>Xh, percutere, allidere. — Me'moires sur V Egypte,
par Quatremere, 386.
4 Tov eru tyv popEij dvifAf icemBovcra 6v XXac,

298 OF HERCULES.
with much difficulty, brought him back to Argos.
Now the Coon here mentioned cannot be the
island Cos in the Hellespont ; for Boreas would
scarcely be selected to carry a vessel there from
Argos. It lies far away to the westward, and its
bearing to the south is very small : but there was
a Cos in Upper Egypt too, now called by the
Arabs Chous. There may have been more than
one of that name ; for Quatremere asserts that
Kos, in Coptic, signifies Burial ' ; and the burial
places of Osiris were scattered all over Egypt ;
and it is the more likely, from the difference of
opinion with respect to the ancient town, which
the present Kous represents 2 : and if so, then no
place is more likely to be meant than Philae, which
seems to have been the principal monument of this
sort. Some Coptic vocabularies in the Royal
Library at Paris, add to Kous the name of Berber,
which, we have already seen, signifies an ancient
temple, and is particularly used in speaking of the
island of Philae, or Elephantis.

TlE/Atpac lit' drpvyirov itovrov, KaKa pvqriooxra
Kat ft.iv kitEira KotavS* ev vatofAEvqv ditivsiKae.
Tov ft.lv iyo)v evBev pva-dfttqv, Kal dvqyayov avrtc
' Apyoc. ei; lititotorov, Kal moXXa itsp dSXija-avra. Horn. II. O. 26.
1 From koj;, ensevelir.
2 Golius a cru, qu'elle repondoit a l'ancienne Thebes, ou Diospohs
Magna. Not. in Alfragan, 101. Mais le pere Lequien (Oriens
Christianus, ii. 603.), D'Anville (Mem. sur VEgypte, 197-), et
Michaelis (Not. ad Abulfed. Descript. Mgypti, 76.) pensent, avec
raison, que Kous represente la ville d'Apollinopolis Parva. Les
vocabulaires Sai'diques de la Bibliotheque Imperiale joignent au nom
de cette ville celui de Beptep. — Memoires sur I' Egypte, i. 193.

OF HERCULES. 299
Chon was a name of the Egyptian Hercules, of
whom the story ran, that together with Osiris he
delivered Italy from oppression1 ; a plain intimation
of a victory over their antagonists obtained by the
Arkites ; and it accounts for both their names
being recorded in the same place, since they were
only different titles of the same divinity. Chon
may perhaps be the Hebrew Chohen, a Priest, but
it may also have reference to the Choas offered to
Osiris in Philse ; for he is frequently connected on
the Egyptian medals with the gushing out of water,
like the Indian Siva.2 He is said, too, to have forced
back the Nile, i. e. the ocean 3, within its proper
bounds. However this may be, it is evident
enough, that Homer's Coon must be sought in
Egypt ; and that he describes a struggle between
Argos and Egypt, which of them had the best
right to Hercules ; in which the Grecian priests
ultimately prevailed, at least, to their own satisfac
tion, just as they took Isis to themselves by turn
ing her into the cow Io.4 Yet even the Argolic
priests could not agree among themselves what was
the scene of conflict with the lion. Cleone claimed
it as well as Nemea ; and Valerius Flaccus places
1 Chon Hercules iEgyptiorum lingua vocatus, qui cum Osiride
Italiam liberavit a tyrannide. — Steph. Hoffman.
2 See Zoega Medals of the Borgian Museum, 117. &c.
3 Diod. Sic. Li. 16. He says that Oceanus was the ancient
name ofthe Nile, p. 17. Ils nommaient le Nil Ocean, sou vent Siris.
— Myth, par I'Abbe de Tressan, p. 280.
4 Tr\e 'Io-iSo? r\v ykvEaiv iito ruv 'TLXX-qvw eIc' Apyoc, [AErapEpEcrOai,
lAvBoXoyovvruv Tjjv '!« e\c /3oo; riltov fAiraitoir$El<Tav. — Diod. Sic.
1. i. 21.

300 OF HERCULES.
the gaping jaws of the Cleonaean lion, as a helmet
upon the head of Hercules, in a passage which has
sorely puzzled the commentators ; because they
looked for history where they ought to have known
that nothing but myths were to be found :
Cleonaeo jam tempora clusus hiatu
Alcides : olim Lernse defansus ab angue
Areas, et ambobus jam cornua fracta juvencis.1
Here, exclaims Heinsius, Flaccus has been guilty
of a manifest anachronism ; for the last line can
only be understood of the Cretan bull, and Ache-
lous, after his transformation into a bull ; and yet
the contest of Hercules with Achelous did not take
place till after the expedition to Colchi. Burmann
is equally perplexed. — What (says he) can Lema
have to do with Arcadia, seeing that the lake of
that name is always placed by the ancients in the
Argolic region : it must be a poetic licence. And
then the lion, how comes he there, when Apollo-
nius makes Hercules undertake all his labours after
the expedition?2 To attempt to draw consistency of
dates or facts out of such materials, what is it but to
twist a rope of sand ? The lion's skin had no more
to do with any real lion than Snug the joiner, who
played the part of "Lion fell" in Shakspeare's play;
for Hercules was not a gladiator, though many a
gladiator may have taken the name of Hercules.

Argonauticon, lib. i. 34. 2 Apollon. Argon, i. 1317-

OF HERCULES. 801
He was an Arkite, and the juvenci were Apis and
Mnevis ', the Arkite emblems in Egypt, and there
fore marked with a crescent ; and he had wrested
from them the honour of those peculiar rites, and
appropriated them to himself in Greece. More
over, it seems to be implied, that he wore the lion's
head upon his own, because he owed to it his
rescue from the Lernaean hydra; and so his
character approximates to that of Dourga, who
was mounted on a lion for the conflict. It was a
common practice of those who delighted in mysti
fying tradition to divide the tutelary genius of the
ark into male and female. Thus Siva or Mahadeva
was the former, and Dourga, or Parvati, the latter :
thus too the temple of Hercules at Tyre was the
temple of Astarte also ; for she was represented
there as a female with tbe horns stolen from Egypt
on her head, and between them a precious gem of
great magnitude and splendour2, in conformity with
the Hindoo fable of the jewel obtained by the
churning of the ocean. But upon this subject there
is a passage so much to the purpose in Mure's
Treatise on the Calendar and Zodiac of Ancient
Egypt, that I will give it entire : " The Twins,
emblems of this season on the Zodiac (i. e. the

1 Le bceuf Mnevis semble faire allusion au nom de cet ancien roi,
appelle" ou Menes, ou Menas, ou Mneus. JElian meme nomme ce
bceuf, Meve?. — Abbe Sevin, in Banter's Mythol. iii. 472.
2 Lucian. — Selden remarks, that Astarte must have been the same
aslo, because Euripides in the Phcenissae calls the Phoenicians the off
spring of the horned Io, which they certainly were, if Io was the ark.
— De Diis Syriis, lib. ii. c. ii.

302

OF HERCULES.

month Pa-chon) have, at first sight, no apparent
connection with the mythology of Egypt; but
most of my readers will probably be aware, that
one of these twins, the Pollux of the Greeks, is
called on the Arab Zodiac Hercules; and one
of the two most brilliant stars of the constellation
was also named Hercules by the Greeks, which
star, as well as the twin to whom it belongs,
is still called Hercules on our globes. There
exists, moreover, a fragment of an Egyptio-greek
Zodiac, sculptured on marble, and which has been
frequently engraved and illustrated, where the
sign of Gemini is occupied by two figures, one
of whom, the largest and most prominent, is the
Greek Hercules with his club. The person of the
other lesser figure has no such distinctive marks ;
but appears to be a female. On the Zodiac of
Dendera, the constellation Gemini is also repre
sented by two figures, the one male, and the other
female. The latter has the head of a lion ; which
peculiarity, it is well known, belongs to an Egyptian
goddess, whose name M. Champollion has identi
fied as Tame. The same distinguished critic, in his
first letter on the Museum of Turin, has observed,
that this very lion-headed goddess, whom he con
siders as a personification of the attributes of Neit
in her character of Minerva Bellica, the defensive
deity of Egypt, appears among the female divinities
of the second class, associated under the name of
Tafne to the Egyptian Hercules." ' Now To-
i p. 120.

OF HERCULES. 303
phana in Chaldee signifies a deluge ', and thus the
constellation of Gemini is another instance, in ad
dition to those already noticed, tending to corro
borate the hypothesis, that the first astronomers
were Arkites, and that the first idolatry consisted
in raising to the heavens the fathers of the human
race, the scene of their miraculous adventures, and
the instrument of their deliverance. Their types,
as I have already remarked, whether they were
imagined in the skies, or contemplated on the
earth, retained a sacred mysteriousness long after
the real meaning was forgotten : but above all the
nations of the earth the Hindoos have been most
tenacious of ancient mysteries. A mountain, a
hill, a tree deprived of its boughs, a mast, a pole,
an obelisk, a pyramid or any thing conical, suggests
to them an object of worship 2 ; and the sea, a
pond, a well, a cave, anything hollowed out, or
conveying an idea of capacity, is still a memorial
to them of the sacred Argha.3 It is true, that the
original ideas belonging to them, the ideas of Ara
rat and the ship have been lost, and the male and
female genius of the ark have been refined away
into the powers of nature.4 Nevertheless, the truth
1 NJOIJOj Diluvium, cataclysmus. — Castell. Lex.
T X
2 Si Ton examine avec attention les signes, tant sous forme de
disque, que sous celui de cone tronque, ou de troncon de colonne,
on demeure bientot convaincu, qu'ils e"toient pour nos ancetres une
symbole de religion. Je suis certain que ce systeme religieux a pris
naissance en Asie. — Recherches sur Mon. Celtiques, p. 378.
3 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 399.
4 They, however, still refer their origin to that period; for it is their

304 OF HERCULES.
lies not far below the surface. Reasons have been
already given for considering Meru, or Mandara,
the real Lingam ; and with respect to the Argha,
we are assured on good authority, that although it
means a cup, or any other vessel1, and is seen of
different forms, yet it ought to be always shaped
like a boat.2 There can be no reasonable doubt,
therefore, that Area and Ark are derived from it;
and perhaps no more probable explanation can
be given for the exaltation of the lion to the Zo
diac. For Arja in Syriac and Hebrew is a Lion 3 ;
and since in the dialect of the Bedouin Arabs the
same consonant is sometimes pronounced dsch, and
sometimes gh 4, the same variation of sound may
have been common to other oriental nations ; and,
indeed, we have an instance of it in the derivation
of Janus from Ganesa. It is a singular coincidence,
if it be not something more, that in Celtic my-

opinion, we are told, that at the time of the flood, the two principles
of generation assumed the shape of a boat, in order to preserve man
kind. — Wilford, Asiat. Res. viii. 274.
1 Hence Iswara has the title of Arganatha, Lord of the Ship, or
Argha ; and Linga is the same as Long in Irish, i. e. a ship. Pallas
was the builder of Argo. Phal in Irish is a king : hence Phallus. —
Vallancey on ancient Irish, Introd. 18. and 26.
2 Asiat. Res. iii. 135.
3 rP"lNHeb.,Leo.; Li] Syr. id. — Bullet, in the Memoires sur la
Langue Celtique, speaking of a place called Arc upon the Tille,
derives it from Ark, habitation, or Arga, Area, Clos, lieu ferme' • and
it is remarkable that the Arabic name of the constellation is Shir,
which, as already shown, in Hebrew, means Catena, a chain. Play-
fair observes that Arg in Irish is a Ship.
4 -^..l t00' *s somethnes d, sometimes ds. — Scholz. Reise in die
Gegend zwischen Alexandrien, fyc, 72.

OF HERCULES. 305
tliology jLlion means the flood. The British
Triads record an awful event, which they call the
bursting forth of the lake of Llion, and the over
whelming of the face of all lands ; so that all man
kind were drowned, excepting Dwyvan and Dwy-
vach, who escaped in a naked vessel (or a vessel
without sails), and by whom the island of Britain
was repeopled.1 And again, one of the greatest
achievements on record, which of course like all
other nations they take to themselves, was the build
ing of the ship2, which carried in it a male and
female of every species, when the lake of Llion
burst forth. And in a mythological pedigree a
certain Arcol is introduced, the son of Pyr, or Pur,
of the east ; the son of Llion the ancient.3 Pur in
Hebrew signifies to be broken 4 ; and certainly the
feigned disruption of the banks of the lake,
and the destruction that ensued, was the effect or
offspring of the flood ; and Arcol5, or Ourchol, as
Hercules was called in the neighbourhood of Tyre
and Sidon, was connected with both by various
imaginary affinities. When therefore disputes arose
1 Davies's Mythology of the British Druids, p. 95.
2 The name of this ship was Nevydd, Nay, Neivion, which seems to
be Navis with variations. — Ibid.
3 P. 415.
4 "TID j Fractus est.
5 Arcol, Davies thinks, may mean the lofty mount. He supposes
Pur to be the Latian Jupiter. Pyrene, who gave her name to the
mountain, which Celsa nimbosi verticis arce
Divisos Celtis alte prospectat Iberos,
is said to have been violated by Hercules. — Sil. Ital. lib. iii. This
is the story of another religious, or rather sacerdotal, feud. Pliny
seems to have heard it told of Saturn likewise, iii. 1.
VOL. I. X

306

OF HERCULES.

between the Arkite and the Sabian parties, the lior
became a convenient hieroglyphic of the Argha, to
be always attached to the hero of the Ark ; because
while it reminded the initiated of the subjacent
mystery, its equivocal import at the same time con
tented their opponents, by affording an interpret
ation more in accordance with their system : if the
Argha of the Hindoos be usually round, and in its
modern acceptation means literally a cup, this only
makes it the more appropriate to the Hercules of
mythology ; for Stesichorus relates, that he passed
over the ocean in a cup.1 A cup and a ship were
in fact synonymous terms with some ancient writers
even among the Greeks2 ; and the reason seems to
be, that the first ships not built in imitation of the
Ark were actually round, and this form continued
in use to a very late period among some uncivilised
nations; for an anonymous writer quoted by Gibbon
describes the Northmans and Goths and other war
like people from the Northwest coming to Constan
tinople in round ships.3 Hence Krishna, the Indian
Hercules, is represented by the Hindoo artists lying
in a round dish, when he was carried over the sea,

1 Athen. lib. ii. s. 16. Apollodor. lib. ii. p. 100. Schol. Apollon.
Argonaut, iv., ts. 1396. A goblet of gold.
2 KdvOapoc on [aIv itXoiov ovofta koIvov, ort Se Kal itor-qptov rt KaXsTrat
AfAEt\j/iac (pno-tv. Athenaeus gives several instances of each use of the
word, 1. ii. s. 47. Menander speaks of a Cantharus, which he
afterwards expressly calls to itXoTov, and ryv vavv, s. 48. Apollodorus
says in his etymologies, that the Paphians called a cup Kvft&a, Cymba,
s. 6,5. Macrobius, therefore, rnjght have spared his grave remark,
that he really thought Hercules did not cross the sea in a cup, but in
a vessel called Scyphus. — Sat. xv. 21.
3 Navibus rotundis quae Ysnachiae dicuntur, ii. 142.

OF HERCULES. 307
and saved from his enemies, unhurt, but watched
by the serpent that hangs over him. A similar
round vessel belongs to him in another, picture,
where quadrupeds of all sorts are stowed together
in it as close as possible.1
The Afghans have a tradition that the ark ofthe
covenant was a goblet of pure gold, a notion which
must be ascribed to their confounding the ark of
the covenant with the ark of the deluge ; especially
since the hearts of the prophets, which it was sup
posed to contain, were purified by ablution.2 A
golden cup, too, was the vessel in which the Budha
of the Hindoos was received in order to be born ;
and their sacred writings declare that he is not to
be recognised as Budha till it has floated up the
sacred stream Kasi, to the Hemavunta mountains,
where it awakens the king of the giants from a
slumber of a thousand years, by ringing against the
rock of his cave.3 Here the only confusion arises
from the facts of history being blended with the
rites commemorative of those facts, by placing the
genius of the flood in his mystic cell while his
vessel is floating on the waters ; otherwise the lan
guage of the legend is intelligible enough. The
ship is guided by a supernatural power ; for it floats
against the current : the sacred stream Kasi is the
Ganges, the continual emblem of the flood ; for
1 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, plates 58, 59.
2 Dorn's Translation of the History of the Afghans, by Neamet
Ullah, p. 14.
3 Notes on the Cingalese Poem, Yakkun Nattannawa, by J. Cal
laway.
x 2

308 OF HERCULES.
Benares1, which stands upon its banks, or rather
between two rivers which soon pour their waters
into it, and where pyramids with open cells 2, and
the tall pillar called the walking staff of Siva3,
attest the former existence of Arkite rites, is called
in ancient books Kassy.4 Bryant observes that
the constellation Leo in the Egyptian sphere was
Arez ; in the Indian it was Sinha ; therefore Arez
and Sinha were the same. But it has been showr
that Sinha was a title of Budha ; therefore he may
be supposed to have given his name to Ben-ares as
the child of the lion or the ark. The Hemavunta,
or Haimavat mountain, is the mystic Mandara ; foi
the Mandara hills are near the source of the
Ganges6, and Haimavat, the sovereign of mountains,
was said to be the father of Ganga, the purifier of
the world.6 The giant is the Patriarch himself, or
the priest who represented him ; for the first fathers
of mankind were always described of gigantic size,
whether under the name of Orion, or of Hercules,
or of Titans, or of Cabiri ; partly, perhaps, because
1 Benares is also called Varanasa, or Baranassey. The rivers are
the Birnah, that is, Varuna, the god of water, so called from Baris,
and Assey, from Ess, a ship. — Ayeen Akbery, ii. 33.
2 As. Res. iii. 229-
3 Heber's Memoirs, i. 430.
4 So also Lander, in his voyage down the Quorra, mentions an
elevated rocky hill, called Mount Kesey by the natives. It is a
small island, about 300 feet in height, and very steep, and is an
object of superstitious veneration, p. 184.
So also the Mons Casius is described by D'Anville as an inconsi
derable hill jutting out into the sea, and called still Cap del Kas.
It forms une pointe en mer. — Geographie Ancienne, iii. 18.
6 As. Res. iii. 193.
6 Ramayana, sect. 30. — Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 1 75. 339-

OF HERCULES. 309
their stature, like the duration of their lives, may
have exceeded that now allotted to man, and partly
because veneration is a medium through which
every object is magnified to the eye of the beholder.
Lastly, the long period of rest was terminated by
the ark striking the rocks as it grounded on Mount
Ararat. The same story was current among the
Greeks, who, however, altered the names to suit
their own locality. The son of Hercules, with his
mother Auge, which, ¦ after all, may be only a
Sabian corruption of Arje or Arga, was inclosed
in an ark ' which floated from Tegea in Arcadia up
the stream of Caicus, till it came to Pergamos. But
why to Pergamos ? It was a city of Mysia.
But there were hills about it, from which it
probably took its name. Berg means a hill, not
only in German, but in other northern languages.
It is the Gothic term for a hill, says a Scotch
antiquary, composed of two Gaelic words, Bi Erg,
a thing raised or elevated.2 In Icelandic, the
purest Gothic now existing, the word is Bi-arg.
Thus the relation of the hill to the ark is still
preserved. Amas in Chaldee signifies Inclosure 3 :
the whole, therefore, may signify the Mount of In
closure ; and we learn from Servius, that Pergama

1 Pausanias calls it Adpval. — Arcadica, p. 606. Natalis Comes,
Urna. He adds, that they were saved by Pallas, lib. vii.
2 Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, i. 19.
Thus itvpyoc and Burgos are certainly the same word.
3 VJjy, Clausit, and QQy, Heb. Texit, Abscondit. In Arabic
ijo^s-- is Obscurus, Calamitosus dies. — Castell. Lex.
x 3

310 OF HERCULES.
was a common name for heights.1 The hills of
Asia Minor are strewed with relics of Arkite monu
ments, on which Arundell might have thrown much
light in his " Excursion to the Seven Churches,"
if he had viewed them with a more discriminating
observation. His vision just enables him to dis
cover something like a temple, or a burial-ground,
among the pillars and pedestals 2 of Bali-chek near
Ephesus, and of Tour-bali, the hill of Bali, or
Belus, near the ship-shaped hill Frigatta. But
every thing that he sees on the top of a hill is in
variably an Acropolis. Thus, a building which he
did not examine, on the top of a mountain, near
Isbarta, a part of the range of Taurus, and so high,
that the snow lay upon it in ridges, he chooses to
call comparatively modern, and probably a Turkish
fortress ; because, I suppose, it was rude and un
adorned; although he believes it to be the same
as the Dourdan of Lucas (Tor, or Turris Danai),
and although the very name of Assar3 might have
suggested to him, that the circular excavations
which he remarked, might have some other design
than to serve as cisterns ; for Assar, in Hebrew,
signifies to inclose, or shut up.4 Near Philadel-
1 Arces omnes Pergama dicuntur. — Servius in Virg. ii. 555.
2 The pedestals were probably those four-cornered stones, dedi
cated sometimes to one god, and sometimes to another, but chiefly
to Mercury. Tourbali he absurdly enough conjectures to be a cor
ruption of Metropolis ; if he had said that Tripoli was a corruption
of Tor Bali, Mons Beli, he would have been nearer the mark.
;t He supposes Assar, the name given it by his guide, to be a mistake
for Hissar, a Castle. But Hissar and Assar have the same relation
as Tor and Turris, Berg and itipyoc..
4 "^Uy Clausit, Conclusit, Coercuit. — Castell. Lex.

OF HERCULES. 311
phia, however, there is a monument on a conical
hill, not so manageable ; for it consists of nothing
but a heap of large rough stones. Now this is
exactly the description which Pausanias gives ' of
a monument on Pergamos, to the Arkborne family.
It was a cairn or tumulus surrounded by a rampart
of stones. This, therefore, being one of the strong
holds of superstition, that sort of superstition
which was grafted upon the history of the Ark, we
may the better understand the reproach of St.
John, when he tells the church at Pergamos, " I
know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even
where Satan's seat is — thou hast them, that hold
the doctrine of Balaam." 2 Now his doctrine was
the worship ofthe Lingam, with all its abominations,
and his place of worship was the top of the rocks —
the solitary summits of Pisgah and of Peor 3: and,
because the stones dedicated by idolatry to the
false gods Siva, or Saturn, or Mercury, were black,
it is added, " I will give him a white stone, and in
the stone a new name written." i It is further to
be observed, that at the mouth of the Caicus, were
the Arginusae Islands, that is, the Lion or Ship
of Nusus, or Dionusus ; and the vessel which
achieved that marvellous voyage was Arcadian.
Now the Arcadians vaunted their antiquity above
all other nations, and valued themselves much on
their assumed name of Aborigenes.5 Every where,
1 yLSfta XtBov itEpiExojAEvov Kp'qittii. — Arcadica, p. 606.
2 Revelations, ii. 13. 3 Numbers, xxiii. 3.
4 Revelations, ii. 17. 6 Universal History, vol. vi.
X 4

312 OF HERCULES.
they boasted that they were in possession of their
land before the birth of Jupiter ' ; for the most
idolatrous nations were perfectly aware, that their
oldest and highest idols had once been mortals like
themselves ; and Pausanias shows to what sort of
antiquity they were usually referred, when he re
ports the tradition, that the Olympic games were
instituted in a pre-existing state of the world, and
that Saturn and Jupiter had wrestled there, and
the Curetes ran the first course.2
The struggles of the Patriarch and his family
against the flood, may doubtless have been the
origin of those games : for Olympus is the Grecian
Meru, and the Arcadians contended that the wor
ship ofthe arkwas older than the worship of the man.
But they went further than this ; they contended
also for an antiquity greater than that of the moon3,
which can only mean one of two things — either
that the ark was sacred before the moon, which
would be an important fact to establish, because it
would show that the semilunar shape of the double-
prowed ship was no imitation of the moon at its
first quarter, but, on the contrary, that the image of
the crescent became consecrated by its resemblance

1 Ante Jovem genitum terras habuisse feruntur
Arcades, et luna. gens prior ilia fuit. — Ov. Fast. ii. 289^
Statius adds the stars also —
Arcades hine veteres astris lunaque priores. — Theb. iv. 175.
2 'EitavdyovfTi yap $vj avrov ic ra dvonEpw rov dvBpu-nov yivovi;, Kpovov
Kal Ala avroBi iraXaTo-at Xe^ovte?, Kal b? KoufvjTe; ipd/AOLEv itpSroi. —
Arcadica, 600.
3 Plutarch : Quaestiones Romanae, iii. 153.

OF HERCULES. 313
to the imagined figure of the ark : ; or, 2. It was
meant that the first Arkites existed before that of
which the moon was the emblem 2, namely, the
ark ; and that was unquestionably true of those
who built it. But in either case it follows, that
' there must have been a time, when all the existing
race of men were Arcadians, and so says no less an
authority than that of the Delphic oracle.3 How
ever, the Grecian priestess may be supposed to
speak only of Greece, and to mean that the Arkite
rites once prevailed all over Greece, and in this
sense the observation of Mnaseas may be under
stood, that before the moon the Arcadians were
predominant 4 ; for the remark is introduced by the
scholiast upon Apollonius in illustration of his
statement, that the Arcadians lived upon moun
tains before the moon5, and before the Pelasgian
1 Hudibras asks very justly, —
Tell me but what's the natural cause,
Why on a sign no painter draws
The full moon ever, but the half ?
Butler's Hud. Cant. iii. 783.
2 Plutarch, after remarking the custom of giving an oaken garland
to the preserver of a citizen, asks whether it was not a custom derived
from the Arcadians, who had some relationship to the oak : for they
were the first born of men, as oaks were of plants. — Qucvst. Rom.
92. and 169- : hence, perhaps, the Druids' veneration for the oak.
3 'ApKac., dip' ov SJ; itavrEc EitiKX-qtriv KaXkavrai. — Pausanias in
Arcadic. 6 10.
4 ITfo -ZEXyvqc. (3ao-iXEv<rai. —
Orta prius luna, de se si creditor ipsi,
A magno tellus Arcade nomen habet. — Ovid. Fast. i. 469.
8 'AvihavrJEc. 01 itpoa-Bs o-EXwal-qc. itkovrai
Zueiv, <p-qyav eoVts; iv ovpEiriv. — Apollon. in Argonaut.
Euripides speaksof Apidanus, a river of Phthias, as rov KaXX'urrov iidrav
itarkpa, i. e. the ocean like the Nile. — Hecub. 451. Apis was king
of Argos.

314 OF HERCULES.
land, that is to say, Greece was ruled by the
famous Deucalidaa ; for all Greece was called
Pelasgia before the time of Deucalion.1 The per
son, who assumed that name, seems to have reigned
just at the time when the Sabian heresy succeeded
in deposing the Arkite system of adoration from its ¦
universal dominion ; and his union with Pyrrha may
either account for it historically, if she was, as her
name imports, a fireworshipper, and favourer of the
new sect, or it may be a fictitious name, merely to
express the fact of its joint influence at that period :
since, however, he is celebrated for building the
first temples of the gods, the former hypothesis is
most probable. As to the deluge that bears his
name, and which has been already noticed, the
more it is considered as an historical fact, the more
indefensible it appears.2 The hypothesis which is
usually employed to account for it, is the same as
that which has been already refuted in considering
1 Tota fere Graecia ante Deucalionem vocata fuit Pelasgia. —
Montfaucon, Dissertatio de Priscis Grcecorum et Latinorum Literis,
557- Thessaly, which was more peculiarly Pelasgia, contains many
very remarkable tumuli, which were not sepulchres merely, as
Clarke supposed, but owed their origin to the same system which pro
cured the name of TlEXaa-ytKov Apyoe for Larissa, which, like the
citadel of the same name at Argos, stood upon a high rock. — Clarke's
Trav. vii. 348.
2 Voeser, in his Voyage de la Grece, accounts for the floods of
Ogyges and Deucalion in a way which makes them floods only by
an accumulation of water in certain basons, and not at all by its
bursting through the barriers that confined it. Bceotia and Thessaly
were lakes, which discharged their waters only through subterraneous
channels, which being choked up with mud and falls of earth, the
country behind was inundated ; but how the present passage was open
ed for the rivers he does not explain ; nor why, if there were subter
raneous channels for the rivers, there should be any lakes at all.

OF HERCULES. 315
the Samothracian deluge ; but, I trust I shall not
seem to be travelling too much over the same
ground, if I resume the argument here at greater
length ; for a French writer, who has taken much
pains to consult all authorities,except that of Moses,
the oldest of all, has fallen into strange inconsis
tencies, geological and chronological, by conjectu
ring, not only that a volcanic eruption from the
Cyanian isles opened the. passage through the
Bosphorus, which is fifteen miles in length, but
that the earthquakes accompanying it separated
Olympus from Ossa at the distance of more than
300 miles, and so gave a passage to the Peneus.1
M. Olivier has described the banks of the Bospho
rus on both sides, through an extent of several
leagues, and he certainly states them to be of vol
canic structure.2 But no geologist will admit the
agency of recent volcanoes in their formation ; for
the rocks are Porphyry and Trap, containing
Jasper, Cornelians, Chalcedonies, and Agates. This
is exactly the description of the rocks near the
source of the Coquet in Northumberland, belong
ing to the Cheviot range ; and yet no one ever
dreamed that they were symptoms of postdiluvian
volcanic action.3 In the next place, even granting

1 Geographie Physique de la Mer Noire, par A. Dureau de la
Malle. Paris, 1807, p. 197- 211.
2 Olivier, torn. i. p. 69-
3 If it was not postdiluvian, it is nothing to the purpose ; but
previous to that period he is welcome to as many volcanoes as he
chooses to imagine : they will not affect the present question at all.

316

OF HERCULES.

what it were ridiculous to suppose, that these rocks
were the production of a recent volcano, still it is
not very obvious, how so long a passage could be
opened through them, merely by a fresh eruption.
They might indeed be closed by a stream of lava,
more prodigious than any on record ; but in that
case, a vast temporary inundation must have been
occasioned behind, in addition to that which would
result afterwards from the removal of the mass, if
such a thing were possible ; for the level of the
waters would be raised till they found a vent
somewhere. But this is in direct opposition to another part
of his hypothesis, which assumes that till it broke
loose in the time of Deucalion, the Euxine had al
ways occupied an extent nearly equal to that of
the Mediterranean ' : but in consequence of the
vast weight of water which they had to sustain,
the banks of the Isthmus gave way, and the coasts
of Asia and the plains of Samothrace were inun
dated.2 But to state only a few of the objections
1 Pallas states, he says, that towards the north and south, the
Euxine has undergone considerable changes, p. 162. He must mean
the Caspian ; for in another place, he himself says, that the southern
coasts being chiefly formed of calcareous rocks, cannot have been
much altered. Again, he says, that the two seas once communicated,
not only by the channel of the Manytch, but by reaching up to the
point where the Don and Volga almost meet, p. 1 67. ; but how is this
to be reconciled with his statement that the level of the former is ten
toises above the latter, p. 264. ?
2 It is not very easy to make out his meaning. His words are,
En effet, la mer dans le Pont Euxine avait la forme d'un lac im
mense, jusqu'a ce qu'il fut rempli par les eaux qui s'y jettent, au
point, que d^bordant de tous cotes par la quantity d'eau qu'il con-
tenait, il vint tomber avec violence extreme dans l'Hellespont, etde la

OF HERCULES. 317
that rise up against such an hypothesis : — 1. The
mass of waters continually added to the Euxine by
the many large rivers that feed it, must from the
very first have found their passage through the
lowest of the valleys intersecting the hills that sur
round it, and worked themselves channels which
would gradually lower its level ; and it is evident,
that other causes are quite sufficient to account for

submergea heaucoup de cotes de l'Asie, et fit une mer d'une grande
partie des plaines de la Samothrace, p. 211. If it ran over on every
side, how came it to fall with such extreme violence into the Helles
pont ? nay, how got it there at all ? I have endeavoured, how
ever, to express what I suppose he meant.
Messrs. Parrot and Engelhart have discovered that the Caspian
Sea is 334 feet below the Mediterranean ; and Humboldt, Rose, and
Hoffman have shown, that the depression extends to a territory of
about 18,000 square leagues in surface. Since then the Caspian is
320 feet below the level of the Euxine, if to that amount be added
the height of the intervening land, over which the waters must have
flowed if the two seas were joined, and that height can scarcely be
estimated at less, it would be a curious calculation to find out how
large a portion of the continent would be buried under 100
fathoms of water. — Forbes and Conybeare in Reports of Phil.
Assoc, p. 230. 394.
With respect to the earthquakes and volcanoes, M. Pertusier tells
us that a geologist who has studied the subject on the spot denies
that there has been any revolution of nature at the Cyanean rocks,
which are at the northern extremity of the Straits. — Pictur Promen.
p. 5. ; and another writer who has examined the localities is of opinion
that the two sides never were united : " The distance from the
Symplegades to the other extremity of the Bosphorus, Chalcedonia
Point, is twenty miles. The average depth is from thirty to forty
fathoms, ten more than the bottom of the Euxine immediately out
side. This invalidates the opinion of Strabo and Polybius, that
the Euxine was formerly a lake. The waters that are poured into
it must in a very short space of time have made for themselves a
passage without the aid of an earthquake, and that passage would
rather have been over the lowland twenty or thirty miles to
the north of the Bosphorus. The opposite character too of its
shores in feature and productiveness strengthens the idea that they
never were nearer related than at present." — Slade's Records of
Travels, i. 147.

318 OF HERCULES.
any diminution of its extent, since, by his own ac
knowledgment, the sea of Azoph, has, since the
time of Herodotus, diminished %, the Caspian ^,
and the Euxine itself was, at that period, thirty
leagues less than in the days of Xerxes : and yet
nothing of this has been effected by any violent
disruption of its banks. ^. There was a double
barrier to be surmounted ; for why was the Helles
pont to be open more than the Bosphorus? 3.
Fifteen miles of rocks would not easily give way
all at once in one narrow line. 4. The rock is in
its own nature one of the hardest and strongest.
Tournefort was so sensible of this, that he sup
poses the space between the rocks to have been
filled up with earth, which the waters gradually
dug away ' ; a gratuitous assumption, and of a very
incredible complexion, to fortify an improbable
conjecture ; for it has been already shown that
there is no probability in favour of a Samothracian
deluge. Why were the effects so entirely local ?
Why confined to Samothrace, a locality so ill
selected? for every island in the Egean should
have spoken the same language. Philo, indeed,
speaks of Rhodes and Delos having once disap
peared under the water ; but considering the dis
tance of Rhodes, that is too much even for M.
Dureau de la Malle to connect with Deucalion's
deluge. He remarks, with much simplicity, on this
fact: — " J'avoue, que la submersion de Rhodes

1 Voyage au Levant, torn. ii. p. 124.

OF HERCULES. 319
m' etonne beaucoup." ' But the chronological ob
jection to his hypothesis is the most fatal of all.
He fixes the event in the year 1529, b.c2 Now
the unanimous evidence of antiquity declares, that
some centuries before that time, the Argonauts
had sailed through the Bosphorus into the Euxine.
Whatever obscurity, at least, may hang over the
details of their expedition, there is no reason to
doubt the reality of their existence, and their
voyage ; but yet, the Arundel marbles, which are
the oldest record of dates, except the Bible, and
go back to the year 1582, before Christ, do not go
back far enough to include any of their names.
Arctinus, the disciple of Homer3, relates, that
when the Arcadians, or Pelasgi, flying from the
deluge (he must mean from the persecution of
those who commemorated it), established them
selves in Samothrace, Dardanus had instituted
there the worship of the Dii magni, i. e. the Cabiri.
He imparted the secret of the mysteries to his
brother Jasius, who initiated Cadmus, the founder
of Grecian Thebes.4 The latter part of this state-
1 Geographie Physique, 223.
2 We know positively, says he, that in 1541, b.c. Deucalion
passed into. Thessaly with a colony of Dryopes, Curetes, &c. What !
when Thessaly was all under water — one vast lake ! The whole
speculation is a worthy companion of another in the same author,
according to which the Mediterranean was originally a small lake,
till the ocean burst through the Straits of Gibraltar. Still it lost more
by evaporation than it received till the dyke was broken down by
the Cyanic volcano, and the Euxine brought to it the tribute of six
of the greatest rivers in Europe, p. 368.
3 So he is considered by Suidas and Tzetzes, on the authority of
Artemon of Clazomenes.
4 Dionys. Halicarn. i. 28.

320 OF HERCULES.
ment reveals the whole secret. The Samothra-
cian deluge was altogether mystic : else it were
most extraordinary, that the Arcadians should fly
from the deluge to the very place where its effects
were most felt ; and the Arcadians were evidently
Arkites, who obtained their name from Arcath :,
which is said to have been one of the first cities
built after the deluge. Area was the name of a
town in Decapolis ; and the palace of the Persian
king is, to this day, called the Ark2: and the
Greeks were in the habit of using Archas to ex
press the origin of things, and to designate any
thing ancient by the term Archaean.
But the Arcadians are also called Apidanees ;
a word which combines two, both applicable tc
the Greeks in general ; for Homer makes Nestor,
Menelaus, and Ulysses all come from the Apian
land3, the land of Apis, where the Abi or Fa
thers were worshipped like the Pitris4 by the
Hindoos. Eustathius says, that all Peloponnesus
was called Apia from one Apis, who inhabited Ar
cadia. 6 But the Greeks were also Danai 6 from

1 Theophilus spells it both 'ApKaB and 'Apxai. — Ad Autolyc.
ii.'206. ; and thus 'ApKaXoc became 'Apxatoc, and 'Ap/oj 'Apxq.
2 Author of Hadji Baba.
3 Iliad, a. 270. y. 49- Od. t,. 25.
4 Pitris is evidently itarEpsq.
5 As evidence of this he cites some lines from Arrian :
KXvroc. 'Aitlc.
' Oe. p ' 'Aitl-qv ipaiC^E, Kal dvEoac ' Aitihairqaq. — Hoffman.
Apis Argivus a poetis Jovis nomine celebratus. — Voss. de Orig. et
Prog. Idololatrice, p. 103.
6 Timeo Danaos. — Mn. ii. 49-

OF HERCULES. 321
Danaus, who was one with Hercules, the man of
the ship ; for his daughters were Belides, the
daughters of Belus ; and the fiction of their punish
ment, as we have already seen, was the Sabian con
demnation and ridicule of the Arkite priestesses,
who were always filling their urns in vain. The
Arcadian cup therefore already mentioned, was
that ship of Hercules, which appears to have had
its festival in the Roman Calendar, as well as the
ship of Isis \ and the Trieris of Ammon ; for the
Romans received Hercules as a deity from the Ar
cadians and Pelasgi. 2 And therefore when Ly-
cophron makes Cassandra prophesy that Achilles
shall enter the cup of Bacchus 3, the golden vessel
which he gave to Thetis, when he took refuge in
the sea4, it is impossible not to suspect that a sly
insinuation is here conveyed of a truth unaccept
able to the pride of the Greeks, and that Achilles
actually ran away in a ship, and that the lamenta-

1 See Gruter's Inscriptions. Certus dies habetur in Fastis, quo
Isidis navigium celebratur. — Lactantius de Fab. Rel. Li. c. 11.
2 Censeo non esse alium (Sancum) quam Herculem, quem Romani
Ab Arcadibus et Pelasgis accepere. — Voss. de Orig. Sec. p. 89.
3 Kparypa BaKxov hva-Erat. — Cassandra, p. 273.
4 Stesichorus apud Scholiast, in Horn. \p- 92- Homer calls this
golden cup (xpvo-Eoc, afAfupopEvc.') a o-opoc. Ibid. A vessel like that
which carried Apis, or Osiris. — An idol called Stufo on the moun
tain of Staufenberg is supposed by Leibnitz to have been Bacchus,
because Stauf signified in old German a cup, or vessel. With what
vessel this genius of the mountain was really connected, it is easy
to conjecture both from his abode, and from the place of his retreat;
for after maintaining a long struggle against the missionaries of
Christianity in defence of his oracle, he withdrew into a cavern,
his mystic cell — das Stufenloch, or Staufenhohle. — Hertha. von
Carl Barth. p. 52.
VOL. I. Y

322 OF HERCULES.
tions ofthe nymphs were for his inglorious retreat.
Many persons have borne the name of Achilles, and
among them perhaps one of the wrarriors at the
siege of Troy. But it is not a name without a
meaning : it signifies the Mighty One *, and so is
equivalent to one of the Cabiri, the well" known
denomination of the Noachidas. It is obvious,
indeed, that some mysterious notions must have
been associated with the name, some greater im
portance than ever belonged to Homer's hero,
when we find it not only in Sicily, and in La-
conia, and in Bceotia, but appropriated also to
two islands in the Euxine ; one at the mouth of
the Danube, still called Chilia 2 ; the other at the
mouth of the Borysthenes 3, where a temple was
dedicated to him, which was regarded with more
than usual of superstitious awe.4 Moreover, the
Sigean shore, on which the monument called his
Tumulus was raised, is remarkably connected with
Diluvian myths : there Neptune in his wrath was
1 From the Hebrew Chil, 7*n> virtus, vires. ^PIKj '/lltf-
Sunt qui a H?n> precatus est, deducunt : hine exponunt preces ; ali
•r •
beatitudines ; alii perfectio. — Castell. Lex.
2 Est Achillea apud Ptol., Paus., et Max. Tyr. insula, et urbs, ad
ostium Istri — vulgo Kilia. — Vide Steph. and Hoffman.
3 Fuit etiam Achillea insula Sarmatz : Europ : ante ostia Borys-
thenis ; quae et Macaron, et Leuce, et Heros, ut quidam volunt,
dicebatur. 4 Kslfli 8' 'AxiXXvjoc. te Kal 'Hpoiav tpdric. aXXoiv
tyvxac, EiXlo-o-EQ~Bai ipyfAaiac, dva ^-qcrcrac.. Dionysius.
In hac Taurica insula Leuce sine habitatoribus ullis Achilli dedi
cator, aiunt non sine discrimine vitae illic quenquam pernoctare. —
Ammianus, 1. xxii.

OF HERCULES. 323
said to have covered the fields with his waves, and
to have given the land all the appearance of a sea.1
There was the seat of the Samothracian Dardanus,
and Ida, the counterpart of Meru, or Mandara ;
and there the great sea serpent was vanquished,
like Typhosus, by a huge rock launched against
him by Hercules in spite of his enormous folds.
Quintius Calaber, therefore, was perfectly right in
assigning to Achilles equal honours with Dionusus
and Hercules : for both of them had as much right
to the Tumulus, or diluvian mount, as he.2 It is
not, however, merely by designating a ship the Cup
of Dionusus, that Lycophron has shown his know
ledge of Arkite mysteries, analogous to those of
India: in another passage the parallel runs far
closer. It is a passage of extreme perplexity
to those who look not below the surface. He
says, that Hercules wounded with a heavy arrow
his second invulnerable mother Juno.3 Juno his
mother! how can thisbe? to salve the matter, one of

1 Inque freti formam terras convertit, opesque
Abstulit agricolis, et fluctibus obruit agros.
Ovid. Met. 1. xi. fab. 6.
2 'AfAtpl Se tvja€ov
' ApyEtot Kal a-Y)fAa itEXupiov dft/pEtdXovro
'Akttj lit' aKpordrri itapd @evBe<tiv 'EXX'qcritovrov.
Quint. Calab. Liii. 736.
It was built close to the sea at the extremity of the point, and it
was, like the tower of Babel, intended for a shem or cr-q/Aa. — Valer.
Flac. Argonaut, ii. 533.
Ov yap 5'yE <pBift.kvoi.ai jAErko-o-Erai, dXXa StEoTo-iv
'A; ^uj A>o'roo-o<; HI aBkvoc, 'HpaKXrjoc.. Ibid. 768.
3 'O h-Evrkpav TEKOvuav drpccrov fiapE? rvxpac. drpaKTU aripvov. V. 39-
y 2

324 OF HERCULES.
the mythologists pretends, that Juno suckled him.1
What ! when she sent the serpents into his cradle
to destroy him ?2 But if she was wounded, how was
she invulnerable? No wonder the critics are at fault,
if they search not for the esoteric meaning. His
second mother was the ark ; and she was not only
invulnerable, but unwounded in any sense ; for
the opening in her side was only the opening of
the door. But inasmuch as she was the ark, she
was also, in a secondary sense, the mystic cell in a
rock, and then the blow aimed at her side is the
same blow which wakes the giant of the Hema
vunta mountains : for the two words, usually in
terpreted a heavy arrow, or dart, are capable of
another application ; for one expresses a mast, or
a vessel, and the other is the Egyptian sacred ark.3
The equivocal signification of these words may
furnish a clew to explain the fable of Omphale,
whom Hercules, the son of Alcmene, served for a
year ; that is, for a length of time, which, as it was
the period of confinement in the ark, so it was at
least the nominal period of initiation in Arkite
mysteries : for the term which is usually inter
preted an arrow, in Lycophron, signifies also a
distaff. 4 And the diluvian mount was considered

1 Eumolpus de Mysteriis. Natalis Comes, Mythologia, 1. i.
2 Pind. Od. Nem. i. l.itEpxBEto-a StvfA$, ite/ahe "hpaKovra% dpap.
3 "ArpaKroq. Mali nautici pars super antennam. — Scap. Lex.
But it may also be derived from the Celtic Arthrac, a Ship. BapEt
is the Egyptian Bari scarcely altered.
4 The distaff is frequently seen in the hands of men all over the
Hedjaz. — Burckhardt, p. 243. It is not surprising, therefore, that
this mistake should have been made.

OF HERCULES. 325
umbilicus terras, not only because it was the centre
of the world, and the point of connection with its
former parent, but also because it was supposed to
bear the same relation to the circumference of the
earth, as the point in the umbo or boss of a shield
bears to the rest of its area. Upon this principle
the Chinese, who, like most other nations, have
localised in their own country the theatre of de
liverance from the deluge, have founded their con
clusion, that the mountain of China, on which the
remnant of the human species was saved, must be
the highest in the globe.1 The ancient Bacchanals
mingled both ideas in their emblematic offerings,
which consisted of cakes partly in the form of a
pyramid, and partly with raised bosses in the centre,
marked with a spiral line2 in imitation of the
diluvian serpent. Hence Omphale is, with great
propriety, reported by a Latin poet to have been
dipped in the Gygean or Ogygian lake 3 ; for
that Gyges and Ogyges were the same, there can
be no reasonable doubt. M. Gebelin asserts, that
in the Celtic and Oriental languages, Go, Gou, and
Gov signify a country bordered by water 4 ; and not
only in Sanscrit is Ogha, water 8, but, according to
Bannier, in Western mythology, Ogoa was the god
of the seas. He was adored by the Carians at
Mylossus ; and the sea was said to pass under his

1 Peter Dobell's Travels in China, ii. 282.
2 Deane on the Serpent, p. 179- 3 Propertius, 1. iii. Eleg. 11.
4 Monde Primitif, situe' le long des eaux.
8 Wilford in As. Res. vii. 321.

326 OF HERCULES.
temple, and sometimes to overflow it.1 The year
of servitude, or initiation, was imposed on him as
the suitor of Iole by her father the Eubcean prince.
And by examining the etymology of her name, we
shall easily discern to what class of religionists her
family belonged. Iul in Hebrew denotes Strength,
Valour 2, of which Hercules was the representative.
But its meaning in Chaldee, which is probably
older, was, the Beginning 3 ; and Iole is an allusion
to the first parents of the present race of men.
The same word has been twisted into a variety of
shapes by those various tribes, who are most tena
cious of ancient notions and expressions. In our
own country it became Yule, a name for Christmas,
still retained in the north of England, but evidently
implying the beginning of the year ; the com
mencement of the sun's return from the winter
solstice. In Hindostan it is Huli, or Hulica, the
beginning of the Indian spring 4 : and this accords
with the tradition, which made Noah leave the
Ark in the month of April.5 In western Europe,
though the name has been transferred to the be
ginning of the modern year, yet the same rites are
still retained, as in the Eastern Huli. Sending
simpletons on idle errands is a ceremony at that
1 Pausanias.
2 ^Htf Heb. Fortitude
3 7l&> Chald. Principium. m j" Aoil, Awail, Primi, Praecipui,
Majores. Hence the French Aieul, Grandfather.
* As. Res. iii. 258. and viii. 87.
5 Georg. Cedren. Histor. Compendium,

OF HERCULES. 327
period among all ranks of Hindoos, exactly similar
to our custom of making April fools ' ; and the di
version of scattering coloured powders on the
clothes of passers by in the streets bears a close
resemblance to the pelting them with sugar-plums
in Rome at the commencement of the Carnival.
If, indeed, it be true that, viewed astronomically
with respect to its position in the sidereal year, the
Huli is a moveable festival, which falls out differ
ently between the time of the sun's arriving at the
end of Aquarius, to the 15th of Pisces 2, it must be
granted that it has no connection with the equinox ;
but, on the other hand, since Phagun, or Phalgun,
has taken its station as the first month of the or
dinary year in the Hindu calendar 3, the name of
Phalguntsava, or the festival of Phalgun, shows
that the commencement of the first postdiluvian
year was the subject which it commemorated.
In Bceotia, the country of Thebaa, or the ark,
where every thing was Ogygian, that is to say,
archaic and diluvian4, the name of the Hindoo
festival was given to a city, where, doubtless, Arkite
rites were peculiarly observed ; for it can scarcely
be a mere coincidence, that it was situated on a

1 Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 157-
2 Ayeen Akbery, i. 307-
3 They divide the year into three parts, beginning with the month
of Phagun. Ibid. 267-
4 Zof Be, tekvov, toS EK-qXvBz
Hav Kpdroe 'flyvyiov. Sophoc. Philoc. 143.
Where the Scholiast explains 'Qyiytov to be to if «/>%ij{.
Y 4

328 OF HERCULES.
lake called Hulica.1 In Bithynia, too, there was a
Hulee or Hylasan lake, where the same allusion
may be inferred ; for Hylas was the name, not
only of the lake, but of a river too 2, which, as it
washes the city Prusias, is the Rhyndacus, famous
for serpents 3, and flowing from Olympus, the
mountain of the gods, which seems to be only a
transposition of Omphale, — Iol Omphi, the ancient
or ancestrial oracle. It is evident that Hylas was
a mystic name ; for there was the residence of
Hylas 4, the favourite, and some say the son of
Hercules, and of the aquatic nymphs, who carried
him away. Solinus says, that in his days, the people
continued annually to go round the lake, and call
upon Hylas ; but Salmasius observes, that he was
mistaken : it was not round the lake, but on the
tops of the mountains, that this rite was observed 5 :
and Propertius describes the scene under the brow
ofthe mountain Arganthus6, which seems to be

1 'Oc p' ev "TXtj vaUa-KE fAEya itXolrovo ft.Eft.'qXoic,
AlfAV-q KEKXtftkvoc. K-q(ptcridi. Horn. II. t. 709*
Strabo says, that Homer here does not speak of the lake Kopais,
as some think, but r'qv "tXm-qv itpoo-ayopEvofikvqv, ix. 408.
2 Solinus Polyhistor, p. 52.
3 Pomponius Mela, c. 19- He says tlie serpents took refuge from
the sun in its stream, and forced the birds to drop into their mouths.
It is evident they were diluvian serpents, who succeeded in obtain
ing sacrifices in that country.
4 Hylas lacus, in quo resedisse credunt delicias Herculi Hylam
puerum, nymphis rapinam, in cujus memoriam usque adhuc solemni
cursitatione lacum populus circumit et Hylam voce clamant, p. 52.
5 Plinians Exercitationes in locum. Strabo says, it was called
op£itdo-ia Biao-zvovruv.
6 Hie erat Arganthi Pegae sub vertice montis
Grata domus nymphis humida Thyriasin. p. 617.

OF HERCULES. 329
derived from the Indian Argha. In order to reconcile
these accounts, we must infer that the place where
the rites of Hylas were so much celebrated, was
near the top of Olympus, where a pool was formed
by the fountain of Rhyndacus. Such is exactly
the sort of spot which the Arkites would have
selected for their worship ; and no one can imagine
that the absurd fiction of the Greeks would account
for a solemn rite so long and punctually observed.
But there is yet another place, denominated Hy-
laean, which might be attributed to the wood that
grows upon it, if it were not so much connected
with Hercules and his rites. Herodotus relates
two anecdotes concerning Hylasa, the one fabulous,
the other historical ; but both tending to prove,
that it derived its name from no profane or ordinary
source. In the first place, Hercules, when he had
lost his mares, while he was sleeping on the ground
in his lion's skin, recovered them from Echidna, to
whom he united himself in a cave in Hylasa.1 She
was the mistress of the place, half woman, half
serpent ; and she was the mother of Scytha, who
was recognised as the son of Hercules by his bow,
and his golden cup : in other words, she was the
Priestess of the Scythian Arkites ; for Strabo de
scribes the spot thus : — there is a promontory of
small extent, a place at the mouth of the Borys-
thenes, with a grove on it, called the sacred grove
of Achilles 2, which it has been already shown was
1 Herodot. Melpomene, Sect. 10.
2 " AKpa toC ' AxtiOXEiov hpoftov, ipiXov f*£i/ %ojj)<'oj/, aXcroc. KaXov/AEvov

330 OF HERCULES.
a mystical term equivalent to Hercules. Here,
perhaps, he received the oracle, which Sophocles
mentions, from the mountain-loving Selli \ whose
cells were in the ground, and of whom it has been
shown, that they were Arkites. But Hesiod enters
more at large upon the History of Echidna. He
says she was intimately connected with Typhon,
and the mother of Hydra, Cerberus, and Chimaera ;
all partaking of the nature of the Typhonic ser
pent ; and she lived in a hollow rock, and was the
daughter of Ceto, the monster of the sea.2 Upon
the same principle Lucian, who repeats many an
cient myths in his True History, for the sake of
turning them into ridicule, mentions among others
that Hercules was, during nine months, confined
in the body of a Cetus. In the next place, Hylaea
being a spot so appropriate for the purpose, and
anciently devoted to it, when Anacharsis returned
from Cyzicum, an island in the Propontis, he in
stituted there, or rather restored, the rites which
he had been accustomed to see performed to the
mother of the gods 3 ; and for that reason was put

lEpov 'A^iXAe'ws* Etra o 'AxIXXeioc. Q-pofAoc dXtTEpvqc x^p^v-qcroc — dftitw^-qc,
vtoip txovaa opvKtiv. In the middle of the Isthmus there was a hill,
avxqv, vii. 307-
* A tojv opEioiv Kal xafAaiKotTuv kya
TeXXuv egzXBuv dXaoc elo-Eypa^pafA-qv. Trachin. 1182.
2 Hesiod. Theogon. 304.
3 TvfAitavov te £xg?v xai EK^-qcrdftEvoc dydXftara. — Herod, iv. 31 6.
as EKl-qcrdftEvoe gives no good sense, it has been supposed that the
true reading is either EKhva-dfAEvo;, or iK^-qfA-qo-dfAEvoc ; either of which
would justify my version.

OF HERCULES. 331
to death by the votaries of the images which he
expelled. The only particular of those rites men
tioned, is a Tympanum, which signifies a Staff1,
though also used for an instrument of music. But
it was doubtless a pillar, such as the Arkites were
used to raise ; like that near Benares, which is called
the walking staff of Siva. The gods of these
people were their first ancestors, and, consequently,
the ark, from which they issued forth to replenish
the earth, was mystically their mother; and on this
account, among the principal nations of the ancient
world, a ship became the object of divine worship.
Aristides mentions that at Smyrna, upon the feast
called Dionysia, a ship used to be carried in pro
cession. At the Panathanaea, the sacred ship was
carried to the temple of Damater, at Eleusis.2
Upon Mount Albanus in Latium, a sacred ship was
reverenced, which Dion Cassius calls the ship of
Juno, or Hera.3 This ship, says Heeren, is often
represented both upon the Nubian and Egyptian
monuments, sometimes standing still, and some
times carried in procession 4 ; but never any where
except in the innermost sanctuary. On the great
temple of Carnac, the holy ark of Ammon is seen
on the river fully equipped, and towed along by
another 5 : this is the festival alluded to by Homer.6

1 Iv/Aitavov, baculum.
2 Aristoph. Hipp., 563. Bryant's Analysis, ii. 223. 446.
3 Lib. xxxix. p. 62.
4 Reflections on the Ancient Nations of Africa, by A. Heeren,
ii. 409.
6 Vol. i. p. 304. 6 II. i. 423.

332 OF HERCULES.
At Asseboa there are two monuments, on one of
which the king is seen kneeling at his devotions
before the sacred ark; on the other he is ap
proaching to offer frankincense before it. This is
the Baris already mentioned — the ship of Isis or
Damater.1 Iolaus is another mystic name derived
from the same root, and given by the son of Alcmena
to his nephew and associate, who, being neither
king nor conqueror, neither the chief of a tribe nor
the head of a family, it is obvious that he could
have no connection with religious rites, except on
account of the name which he had assumed.2 When
therefore we find that altars and temples were raised
to him, and a festival denominated Ioleia 3 ; and
when we find that in the treaty between Hannibal
and the Macedonian king, in the second Punic
war, he is invoked to witness it, in company not
only with Hercules, but with the other oceanic
deities of Carthage, Triton and Poseidon4, it is
impossible to avoid the conclusion, that the term
had some sacred import, wholly independent of the
individual, and previous to his assumption of the
name. Accordingly, it may be interpreted, " The
ancient rock ; " and perhaps the extraordinary virtue
of the arrows of Hercules, in the case of Philoc-
tetes, may be ascribed to a misconception of the
1 Diod. Sic. mentions the Baris, 1. i. 87. Herodotus. 1. ii. c. 96.
Eurip. Iphig. in Aul. v. 297- Msch. Pers. 151.
2 He was worshipped by the Thebans. — Anton. Liberalis, c. 29.
and at Athens. — Pausanias in Atticis.
3 Festo illius certamen, loXEia, initum. — Pind. Schol. Isth. Od. 4.
4 215. B. C. Polybius, ii. 598.

OF HERCULES. 333
meaning by the superficial Greeks, who sought for
it in their own language. They took it for the Ar
row rock, deceived by the similitude ofthe word1:
and it must surely be something more than a mere
fortuitous coincidence, that the Druidical pillars
near Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, have from time
immemorial obtained the title ofthe Devil's Arrows.
The story of that Robinson Crusoe of antiquity,
living alone in his rocky cell 2 on an uninhabited
island for ten years, is manifestly fictitious. The
groundwork seems to have been this : — he had
quarrelled with the leaders of the Grecian army,
on a question of religious rites ; for Ulysses com
plains, that the noise which he made, interrupted
their sacrifices. Therefore he was left behind in
Lemnos. But though the scene of the drama when
he was to be fetched away again was necessarily
that island, yet the poet shows plainly enough,
that the residence of Philoctetes is described
with reference, not to its natural, but to its
mystical character ; for naturally, Lemnos is flat
and fertile, and has some tolerable harbours. But
the island of Philoctetes was a barren, inaccessible
rock3, destitute of harbours, and untrodden by
man. It was a lofty and steep rock ; for he
threatened to destroy himself by throwing himself
headlong from the summit : it was a solitary rock ;
for he was out of the reach of all assistance : and
1 From 'Io; and Xdac.
2 nsrpivq Koh-q. — Philoct. l6l. He was therefore like the %«/*«(-
KOt-roi XeXXoi.
3 Sophoc. Philoctet. 2. Kara}'pZyEc itirpai, 960.

344 OF HERCULES.
it was barren ; for there was nothing in it to tempt
any one to touch there, and no one went near it,
unless driven upon the coast by stress of weather.1
Neither could the arrows in the possession of Phi
loctetes be literal arrows 2 ; for even granting the
greatest possible licence to poetic fiction, it is hard
to see in what way, viewed as implements of war,
the success of the siege could depend on them ;
and certain it is, that the capture of the city was
not effected, nor accelerated by his presence.
But instruments of religion have always been sup
posed to exercise a fatal influence upon the desti
nies of states, like the ark of the Israelites, and the
statue of Minerva, which Ulysses had already stolen
from the Trojans.3 It is most likely, therefore,
that the arrows were not weapons, but objects of
worship ; and considering the place from which
they came, the person to whom they had be
longed4, and the circumstances under which they
were first left behind, and afterwards sought for
by the superstitious Greeks, we may conclude
that they were sacred stones, like the Shalugramus
of the Hindoos.5 The last point to be mentioned
1 Sophoc. Philoctet. 305.
2 The words used are 'Io?, which, in the oblique cases, makes 'IS,
the moon, or /3eXo«, Belus, or drpaKroc, malus navis, but never hXa-rlc..
3 Signum fatale Minervae. Ov. Metam. 1. xiii.
4 quo successore sagittse
Herculis utuntur. Ibid.
5 The Shalugramus are black stones mostly round, and more
frequently worshipped than the Linga. — Ward's Introduction to the
History of the Hindoos.

OF HERCULES. 335
is especially worthy of consideration. Sophocles
ascribes the sufferings of Philoctetes to the wrath
ofthe incensed Chryse.1 The wound, however,
was manifestly not physical, but moral ; for al
though the Lemnian earth was considered an in
fallible antidote for the poison of a viper's bite 2,
yet Philoctetes remains there ten years without that
cure, which he obtains immediately upon rejoining
the Grecian army. Homer attributes the pestilence,
which laid waste that army, to the anger of Chry-
ses, whom Agamemnon had dishonoured. Now in
Homer Chryses was the priest of Apollo, or the
sun.3 In Sophocles therefore Chryse was, no doubt,
his priestess, and in either case the offence con
sisted in preferring Arkite rites. For Neptune
assisted the Greeks, and Philoctetes had built an
altar to Hercules on the shore. Nor could he have
any other motive for landing on such an island as
the dramatist describes, except for the purpose of
fulfilling its sacred rites. Accordingly, he was left
sleeping, or reposing, on the lofty or hollow rock.4
It may be said, that if the Greeks had been Arkites,
they would not have abandoned Philoctetes ; but
the influence of the rival factions might prevail at
different times. Nine years had elapsed before the
priest of Apollo makes his appearance ; but in the
tenth, the God is offended with the army : Neptune
sides with them, and the arrows of Hercules are
sent for.
1 Tij; uftAppavoc Xpvo-qc, 175. 2 Eustathd in lib. ii. Iliad.
3 Horn. II. i. 11. 4 'Ev Kar-qp E<pii itErpai. 275.

336

OF HERCULES.

In like manner Troy also was successively sub
ject to the domination of rival priests. It was
founded by Dardasnus, the Arkite, who took upon
himself the character of the man preserved from
the deluge in an ark near a mountain, which he
called Ida, abounding in water ; and as it is the
tendency of mankind always to bring down religion
to their own level, so the lofty Ida being incon
venient for sacred rites on account of its height, a
mimic mountain was raised on the Sigean plain,
called the monument, or mound of Ilus ' ; for Ila
as well as Ida, in Sanscrit, signifies the earth2;
that earth, namely, which first appeared above the
waste of waters, like a small rocky island. After
wards, when Laomedon ascended the throne, it
was settled, as it were, upon a new foundation,
for both the rival sects were admitted; and he

1 Superstition multiplied these Arkite temples with remarkable
profuseness. Kushunly Tepe is a conical hill at the base of Ida,
with the Scamander or Mender flowing at its foot. About half way up
this immense cone are ruins of temples and baths ; and upon the
summit an oblong area, six yards long by two broad, enclosed by rude
Cyclopian stones. The top is covered by a grove of oaks, and round
them are stones ranged like what we call in England Druidical circles.
What is now called the tomb of Ilus is another high conical tumulus,
of very regular structure. But Aia in Greek being the earth,
it is very probable that the Aianteum was originally the tomb of
Ilus ; for there was nothing in the character of Ajax to attract the
veneration which that tumulus obtained ; but Ilus is called by Homer
the Divine and the Ancient ; and the mound was a ftkya o-YJfta, and
had a a-r-qXyj upon it. — Iliad, k. X. w. And Clarke affirms, that
religious regard for that hallowed spot continued through so many
ages, that even to the time in which Christianity decreed the de
struction of the pagan idols, the sanctity of the Aianteum was main
tained. Alexander performed rites, and made offerings there. 
Clarke's Travels, iii. 107 — 167-
2 As. Res. vii. 318.

OF HERCULES. 337
promised, as Hyginus relates, to sacrifice both to
Neptune and Apollo. In this promise he failed :
and a pestilence which followed soon after, being
attributed to the wrath of Apollo, the worship of
the sun seems to have obtained the predominance,
and at last, in the course of the Trojan war, it
may be inferred, that the rival sect was almost
excluded. The punishments said to be inflicted
by Neptune are manifestly distorted accounts of
Arkite ceremonies, and the subjects represented
in Arkite mysteries. Of the latter sort, is the
deluge, of which he is reported to have been the
cause : : of the former, is the annual exposure of
a virgin to the fury of a sea monster; for the
ark being considered the mother of mankind, it
was often represented by a female figure com
mitted to the floods. Thus, on the banks of the
Ganges, under the name of Dourga, a richly de
corated figure is thrown into its waters at the com
mencement of the lunar year 2 ; and in Egypt, at
the rising of the inundation, it is still the custom to
raise a column of earth in the dyke (before it is
cut), called the Virgin, and on this they throw
chaplets of flowers, which, along with the virgin,

1 Non impune feres, rector maris inquit : et omnes
Inclinavit aquas ad avarae littora Trojse.
Inque freti formam terras convertit : opesque
Abstulit agrieolis, et fluctibus obruit agros.
Ovid. Metamorph. 1. xi.
2 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 156. ; in the month Aswina, at the
autumnal equinox.
VOL. I. Z

338 OF HERCULES.
are soon carried off by the flood.1 The rescue,
therefore, of Hesione by Hercules signifies either
the correction of a custom which had irregularly
crept into those rites, or the suppression of them
altogether by those worshippers of the sun, who
claimed Hercules for their own property; for so Per
seus also rescued Andromeda. 2 Nor was this the
only instance in which the actions of the one have
been attributed indifferently to the other. Anti-
gonus Carystius mentions a strange story, that
Hercules, being asleep in the country of the Rhe-
gini, and disturbed by grasshoppers, prayed that
they might become mute 3 ; and, in Seripho, the
same story is related of Perseus and the frogs.
He adds, that some attributed it to Hercules, and
others to Perseus. The grasshoppers and frogs,
thus silenced, were doubtless the priests of the
opposite party. Similar religious differences fur
nish a key to explain much that occurred in the
Trojan war, notwithstanding the air of romance
which has been thrown over the whole of it by the
poet's art. Some curious particulars of ancient

i Madan's Travels, i. 325.
2 St. Jerome relates that in his time, the rock and the ring to
which Andromeda was bound, still continued to be pointed out at
Joppa. He who can believe the story of Pausanias, that the waters
of a fountain, in which Perseus washed off the blood of the monster,
were ever after red on that account, may believe the rest of the fable
too ; but the real origin of it becomes sufficiently apparent, when we
learn that, according to the traditions of the country, Joppa contains
the sepulchre of Noah : the castle is in an island, and the rock
contains cells. — Chateaubriand, i. 357-
3 The grasshoppers become d<pivoi ; the frogs, ou fBkyrovtai.^
Antig. Caryst. Historiarum Mirabilium Collectanea, c. ii. and iv.

OF HERCULES. 339
tradition respecting Helen, have been accidentally
preserved. Lycophron having stated that she was
produced by a Torgos that walked upon the wa
ters l, Tzetzes remarks upon it, that Torgos is
properly a vulture, but it is here put for a swan,
one animal instead of another ; for Nemesis, the
daughter of Oceanus, had the shape of a goose
when she received the embraces of Jupiter in the
form of a swan. She laid an egg in a marsh, which
Leda found, and deposited in an ark ; and from
this egg Helen was born. Here is a great jumble
of images and relationships ; but one thing is
very clear, — that Helen has a mystical parentage
assigned to her.2 She was the progeny of Ven
geance executed by the Ocean ; for in Eastern
phraseology, the effect is often called the daughter
of the cause. She was the offspring of aquatic
parents, and walked or floated on the water, like a
ship : she was like an egg laid by water birds in a
spot surrounded by water ; and, finally, she had

1 'H* To'/eyo^ vypotpoiroc (KXoxEvErai — Cassandra.
2 On some altars laid bare by the receding of the tide at the island
Walchern in 1647, an inscription was discovered to the goddess
Nehalennia. This was a votive altar in acknowledgment of deliverance;
and Barth suggests that her name was derived either from the Syriac
Nehalin, signifying waves, or from the Greek words vka kx-qvq, i. e.
Selene ; for the aspirate is often changed into S, and Helene is a
name of the moon. There is also a votive stone to Dea Neha, who ia
die Naturgottheit des Wassers; and since Eha is Water and Len the
Sea, Nehalennia and Helena are the same thing. The accompanying
emblems are cornucopias, which, from their shape, were often used by
the Arkites, — a Hercules with his club, a ship, a dolphin, and water
flowing from an urn ; a Neptune with his trident, and a Druid or
priest with a dog, and a boy and a girl ; which indicate the contents
of the ark. — Hertha, p. 59-
z 2

340 OF HERCULES.
tenanted an ark. Is not this a sufficient combina
tion of evidence, to show that she was a priestess
of the Arkites ; and hence she is called by the same
poet a dove ', which I have already shown was a
denomination of these priestesses. Upon this hy
pothesis, it is easy to account for Menelaus having
a pilot named, from the Egyptian Arkite temple,
Canopus. 2 It will account for the promptitude
with which the Argives and Thessalians embarked
in her quarrel ; it will account, not only for the pre
sence of Achilles, the son of the sea-nymph, but
also for his long absence from the field of battle,
after the army had been induced, like the Trojans,
by the pestilence which they attributed to Apollo's
anger, to offer propitiatory sacrifices to the sun,
and for his death coming from Apollo's shaft ; it
accounts for the part which Neptune took, when
he pitied his ancient worshippers, and for the re
pentant mission for the arrows of Hercules, and
for the treachery which at last betrayed the town,
and, possibly, for the name of Paris (from Baris) ;
and, lastly, it accounts for Juno's complaint of the
spretas injuria formas.
1 Lycoph. Cassandra, 131. She is also called iroprtc, the heifer;
and juvenca, by Ovid, Epist. iEnon. ad Par. ; that is, Io, or Isis,
the female form of Apis. It is remarkable that Apis in Latin is a
bee, which in Greek is ft.kXio-o-a, which is also used for a priestess.
2 Canopus 'occupoit une pointe avance"e en mer, sur laquelle on
conroit un chateau, nomine" Abukir, ou le Bekier. — Geographie
Ancienne, par M. D'Anville, xi.

341

CHAP. XI.

EGYPTIAN GODS.  THEIR PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLY
PHICS EXPLAINED.  STORIES OF PYTHO.  TYPHON. —
THESEUS. — MEANING OF AMONEI.  MEEN.  MOUNA.
 HERMON.  VADIMON.  PAL^MON.  MENU. 
MUNI.  MAHAMOONU.  CHINESE FOHI.  BRITISH
BUD.  MAN.  HU.  MONGOL AYOU.  MOUNTAINS
OF AZOAH, OR THE MOON.  MOUNTAINS OF MAHADEO
IN CASHMIR. — OTHER EVIDENCE THAT THE MINOTAUR
WAS AN ARKITE MYTH.
The ambition of the Egyptian monarchs in as
suming to themselves names already appropriated
to their divinities has blended their history and
mythology in almost inextricable confusion.1 The
boundary line between them can scarcely be dis
tinguished, and the exploits of the one are often
1 Deorum nomina reges iEgyptios ex summa divinitatis ambitione
sumpsisse variis in locis probatum fuit. — Kircher s Historia Obelisci
Pamphilii. On the other hand, Champollion says that the priests used to
flatter the reigning king, by giving one of the numerous names which
he had adopted to the god of the temple. — Letter xi. The dedi
cation of the temple at Amada is a good specimen of the manner in
which this amalgamation of divine and royal honours was effected.
It runs thus: " The beneficent God, Lord of the world, the king,
the son of the sun, has performed his devotions to his father, the
God Phre, the God of the two celestial mountains, and has raised to
him this temple of hard stone." — Ibid. Now Phre is the same
title with which we are better acquainted under the name of Pharaoh.
It is no wonder that they took the names of those whom they knew
to be their fathers in a literal sense.
z 3

342 ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.
attributed to the other. Their names in the hiero
glyphic legends are often only compounds formed
from the simpler names of the gods ; for the same
process has been adopted in their theology, in
order to multiply the number ; and many of the
numerous titles, which they invented, may be re
solved into their primordial forms : for these are
usually monosyllabic ; for instance, Ra and Phre,
the spirit of the sun ; Phtha, the lord of justice ;
Sev or Saturn with the head of a crocodile, some
times written Sevek ; Thoth, a form of Hermes
Trismegistus ; Mouth, the feminine form of Am
mon Ra \ who contained in his own essence both
male and female. Horus is the same as Hor, or
Her, a mountain ; and from him Orion has pro
bably been formed by the Greeks, in the same way
as they have formed Cronion from Cronus, who is
the Celtic Crom ; for Ovid observes with respect
to him, that the first letter has lost its ancient sound.2
Nebma, or the Lady of the Bark, and consequently
the same as Isis, may also be considered one of
these elementary names ; for a syllable closed by a
vowel is often mute : it is probably no more than
the feminine form of Cneph. Mena, or Menes,
who is the same as Minos, and Menu, and conse
quently Noah, and is therefore considered the first
Egyptian king, the immediate successor to the
gods, had too near a relation to the deluge under
1 Champollion, Letter xi.
2 Perdidit antiquam Iittera prima sonum. Ov. Fast. v. 536.
So that instead of Horion^ it became Orion,

ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS. 343
that name to be much in favour with the worshippers
of the sun ; for which reason they not only would
not inscribe that name in their list of gods, but a
certain king, whose name, Gnephachthus, may
possibly be interpreted, the Enemy of Cneph, in
scribed an imprecation against him on the walls of
a solar temple. 1 Nevertheless, a name so exten
sively venerated could not easily be deprived of all
its honours : it could not be eradicated from the
names of deities, with which it had already entered
into composition. Thus Mandou is compounded
of Mana, and Tho, or Thoth. In like manner Ritho
is formed from Ra and Tho ; Harphre from Horus
and Phre ; Hathor, which is also written Athyr 2,
and is the name of a month, from Horus, and
Hat, which, though not yet discovered among the
Egyptian deities, seems to have had that pre-emi
nence under the form of Ada among the Baby
lonians. 3 But the order of the component words
is sometimes inverted, and then they become Har-
hat, which Champollion interprets the Divine Wis
dom. Thus too Rhamses, which is also written
Ramesses, and is a title of the sun, is no doubt a
1 Diodorus Siculus, i. 42.
2 Champollion's Twelfth Letter in the Literary Gazette, September,
1829- 3 "A8<x — irqyq, Kal iito fiatvXuviuv, y "Hpa. — Hesychms. The
Celtic circles of stones are called in Ireland Magh Adair, quasi
fAkyac itafqp ; for Athair is a father. But Athir, the name of the
Egyptian Deity, is, like Typhon, a serpent ; and if an ancient Iberno
Celt wished to describe the appearance of land after a flood, he would
use the word Ath-thir : for a place lightly covered with water is Ath ;
and the low grounds overflowed in winter and dry in summer are
called Tir-loch, Land-lakes. — Vallancey on the Knowledge of the
Ancient Irish, p. 134.
Z 4

344 ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.
composition from Rama, an Indian deity, though
unremembered in Egypt, except in this form, and
Isis, or Ess, a ship. But amidst all this wanton
ness of polytheism some very intelligible hints
remain, that the real objects of their multiform
idolatry were only few, and those their earliest
ancestors. Champollion finds them usually dis
tributed into triads ; a male, a female, and their
son.1 The principal triad was Ammon-ra, Mouth,
and Khous ; for Ham, with whose undutiful cha
racter we are acquainted in Scripture, seems to
have extinguished as much as possible the memory
of his father, in order that all the veneration, with
which the head of the new world was regarded,
might be heaped upon his own ashes. The ad
dition of Ra shows that Ammon is not compounded
of Ham, and On (the sun, for then it would have
been needless), but of Mana, or Menes, who is
acknowledged by the Egyptians to have been their
first king, and that is an honour, which surely in
" the land of Ham " would have been assigned to
none but himself.
In confirmation of this statement it may be ob
served, that in the composition of royal names the
original form of the word is retained. The Ame-
nophis of Eusebius is written by Africanus and
Philo Ammenephte, which is obviously a com
position from Ammon and Nephthe : in Manetho,
however, it is written Menuphti, which leads to
1 Champollion's Twelfth Letter.

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 345
the conclusion that the Nebwa of Champollion is
in truth the same as Cneph or Cnuph, i. e. Cano
pus. The secondary triad worshipped at Thebes,
which, it will be recollected, derives its appellation
from Thebah, the ark, consists — 1st, of Ammon, the
generator, called mystically the husband of his
mother, which is the constant relation in mythology
between the patriarch and the ark from which he
issued into a new world. 2. Thamoun, that is to
say, the female Ammon, one of the forms of Neith :
and 3. Harka \ which is probably the same as Har
Koh, the mountain deity, for both words signify
a mountain 2 ; and a similar combination is found in
the third triad, consisting of Sevek Ra, which is
synonymous with Ammon Ra. 2. Hathor, i. e.
Mouth : and 3. Khous Hor.3 Amenophis is re
presented at Thebes making rich offerings to the
two first triads, or accompanying their Bari, or
sacred arks, borne in procession by the priests.
One of these sacerdotal processions has been
minutely described by Champollion, though its
features are somewhat distorted, because his astro
nomical theory led him astray. That part of the
painting which is really astronomical may have been
added at a later period, and bears strong marks of
recency, if it is rightly interpreted : but the mytho
logy delineated is of a very different character.
" Twenty-four hours," says he, " of the astro-
1 Champ., Twelfth Letter, September 26.
2 Coh in Persian is a mountain ; Hor in Hebrew.
3 Xou; is Tumulus, and Hor, Mons.

346

ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.

nomical day are represented under a human form
with a star upon their heads." It is hard to dis
cover any probable reason why an hour should be
designated by a star ; but we know that their
deities or deified ancestors, were often so distin
guished. He describes them " marching towards
the further part of the tomb, as if to indicate the
direction of the god's course." Yet they are but
indifferent direction-posts if that was their intention ;
for if he was to continue his journey in one direc
tion through all the four and twenty hours, what
would become of to-morrow's dawn ? It is evident
that half of these figures should have pointed the
other way to show his return from the western
goal. He proceeds to say that " in each of the
twelve hours of the day is drawn the detailed image
of the bark of the god navigating in the celestial
river on the primordial fluid or ether, the prin
ciple of all natural things, according to the Egyptian
philosophers, with the figures of the gods who
successively assist him, and besides the represent
ation of the celestial abodes through which he
passes, and the mythological scenes proper to each
hour of the day."
The primordial fluid was certainly, according to
most of the ancient philosophers, the principle of
all natural things ; but that fluid was not ether,
but water : and so popular was this belief, that the
great master of the Grecian lyre ascribes to it the
highest excellence ' ; not doubtless from any un-
1 "Apia-rov ft.lv i>8o;p. — Pind. Olymp. Od. 1st.

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 347
Anacreontic admiration of its pure and simple taste,
but on account of its powerful agency, in regene
rating the world. In the next place, if the course
of the sun be the subject of these paintings, what
is the meaning of the assistant deities ? What pro
priety is there in such a device, either astronomi
cally or mythologically ? and lastly, it will soon be
perceived, that the scenes are in no sense proper
to each, or any of the hours of the day. " At the
first hour his Bari, or Bark, begins to move, and
receives the adoration of the Spirit of the East."
Who this Spirit is, or what existence he was sup
posed to have, except in the imagination of M.
Champollion, does not appear. " Among the pic
tures of the second hour, we find the great serpent
Apophis, the brother and enemy ofthe sun, watched
by the God Atmou." This word, if it be true that
Har Hat means divine wisdom, and if Hapimoou
is the Nile, i. e. the Apis of the waters, may per
haps be rendered the wisdom ofthe waters.1 " At
the third hour, the god sun arrives in the celestial
zone, where the fate of souls is decided with re
spect to the bodies which they are to inhabit in
their new transmigrations. The God Atmou is
seen seated upon his tribunal, weighing in his

1 From Hat, and Moi, or Moon. Thmoui is u. town which, in
Pliny, has the name of Mendes. Lacroze derives it from Moui,
which, in Coptic, is a Lion. — Lex. Copt. p. 23. Jablonski from
Moue, Light. — Opusc. i. 89. In the Memphitic Vocabulary of
Montpellier, and in a Saidic Lexicon in the Royal library at Paris,
it is rendered in Arabic AI Mawrad, or Mawradah — c'est a dire
le Port. — Me'm. Geogr. sur I' Egypte, par Quatremere, p. 133.

31<8 ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.
balance the human souls, which successively come
forward. One of them has just been condemned :
it is seen carried back to the earth in a Bari, which
advances towards the gate guarded by Anubis, and
driven with rods by Cynocephali. The culprit is in
the figure of an enormous sow, above which is
engraved, in large characters, gluttony. At the
fifth hour, the god visits the Elysian fields of the
Egyptian mythology, inhabited by the souls of the
blessed : on their heads they wear an ostrich feather,
the emblem of their virtuous conduct. They are
seen presenting offerings to the gods, or gathering
the fruits of the celestial trees. Further on, are
others with sickles in their hands ; these are the
souls that cultivate the fields of truth. Their
legend is as follows : they make libations of water,.
and offerings of the grain of the fields of glory ;
they hold a sickle to reap the fields, which are their
portion. The god Sun says to them, Take the
sickles ; reap the grain ; carry it to your abode ;
enjoy it, and present it as a pure offering to the
gods. Elsewhere they are seen bathing, leaping,
swimming, and playing in a great basin filled with
the primordial water, all under the inspection ofthe
god, the heavenly Nile." The reason of all this
may be discovered in the kindred superstitions of
India. According to the laws of Menu, an offering
of boiled rice, and the like, or water, obtains favour
from departed progenitors ; and the kinsmen of a
man who has performed penance for certain crimes

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 349
are ordered to bathe together in a pure pool.1
" They who make ablutions in the lake of Asru'-
tirt'ha (formed by the tears of Marisha, and con
sequently the representative of some tragic waters)
are purified from their sins 2 ; and they who wor
ship the deity at Rodana-st'han, the Place of Weep
ing, (an island in the lake Mceris) enjoy heavenly
bliss without being subject to any future transmi
grations.3 If the paintings had been contrived on
purpose to enforce these laws, no device could have
been found more apposite, no place more fitting
than a tomb. The rites approved by the priests
were thus shown to be the employments of Ely
sium ; and the solemnity of the scene would give
force to the admonition.
It is remarkable, too, that the panegyric of
those so employed, decyphered by Champollion
in the legend, bears a close resemblance to the
popular acknowledgment of deceased merit men
tioned by Diodorus. The former runs thus —
" These have found favour in the eyes ofthe great
God ; they inhabit the abodes of glory, where they
lead a celestial life.4 Now Diodorus, describing the
funerals ofthe Egyptians, relates, that judges were
1 Sir W". Jones, vii. 166. and viii. 115.
2 So also when Lieutenant Burnes visited the sacred stream of
Ajmeer, some natives who were bathing assured him that if he
would only give them a little money, and bathe, though he was an
infidel, his sins would be forgiven him. — Lit. Gaz., April 12. 1834.
3 From the Viswasara Pracasa, in As. Res. iii. 104.
4 The bodies, which they have abandoned, shall repose for ever
in their tombs, i. e. they shall suffer no more transmigrations ; as
it is stated in the Institutes of Menu.

350 ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.
appointed to pass sentence upon the dead. Their
tribunal was stationed in semicircular form across a
lake, over which the body was conveyed in a Baris ] ;
and if no crime could be proved against him, the
multitude, with reverential acclamations, celebrated
the glory of the deceased, as of one who would live
for ever among the just in Hades 2, or the place of
happiness. If this was a real transaction, the lake
must have been Mceris, which seems to have been
connected with the Nile formerly, as in this case :
for the Baris is drawn through the river, as well as
the lake, and it is the only one near Memphis,
which is the position assigned to it.3 But the
historian calls it the Acherusian lake, and Charon
was the ferryman. Now the waters of Acheron 4,
1 AiKacrrSv — KaBtcrdvroiv iiti nvoc yjfAiKVKXiov, KarEcrKEvaaftivov
itkpav r%c XijAvqc, 'q ftsy /3dpic KaBeXKsrai.
2 To Se itX-qBoc iitEvp-qfAE? Kal a-vvaitocrEfAVvvEi r-qv ho^av rov teteXeu-
T'qKoroc, oic rov aluva Ziarpi^Eiv [aeXXovtoc KaB' * Ah^ov ftEtd rav evcte€uv.
— Diod. Sic. lib. i. sect. ii. 83.
3 Uapd r-qv Xiftvqv rqv KaXovftkvqv ftEV d-/Epovo-lav, itX'qtriov Se ovo-av
rrjc ft,kfA<p£uc. Ibid. 86.
4 Hine via, Tartarei quae fert Acherontis ad undas,
Turbidus hie coeno vastaque voragine gurges
iEstuat, atque omnem Cocyto eructat arenam.
Portitor has horrendus aquas, et flumina servat
Terribili squalore Charon. JEneid. vi. 295.
Plato describes in his Phsdo the four great rivers of the world ;
the largest of which is Oceanus, and opposite to this Acheron,
which flows through desert places and under the earth into the
Palus Acherusia. Acheron, therefore, being altogether a mystic
stream, has found various localities in different parts of the ancient
world. One is a river of the Brutii in Calabria, and runs by Pan-
dosia : there are two which issue from the Palus Acherusia of
Epirus, one running into the Thesprotian, and the other into the
Ambracian gulph. — Liv. viii. 24. Plin. iv. 1. The Lago della
Collucia between Cumae and Misenum in Campania is called Palus
Acherusia by Dionysius, lib. ii,, across which he says corpses were

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 351
and the grim ferryman are introduced by Virgil in
his exhibition of the Mysteries ; for it is generally
allowed that he took his imagery from them in
describing the descent of .ZEneas into the infernal
regions. There are many other points of resem
blance. There is a lake as well as a river : the
lake is formed of tears ; for Cocytus is derived from
weeping. Rhadamanthus rules in Rodana'stan, or
the Place of Weeping.1 The sacred stream rolled
its waters through the odoriferous groves of Ely
sium 2, the abode of the illustrious and pious. But
the poet dwells much more upon the punishments
of crimes, some of which are particularly described ;
others are left in a gloomy obscurity to fill the ima
gination with unseen horrors. JEneas hears distant
groans, and the resounding lash, and the creaking
of iron, and the trailing of chains.3 In like manner

carried to be buried on the opposite shore. There is an Acherusian
cave in Bithynia near Heraclea, out of which Cerberus is said to
have been dragged. — Mela, i. c. ult. Ennius seems to intimate
that the Acherusian temples were temples of the mysteries :
Quo neque permanent animae neque corpora nostra,
Sed qusedam simulacra modis pallentia miris.
Lucretius, 1. i. v. 120.
Plato's other rivers are Puriphleghethon and Cocytus flowing from
opposite quarters into the same Palus Acherusia which is a sort of
purgatory to which the dead are brought, and KaBaipofAEvoi rSv te dh»
K'qfAoiroiv SiBoVte; ViKac aitoXvovrai e'Itic rt -qbU-qa-E. Cocytus is from
koikou, fleo, and being o-rvyEpoc., gives the name of Styx to the
Lake. 1 GnossiushaecRhadamanthushabetdurissimaregna. — .^Era. vi. 566.
2 Inter odoratum lauri nemus, unde superne
Plurimus Eridani per sylvam volvitur amnis. Ibid. 558.
3 Hine exaudiri gemitus, et saeva sonare
Verbera : turn stridor ferri tractseque catenas. Ibid.

352 ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.
the Egyptians, from whom the mysteries are known
to have been borrowed, exhibited under every form
of horror the future punishments ; for on the wall
opposite to that where the pleasures of Elysium are
pourtrayed, the space is divided into seventy-five
compartments, inhabited by the souls of the guilty,
which undergo various torments. " Some are
strongly bound to stakes ; and the presidents of the
zones, or compartments, flourishing their swords,
reproach them with the crimes which they com
mitted upon earth. Others are suspended with their
heads downwards ; others, with their hands tied
behind, drag upon the earth their hearts, which
come out from their breasts; living souls are boiled
in large cauldrons, either under a human form, or
that of a bird ; or only their heads and hearts."
There is no reason, therefore, to doubt the truth of
what the Egyptian priests asserted to Diodorus,
that the mysteries and the whole mythology of
Hades were transported into Europe from them ',
and were, in fact, copies of theirs ; the difference
between them being principally this, that the
scenes which were sculptured on the walls of the
Egyptian caves, and therefore were invariable, were
acted in the mysteries of Greece, and therefore
admitted of considerable variations. But in both
the argument of future rewards and punishments,
especially the latter, was addressed to the imagin-
1 'Oppka jaIv yap rSv jAvo-riKav teXetojv ra itXETcrra — Kal ri\v ruv
Iv ah-QV fAvBoXoytav ditEvkyKao-Bat. — Diod. Sic. 1. i. p. 86.

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 353
ation through the eye instead of the ear ; for they
thought that visible horrors would make more im
pression, and be a more effectual corrective of im
piety, than if they were left only to description. '
Since, then, the pictures in the hall of Rhamseswere
undoubtedly exhibitions of the mysteries, and those
mysteries were of two sorts, the greater and the
less, it is very possible, that some parts of those
designs might be allusions to more recondite truths,
of less practical importance indeed, but lying at the
very root of their religion, and venerable from the
rust of ages, which in some degree obscured them.
Be it observed then, that an actor has been drawn
upon the stage, who seems to have no relation
whatever to the scene already described, — the ser
pent Apophis, who, in the second hour, is watched
by the god Atmou. But what has he to do with
future rewards and punishments ? — nothing at all ;
and what has he to do with the sun in his course
through the hours of the day ? — if it were possible,
still less ; and how can Atmou watch the serpent,

1 The Budhist hells are much fewer in number : instead of
seventy-five, there are only eight: but the representation of the
torments, as it is given in Upham's History of Budhism, is not less
horrible. The culprits are torn in pieces by glowing hot irons,
hewn with red-hot axes ; extended on a bed of fire to be sawn with
burning iron saws; squeezed between red-hot iron rocks; their
hearts consumed by fire entering their mouths for four thousand
years ; tumbled down from a burning mountain on red-hot spikes ;
to be cut and torn with swords and spears ; fixed with their heads
downwards on a red-hot iron floor, and there transfixed with red-
hot spits, p. 108. In all these punishments fire is the great agent.
The Egyptians probably deemed it too sacred for such a purpose,
and therefore have avoided it altogether.
VOL. I. A A

354 ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.
when he is diligently employed at another place in
weighing souls ?
This is an inconsistency almost enough to shake
our faith in the interpretation : it is in truth the
commencement of another series of actions, which
is thus described : — After the fifth hour, the gods
prepare to combat the great enemy of the sun, the
serpent Apophis ; they provide themselves with
stakes and nets, because the monster inhabits the
waters of the river, on which the vessel of the sun
navigates. They stretch ropes ; Apophis is taken,
and bound with cords. This immense reptile is
dragged out of the river by means of a cable, which
the goddess Selk fastens round his neck, and which
is drawn by twelve gods, assisted by a machine
worked by Sev (Saturn) ; but all these preparations
would be vain against the efforts of Apophis, did
not an enormous hand (that of Ammon) issue
from below, which seizes the rope, and checks the
fury of the Dragon. Lastly, at the eleventh hour
of the day, the captive serpent is strangled ; and
the goddess Nepthe mounted on the head of her
son Osiris, whose body ends in a volute, like that
of a Syren, receives the vessel of the sun, which is
soon taken into the immense arms of the celestial
Nile, the old ocean of the Egyptian mythology.1
To the history of this war with the great serpent,
other chambers of the tomb are entirely devoted,
and are of great use in correcting the erroneous
1 Thirteenth Letter of Champollion.

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 355
explanations of it in the first. At the fourth, fifth,
and sixth hours, it is said Pharaoh Rhamses par
ticipates in the labours of the gods, who make war
upon the great serpent Apophis, concealed in the
waters of the ocean ; that is to say, he assisted in the
ceremonies which were memorials of those labours :
for no other participation could he possibly have.
But what were the gods, whose labours were thus
employed ? The crew consists — 1st, of the goddess
Sori. Now, in Hindoo fable, the Soors were good
angels, who churned the ocean by contending to
draw away from the Asoors the serpent that was
twined round Mandara ; and Sura, or Surya, was a
name of the sun, and one of the eight regents of the
world. 2. Sev, who is obviously the Indian Sivah :
he holds a long pole to sound the river, as Sivah
bears the trident; and though he is here said to
have the head of a hare, yet usually and properly the
head of a crocodile belongs to him, which marks
him for a water deity. 3. Horus, the mountain god.
4. Hake Oeris, which seems to be the same as Harka
Horus ; and the real meaning is much the same.
5. Hoou, the pilot, whose name reminds us strongly
of the great Hu of Celtic mythology, whose oxen
drew the avanc, or beaver, out of the water, so that
the lake burst no more.1 6. Neb-wa, the Lady of
the Bark, " of whose special functions," says the
letter writer, "lam ignorant." It is evident enough,
that she is Isis, whose mysteries in Egypt were
1 Davies's British Druids, p. 95.
A A 2

356

ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.

the same as those of Ceres in Eleusis ' : and in
many ancient zodiacs of the east, she is virgo
standing in her Baris. 7. The guardian of the tro
pics, of whose name and functions, he seems to be
equally ignorant. But in this enumeration he
seems to have forgotten Meui, whom he had before
represented standing in the bark at the commence
ment of the voyage ; and as he entitles him the
divine reason, he may perhaps be the same as
Atmou, who otherwise is omitted, notwithstanding
the vigilance which was before attributed to him.
The 8th is Ammon himself, standing in his Naos.
The number, therefore, of the crew was exactly
the number of the ark-inclosed family. With
respect to their labours, though the description is
very obscure, yet so much may be collected from
a comparison of the two series, that they occupied
the whole of the day ; at least, it appears that the
conflict was contemplated in the second hour, begun
in the fourth, and terminated in the eleventh.
After all, however, it is tolerably clear that the
period thus employed was not a day (unless, in
deed, taken in the latitude of a prophetic day), but
a year. And the twelve red disks are not suns,
but moons ; for the moon is a much more appro
priate luminary to a star-bespangled sky2, than
1 Tyv filv yap 'Ocrtptioc reXtr-qv ttj Aiovvcrov r-qv avri'jv Elvai, r-qv 8e
r*qc. lo-iSoc. rij r-qc A-qfA-qrpoc ofAotordr'qv vitdpxEiv rav ovoftdroiv jaovov
hriXXayyikvoiv. — Diod. Sic. 1. i. p. 86.
2 Heaven, under the form of a woman, whose body is bespangled
with stars, envelopes on three sides this immense composition. 
Thirteenth Letter.

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 357
her brother ; and the form of an infant putting his
finger to his mouth, and inclosed in a red disk,
represents, not the birth of a new Ammon every
morning, but the inclosure of the Mystagogue in
his mystic cell, which was both the moon and the
ark, who enjoins silence. And the great serpent
was Typhon, that is, AI Tufan, the deluge ; the
evil spirit of the ocean, who made his appearance
not unobserved by the watchful eye of Providence
on the second month, and maintained a long
struggle with the crew of the divine Baris, till
at the end of nine months more his power was
destroyed, and his existence visibly drew to a close :
for in the tenth month, on the first day of the
month, were the tops of the mountains seen. And
it came to pass, that at the end of forty days, that
is, in the eleventh month, that Noah opened the
window of the ark, and sent forth a raven, and
seven days after he sent forth a dove, which re
turned to him with an olive leaf plucked off: so
Noah knew that the waters were abated from off
the earth.1 Champollion must be mistaken, when
he says, that the hieroglyphic texts give the risings
ofthe constellations for all the hours in succession ;
for he places the stars of Gemini for the fourth
hour ; then goes back to Eridanus for the fifth,
and then forward again to the Lion for the sixth,
which is a strange jumble of celestial longitudes,
unless what he calls the river was in fact Hydra,
' Gen. viii. 5 — 11.
A A 3

358 ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.
the serpent, which was allegorically synonymous
with water. Hence the diluvian serpent is found
in the most distant countries. The battle of
Chrishna with that monster of the deep has been
already noticed ; and the Scandinavians have a fable
much to the same purpose. Thor, who looks as if
he were related to the Hathor of Egypt, went to
fish for the great serpent of Midgard : the bait
was an ox's head, which the serpent greedily de
voured, and was then drawn up violently to the
side of the vessel. It is impossible, says the Edda,
to express the dreadful looks that the god darted
at him, whilst the monster raising his head spouted
out venom upon him. A giant, however, cut the
line just as Thor was going to strike the serpent
with his mace, and the monster fell down again to
the bottom of the sea : nevertheless, some add,
that Thor darted his mace after him, and bruised
his head in the midst of the waves ; he then slew
the giant, and walked to the shore through the
depths of the ocean, with his head, like Orion's,
above the waves.1 The explanation of this story
is obvious enough. The gigantic power of the
deluge was destroyed by one, whom it never could
submerge, and the ocean subsided after the conflict
to its natural bed ; and the serpent of Midgard was
that evil Spirit, who was not unnaturally supposed
to aim at the destruction of the world, and presided
over the waters ofthe deep ; and in the victory ofthe
1 Mallet's Northern Antiquities, ii. 101.

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 359
Patriarch, (for to him, when deified by superstition,
the glory was ascribed,) we may recognise an allusion
to the promise after the fall, that " the seed of the
woman should bruise the serpent's head." But the
serpent or dragon did not always bear so bad a
character : considered as the great monster of the
waters, he was sometimes assimilated to the ark.
Thus the Indian Vishnu floats over a shoreless
ocean upon the folds of a serpent in the form of a
boat l ; and Chrishna takes refuge from danger with
his companions, by entering his mouth.2 The
crocodile being the greatest monster of the Egyp
tian waters answers the same purpose ; and, accord
ingly, Ammon, with his ram's head, is represented
entering into his body with the initiated king, and
immediately afterwards a long text contains the
names of the seventy-five chambers of the sun,
which were called Kelle, inclosures. These were
probably the cells of the ark, or rather of the
sacred caves that typified it : and this may be
signified by stationing at the door of each a serpent.
In another place, Ammon is shown inclosed in a
disk between Nephthys and Isis, both goddesses of
the ship, worshipped by the king, who kneels on
the heavenly mountain, and accompanied by the
Scarabaeus, the emblem of regeneration : this admits
of much easier explanation on the diluvial than on
the solar principle.
" The deceased Pharaoh (says Champollion) was
1 Moor's Hindu Pantheon. 2 Ibid.
A A 4

360 ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.
naturally compared to the sun settingand descending
into the lower hemisphere, which he must traverse
to rise again in the East, and restore light to the
upper world ; in the same manner as the deceased
king was to revive, either to continue his transmi
grations, or to inhabit the celestial world, and be
absorbed in the bosom of Ammon, the universal
Father. This explanation (he adds) is no inven
tion of my own ; the time of conjectures respect
ing ancient Egypt is past ; all this results from the
whole of the legends, which cover the royal
tombs." : Champollion may be excused for talking
largely ; for he has contributed much to our know
ledge of Egyptian monuments : but he must not
suppose that all his conclusions are to be adopted
with implicit faith. No legend has been produced
to justify his interpretation, which is unsatisfactory
and inconsistent with itself. He speaks of the
deceased king ; but the king was not deceased,
when the bas-relief was made, if it be true, as he
afterwards affirms, that the tombs of the Pharaohs,
which were immense works, and required much
time for their execution, were commenced during
their lives ; for so they must also have been finished
during their lives, as many as were finished at all ;
each having enough to do on his own account —
more, indeed, than in most instances they lived to
complete; for " the completed tombs," it seems,
" are very few in number. Wv"Hta this instance at all
1 Twelfth Letter, dated May 26. 1829.

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 36l
events it is certain, that Rhamses, who built the
tomb, was still living ; for it is expressly asserted ;
and he would hardly have been the author of a
comparison, which has all the appearance of post
humous flattery. Still, however, it might be plausi
bly argued, that as Amenophis, at Luxor, styles
himself Son of the Sun, beloved of Ammon-ra, so
Rhamses might compare himself to the sun ', and
thus testify his belief in the transmigration of his
soul into the body of some future king. But un
fortunately all these interpretations are directly
contradicted by the legend in the picture, of which
this we are told is a literal translation : " Hear what
Osiris says, the Lord of the Amenti (the western
region inhabited by the dead), I have granted thee
a dwelling in the sacred mountain of the west : as
to the other great gods (the king's predecessors),
to thee, Osirien, king, lord of the world, Rhamses,
&c. still living." 2 Here is not a word of transmi
gration, or of absorption, into Ammon ; we hear
indeed, of a " celestial world," but it is one with
which the sun has nothing to do, — the paradise of
the west, the diluvian mountain, the permanent
abode of departed souls. Perhaps a better eluci
dation of this subject may be obtained by comparing
the picture with another in the Memnonium, or
tomb of Osymandyas, to which Champollion has
given the name of Rhamession. " The bas-reliefs
on the walls to the right and left of the door, re-
1 Champollion's Twelfth Letter. 2 Thirteenth Letter.

362

ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.

present four great barks, or sacred Bari, carrying a
little Naos, over which a veil is thrown. They are
borne on the shoulders of twenty-four or eighteen
priests, and the insignia, which adorn the head and
stern of the first two barks, are the symbolic heads
of the goddess Mouth, and the god Chous, the
wife and son of Ammon, " to whom the structure
was dedicated." 1 Now when we compare this de
scription with the other picture, in which Nephthe
and Isis are represented, not standing on the moun
tain, but merely touching it with their feet, and
with the monarch kneeling between them, it is not
too much to surmise, that their figures may be
portions of a Baris, resting on the mountain's side,
one of them forming the curvature of the head,
and the other of the stern. That such a device would
be quite in accordance with the spirit of Oriental
drawing, any one may be satisfied by inspecting
those pictures, in which the nymphs called Gopia
are represented forming themselves into a vehicle
for Krishna 2 ; and it is obvious that the Egyptian
design must have emanated from the same eastern
source ; for the language of the legend must have
had its origin in a country, where the sacred moun
tain (Ararat) was really in the west ; and if Neph-
thys, or Nephthe, (for Champollion gives both
terminations 3) be only the female form of Phthe,
or Phtha, the person so deified must have been

1 Champollion's Fourteenth Letter.
2 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, plate 66.
3 Thirteenth Letter. In the Ninth he mentions a statue of Phte.

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 363
Budha ; only that the Egyptians have preserved
the softer sounds of Phuth *, the son of Ham. Mr.
Wilford indeed remarks, that " in all his images
there is an appearance of something Egyptian." 2
The other figure (Isis) has an intimate con
nection with the Isi, or Isa of Hindu mythology.
In both the moon is worshipped, and both have a
crescent for their emblem : it is evident, moreover,
that Isis in one picture corresponds to Mouth in
the other ; for since she stands in the same relation
to Osiris, as Mouth does to Ammon, as Osiris is
the secondary form of Ammon, so is Isis of Mouth.
The correspondence between Khous and Nephthe
is not quite so obvious ; but the obscurity may be
ascribed in great measure to the fiction of a female
name. The Egyptian mythologists seem to have
delighted in framing triads, consisting of a male, a
female, and their son. Thus we have Ammon,
Mouth, and Khous ; Osiris, Isis, and Horus ; Har-
hat, Hathor, and Har Sout Tho ; Mandou, Ritho,
and Harphre ; Horus, Isis, and Malouli, or Man-
douli ; Cnouphis, Sate, and Anouke ; Sevekra, Ha
thor, and Khous Hor; Chnouphis, (who has the title
of Nev en thosne, Lord of the country of Esneh,)
Neith, or Menhi3, and Hake; Ammon (generator),
Thamoun, (that is to say, " the female Ammon," 4)
1 The river of Fez in Morocco was anciently called Phthuth
flowing into the Atlantic inter Solis Montem et Phut Oppidum —
Hoffman. Lex.
2 Asiat. Res. v. iii.
3 Neith was worshipped as Menhi on the 25th of Hathor. —
Twelfth Letter.
4 See Eleventh and Twelfth letters of Champollion,

364

ON THE EGYPTIAN GODS.

and Harka. Now in all these instances a female
character has been forced upon masculine appella
tions in order to accommodate a system of idolatry,
which seemed to that people to be most natural ;
the system of taking for their gods the first re
generated pair, together with that son, from whom
they themselves derived their origin. Thus Tha-
moun is acknowledged to be Ammon femalised :
in Isis we trace the masculine Isa : in Hathor, and
Sate, and Ritho, the several words that form Har
Sout Tho ' ; in Mouth 2 we recognise the Nile,
whether in his earthly or celestial name, whether
he be called Hapi-Moou, or Nen-Moou; and in
Menhi, the first of the Egyptian kings Menes. 3
Thus Nephthe is properly Nev-Phthe, the Lord
Phtha, whose name is found in another triad, which
we have not yet noticed, Phtha, Hathor, and
Rhamses. Phtha, therefore, was the husband of
Hathor; but her son in one of the other triads is
called Khous Hor, — a combination, which shows
that Khous and Horus were in fact one and the
same person. But at Kalabschi Horus bears the
title of Husband of the Mother4, and in that
character stands at the head of one of the triads.
Therefore Khous, under the name of Horus, is
1 Har Sout Tho is rendered Horus — the Support of the World.
— Twelfth Letter.
2 Mouth in the Phoenician mythology was the son of Saturn and
Rhea. — Euseb. Prcep. Evan. i. c. 10.
3 In the Rhamession there is a series of little statues of kings
arranged in the order of their reigns ; they are Menes, the 'first king
on earth, &c. — Fourteenth Letter.
4 Eleventh letter of Champollion.

PAINTINGS AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 365
equivalent to Phtha, and Phtha under the same
name is either the husband, or the son of Isis. It
is evident, indeed, that two or three generations
have been confounded under this name : for at one
time he is called the father of the gods ; at another
he is said to have been produced by Cneph, or
Chnouphis : and as Ham sometimes absorbed in
his own person the veneration intended for the
first restorer of the human race, so by a sort of just
retribution he was served in the same way by his
son Phut, who wa^ sometimes considered by his
descendants the head of the new world ; for from
Phtha, or, as it is written in Coptic, Ptah, the
Greek Trarvjp, and the Latin pater, and the English
"father" have been derived1 : the introduction of
the first vowel is in strict accordance with the name
of a Nubian village, as it is spelt by Champollion.
" Ghirsche," says he, " in the Egyptian language,
bore the name of Phathei, or Thyphtah, the abode
of Phtha."2 That Phut was actually metamor
phosed into Phtha, there is no reason to doubt ;
for the Arabic version in Gen. x. 6. reads Taftha
for Phut, and the Mauri tanian river Phut is also
spelt Phthuth3 ; and hence from his name Bochart
very justly deduces the Phthia portus in Marmarica,

1 Besides the Italian, Padre ; the German, Vater ; and the French
Pere. 2 Eleventh Letter.
3 Phut Libyse : a. quo et Mauritania? fluvius usque ad praesens
Phut dicitur. — Hieron. in Tradit. Heb. Pro Fut, vel Phut, says
Bochart, Ptolemaeus &ov6, et interpretes Phthuth, scribunt. — Geog.
Sac. 1. iv. c. 33.

366 STORIES OF PYTHO.
and the Phthemphuti Nomus in Egypt. ] Hence
some of his votaries, who passed over into Greece,
gave the name of Phthia to that country too ; for
some ancient geographers made it co-extensive with
Hellas and Achaia2; though it was more parti
cularly appropriated to a region, in which there
was a town called Thebae, or the Ark. But Bochart
suggests a much more extensively permanent me
morial of his name in the Pythian Apollo.3 Here is
another instance of the conflict of rival superstitions
perverted by the spirit of romance, which pervades
Grecian history. Pytho was a serpent bred out of
the slime that remained after Deucalion's deluge :
he was worshipped as a god at Delphi ; and some
say, that he instituted the Pythian games. Hoff
man derives his name from the Hebrew Phathah,
decepit4; and it is curious enough that the name of
Phtha should so accurately coincide with a title so
well becoming that archdeceiver, who contrived
to mingle the worship of himself with all other de
viations from true religion. It is evident that these
Pythians worshipped the author ofthe deluge under
the form of a serpent, like the Egyptian Typhon ;
1 Sed et in Marmarica. hue videntur alludere, quamvis Graecam for-
mam habeant, <bBla Xipvqv, et JJvBlc aKpa, et in ipsa iEgypto, qua
parte Libyae contermina est, Phthemphuti, vel Phthembuthi Nomus.
Geog. Sac. 1. iv. c. 33.
2 Strabo, apud Salmasium ad Solinum, p. 142.
3 Put est Apollo Pythius, quem in Africa vixisse docet historia
caesi draconis. — Geog. Sac. 1. i. c. 2.
4 Cultus ibi serpens loco numinis — certamina Pythia, quorum
auctorem quidam serpentem Pythonem fuisse aiunt. Nomen arces-
sere videtur ab Hebraeo iJ~|D.> 1use cognationem habet cum verbo
|"|r"|3j decepit. — H offman. Lex.

TYPHON. 367
but when the votaries of the sun became lords of
the ascendant, and, suppressing the rival faction,
succeeded in introducing the solar rites, Apollo
was said to have slain the serpent 1, and the honour
of the games was transferred to him.2 Much to
the same purpose is the story told by Apollodorus
of Typhon's conflict with Jupiter. He is described
of such immense magnitude as to be higher than
the tops of the mountains 3, and his arms reached,
one to the east and the other to the west : for his
legs he had huge folds of serpents, and a great
stream of fire proceeded out of his mouth. What
is this but a plain personification of the genius of
the deluge, and a sign of the religious rites once
used by the Egyptians ? For it is to be remem
bered that fire and water were anciently employed
by them in their lustrations.4 The fable proceeds
1 Euripides says, that Latona, the mother of copious waters,
brought Apollo from the island mountain to the Parnassian height,
which resounded with the rites of Dionusus, where a monstrous
dragon, ydc itEXSpiov rkpaq, occupied the subterranean oracle, and
was slain by Phoebus, although then only an infant in his mother's
arms. — Iphig. in Tauris. 1258. This circumstance is very de
scriptive of the immature authority of the usurper, when he first
dispossessed the Arkites of their ancient seat. He probably came
from Egypt ; for Latone and Latopolis are the names of an ancient
town at Memphis, the mother of many waters, on account of the
inundations, and the island mountain might be one of the Py
ramids. 2 Instituit sacros celebri certamine ludos
Pythia, perdomiti serpentis nomine dictos.
Ovid. Met. i.
3 "Clem vitEpkxE'v ft.lv otdvroiv rSv opSv. — Apollodorus.
4 "H te BEpaitEia hid itvpoc Kal v&aroc ylvErat, XeiGovtoc toE v/Avoiiov
to vhtup Kal to itvp falvovroc, oifqviKa icrroiq iiti toS oiiSou, ry itarpia
rSv Alyvitrlav poivy iyEipEi Toy Beov. — Porphyrins in Epistola ad Ane-
ibonem apud Eusebium. Prcep. Evan. 1. iii. c. 4.

^68 TYPHON.
to relate the failure of an attempt to introduce the
Grecian mode of idolatry into Syria, and its final
success in Thrace.
The gods, it is said, ran away from Typhon into
Egypt, and, in order to escape him, changed them
selves into the forms of animals1, while Jupiter
pursued him to Mount Casius, beyond Syria ; but
was there seized in his folds, carried away on his
shoulders, and imprisoned in the Corycian cave in
Cilicia ; and the nerves of his hands and feet being
cut out he became utterly powerless. Thus, the
worship of animals was established in Egypt, while
demonolatry was completely subdued in Syria.
Afterwards, however, Hermes and Pan eluding
the vigilance of the dragon, who guarded them,
found means to restore his nerves to Jupiter, who
then recovering his strength, drove Typhon to the
Mountain Nusa. It is worthy of remark, that the
strongholds of the diluvian rites were Mount
Casius 2, the Corycian cave, and Nusa, the hill of
Noah, the Deo-Nausha of the Hindoos. Then
follows a fragment of an earlier tradition : per
suaded that he should acquire more power by it,
he tasted some pleasant fruits3, and then fought
1 Ta; llkac, ftET&aXov Etc. ?»«. — Apollod. p. 32.
2 In like manner an elevated rock 300 feet high in the middle of
the Niger is called Mount Kesa. It is much venerated, say the
Landers, who explored that river, by the natives. They believe, that
a benevolent genius makes the mountain his favourite and continual
abode, and dispenses around him a benign and heavenly influence.
The weary traveller here finds a refuge from the storm, and a rest
from his toils. — Lander's African Travels. Mount Kesa and
Mount Casius are manifestly the same.
3 XlEio-BEiq ot( poicrB-qcrtrai fAaXXov — iyEvcraro rav ip-qfAkpuv KapitSy.
— Apollodorus, p. 22.

TYPHON. 369
with Jupiter at Hasmus in Thrace, by throwing hills
at him : for worship on high places — imitations, or
at least memorials of Ararat — was a characteristic
feature of the diluvian rites. At last, however,
the priests of Jupiter prevailed, and finally abolished
them ; which they represent by the elegant fic
tion of burying him under JEtna, where still he
struggles under the heaving mountain, and bellows
and spouts forth flames. [ Varro must have heard
something of the genuine tradition, when he re
ferred the war of the giants to a deluge ; though
he trifles egregiously,. when he supposes that the
gods were those, who, having first secured them
selves on the top of the mountain, beat back those
later comers, who sought the same refuge, and who,
from crawling up the side of the mountain, were
said to have serpents' tails. 2 The real drift of that
story is obvious enough, when we find that Oceanus
and Tethys were two ofthe conquered Titans ; but
this will be considered more particularly hereafter.
Virgil calls Typhon Enceladus, who was van
quished by Pallas, according to Apollodorus ; but
this still brings us back again to the gods of Egypt ;
for Athena is supposed, as we have already seen,
to be Neith read backwards ; and the father of
1 Pindari Pythia, Od. i. Valerius Flaccus represents him
cruenta
Mole resurgentem, torquentemque anguibus undas,
and sacras revomentem pectore flammas, when Neptune hurled him
into the Sicanian sea, and covered him with .ZEtna : this is the victory
of the good Genius of the Ocean over the evil Genius. — Val. Flac.
Argonaut, ii. 28.
2 Servius in Virgil,, iEneid. iii. 578.
VOL. I. B B

370 THESEUS.
Pallas, according to the same author, was Crius,
that is, the Criocephalus Ammon, for he is usually
represented with a ram's head 1 ; thus, at the pa^
lace of Medinet Habou, from the middle of his car
a large pole rises, surmounted by the head of a
Crius.2 But the same Ammon or Ham was. also
the father of Hermes, who was the principal agent
in Typhon's case ; for Thoth or Thoyth, who,
when his origin came to be forgotten, assumed the
name of Hermes, was only a corruption from
Phuth ; for so Ptolemy writes Thouth for Phthuth,
or Phut, in his geography. 3 Hence I suspect,
that Phthas has been transmuted by the Grecians
into Theseus ; not the king of Athens, but the
mythological Theseus in Virgil's representation of
the mysteries4, who sits for ever in sadness and
melancholy, on the stone of initiation, and testifies
against the wickedness of the antediluvians, and
loudly warns them to attend to God, and to learn
to do justice.
For the Phlegyae were a people of Thessaly, who
were said to have been destroyed by a deluge on
account of their impiety.5 Pausanias indeed places
1 This may be accounted for from the fact mentioned by Julius
Pollux, that certain Lybian ships were called Rams and Goats.
2 Eigtheenth Letter of Champollion.
3 Lib. iii. c. 1. ©ovB.
4 Sedet, etermamque sedebit
Infelix Theseus, Phlegyasque miserrimus omnes
Admonet, et magna testatur voce per umbras :
Diseite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos.
Virg. JEn. 1. vi. 6 17.
5 Secundum Euphorionem. — Servius in Virg. Phlegyae populi
insulani Thessaliae, qui cum sacrilegi deos et homines spernerent,
immisso a Neptuno diluvio submersi sunt  Carrion in Val. Flac.
Arg. ii. 193.

THESEUS. 371
them in Bceotia ; and his version of the story is the
work of the rival faction ; for he makes Apollo the
offended and chastising deity, instead of Neptune,
and their destruction effected by an earthquake
instead of a deluge. l The uncertainty, however,
proves that it was matter of tradition and not of
history ; and we are at liberty to choose the most
probable way of accounting for it. But Theseus,
the historical prince of Athens, had nothing to do
with these Phlegyas : their admonisher was plainly
that preacher of righteousness, who was miserably
vexed, till the day that he entered into the ark, by
the wickedness which he saw around him, and
whose character was attributed to his grandson
Phtha, when he was considered the lord of justice ;
for so the memory of the just one was retained by
the Phoenicians under the name of Sydyc2, and by
the Celts under the name of Saidi, the husband of
Ceridwen, or the ark. If it be objected that The
seus is decidedly an historical name, it is an ob
jection which will be considered more fully here
after ; but in the mean time it may be sufficient to
reply, that a Grecian prince, who drew his religion
from Egypt, might well adopt the Egyptian custom
of assuming the name of some god : to this cause,
1 Pausanias in Boeot, At a subsequent period a party of Phle-
gyans, apparently reclaimed and having returned to their original
usages, took violent possession of Delphi, and hindered the votaries
of Apollo from coming to his oracle. nam templa profanus
Invia 'cum Phlegyis faciebat Delphica Phorbas.
Ovid's Metamorph. 1. xi. Fab. 11.
2 Euseb. Prep. Evan. i. 10.
B B 2

372 MEANING OF AMONEI.
indeed, we may ascribe the number of Jupiters,
whose crimes perplex ancient mythology: in Egypt,
we know, that nothing was more common ; in the
legends on the tomb of Ousirei I. lie takes the
names of Noubei, Athothi, and Amonei.1 All these
titles, however, require some little explanation* The
last is undoubtedly the Ammon of the classic
writers, but with this difference — that the word
Ham seems not to enter into its composition 2 ; for
there is but a single m ; and the initiative vowel
may have been arbitrarily prefixed to Mon, ac
cording to a practice of the Egyptians, which seems
to have been not uncommon. Thus Thoth is
turned into Athothei, and Ibrim is also spelt Prim3,
and, by the Greek geographers, Primis. Who then
is Mon, or Mun ? for it is written in both ways,
Amon and Amun. He is doubtless the same person,
whom the Indians called Menu, the Tibetans Mani
or Manes, the Siamese Manu, the Welsh Celts
Menwyd, the Greeks Minos, and the Egyptians
Menes. But it still remains to be shown, what
historical personage was signified by these names.
A Hindoo myth, which has been preserved in the
Ayeen Akbery, points very clearly to the real
history of Menu, who has been already identified
with Noah.' Brahma is said to have caused Ma-

1 Thirteenth Letter of Champollion.
2 As it does in Silvius Italicus :
Hammon Numen erat Libycae gentile carinas,
Cornigeroque sedens spectabat casrula fronte. L. xiv.
3 Eleventh Letter of Champollion.

MEANING OF AMONE1. 373
hadeo to issue from his forehead in wrath ; but, as
he was not fit for the task of creation, there issued
from his own body two forms, one male, the other
female. The name of the man was Munnoo.1 In
this instance Mahadeo is, like the Typhon of Egypt,
the instrument of destruction, i. e. the flood : in
deed, he is usually considered as the Destroyer2;
and since the story alludes to the repeopling of the
world after a period of vengeance, Mun-Noo, which
has been abbreviated into Menu, must be com
pounded of the two names Mun and Noe, both of
which are used by the same writer elsewhere se
parately : for in the description of the fish Avatar,
which clearly relates to the deluge, Mun is the
Rajah who is saved by a divine revelation 3 ; and in
Abu Fazil's summary account of the princes of
Bengal, it is said that Rajah Noe, when the cup of
life was filled to the brim, was succeeded in the
government by Luckmeenyah, the son of Luck-
meen. 4 " Thus it appears that the names have been
1 Ayeen Akbery, ii. 296.
2 As the Loo Chooans are said to pray sometimes to the good
spirit and sometimes to the evil one (Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific,
ii. 194-)> so Mahadeo, the great Spirit, is sometimes the Destroyer,
and sometimes the Preserver. Duff says, the 1 1 Outars, or incar
nations of Mahdeo, were chiefly for the purpose of assisting Indra
(the god of the elements) in his wars with the Dyts or evil spirits ;
and in the Maharashtra he is considered superior, or equal, to
Vishnu. — Hist, of Mahrattas, i. 22. One of his names, the 998th,
is Sharma putra daya, i. e. he who gave offspring to Sharma, that is
to say, Shem, whose name Bochart discovers in the Chaldaean angel of
death Samael : he thinks he was assigned to the lower regions, because
the idolaters disliked his memory. The Siamese have retained him
in their Phra Samut, the god of the Ocean, whose Hindoo title is
Borun. Maha Samutho is the great sea. — Trans. As. Soc. iii. 86.
3 Ibid. p. 497. 4 Ibid. p. 12.
B B 3

374> MEANING OF AMONEI.
preserved by a loose tradition, which has appro
priated them as usual to local history ; but the air
of historical accuracy which it assumes by mention
ing a succession of Rajahs is quite a groundless
pretence : for the author does not venture to in
clude Noe and Luckmeen in his regular catalogue
of princes, a great part of which, however, is, con
jectural and unauthentic; and all his lists, till
150 years before the Mahommedan conquest, are
quite incredible from the length of the reigns, which,
in the period of real history, have an average of less
than nine years each ; while in the other it is more
than seventy-five. It is not necessary to account
for the same word being written with a different
vowel, Mun and Men ; for in another part of the
same work, where the products of the churned
ocean, that is to say, of the deluge, are described,
the same word appears in three different forms, — -
Chunder-man, the Moon1, KowstubhMun, a won
derful Jewel, andLutchMeen, Riches, like a bloom
ing bride." 2 The modern spelling of the latter
word is Lakshmi 3 ; but it is perhaps a corruption,
which crept in, when the fanciful inventions of the
Bramins had disguised the features of ancient truth :
for Lutchmeen bears a close affinity to Luckmeen,
the contemporary, according to tradition4, and
1 The ancient Germans Fsaid that Sunna and Mane were the
daughter and son of Mundilfare, whom the gods placed in the
heavens — Mane to guide the course of the moon, and Sunna of the
sun. — Karl Barth's Hertha, p. 77-
2 Ibid. p. 317. 3 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 183.
4 Ayeen Akbery, vol. ii. This name is also written Lockee, the
goddess of Fortune, by Mr. Wilkinson, vol. i. of As. Res.

MEEN. 375
perhaps the wife of Noe. But if the identity of
signification in Man, Mun, and Meen in these
words be not granted, it is at least unquestionable,
that the mountain usually called Mandara is spelled
by the vizier of the emperor Akber, Minder ; and
if Lutchmeen be not a person, but a thing, the two
words are almost synonymous : for Luch, in Celtic,
is a Place1, and Dar a habitation. The open
temples of the Irish, says Vallancey, are called
Deiri : hence either may be interpreted a divine
habitation, — the place or temple of Mon.3 For
Mr. Moorcroft in his journey to lake Manasarovera
observes, that Man in Sanscrit means divine, and
in Iiiberno-Celtic it means God.3 It is very re
markable that the word, which has been adopted
by the English to express the human race, should
have been employed in those more ancient languages
to signify the Deity ; but it is in conformity with
the opinions of those philosophers in India, who
admit not of any incarnations, and insist that the
Devas were mortals, patriarchs, and sages, raised to
those high dignities on account of their sanctity.4
They who profess the science of Meymansa do not
believe Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadeo to be emana
tions of the Deity, but say they are human beings,

1 Lach, Lich, Loch, Luch, Lieu. — Bullet, Dictionnaire Celtique.
2 Chald. Dar, habitavit. Arab. Deir, a temple. Persic, Deira
Mughan, a temple of Magi. — Vallancey s Collectanea, iv. 467.
3 Miss Beaufort's Essay and Vallancey's Vind. of Ir. Hist. Mann
Deus. Cormac's Glossary. Mana of the Old Persians. — Hyde,
178. Mani vel Manes. Tibetanorum. — Georg. de Alp. Tib, 507.
4 Wilford in Asiat. Research., and Ayeen Akbery, ii. 295.
B B 4

376

MEEN.

who through their righteousness attained to this
degree of perfection : yet they believe that Mun
js everywhere.1
But there is another point of resemblance be
tween Lutchmeen and Mandara ; for Luch or Lach
bears another meaning in Celtic, — a language which
certainly had its origin in the East, and has so near
an affinity to the Sanscrit, that many roots may have
been common to both languages, which have since
disappeared from one of them. Luch is a rock 2, and
if Meen be a mountain, the whole compound sig
nifies exactly that which Mandara is — a rocky moun
tain. It is true, that, according to the absurd
fables of the Hindoos, one is the product, and the
other the agent of the deluge ; but this is easily
explained, by comparing it with some of their other
fictions upon the same subject. The Chandee or
Doorgah Path, i. e. Legend, gives an account of
the attacks made by the Daemons upon the gods in
former days, when the world was covered with
water. Mheisasoor, or, as Moor writes it, Mahis-
hasur, or the Buffalo Daemon, waged a successful
war against the gods, for 100 years, till they com
bined to form a goddess, Doorga, who, mounted on
a lion, slew immense numbers of his Daemons, and
at last cut off his head. Now one of the names of

1 Ayeen Akbery, ii. 405.
2 Leach, Lech, Lach, Pierre. En Haut Leon on donne ce nom
par excellence a certaines grandes ; pierres plates un peu eleve'es de
terre. These are evidently Cromlechs — also Eau — also le meme
que Lach, Lich, Loch, Luch, Lieu, Locus, Lucus. — Dictionnaire
Ceitique de M. Bullet.

MEEN. 377
Doorga or Parvati ' was Mahisha Sayi, and a buffalo
was her vehicle, and a cow was considered one of her
forms.2 The Celtic bards had recourse to the same
image in their allusions to the same event. The
Welsh author of the Praise of Lludd, speaks of
•" a bellowing spotted cow, the procurer of a bless,-
ing, boiled on the eve of May, and on the spot
where her boiling is consumed shall her consumer
rest in peace." 3 Davies not unreasonably explains
this to be an emblem of the ark, bellowing before
the deluge to call its little crew together, tossed
about by the flood, and finally consumed on the
spot, where the Patriarch landed and found rest ;
for, in like manner, the Arkite cell is personified,
and takes a bovine form in a poem of Taliessin,
called the Oxpen of the Bards. It is supposed to
speak thus : "I am the cell ; I am the opening
chasm ; I am the bull Beer Lied ; I am the reposi
tory of the mystery ; I am the place of re-anima
tion."4 Thus the goddess, who at one time is
represented as having the form of a cow, and at
another as riding a buffalo, slays the buffalo daemon :
and so too the Giant Doorgu is said to have been
slain by an arrow from the hand of Doorga.5 Now
1 Devi was a name common to Lakshmi and Durga or Parvati. —
Moor, p. 144. Parvati, says Moor, is commonly pronounced Parbat,
which is very like Prahbat, the divine footstep, so much worshipped
in Burma and Ceylon. Parvat is a name for hills, and the hilly parts
are still called Droog, from Durgu, p. 152. — Moor's Hindu Pan
theon, 166. and plate 40.
2 Ward's Hindoo Mythology, p. 137.
3 Davies's Mythology of ihe British Druids, p, 567.
4 Ibid. p. 537.
5 Ward's Hindoo Mythology, p. 107.

378 MOUNA,
the meaning of all this is, that the power which
produced the flood, the power that presided over
the ark and was worshipped in the mountain, was
the same power that ultimately subdujed the waters,
and put an end to their career of violence. Hence
the mountain was honoured first as the throne of
the avenging deity, and secondly as the sanctuary
of peace, which was first disclosed by the retiring
of the flood. At the same time, there is distinctly
visible an idolatrous disposition to transfer the glory
of the Creator to the creature, either to the moun
tain, or the man, which extended itself even into
the remotest islands scattered in the Pacific Ocean,
and must therefore be admitted to exhibit, in the
strongest light, the indelible permanence of its
character, and the antiquity of its origin. Those,
says the missionary Ellis, who were initiated into
the company of Areois, invoked the Mouna Tabu,
or sacred mountain : ; which, it further appears, is
exactly like one of those mountains, or mounds,
which were held sacred by the Celts : for it is
conical, and situated near a lake, and, what is most
material to this inquiry, the natives have a tra
dition, which shows at once the reason of its
being Tabu, or sacred. " The Sandwichers," says
the Missionary, " believe that the Creator de
stroyed the earth by an inundation that covered
the whole earth, except Mouna Roa, in Owhyhee,
1 Ellis's Polynesian Researches, p. 323.

MOUNA. 379
or Hawaii ; on the top of which, one single pair
had the good fortune to save themselves." '
There is another mountain considered sacred,
Mouna Kea, or the white mountain, because it is
supposed to be the abode of the gods 2 ; but here
again we are reminded of the Celts ; for it is said,
that those who have approached its summit have
been turned into stone. This notion, which indeed
has its parallel in both Eastern and classic tales,
must, in common with them, have originated in
that practice of the Celtic nations, so characteristic
of their superstition, of setting up in an erect posi
tion, gigantic stones in their sacred places. But
there is another point of resemblance in their
ideas, which must not be omitted; as the same
Celtic word signifies water, and a rock3, so the
same Polynesian word signifies the ocean, and a
mountain. 4 At least, Maona and Mouna may
surely be considered as much the same word as
Owhyhee and Hawaii, where not a single vowel
that belongs to the one is found in the other. A
similar association of ideas seems to have prevailed
1 Ellis's Missionary Tour through Hawaii, p. 411.
2 From another passage, however, in the same work, it would
appear, either that Mouna Roa and Mouna Kea are one and the
same, or else that the same tradition is told of both ; for at Kairua
Mr. Young learned, that they were informed by their fathers, that
all the land had once been overflowed by the sea, except a small
peak on the top of Mouna Kea, where two human beings were
preserved from the destruction that overtook the rest : they called
it Kai a Kahinarii, the sea of Kahinarii, p. 451. If Kai is Sea,
Mouna kea may be the diluvial mountain.
3 Lach, &c. as above mentioned ; for which the senses given by
Bullet in his Dictionary, are Pierre and Eau.
4 Ellis's Polynesian Researches, p. 484.

380

MOUNA.

among the Hindoos ; for Mina, in the Indian Zo
diac, and Mena, in the Javanese, is the fish. l On
the other hand, Mena is the wife of Himaluyu ;
that is, part of the mountain, which consists of two
branches ; one stretching to the West, which the
ancients named Montes Parveti, a name evidently
derived from Parvati2, the mountain-born, who
was also Dourga, i. e. the Argha, or Ark, who
received from Himaluyu the lion on which she
rode to battle ; that is, it received the strength
that sustained it from the Genius of the mountain,
and thither she retired after her victory. Mena,
therefore, must have been the other branch, which
has since been denominated the Rock of the
Moon 3 ; and what if this planet be indebted for
her name in some languages to the semilunar
form of the diluvial mountain? for in Greek,
Mtjvt] is much the same as the Sanscrit Mena, and

1 Sir Stamford Raffles, Memoirs of. — But Mina is spelt Meenu
by Ward in his Hindu Mythology.
2 Sir W. Jones's Works, xi. 245. The Hindoos believe, that
Parvati was married to Siva in a pre-existent state, when she bore
the name of Sati. Is not this an acknowledgement, that there was a
connection between Dourga, or the Argha, and the catastrophe over
which Siva, the destroyer, presided, as the crescent on his forehead
testifies, before the introduction of Brahminical fables ?
3 Chandra sec'hara. In Gladwin's Asiatic Miscellany, there is a
translation of a hymn to Lakshmi, in which she is called :
Daughter of Ocean and primaeval night,
Who cradled in a wild wave dancing light,
Sawest with a smile new shores, and creatures new —
And then it goes on :
But most that central tract thy smile adorns,
Where old Himala dips with fostering arms,
As with a waxing moon's half-circling horns.-r- p. 3,

HERMON* 381
the Celtic M&i.1 In German, Mond "differs little
from the Latin Mons, the English Mound or
Mount, the French Mont, and the Italian Monte2 :
and our own name Moon may be recognised, not
only in the Polynesian Mouna, but in that range
of hills which, as Bishop Horsley observes, were
the most striking features in the Holy Land, and,
like Himalaya, formed a double ridge, rising in
many summits. They were called Her-Mon, or
Hermonim, the mountains of Mon.3 The Greek
version writes it Armon.4 If the authors of our
English translations had attended to this circum
stance, they would not have been so much puzzled
by a passage in the 42d Psalm. In the Prayer-
Book it is rendered thus — " Therefore will I re
member thee concerning the land of Jordan, and
the little hill of Hermon." 5 In the Bible, how
ever, the translators have shrunk from the ab-

1 Borlase in his Antiquities of Cornwall says, that Men in Cornish
is a stone ; Mener a hill ; Meneth a Mount. In Welsh Maen is
a stone. 2 Another instance is the Arab. Mahgah, or residence of the
Moon, which is said in the Akhteristan to have been the ancient
name for Mecca : now it seems that, in the language of the Esqui
maux, Magoo and Mugwee are the Words that express a mountain.
— See the Appendix to Beechey's Voyage in the Pacific, Sec.
3 The Moorish name for iEtna, which the Italians have softened
into Mongibello, Dante Infern. xiv. 56., is just the same as
Hermon ; the Djibel, or Mons of Mon.
4 Ap/Aoiv, from Har and Mon, Deut. iii. if it may be supposed that
j~l became changed at length into pj — otherwise its first com
ponent word must be either Q"in> desolavit, or mi"!) exarsit ira;
and then the meaning is the Mountain of Desolation, or of Wrath,
which is a plain allusion to that mountain of Armenia, which was
sometimes regarded as the instrument of destruction.
5 Psalm xiii. 8.

382 HERMON.
surdity of calling Hermon a little hill, and have
preferred rendering it, however unintelligibly, thus :
— " Therefore will I remember thee from the
land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the
hill Mizer." l All the ancient versions, indeed, give
this word the sense of little ; but then they sepa
rate it from Hermon, and leave the whole sentence
in obscurity. The Chaldee Paraphrast alone, makes
a bold dash, and pronounces it to be Sinai. If,
in order to escape from this perplexity, a con
jectural emendation may be allowed, the omission,
or change, of a single letter would make it all plain.
The word Mizar, or Mezar, or Mezor2, may thus
be interpreted a fortress, for so it is used by Jere
miah, x. 17- " O inhabitant of the fortress ; " and
then, setting aside the gratuitous creation of a
people mentioned no where else, and having no
existence, the literal translation of the passage will
run thus : — "I will remember thee concerning
the land of Jordan, and Hermon ; concerning the
mountain fortress." David, in distress, turns to re
ligion for comfort, and first fortifies his faith by
calling to mind the goodness of the Lord, in bring
ing his nation to that " good land," the great
features of which were the river Jordan, and the
mountain-range of Hermon. But that name im-
1 Psalm, xiii. 6.
2 "T)l>/3> or ~\¥D> 'nstead "f "I WO* Propugnaculum, Agger. —
Avenarii Lexicon. In Isaiah, xxix. 3. with the plural termination
it is rendered a Mount ; but it has also the meaning of Angustiae.
In Psalm cxvi. 3. it is rendered Pains ; and so it may have refer
ence to the distress occasioned by the catastrophe to which it alludes.

HERMON. 383
mediately reminds him of the still greater mercy
vouchsafed to him, whose memory was preserved
in the title of Mon, and he goes on to say,
" Deep calleth unto Deep, at the noise of thy
waterspouts : all thy waves and thy billows are
gone over me." ' For, as Bishop Horne rightly
suggests, these ideas seem to be borrowed from
the general deluge, when, at the sound of descend
ing waterspouts, or torrents of rain, the depths
were stirred up, and put into horrible commotion.2
If this be the intended allusion, there is a peculiar
delicacy, as well as force, in the subsequent ex
postulation : "I will say unto God my rock, why
hast thou forgotten me? " Without having recourse
to this mystical import of the word, it would not be
easy to give any satisfactory explanation of another
passage in the Psalms, where the dew of Hermon
is said to descend upon the mountains of Sion.3
Why should the dew of one hill fall upon another,
or what particular merit was there in that of Her
mon, unless it was considered a type of the sacred
mount, on which God blessed the earth, and esta
blished his covenant of mercy with Noah and his
sons?4 In this case the next verse sets forth the
real parallel between the two mountains : " For
there the Lord commanded, or promised, the bless
ing, even life for evermore." As the name of Mon
was thus associated with the diluvian mountain, so,
in other instances, it was connected with the ocean
1 Psalm xiii. 7. 2 Psalm cxxxiii. 3.
•¦>_ Vol. i. p. 257, 4 Gen. ix.

384f HERMON.
and the Patriarch. Palaemon ' was an oceanic deity
of the Corinthians, in honour of whom, according to
Hyginus2, the Isthmian games were instituted;
though Plutarch says that Theseus dedicated them
to Neptune. Hesychius makes him synonymous
with Hercules, who was also the man of the Ark ;
of which there are many proofs besides those already
adduced, which will require a distinct consideration.
At present it may suffice to say, that they were
both born in Thebes 3, i. e. the Ark. His more an
cient name was Melicerta ; which may very well
be derived from Mellach Aorth, the Navigator of
the Ship.4 The author of the Orphic hymns calls
upon him to protect the initiated on the land and
on the waters, and addresses him as the only pre
server of mortals from dire vengeance on the ocean's
surge.5 If his mother was the Ark, there was good
reason why she should be denominated Leucothea,
1 TlaXaioc Mwv, or o itaXai Mow.
2 Hygini Fabuls, f. ii. p. 5. Musaeus de Isthmiis reconciles
them by stating that there were two kinds of games, one in honour
of Palsmon, the other of Neptune. They were clearly, however, one
and the same person.
3 'HpaKX-qa Aioc. tiiov dEterofAai, ov ft,ky' apicrrov
TEivar' EittxBovio)V 0^/3^$ hi KaXXiKopoicrtv
' AXKff'qvq. Homer. Hym. 13.
It may be observed that Heracles wounded Hera in the breast
with an arrow, as Dourga did Dourgu.
4 Mellach in Irish is a sailor, from ^\)t2> nauta. Ar. Malah
Aorth, navis. — Vallancey de Rebus Hyb. iv. 64. The same author
derives Hercules from Airek-lij. Arab., nauta maris.
<raC,Eiv fAvarac Kara te yfilva, Kal Kara itovrov
TlovroitXavoic. yap asl vavcrlv ^f^on/os Evapy-qe
(l>atvoft.Evoc. croir-qp, jaovvqc. BvqroTc, avatpakvi]
'PvofAEVoc. fA-qviv xaXETt-qv Kara itovnov oihfta. Orpheus Hym. 74.

VADIMON. 385
or the white goddess ; for it would long remain an
object of veneration and idolatry among the snow-
clad peaks of Ararat. She was said to be the
daughter of Harmonia, i.e. the Armenian mountain.
The account of their Apotheosis is very similar to
that which Hyginus gives of the translation of the
Syrian Venus and her son into the Zodiac. These,
to avoid the fury of the enraged Typhon, threw
themselves into the Euphrates, and became the two
fish, which, in the Eastern Zodiacs, bore the name
of Mina or Mena. So also the Theban queen, to
escape from her raging husband (for the Ark was
not unnaturally supposed to be wedded to the de
stroying power), threw herself into the sea with
her son, who is sometimes represented supported
by a Cetus, and sometimes on the Corinthian Cyp-
selis or square ark.1
Among the Etruscans Vadimon was an acknow
ledged name of Janus, concerning whom it has
been already shown that the double face must refer
to one of that family, which could at the same time
look back upon the antediluvian world, and forward
to that which they were about to replenish. Mon,
therefore, which is one of the words in the com
position of Vadimon, was, in this instance too, the
second parent of the human race ; and his character
may be still further established by investigating the
root of the other term : he was the preacher, or
prophet — in Latin Vates, in Irish Baidh, in Arabic
1 Bryant, ii. 458. Pausanias in Atticis says, that he was brought
to shore by a dolphin.
VOL. I. C C

386

MENU.

Bad.1 Under the latter names, with the addition of
Maha, or Great, the Persians have engrafted on their
own history the traditions of those first ages ; for
what Captain Low observes concerning Hindostan
and the extra-Gangetic nations is equally true of
all ancient peoples, — that very few indeed of their
legendary narratives are entirely destitute of some
foundation in history; and we must not therefore
reject at once all that wears the aspect of pure
fable.2 Mahabad, says Sir W. Jones, is Menu :
there were fourteen of each.3 And the Dabistan,
though it professes ignorance of the origin of the
human race, yet asserts that he was the first man
of the present period, and that he and his wife sur
vived the last ; that all the clefts of the mountains
were filled with his progeny ; that is to say, that
his descendants performed their worship in caves,
as was the custom of the Arkites ; that he was the
inventor of arts, and the framer of society, which
he divided into the four classes still retained in
India — the priestly, the military, the operative, and
the servile. He is, moreover, obscurely and pe-
riphrastically described as the restorer of nature,
just at the time when the equinoctial colure moved

1 {$"13, Bada in Chaldee, and Bedi in Arab., Praedicavit. Bad,
Arab., Praesul. — Hyde. The Praefectus ignis in Persia was named
Hyr-Bad ; in Irish. Ur-Baidh, scil. ignis sacerdos : we now translate
Baid a Prophet. — Vallancey, iv. 204. But Bad in Irish is also a
Ship ; and Weda in Arabic, Noah's Ark. In the Telingar dialect of
Coromandel, Wada is a Ship. — Vallancey on Ancient Irish, Prosp.
p. 14.
2 Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. iii.
3 Sir W. Jones, iii. 125.

MENU. 387
from Taurus into Aries, about 2500 years before
the Christian sera, i. e. about the agra of the deluge.1
The same antiquity, it is true, and the same honour
is ascribed to other personages ; but the multipli
cation of titles is so common among the tribes of
Asia, that when they relate any circumstances con
nected with the preservation of the human race
from destruction by divine vengeance, whatever
names they may use, and however they may set
chronology at defiance, we may be sure that it is
only a various reading of one and the same story ;
for we are well assured, that since the creation of
man, there has been but one great catastrophe.
Thus at one time Jy Afran (Satyavrata probably),
who lived secluded from mankind in a cave, i. e.
the Ark, and was called Jy from the purity of his
manners, is said to have delivered the world from
destruction brought on it by great depravity ; that
is, it was not totally destroyed. The worshippers of
Joo are still the most respected sect in the island
of Loo Choo.2 At another time the same merit is
ascribed to Gilshah : " When the wickedness of
mankind had drawn down upon them the vengeance
1 See the Dabistan translated by Gladwin, from p. 86 to 136.
2 See Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific, vol. ii. It is remarkable
that Ti Afrionn, which at this day signifies a chapel in Ireland, was
formerly the name of those towers supposed (erroneously I think)
to have been devoted to the service of the worshippers of fire. —
Vallancey, iv. 36l. The Loo Chooans seem to be fond of the pro
nunciation which they have given to their own island; which by
the way is Doo Choo — not with an L ; for they call Boodh, not
Fo, like the Chinese, but Foo, which is a nearer approach to the
original. Baith in Irish, an Ox, is pronounced Bo. — Mr. Beauford
in Antiq. Hib. ii. 269-
C C 2

388

MENU.

of God, who rendered their mutual hostility the
instrument of dreadful destruction and unparalleled
punishment to the species, and the few who re
mained resided on the tops of mountains, and in
the gloomy recesses of caverns, he was called by
the Lord of the Universe to assume the monarchy
ofthe earth, and, under the name of Kaiomars, was
considered by the followers of Zerdusht to be the
first parent of mankind." ! And yet the same
author acknowledges, that previous to the mission
of Zerdusht, the Iranees venerated a prophet,
named Mahabad, whom they considered as the
father of men, and parent of the present cycle.
Kaiomars2 took the title of Bulghian, which,
the Persians say, is contracted from Abulgihan, i. e.
the father of the world. It is composed, say they,
of a word which is Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic,
and of another that is purely Persian ; and there
fore he is Adam. But how is this consistent with
the previous wickedness of men ? And why is it
necessary to go so far back, when there was a

1 An account of the Parsee doctrine by Moollah Feroz translated
by Mr. Ellis, p. 332.
2 Kaiomars, or Kaiumerath, is derived from the Persic Kai,
which, like Ce or Ke, Cai or Cu, in Irish, signifies a prince, and
Amra an Emir, or noble. Kai Amra in Irish is the head of the
nobles. — Vallancey, iv. 181. This, therefore, is a name which
might be applied to any king ; and Russell is right in concluding,
that the Persian writers were not possessed of any correct inform
ation respecting the early history of their country, and had not
arrived at any distinct conclusions in regard to the names and
successions of their first sovereigns. The length of their reigns
marks the rule of fiction ; one being 560, another 700, and another
1000 years. — Connection of Sacred and Profane History, ii. 288.

muni. 389
second father of the world, to whom they were
more likely to refer their origin, who did live in an
age when wickedness abounded, and when only a
few were preserved from the destruction of the
species upon the top of a mountain ? In Thibet
Mahabad is altered into Mahamoonie, which, how
ever, has much the same meaning ' ; for the Munis
of the Puranas were virtuous sages. The great
Muni, however, of Hindoostan was Boudha ; but
it is to be observed, that this term sometimes de
scribes the character rather than the man. Maurice,
in his History of Hindostan, hesitates not to affirm,
what has been already maintained, that Phut was
Boudha2 ; but then, in a secondary sense, it is said
to be an appellation expressive of wisdom3 ; and one
of the names of the personage thus designated was
Shakmun, or Sakya Muni ; who, by means of his
good actions, gained perfect knowledge, had the
gift of prophecy, and could change the course of
nature. His father was called Siddown, and his
mother Maia ; a term which of itself marks the
allegorical nature of his parentage, for it means
delusion. She was delivered of him through the
navel, which has no meaning, unless she was the
ark, from the centre of which he issued. Siddown,
too, has an obvious relation to the Caer Sidi of the
Celts, and the Side, whom Orion, the unsubmerged
walker of the ocean, married. At his birth, the
earth trembled, and the water of the Ganges rose
1 As. Res. ix. 358. 2 Vol. i. p. 249.
3 As. Res. vi. 260.
C C 3

390 MAHAMOONIE.
and fell in a most astonishing manner.1 He is
certainly the same as Mahamoonie ; for his priests
in Thibet are called Lama. The other moiety of
his name, which is very variously enunciated, con
firms still more strongly the conjecture of his real
history, and identifies him with Satya Vratta or
Menu. " When the chief of Assurs, the evil spirit,
came with his forces to give battle to Sacya, ob
serving that he was left alone, he invoked the
assistance of the earth, who, attending at his sum
mons, brought an inundation over the ground,
whereby the Assur and his forces were vanquished,
and compelled to retire." 2 Another of his names
is Sakya Sinha ; and the latter word may possibly
be the obsolete root of the German Sinn 3, mind,
as Menes is of Mens, and Noe of Nous : Singha,
however, or Sinha, in Sanscrit is a Lion ; and
this, as well as its Hebrew name, will account for the
introduction of that animal into the Zodiac 4, and
his alliance with Dourga against the Assur. Sacya
Sinha is believed by the most orthodox Brahmins
to be Vishnu himself in a human form 5, who is re-

1 Ayeen Akbery, p. 434. 2 As. Res. vol. ii. art. 16.
3 In fact, Sin in Chinese signifies Mind. — Barrow, in art. China,
Supplem. to Encyc. Brit.
4 If so, it was peculiarly appropriate in Egypt as the name of the
constellation, which the sun entered when the inundation was at its
height. Quod tempus sacerdotes natalem mundi judicarunt. —
Jul. Sol. Polyhist. c. 32.
8 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 234. It is asserted by Sir W.
Jones, and Kaempfer observes, that the worship of Budh pervaded
all the East ; and he is the same person whom the Brahmins call
Budha, and believe to be the essential Spirit of Wishna. — Hist, of
Japan, plates 7 and 49 of Moor.

MAHAMOONIE. 391
presented by the Indian artists floating with Laksh-
mi on the unbounded ocean, and seated on the top
of Mandara amidst the agitated waters. The Chinese
call him Sacka, Siaka or Xaka, and Sin Noo, which
they pronounce Xinnum, in the same way as the
Cingalese pronounce Budha Budhum. Si Tsun
is another, title which they give him correspond
ing to Mahamoonie ; for, according to Kasmpfer l,
it signifies a great saint. He revealed himself about
20,000 years before our aera ; that is to say, long
before the commencement of known history ; and
he sate upon a Tarata flower, which is the Faba
.ZEgyptiaca, of which Dioscorides says, that it was
called Cibotion 2, or Ark, from its concave form ;
and Bryant remarks that nothing can more resemble
a boat, especially the navis biprora of Isis, than the
pod of the common bean 3 ; whence the Faba
^Egyptiaca was called Kuamon, i. e. Cu Amon, the
shrine of Ammon. To this form, perhaps, there is
an allusion in the Celtic bard, when he says, that
" Menwyd, the dragon chief of the world, formed
the curvatures of Kyd (i. e. the Ark), which passed
the dale of grievous water." 4 The Chinese histo
rians acknowledge that a great deluge happened in
the reign of Tci Sijun5, nearly 2300 years b.c,
1 Kaempfer's History of Japan.
2 KjSiapiox, or KttoiTiov ; ab ilia concavitate quam in medio habere
auctores omnes probant. • — ¦ Salmasius de Homonymis Hyles latricee
ad fin. Jul. Sol. Polyhistoris, p. 198.
3 Bryant's Analysis, ii. 398.
4 Davies's Mythology of the British Druids, p. 568. As Mons
is to Mon, so is Menydh to Menwyd ; for Menydh in Celtic is Mons.
— Lhwyd's Archceol. Britan.
5 Kaempfer's Hist, of Japan, p. 146.
C C 4

392 CHINESE FOHI.
which is within a few years of the calculation,
according to our Hebrew text, of the period to
which the general deluge is referred.
It is true that they assign different dates to the
events belonging to these several names ; but in
matters of history so remote, little credit is due to
their accuracy. For though in China, as well as
elsewhere, Princes and Priests have assumed divine
titles, and there have been modern Fos and Sitsjuns,
as well as Munis and Budhas, and hence they
claim Fohi, the victim, for their progenitor :, yet it
is certain that Fo was unknown to them, till the
latter end of the first century.2 The Jesuit Le
Comte relates, that the emperor Minti3 having
heard that Confucius had frequently said, the true
Holy One was to be found in the West, despatched
ambassadors with orders to travel that way, till
they found this saint ; and they being forced by
the danger ofthe sea to remain on an island, there
found the idol Fo ; and being perfectly instructed
in the superstitions of that country, carried them

1 The first man and first emperor of that monarchy the Chinese
take notice of, was Fohi ; before him they confess they knew
nothing of the world. He was the first that sacrificed to heaven. 
Navarette's Account of the Empire of China in Churchill's Col
lection, i. 93.
2 A. D. 65.
3 Ti is Lord, and Min, therefore, may be an appropriation of the
ancient name of Mon or Menu : his proper name seems to have been
Fanvang. In the islands of the South Sea, the Tii were a kind of
inferior deities (Dii), to whom prayers were offered, spirits formerly
residing in Raiatea, who assumed human bodies, and became the pro
genitors of mankind : they are also the spirits of the departed. 
Ellis's Polynesian Researches, i. 484.

BRITISH BUD. 393
back to the emperor.1 If this account were liter
ally true, they must have visited the British islands ;
for if they had travelled between the 23d and
46th parallels, westward, that is, from any part of
the country lying between Canton and Pekin,
they would have found no sea to stop them, till
they came to the Mediterranean ; and there we
know the classical idolatry had rooted out the
more ancient rites. If on the other hand they
kept to a higher latitude, Britain would be the
first island, which they were likely to reach, of
sufficient consequence to give them satisfaction ;
and there they would have found the super
stition, which they carried back, uncontaminated
by Brahminical devices. " Before Buddwas," says
Taliessin, who professes himself to have been of
the seed of the Arkites 2, " may the community
of the Cymry remain in tranquillity ; he being the
dragon chief, the proprietor, the rightful claimant
in Britain." 3 And in another poem, he speaks of
the red dragon Budd, of high power4, who was
also a luminary and an Arkite, and had the title of
Manon. Sufficient proof has been already given
that the name and the worship of Buddha were
1 Account of China by Dionysius Kao in Harris, ii. 980.
2 I have been a grain of the Arkites (gronen erkennis), which
vegetated on a hill, and then the reaper placed me in a smoky recess,
i. e. in a dark cell, Angar Cyvyndawd. — Davies' s Mythol. p. 572.
He declares that his doctrines are written in Hebrew, yn Efrai.
3 Marunad Aeddon o Von. — Daviess Myth. p. 553.
4 Fud Pharaon. I have ventured to make a slight alteration in
Davies's translation, because " Of the higher powers " seems to give
no sense at all. The word rendered Arkite is Archawr  Ibid.
p. 583.

394 MAN  HU.
strongly impressed upon the British islands, where
he was received under the names of Bad and
Budhdearg l and Mann, the god of waters ; but
especially in the island Pomona, where both his
titles were conjoined.
In Guernsey, Mr. Metevier has shown2, that
those ancient Druidical monuments commonly
called Cromlechs had formerly the name of Poo,
or Pooleh, just as the great Boudhist temple in
China has the name of Poo-ta-la. If Barrow be
right in his derivation of this name from Poot
Laya, the residence of Boodh, it greatly strengthens
the probability, that Himalaya has originally been
Hu maha laya, the great abode of Hu. For this is
not only the name of the Celtic diluvian god often
mentioned by the Welsh bards ; but in Chinese
it signifies water, and consequently may have been
personified by idolatry, like Oceanus, and become
equivalent to the Irish god of the waters, Ma-
nanann. In the fabulous age of Persian history
their lawgiver is styled Houshang, i. e. the supreme
Hu ; for Chang in Chinese signifies Supreme 3 :
this personage, it is said, bestrode a monstrous
animal called Rakhshe, which he found in the
new world, being the issue of a male crocodile,
and female hippopotamus. This monster fed
1 Budh signifies a deity in Irish and in the language of Thibet ;
it also signifies Mens, and so is equivalent to the Mun of Hindostan.
— Vallancey on the Ancient Irish, Preface, p. xxix.
2 In an essay on the Cromlechs of Guernsey, communicated to the
Bristol Phil. Society.
3 Changti is the Supreme Being. — Encyc. Brit. Shang, according
to Morrison, is above.

HU. 395
upon the flesh of serpents and dragons, and with
it he reduced the people of Mahiser, who had
fishes' heads.1
Complicated as this fiction is, it is not impossible
to disentangle its meaning. Raksha is considered
by the Hindoos, sometimes as an evil spirit, and
sometimes as the contrary 2, in exact conformity to
what has been already observed of Doorga. It is
probably the same as Rehkeser in the institutes of
the emperor Akber, the name, as it is there stated,
of certain virtuous men, rewarded with high rank
near the throne of God, whose temples were very
numerous, and were denominated Arkh : among
them was one called P/io-ker in the district of
Budderee. It appears, then, that the mighty Hou
rode upon the deluge, which was fabled to owe its
being and its growth to the agency of serpents and
dragons, such as Typhon and Narayen, and became
the acknowledged chief of those who worshipped
the great Soor3 or Deity ofthe ocean, and esteemed
the fish a sacred symbol. Houshang may also be
compounded of Hoo, and Shan, and mean the
Guardian ofthe Mountain ; for Shan in Chinese is
a mountain, and thence the Hindoo Sani seems to

1 Vallancey's Collectanea, Vind. of Ir. Hist. p. 182.
2 They are classed with good beings in the Ramayana, p. 122 
Moors Hindu Pantheon, p. 96.
3 Mahiser is probably Maha Sur. Surs or Soors are good angels.
— Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 94. The sun is called Surya, the great
Soor, but he is also called Area. Assoors are evil spirits. The Ayeen
Akbery says the first sort of temples are sacred to the triad ; the
second to the race of Dyte, the source of Anger, and are called
Assoors ; the third to the Rehkesher, ii. 317.

396

HU.

be derived, who, mounted on a raven, carried a
trident and a bow, and is identified by Moor with
Menu and Noah.1 The Celtic Shony, in search of
whom the Irish used to wade into the sea, may be
referred to the same origin. There is also a simi
larity between the Celtic and Chinese languages
with respect to the first syllable of Hou-shang : for
as Hu in Welsh is a guardian, so Hoo 2 in Chinese
is to guard : in a secondary sense it is the same as
Mun ; for both signify a door 3 ; and thus it bears
the same relation to the person Hu, as Janua does
to Janus. Moreover, as the Celts were observant
of the moon in their religious rites, so were the
Chinese : as the former made a point of cutting
the misseltoe on the 6th day of the moon's age4,
which, according to Pliny, was the commencement
of their months, and as the figure of a Druid given
by Montfaucon holds in his hand a lunette, at the
period when the crescent is most like those junks,
with lofty prow and stern, which still navigate the
seas of China, so the Chinese select the changes
of the moon for the performance of their worship,
and build their sepulchres in the form of crescents
and on hills.6 They know not, indeed, the meaning

1 Hindu Pantheon, p. 306.
2 Oo, according to Kaempfer, signifies a prince. — Hist, of Japan,
p. 153.
3 Barrow on China, in Supplement to Encyc. Brit.
4 So, too, on the sixth day of the moon's age, Hindoo women
walk in the forests, and eat certain vegetables, in hope of beautiful
children, in honour of Lakshmi. — Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 134.
8 Gemelli Careri's Voyage round the World, Churchill's Collection,
iv. 327- Narrative of a Residence in China, by P. Dobell, ii. 298.

MONGOL AYOU. 397
of the practice, and perhaps think as little of the
moon as of the ark in using that form. But that
is a part of their character : for it is observed by a
person, whose long residence among them qualified
him to judge, that they " have a superstitious re
spect for certain ceremonies and ancient customs,
which have prevailed for ages, without having the
slightest knowledge of the principles or dogmas on
which they are founded." : Their name for the
moon (Yue) is not very remote from that of the
Celtic Patriarch (Hu) : among the Mongols it is
Ayou ; and they not only worship her on their
knees, but, what is very remarkable, call her the
great emperor, and suppose him to be the ancestor
of the Mongol nations.2 Another material re
semblance between the Druids of Wales and the
Boudhists of China consists in their belief of a me
tempsychosis. Taliessin says of himself: " I have
died ; I have revived ; a second time was I formed.
I have been a blue salmon ; I have been a dog ; I
have been a stag ; I have been a roebuck on the
mountains ; I have been a cock ; I have been
Aedd, returning to my former state ; I am now
Taliessin." 3 In like manner the Bonzes, or Priests
of Foe, teach the transmigration of souls. It is one

1 Narrative of a Residence in China, ii. 252. The unchange-
ableness of Eastern manners is remarked by Sir John Malcolm, who
says, that, in Kurdistan the inhabitants appear unchanged in their
manners and customs by the twenty-three centuries which have
elapsed since the days of Xenophon. — Sketches of Persia.
2 Carpini, in Lardner's Cyclopaedia, Geography, p. 256.
3 Davies's Mythology of the Druids, p. 573.

398 MONGOL AYOU.
of their doctrines, that " when a man dies, accord
ing to his actions he is converted into one of six
things, a beast, a fish, a bird ; an angry, a hungry,
or a heavenly devil." l The two latter words form
a curious combination, which illustrates the remark
already made upon the confusion of ideas, which
prevailed among the heathen, in consequence of
their not distinguishing the man of the flood from
the Deity who caused it, nor the punishment of
sin from the ruin of the world. If, however, this
overland journey seems incredible on account of
its length, and the resemblances which have been
pointed out must be attributed to the flowing of
the stream of superstition from the same origin in
opposite directions, like the Rhine and the Rhone,
which, rising in the same district, take opposite
courses, the one to the north and the other to the
south, the language of the ambassadors may still be
mystically true, and then their island would be one
of those places of devotion surrounded by water,
which were so many images of Ararat. In this
case there can be no difficulty in deciding, that
Cashmir must have been the country in which
they found those shreds of diluvian lore, which
they brought back to China ; for the sages of Hin-
dostan say ', that in the early ages of the world all
Cashmeer, excepting the mountains, was covered
with water, and was then called Suttysir ; Sutty
1 Navarette's Account of China, in Churchill's Collection i. 88.
2 4701 years of the fourth Yowg, i.e. of the last age, had elapsed
when this book was written, but it has no date.

MOUNTAINS OF MAHADEO. 399
being the wife of Mahadeo, and Sir a reservoir.1
Now Mahadeo is the name of a mountain in that
country; and there is a fable, that every place from
whence it can be seen is free from snakes, and yet
in that same country there are no less than 700
carved figures of snakes, which are worshipped :
this strange contradiction is another proof how
much good and evil are blended in one, when re
ligion degenerates into superstition. As the Deity
of the flood the snake is worshipped ; as the agent
of the flood he is abhorred ; and the privilege of
exemption from its destructive presence enjoyed by
all who can see the top of Mahadeo, whose forehead2,
when he is personified, is sometimes adorned with a
crescent, and sometimes encircled by a rainbow, is
only a corrupt version of the privilege which was
vouchsafed to the earth after it had been blessed ;
when God set his bow in the clouds to be a token
of the everlasting covenant between Him and every
living creature. When that bow was seen in the
cloud, especially by those who could also see the
crescent-like form ofthe huge ark of mercy reposing
on the summit of Ararat, they would feel secure, that
the waters would no more become a flood to destroy
all flesh.3 The same Mahadeo is said to have
created out of the sweat of his forehead a human

1 A Sanscrit book called Raj Turunjee, presented to the Emperor
Akber, and mentioned in the Ayeen Akbery, ii. 143.
2 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, plate 1 8.
3 Genesis ix. 11 to 17-

400 MOUNTAINS OF MAHADEO.
form, whom he called Charun, and gave him
charge of his own ox.1 What is this when inter
preted into plain language, but the history of
Noah descending from the mountain-top still reek
ing with moisture from the struggling waves, and
having the ark under his charge ? For it has been
shewn that in various parts of the world an ox or
a cow was considered an emblem of the ark 2, and
Charon signified in the Egyptian language, a pilot,
and a boat was assigned to him by the mythology
of Greece.3 The only poet who has done him
justice is Virgil, who was initiated into the
mysteries : he describes him as a god enjoying a
green old age.4 What sort of a god that must be,
it is not difficult to perceive. These traditions
remained so much more lively and perfect in Cash-
meer, than in other places, that it was regarded by
the Hindoos as holy land ; and it is remarkable,
that while there were only three temples of Brahma
in all that district, no less than forty-five places
were dedicated to Mahadeo, sixty-four to Bishen,
or, as others write the word, Vishnu, the personifi
cation of water, half-man, half-fish, like Dagon, and
1 Ayeen Akbery, ii. 65.
2 We have a striking instance of this in the story of Prit'hu, in
whom Wilford recognised Noah. — As. Res. v. 256. His name,
therefore, may be a corruption from Berith Hu, the Man of the Co
venant ; he beat his wife for not furnishing the usual supplies ; she
was a form of Lakshmi, and one of her names was Ila, the earth,
who was also considered the wife of Budha. She assumed the form
of a cow, and ascended Meru to complain to the gods.
3 Diodor. Sic. Bibl. Hist. i. 82.
4 Jam senior, sed cruda Deo viridisque senectus. JEneid, vi. 304.

MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON. 401
twenty-two to Durga, or the Ark. So also near
the town of Bereng ' in a mountain hollow there
is a reservoir of water seven ells square, which the
Hindoos consider as a place of great sanctity.
Why ? — because it presents an image of the deluge,
by being dry eleven months, and then suddenly
swelling and filling the whole space. This was
the original reason 2, though its reputation for
sanctity among the natives survived their recol
lection of its cause. In this country are situated
the Ayoub mountains, that is, the mountains of
the moon, of Ayou, or Hu ; and here, too, is the
Himalayan range, the Malayan mountains of the
moon, or of Hi, for this term is still preserved
in China, and means, " he who is heard, but speaks
not to the ears." 3 This is an attribute of the
Deity, and therefore it is added to the name of Fo,
whose full title, as I have already mentioned, is
Fohi; and the mountains, which were supposed
to be his favourite haunt, might well be the
mountains of the moon, for some writers make
him the son of the moon ; others identify him
with that planet. " Sakia Sinha," says Creuzer,
1 The name of this town calls to mind a passage in the Ayeen
Akbery, where it is said that at the creation of the world Berincheh
was produced by the will of Brahma, from whom proceeded Kushup,
from whom proceeded the sun. Now Kushup, or Khowshup is the
name of one of those temples called Arkhs, ii. 317 and 337.
2 To the same cause must be ascribed a strange legend in the
same volume about a fountain at Kotchar, which continues dry
for eleven years ; and when the planet Jupiter enters the sign Leo,
the water springs out on every Friday, but is dry all the rest of the
week during that year, p. 133.
3 Pere Amiot — from the book of Laotse.
VOL. I. D D

402 MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON.
" the lion of Sakya, or the moon, is a surname of
Budha throughout the whole of eastern Asia1 ; "
and accordingly the head of his figure in the cave
at Elephanta, where he is seated on a Lotus, is
ornamented with crescents.2 In this case one
emblem explains the other. The Lotus, which is
a water plant 3, shows the meaning of the crescent ;
and hence the Sin-noo 4 of China, who is obviously
the same as Sakya Sinha (for he was the teacher
of agriculture and the arts of life, and with his
reign the chronology of the empire begins accord
ing to some histories), is represented by some
authors with two horns placed on his forehead,
like Ammon, by others with the head of an ox.5
1 Creuzer on the Religions of Antiquity.
2 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 246.
3 JEgyptii, says Iamblichus, Deum inducunt sedentem super
Loton, aquaticam scilicet arborem.
4 In the Mahabarit translated from the Sanscrit into Persian by
Abul Fazil, it is said that Noo had three sons, Sham, Eaples, and
Ham, and among the sons of Sham, instead of Ham, one is named
Bud. — Dow's Hist, of Hindostan.
5 Ksmpfer's History of Japan, p. 146. From the same authority
it appears that they call their gods Sin, and also Kami. Now Ka-
madevi was the all-prolific cow, i. e. the Ark : the name was also
applied to the god of Love, because Kam means desire ; but one of
his names, even under that character, in the Carnatic, is Munmoden
(Sonnerat). But as he is sometimes called Madan only, Mun must
be an independent term : and another of his names is Makara-ketu
the fish Cetus, or Ked; for Makara is said to be the horned
Shark, and it is the name of the sign Capricorn, which is sometimes
seen to terminate in the tail of a fish. — Moor's Hindu Pantheon
p. 449. Mackery is the fish god, or Capricorn of the Zodiac, like
the Oannes of the Chaldees, and the Dagon of Phoenicia. It forms
the centre figure of pi. 31. in Vpham's Hist, of Bud. as ruling the
Bali. On the head there is a triple crown  See Callaway's Note
to the Cingalese Poem, called Yakkun Nattannawa, p. 24. Mun
moden is the Maneros of the Greeks. In the Hindoo solar system
Ketu is one of the nodes. But why is it associated with the

THE MINOTAUR AN ARKITE MYTH. 403
Now this evidence is enough to show that the
fiction of a Minotaur was no local fable : the half-
bull, half-human monster was not the property of
Crete, as the Greeks, who never looked beyond
themselves, vainly imagined ; but it was an ancient
myth common to the East as well as to the West ;
and therefore Nonnius need not have been so
much surprised at finding him so often engraved
upon Grecian coins in parts remote from Crete.
" Miror," says he, " saepe in Graecorum nummos
ita frequenter Minotaurum insculptum esse, cum
Cretense hoc monstrum nihil ad illos spectaret."
The very mode of the representation might have
suggested to him that it was something different
from the semibovem virum, semivirumque bovem
of the poets.1 On two Ambraciot coins the en
graving exhibits the Minotaur as the head of a
man with the neck and horns of a bull, the horns
being in the shape of a crescent.2 The same effect
is produced on other coins by a different contriv
ance. Cancer, for instance, has his fore claws
extended upwards in the same shape : the other
claws, being four on each side, represent the
Ogdoad, the eight persons who were preserved

Planets, unless it be the Cetus, or Ked ? In Persian it is Keet.
It is in fact, as the legend relates, the tail of a Cetus, or Dragon,
separated from the head by Vishnu at the churning of the ocean,
i. e. at the Deluge : it fell on the mountain Malaya, and was pre
served by Mini, a Brahmin. — Moor's Pantheon, p. 283.
1 Ovid de Art. Am. 1. ii.
2 Ludovici Nonnii Comment, in Hub. Goltzii Graeciae Nomismata.
D D 2

404 THE MINOTAUR AN ARKITE MYTH.
from the deluge ; and hence it obtained its exalt
ation into the sphere. On a frieze of black basalt
in the British Museum the bull-headed idol, to
whom an offering is about to be made, has his
horns thus £< : but in a hieratic MS., in
the possession of the Earl of Mountnorris, they
are more open — thus ^=^ . In short, the Minos
Taurus was no other than the person whom
M. Anquetil ' out of Persian history denominates
L'Homme Taureau ; and he was called the son of
Minos only because the honours and titles of the
elder Patriarch were afterwards appropriated to
his son, the corniger Ham-mon. The head of the
bull was chosen for his emblem, because the horns
bore the shape of a crescent ; and since that is a
qualification which does not extend to all the in
dividuals ofthe bovine family, it was secured to the
sacred bull of Egypt by marking a half moon upon
the side.2 On one of the walls of the temple of
this Amun at Elephantine, there is a sacrifice re
presented, — 1. A whole bullock and a layer of
wood. 2. Another bullock and another layer of
wood. 3. A bullock's head with horns, not me-
noeid, but bearing between them a vessel contain
ing little pyramids "W .3 Now it is impossible to
explain the choice of this head separate from the

1 Anquetil, on the Zend Avesta, by Du Perron, iii. 363.
2 Cadmus's cow had a white mark in the shape of a crescent on
each side. — Pausan. 1. ix. 733. Aevkov a-xtf/A eKarEpBE itEptitXoKov
vivte pvqvqq. — Schol. on Arist. Batrach. v. 1256. Description of
Apis in Herod. 1. iii. c. 28.
3 Hieroglyphics collected by the Egyptian Society, 1823, p. 56.

THE MINOTAUR AN ARKITE MYTH. 405
body to crown the pile, unless it were deemed
something peculiarly sacred ; and since in this
case the horns do not resemble the moon, they can
have no relation to the worship of that luminary,
but to something of which the figure is less familiar
and less well defined. If the moon had been de
signed, there was no reason for not giving the
delineation the exact form of a crescent, for the
discovery of a resemblance usually supposed to
exist between the one and the other is not a fan
ciful speculation for the sake of an hypothesis.
The author of the Orphic Hymns actually addresses
the moon as the bull-horned Mene.1 From Strabo
we learn that the temples of Meen, or the Moon,
were not unfrequent in Asia Minor.2 Now this is
the country not only of Mount Taurus, but of
Apamea Cibotus, about which there are many
conical hills, and on the top of one of them a lake ;
and between Smyrna and Ephesus there is a re
markable ridge called Frigatta from its resemblance
to the hull of a ship, that is to say, to an inverted
crescent.3 The astronomical character of Taurus
is a crescent mounted upon a hill « ; and the an
tiquity of this character appears from an ancient
seal in the Dactyliotheca of Gorkeus. Hence per
haps Porphyry asserted that Taurus was the Moon4,

1 TavpoKtpojc M-qv-q. — Hymn, viii. 2.
'O fA-qv, says Proclus, xkyErai fiovq. — Ad Hesiod. Dies. p. 168.
2 ToS Myvoq. — Strab. 1. xii.
3 Arundell's Visit to the Seven Churches of Asia, p. 21.
4 Tavpoq ft.sv DEXwq. — Pomph. apud Bryant, i. 123. Suidas says,
that Diana is called Taurione in the Ajax of Sophocles, because she
D D 3

406 THE MINOTAUR AN ARKITE MYTH.
which was only true so far as the moon was an
image of the Ark ; and this is the solution of that
mysterious saying which makes the dragon the
parent of the bull, and the bull of the dragon.1
Both the words are equivocal, and bear a double
sense ; in the first clause they mean that the
sacred mountain was born of the deluge ; in the
second that the dragon chief was born of the Ark.
On the same principle, a bull was sometimes re
presented bearing the sun, the whole animal being
figuratively taken for that portion of it, which had
made it sacred, and the patriarch being worshipped
in the sun. This could not be an astronomical al
lusion to the sun's place in the zodiac at the crea
tion or at the flood, because a lion is sometimes
substituted for the bull 2 ; and accordingly, in the
Oriental zodiac, given by Sir W. Jones, Surya, the
sun, who was also called Varuna, or the god of
water, and Arka, the Deity ofthe ark, and Vivas wat3,

is the same as the moon, and is carried by bulls. She was also
called Taurope, bullfaced. Hesychius says, that the Tauria was a
festival of Neptune — Tavpoq ravpEio; o IIoa-EiSoiV.
1 Tavpoq
Tlar-qp tpaKOvroq, Kai itar-qp ravpov ^paKOiv.
Clemens, Alex. Cohort, ad Gent. p. 14.
Arnobius calls it a tritum notumque senarium quem antiquitas
canit, lib. v.
2 Sic etiam in nummis magni Mogul Imperatoris India? exhibetur
corpus solare super dorso tauri aut leonis qui illud eodem modo
gestat. — Hyde, apud Maurice, In. An. ii. 64.
3 He was called Yama, perhaps from Ham : he was also Vishnu
and Chrishna, and the genius of the planet Saturn ; all of which
identify him with the patriarch. He was also Heli ; whence HAjo?.
— Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 287.

THE MINOTAUR AN ARKITE MYTH. 407
i. e. Menu, and who was supposed to have de
scended upon the earth in human form, is mounted
upon a lion ] : so, too, is Dourga, the mountain-born.
It was with stricter adherence to historical truth,
that the Egyptians assigned their Baris for the ve
hicle of him who was worshipped in that luminary2 ;
but even the Hindoos have contrived to show the
real meaning of their lion by representing the man
ofthe ocean with the trident in his hand, standing
in a vessel formed by two lions placed back to back,
so that their heads correspond to the horns of the
crescent 3 ; and Captain Francklin mentions a boat
sculptured in a temple of Boodh, the prow of which
is a lion's head, and the stern has the expanded
tail of a Cetus or fish.4 If it were not that the fin
rises somewhat too high, the outline of the whole
would be quite semilunar ; and it carries three
persons upon an ocean, in which others are seen
drowning. Thus, on a Delphic coin Apollo is re
presented standing on a dolphin, which, by the
1 Maurice's Indian Antiquities, ii. 99-
2 Solem ac lunam, non curribus, sed navigiis, circumferri existi-
mant. — Kircher, de Instit. Hierogl. 1. iii.
3 On a Sanscrit roll, Orient. Collect, ii. 1 83. in Faber. i. 419. In
some instances the trident was transferred to the ship itself : hence
the trifidum rostrum of Silius Italicus, and the rostris tridentibus of
Virgil. In Addison's Dialogue on the Usefulness of Ancient Medals,
one is shown (the 2nd in the second series) which bears the image
of a ship with the puppis recurva of Ovid and Virgil armed with
three teeth ; and from the stern a tall cynocephalus figure rises instead
of a Triton, which seems to have been the common ornament. It
is not unlikely that there was something mysterious in the figure
of this ship ; for the inscription is Pontif. Max. Tr. Pot. PP.
Frons hominem prsefert ; in Pristin desinit alvus.
Virg. JEn. x. 211.
4 Francklin on the Doctrines of the Boodhists, p. 84.
D D 4

408 THE MINOTAUR AN ARKITE MYTH.
elevation ofthe head and tail, forms a similar figure.1
The same subject is expressed on the wall of a
chamber of Osiris, at Philas, by placing the solar
orb within a crescent. On this wall, there is a long
array of figures, bearing standards T, which carry
various devices of animals, &c. ; among the rest ^ :
and this is not a figurative boat, but one of sacred
character 2 : for in one instance, it appears alone Y •
The Apollo Delphini Insidens may be supposed to
have been copied by the Hindoo painter, who re
presents a three-headed idol (one of which heads
belongs to Yamuna, a form of Lakshmi), seated on
the concave back of a fish, though it is impossible
to say which was the original, and which the
copy.3 Yamuna, which is the name of a very sacred
river, is evidently the Amun of Egypt ; for, as
Lucan observes, he belongs to India as well as
Ethiopia4; and there was a river Ammon in Arabia ;
but there is also an Ammonian promontory in that
country5, for the patriarchal family were equally
the genii of the mountain, and of the flood : hence,
I conclude, that Zalmunna 6, the prince of Midian,
1 Ludov. Nonnii Comment, in H. Goltzii Graeciae Nomismata.
2 The standard-bearers are thus "fa Is not this the handled cross,
the Crux Ansata ?
<«The last device cannot be meant for the real moon ; for if that
be its import in one case, it must in the other too ; which would
involve the absurdity of making the moon contain the sun.
3 Moor's Hindu Pantheon, pi. 75.
4 Quamvis iEthiopum populis Arabumque beatis
Gentibus ac Indis unus sit Jupiter Ammon. Lib. ix.
6 Plin. vi. 28.
6 Judges, viii. 5. Another of these princes was called Oreb,
from Mount Horeb, and he was slain at the rock of Oreb.

THE MINOTAUR AN ARKITE MYTH. 409
took his title from a hill of that name ; probably
the same as Salmon in the Psalms, which must have
been a high hill ; for the Psalmist mentions the
whiteness of its snow, and his camels were adorned
with golden images of the moon.1 In the same
manner the Xinnoo of China may be recognised in
Sinai, which was very proper to represent the
diluvial mountain ; for it stands in a fork formed by
two gulphs of the Red Sea, and possesses two
horns or peaks higher than the neighbouring ridge,
the one called Sinai, the other Horeb.2
1 D/V' Zelem, Moonah, imago Lunae.
2 Milman's Hist, of the Jews, i. 66.

410

CHAP. XII.
THE RELATION OF THE EGYPTIANS TO MIZRAIM DIF
FERENT FROM THEIR RELATION TO PHUT.  THE
DESCENDANTS OF THE FORMER WERE CONQUERED, AND
FOR SOME TIME KEPT IN SUBJECTION BY THE DE
SCENDANTS AND VOTARIES OF THE LATTER UNDER THE
NAME OF PALLI.  HVESOS.  SHEPHERDS.  BERBERS.
 CONFUSION INTRODUCED BY DIFFERENT FAMILIES
APPROPRIATING DIVINE HONOURS TO THEIR OWN IM
MEDIATE ANCESTORS.  NO AMON.  THEBES. — MENES
NOAH. ¦ — SOTH UNCERTAIN, BUT AN ARKITE.  CON
CERNING THOTH AND ATHOTHIS.  CNOUPH.  CANO-
BUS.  ANUBIS.  MANNUS. — EXPLANATION OF ISAIAH
LXV. 11.  GAD IN GADES.  HERMES.  MERCURY, WHO
IS ALSO HERCULES.  STORY OF IO.  PICUS.  HORUS.
 ORION.  MEANING OF PELEIADES AND CUON, AND
OSIRIS AND OGYGES.
It has now been shown that Phut, the son of Ham,
was regarded by the most ancient nations as the
head of their religion, the author of their religious
rites, and that the names of Fo in China, of Vo in
Japan, of Bo, and Woden, and Thor in Scandi
navia, of the Celtic Bud, and the Hindoo Budha,
and the Egyptian Phtha, and Tho, and Thoyth,
and Athor, are all so many traces of a popular ve
neration for their first ancestors indistinctly seen
through the dimness of antiquity, so that the grand-

RELATION OF EGYPTIANS TO MIZRAIM, ETC. 411
son was confounded with the son, and the son with
the Patriarch himself. Of his descendants, how
ever, and their place of settlement, nothing seems
to be known. It is not, therefore, improbable (with
Mr. Bryant's leave ') that they formed a separate
caste of priests, like the Brahmins, who carried the
rites of their religion into all their kindred tribes ;
and this is the most reasonable explanation of his
name, being so widely spread throughout the ancient
world ; but though Phut was the father of religious
rites in Egypt, Mizraim, his brother, was the father
of its inhabitants, and the most ancient of all his
torians, Moses, constantly designates it by his
name. It was natural, therefore, that the bulk of
the people should transfer the titles, to which most
veneration was attached, to their own immediate
ancestor; and accordingly we learn from Cham
pollion, that " in the monument of Dakkeh,
Thoth is found in connexion with Harhat, the
great Hermes Trismegistus, his primordial form,
and of which he is only the last transformation,
i. e. his incarnation on earth after Amon-Ra, and
Mouth incarnate in Osiris and Isis."2 What are
we to gather from this, but that the spirit of the
great first legislator passed first into his son Ammon,

1 Jacob Bryant claims the priesthood for the Cuthites. It would
seem, however, from the example of Nimrod, that they were rather
warriors than priests. Yet their haughtiness and impatience of rule
may have induced them to combine both characters in their own
person ; and from this usurpation, they may have derived the name
of Rajpoots, Lords and Priests.
2 Eleventh Letter of Champollion.

412 RELATION OF EGYPTIANS TO MIZRAIM
or Ham ], whose inferior title was Osiris, and subse
quently into his son Mizraim ? for if it be possible
to separate the earliest history of the Egyptians
from the tangled web of their theology, we may
suppose, that when the first repairer of the world
after the deluge was exalted as a deity into the
obscure heaven of their imagination, his first incarn
ation on earth would be the first ruler of their land,
and the next his immediate successor.2 Now, two
of the oldest chronologers of Egypt concur in af
firming, that Mines was the first king, and Atho-
this the second ; and Manetho adds, that the latter
was the son of the former. It is true that he also
mentions sixteen deities, or titles of deity before ;
but his dynasties begin with Menes, and thus he
himself has drawn the boundary line which sepa
rates that part which is theological from that which
is historical. But what sort of deities he intended,
we may learn out of an old Egyptian creed, which
Iamblichus transcribed out of the Hermetic books.3
1 Banier admits that Jupiter Ammon was probably Hara, deified
by his son Misraim, whom he identifies with Menes and Osiris. 
La Mythol. ii. 13. Cairo is called in Coptic MSS. both Xijk»,
and Mierrpa/A ; by the Arabs, Misr. — Quatremere, i. 50.
2 A Mohammedan sectary of the eighth century, named by the
Arabs AI Mokanah affirmed a transmigration or successive mani
festation of the divinity through and in certain prophets and holy
men from Adam to the time in which he lived. — Sale's Koran.
Prelim. Dis. p. 234. The Gholaites, too, a sect of Shiites, or ad
herents of Ali, held a Metempsychosis, or the descent of God upon
his creatures — their Imans. Ibid. p. 234. If then so recently this
opinion has prevailed so strongly, it is no wonder, that, in ages of
still greater darkness, the deity of the genius of the flood should be
supposed to have passed through several successive incarnations
among the ancestors of mankind.
3 Cory's Fragments, p. 45.

DIFFERING FROM THAT OF PHUT. 413
In this profession of faith, a great first cause is ac
knowledged, a God antecedent to the first popular
god and king, which is utterly unintelligible, unless
it be conceded that the first king, or Noah, was a
divinity too ; but the first local king, the first
founder of the nation, the well-spring, from which
the population flowed, was Ham, and hence, in the
Psalms, God is said to have done wondrous things
things in the land of Ham ' ; but the conclusion,
that he is the Mines or Menes of the Egyptian
annals, is still further confirmed by the manner in
which he is mentioned by Eratosthenes in his canon
of the Theban kings.2 The first in his catalogue is
Mines, whom he denominates the Thebinite, and
Thebaaan ; and lest it should be supposed, that
these names are merely equivalent to Theban, he
adds the received interpretation in the language of
the country, as far as he could represent the sound
in Grecian characters, that is to say, " Dionius." 3
Now, there can scarcely be a doubt, that this is the
same word, which was also moulded by the Greeks
into the form of Dionusus, the Deo Naush 4 of the
Hindoos, the deity of the ship, which is Naus in
Greek, and Thebe in Hebrew. Mines, therefore,
was certainly one of those who were embarked in
in the ark. Herodotus calls him Meen 5, and re-

1 Psalm lxxviii. 51. cv. 23. cvi. 22. 2 Syncelli Chronicon.
3 Qrfiivir'qq. ®-qQaioq, b i pfA-qvEVErai Atovioq.
4 It is said that Naush was at first a mortal; but on Mount
Meru, i. e. Ararat, he became a Deva, or god. Devanaush becomes
in^the vulgar dialects Deonaush. — As. Res. v. 293.
5 Lib.ii.

414 RELATION OF EGYPTIANS TO MIZRAIM
peatedly affirms that he was the first king of
Egypt. The second name in the canon is Athothes, his
son ; in whom, says Cory, we may perhaps recog
nise Taautus or Thoyth, the Hermes Trismegistus,
the adviser of Cronus. Eratosthenes, however,
distinctly states that he was Hermogenes l, i. e.
the son or descendant of Hermes. This, however,
does not prove that Athothes was not Thoth, nor
that Thoth was not Hermes or Mercury, which is
generally acknowledged, but it shows that the
name was not originally appropriated to him : he
inherited it from his father or grandfather. That
Athothes is meant for the original Thoth cannot
be reasonably doubted ; for the change of the ter
mination is no more than that of Ammenuph to
Amenophis, and the initial a is added in many
instances. Added to Meen, and On, the sun, it
makes Ammenon, who stands fourth in the cata
logue of Berosus ; but then it is the fabulous
period of Egyptian history : for it is stated that in
his reign Oannes appeared from the Erythraean
Sea ; and further no less than five visitations of
this half-fish, half-human creature, are recorded by
the same author, the last of which obtained the
name of Odacon2; that is to say, five different
princes were promoted to diluvian honours, the
last under the name of Dagon, which long con-
1 Ovroq 'p/A-qvEVErai 'Ep/AoyEv-qq. — Syncelli Chronicon.
2 Kara rrjq ixBvoq itpbq avBpuitov jai^iv. — Rerossus in Apollodorus.
Cory's Fragments, p. 20.

DIFFERING FROM THAT OF PHUT. 415
tinued to be the appellation of an idol shaped
according to the description of Berosus, and wor
shipped by the Philistines. Amonei is a different
form of the same combination : a more distinct
instance, however, is given by Dr. Young from
the hieroglyphics on the sarcophagus of green
breccia in the Museum. The name Amaenuphthes
or Amenophis \ is written Masnuphtha, which is
plainly a composition of Meen, Cnuph, and Phtha.
In the same manner Chnuph, whose name in Era
tosthenes is Chnoubus by prefixing an A is changed
into Anubis. So also Apollon is the sun or On of
the Palli ; for there is abundant evidence that his
origin was Egyptian, and therefore nothing can be
more absurd than the attempts of the Grecian
writers to find an etymology for him in their own
tongue. One fetches it from a^-oXXojw,*, because he
destroys ; another (Eusebius) from mraKKaTrstv,
because he saves.2 Plato is not content with
less than four concurrent etymologies in Greek,
which is the more surprising because he freely
acknowledges in the Timagus, that Solon had dis
covered the absolute ignorance of his country
men in matters of antiquity, and was obliged to
have recourse to the Egyptian priests, who ridiculed
the tales of Greece about Niobe and Phoroneus,
Pyrrha and Deucalion, and told him plainly that
1 The king who reigned in Egypt, 1366. B. C. is called by
Eusebius Amenophis ; by Manetho, Menuphti ; by Philo and Africa-
nus, Ammenephte.
2 Hesychius from a priv. and itoXXav, because he is not to be
numbered with the many.

416 EGYPTIANS SUBDUED BY THE PALLI.
they were but children in those matters. One of
them, however, is aet fiaXhsiv ; another is o/*.o7roA«)v l ;
both of which instances show that the A and the
O were pronounced nearly alike, and might easily
be exchanged for one another. Now the Palli
were those shepherds who conquered the Egyptians,
and overturned their altars, and after their expul
sion were remembered with detestation. They
were the people from whom the Etrurians derived
their god of agriculture, Pales ; they were the
Atlantic people to whom Plato says all Lybia was
subject, and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia or Etruria2;
they were the people who gave their name to
that Atlantic island, where, even to this day, the
vestiges of their peculiar rites and works are most
abundant ; for Ireland was called Innis Phail 3 :
their name is still legible in the Fellahs4, and
Foulahs8, and Fellatahs of Africa; and, finally,
they were the same people who, with little varia
tion either of name or worship, are still the Pali or
Bheels of India, and the followers of Boudha.
But this subject has been handled so fully and
satisfactorily by Mr. Fabor in his Pagan Idolatry,
that it is needless to enlarge upon it here. It is of
importance however to observe, that there is another
name, by which they were distinguished, which is
1 The others are anXoq, and aitoXvoiv. The first is applied to his
skill in shooting ; the second, in music ; the third, in vaticinating •
the last, in healing. — Cratylus, vol. i.
2 TSv hroq Trj; Aitvqq ft.lv \px"i> a-XP> nph A'lyvitrov, rrq Se Evpuvqq
pEjijpi Tvpfavtaq. — Timceus, vol. iii.
3 Vallancey on the Ancient Irish.
4 Sonnini. 5 Park.

HYCSOS. 417
written Hycsos by Josephus ', and Hycousos by
Eusebius.2 Manetho interprets it the Royal Shep
herds ; but if the latter reading be correct, it is
probable that it signified originally the royal Cush-
ites : in either case the first syllable only confers
royalty upon them in a secondary and derivative
sense ; for Ucha, or Hucha, according to Du
Cange, signifies an ark 3, and in the Basque language
means a ship : so does Hwch in Welsh 4, and
Huka in vulgar Irish s : in old Irish it is Uige.6
Oceanus in Latin and in Greek had probably the
same root : and since we have the authority of
Cornificius, that Janus used to be spelt Eanus, it is
easy to see how the opener of the ark, or ship,
became the deity of the ocean. The last syllable
of Ucsos may be found in the Hebrew Ezoz,

1 Contra Apion. lib. i. 2 Praepar. Evang.
3 Basque. Hucha, terme de marine, une navire en Huche. —
Feuretier. Hucha, Area, vel cista lignea oblongior, vox Picardis
nostris nota, ab Huchiarum forma dictse fortasse naves, quas Huchas
vocat Monstreletus. — Du Cange.
4 Davies's Celtic Researches.
6 Vallancey adds that in Arabic Zur-uk, is a Ship ; Tar-uk, a
Barge; that in Sclavonic Ukrcicati is in navem imponere; and in
Swedish Okia is a Wherry.
6 Vossius, and Gale in his Court of the Gentiles, i. 2. 58. identify
Og, king of Bashan, with the Typhon, or Python, of mythologv
the serpent being the emblem of the deluge in all mythology, —
Asiatic, Egyptian, or Scandinavian. — Deane, on the Worship of the
Serpent. Ogygia, says the writer on Geography in Lardner's
Cabinet Encyclopaedia, is from Ogha, which in Sanscrit is water :
Oganus, the God of the waters : hence Oceanus. Aigeon is a
Pelasgian word for a collection of waters, p. 146. Hence Aiguptos
means perhaps the waters of Put, or of Oub, the Serpent. The
Universal History deduces Jaxartes from Art, strong, and Ax, a
river ; whence also Oxus, and Ochus, and Ouse, and the syllables so
often used in the composition of English names, Ax, and Ex, and Ux.
VOL. I. E E

418 SHEPHERDS.
strong or valiant1, and thus the whole meaning
will be, the Brave Men of the Ark. All this, how
ever, hinders not but that Manetho may be right in
attributing to both words the signification which
they bore in his own time ; but since there is an
extraordinary uncertainty what that was, whether
the first syllable indicated kings, or captives, there
is good reason to suspect that neither the one nor
the other was the original sense ; especially if
Kircher be right in stating this to be one of the
rules observed by the Egyptians in the construction
of their hieroglyphics: "when they introduce a
god steering a ship, they signify pre-eminence. " 2
Moreover, we thus obtain the means of reconciling
the opposite, and apparently inconsistent, meanings
which the word Uk seems to have acquired. The
Patriarchs were captives in the Ark ; and hence in
the British poem of the Triads, the mythological
Arthur, of whose royalty no Briton entertains a
doubt, is said to have been imprisoned in the Kyd, or
Ark.3 It is remarkable that Arth is in Celtic the ani
mal of which Arcturus is the sign ; and, as Davies
thinks it has the same root with Arcto, to confine, the
name of king Arthur may have implied a captive
too : with respect to the other branch of the com
pound word, there are instances enough in which
the term shepherds is used for princes. Thus
Nahum addresses the king of Assyria : " Thy
1 pjy, fortis. Ps. viii. 24. in Syr. Chald. and Arab. aziz.
2 Ubi Deum introducunt navis gubernatorem principatum signi
ficant. — Historia Obelisci Pamphilii.
3 Davies's Celtic Mythology, p. 404.

NO AMON. 419
shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria : thy nobles
shall dwell in the dust." ' It was the opinion
of Bruce, that the Palli were the people whom the
same prophet denominates Phut, or Put, and it is
an opinion, which deserves attentive consideration.
The passage in our English version stands thus :
" Art thou better than populous No, that was
situate among the rivers, that had the waters round
about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall
was from the sea ? Ethiopia and Egypt were her
strength, and it was infinite ; Put and Lubim were
thy helpers." 2 Now the question is, what city is
here meant, and most extraordinary it is, that most
of the commentators have agreed to the absurd
interpretation of the Chaldee Targumist, who sub
stitutes Alexandria, which was not built till near
four centuries afterwards. The margin gives the
true reading, No Amon ; which Bochart with great
reason contends was Diospolis, or Thebes. Dru-
sius acknowledges that this interpretation best suits
the name ; for he takes No to signify a Habitation,
and consequently No Amon is exactly equivalent
to Diospolis, — the city or habitation of Jupiter.
But then he objects, that Thebes was not near the
sea, and therefore, although some latitude ought in
reason to be allowed to the poetical language of
the prophet, and although Homer actually calls
the Nile Oceanus, he gives the preference to a ren
dering which makes the prophet speak proleptically
of an event which he points to as already past, and
1 Nahum, iii. 18.' 2 Nahum, iii. 8, 9.
E E 2

420 THEBES.
warn the Ninevites by an example, which could
not be witnessed for many centuries after they were
all dead. But in fact he appeals to the destruction
of No Amon, as the total overthrow of a city
mightier than Nineveh ; and what Egyptian city
could that be but Thebes ? There can be little
doubt that this great city would take care to sur
round herself with the waters of the Nile, not only
for defence and for use, but also with a view to
their religious rites, which always affected islands ;
for Thebes was the city of the Ark, and therefore
there would be a singular propriety in calling the
waters that surrounded her the waters of the sea.
The situation, too, is in exact conformity with the
description : Upper Egypt was ready to assist her
on all sides, and Nubia or Ethiopia not far off; and
if the war had anything of a religious character,
similarity of usages and traditions would bind them
all together ; for Anubis, who gave his name to
Ethiopia, was also one of the most prominent
deities of Egypt; and if it be inquired who he was,
we must turn again to the native Chroniclers. The
Anubis in Manetho's catalogue of deities is Chnou-
bus in that of Eratosthenes l ; that is to say, the
Canobus or Canopus, whose victory over the Chal
dean fire has been already mentioned. The other
allies of No Amon were Phut and Lubim ; that is
to say, the Palli, and as many of the African tribes
as adhered to the doctrine of Budha. In two other
instances our translators have rendered Phut, Ethi-
1 Canon of the Kings of Thebes.

BERBERS. 421
opians, and so far they countenance the conjecture
of Bruce, that it was the same race who now inhabit
Barabra ; the same people who gave their name
to Barbary ; the same Atlantic people who, accord
ing to Plato, overran the north of Africa ; for even
to this day the Brebers ', or Berebbers, people the
whole chain of the Atlas mountains, and are per
fectly distinct from the surrounding Moors and
Arabs in their language, and in other respects.2 It
is very remarkable, too, that a tradition is prevalent
among them, that they are the descendants of the
Philistines, who have been identified with the Palli3,
and emigrated from the neighbourhood of Philaa
into the land which has been called after them
Pallistan or Palasstine ; just as Hindostan is the
land of the Hindoos. The sacred historian tells us
that the Philistines were descended from Mizraim ;
and this is quite consistent with the hypothesis,
that they were connected with Phut only by com
munity of sacred rites. Now Dagon was the great
idol of the Philistines, and his form was precisely
that of the Egyptian Oannes. The very name of
Palli implies Sectarists, or Schismatics ; for it is
probably derived from Palah4, which in Hebrew
1 A tribe of these Berbers, called Beranis, are said by an historian
of their own, Ibn Khaldum, to be descended from Ber, a grandson
of Canaan. — Trans. As. Soc. iii. 3. 401. Herodotus says that
the Egyptians called those Barbarians, who spoke not their own lan
guage : he means Berbers, ii. 148.
2 Brooke's Travels in Spain and Morocco, i. 192.
3 See Faber's Origin of Pagan Idolatry.
4 T\?B- I "wrill put a division between my people and thy
people. — Exodus, viii. 23. The Lord doth put a difference between
the Egyptians and Israel. — xi. 7-
E E 3

422 BERBERS.
and Chaldee signifies to separate, or divide : they
dissented, however, from the other Mizraites, not
so much in their system of religion, as with respect
to the person whom they acknowledged to be its
founder. The Palli who had settled in Upper
Egypt ', and their associated tribes, the Cuthites of
Abyssinia, and the Lybians, who are twice in Scrip
ture called Phut 2, and by Nahum are closely con
nected with his name, all these were his followers and
worshippers, and adhered rigidly to the institutions
which he appointed, to commemorate the deliver
ance of his familyin the Ark. May not the Lybians,
therefore, have obtained the name of Barbari3, which
was afterwards transferred to all foreigners by the
conceited citizens of Greece and Rome, in the man
ner already suggested, from their frequent exclama
tions of " Bari, Bari," in their religious rites ? Even
to this day the inhabitants of the Atlas in Barbary
have preserved a tradition, that their most ancient
city was founded by Tut, the grandson of Noah,
whose name, which is evidently intermediate be
tween Phut and Thoth, it still retains.4 Ceuta, in
deed, claims a still higher origin from the Patriarch's
son, 230 years after the deluge : fictitious as these

1 The desolation of the land of Egypt threatened by Ezekiel
xxix. 10. is from the tower of Syene to the border of Ethiopia.
2 Ezekiel, xxx. 5. Jeremiah, xlvi. 9-
3 Barth allows Bar to be a "durch vielen Sprachen in zahllosen
Wortern und Zusammensetzungen erhaltenen Urwort," and syno
nymous with Man : hence Bard and Barbaras. Bari, in Low Saxon
and in Iceland, is die Wasserwoge. — Campe's Worterbuch.
4 Notes to Brooke's Travels in Morocco, by Mr. Price, Viceconsul
at Tetuan, i. 374.

BERBERS. 423
accounts may be, they still serve to show the strong
propensity of the Lybian tribes to appropriate to
themselves the heads of the postdiluvian families in
the fine of Ham, but with the same confusion of the
three or four first generations, which has been re
marked in the mythology of their ancestors. The
Mizraites, who adhered to the sect of Palli in Egypt,
were Pathrusim and Ludim ; for both these fami
lies are mentioned by the Prophets as sharing the
fortunes of Egypt ', and yet distinct from it, while
in Palestine, they consisted of the Casluchim and
Caphtorim ; for when Moses mentions the former
of these, he adds, " out of whom came the Philis-
tim : " but in the time of Jeremiah the latter seem
to have been the most considerable : he calls them
" the remnant of the country of Caphtor."2 Now
in both cases, the principal tribes seem to have
derived their names from the peculiarities of their
religion ; the Casluchim from their veneration of
the Chesil Uk3, or giant chief, and the Pathrusim,
from their joining the children of Ham, in acknow
ledging Phut to be the head of their religion. In
the one case there is a subordinate reference to the
ship, or ark, in Uk ; in the other, to the mountain
top ; for Rosh, in Hebrew, a head, or origin, is also
used for the summit of a mountain. The other
1 Isaiah, xi.7. From Egypt and from Pathros. Jeremiah, xlvi. 8, 9.
2 Jeremiah, xlvii. 4.
3 Hyde observes, that where Chesil is used in Hebrew, the cor
responding word in Arabic, Syrian, and Chaldee Astronomy, signi
fies Powerful, or a Giant. Hence I conclude, that originally that
was its meaning, and it was the odium theologicum, which after
wards converted its signification into Simpleton,
E E 4

424

HERMES.

Mizraites in Lower Egypt chose to transfer the
sacred character altogether to their ancestors in
their own line of descent : accordingly, Vossius
maintains that the most ancient Osiris was Mits-
raim, who was associated by the Egyptians in the
divine honours paid to his father Ham.1 But
Sanchoniatho brings the principal object of Egyp
tian worship down to the succeeding age : accord
ing to him, Taautus, the son of Misor (i. e.Misraim),
the inventor of letters, was called Thoor by the
Egyptians, Thoyth by the Alexandrians, and
Hermes by the Greeks. The shifting of divine
honours from one person to another introduced all
the confusion which obscures the truth of history :
and to this cause we may safely attribute his various
transformations represented on the walls of the
temple of Dakkeh.2 However, he is sufficiently
1 Antiquissimus Osiris videtur Mitsraim Chami Alius, qui sociato
cum patre honore ab iEgyptiis cultus fuit. — De Orig. et Prog.
Idololat. p. 198.
An Egyptian inscription ran thus : " Saturn, the youngest of
the gods, was my father. I am Osiris." If then Ham had usurped,
as he certainly did, the honours of Noah in the character of Saturn,
Osiris his son was probably Mizraim.
2 The names of Thoth, which Champollion read on on the walls
of Dakkeh, are Pahitnoufi, Arihosnoufi, and Meiii. The import of
alphabetical hieroglyphics is not yet ascertained with so much cer
tainty as to preclude the possibility of error. Thus, for instance
Dr. Young asserts that, in explaining the only connected sentence
discoverable on the Pamphilian Obelisk, he has mistaken Amasis
for Ramesses, the circle taken for Re, or Ra, being the first cha
racter of all the unmutilated names in the catalogue of Abydus and
consequently not belonging to the name. But the uncertainty in
identifying the personages of Egyptian mythology is most con
spicuous in the explanations of the picture of judgment in the
Hieratic MS. of Lord Mountnorris : the figures which in one
part Young makes two of the Termini, and calls Macedo, and Hie-

MERCURY. 425
identified with the Roman Mercury, and Grecian
Hermes, by the caduceus, which he bears entwined
with two serpents ; the real origin of which may be
additionally confirmed by adverting to the impres
sion of a medal in the reign of Tiberius ; for
there is no reason to doubt that the artists of that
day frequently copied ancient devices. It is the
sixth in the second series of Addison, in his book
on Medals. On the reverse are two Cornucopias,
joined below to form a crescent, in such a way that
the tips crossing each other form another crescent
inverted : the golden rod of Mercury, which Mar
tial describes as torto dracone virens (1. 7- Epig.
74.), forms the mast of both vessels <*§? : two
serpents form the circle and lunette, which have
been adopted by astronomers as the notation for the
planet Mercury. Now the serpent was a symbol
both of the deluge and of sovereignty ; for Nachash,
a serpent, pronounced hard by the Ethiopians, be
comes Nagash \ which in their language signifies
a king. The title of their king is Baharnagash,

racion, when they appear again under the balance with exactly the
same heads, are called by him Cteristes and Hyperion, and by
Champollion, Anubis and Horus. This being the case, I take the
liberty of suspecting that Pahitnoufi is Path Noufi, the good Phut ;
Arihosnoufi, the good Shepherd ; for rnD,~)K> in Chaldee, is Agri
culture, and u^)3 Arash, in Arabic, is to exercise agriculture.
Meui may be mistaken for Mou, water, or for Mnevis, the bull. —
See Young on Hieroglyphical Literature, p. 23. and 50.
1 So Burckhardt says, the tribe called Koreish in Europe is in
Arabia Gereish, ii. 11. Naga is a Sanscrit name for a mountain;
Naga, a mountain snake. — As. Res. iii. 109. Hence Mahadeva is
sometimes seated upon a serpent, and Ophiolatry is easily accounted
for.

426 HERMES.
king of the sea.i Thus, then, the sovereign ofthe
sea is placed between the two horns of the luniform
ark, like Siva in the midst of the Argha ; for it is
to be recollected, that the Cornucopia was fabled to
have been torn from the head of a water-god, in
bovine form. It appears then that the divinity of
Thoth mounts up to the same source as that of
Amon, and was recognised not only in Egypt, but in
Greece ; for Pausanias assures us, that the Elians
even in his time sacrificed not only to Grecian, but to
Lybian gods, — to Hera Ammonia and Parammon,
which was the name of Hermes.2 From the earliest
times they had resorted to the oracle in Lybia, and
altars (sacred petrae) had been dedicated by them
in the temple of Ammon.3 Now Champollion has
discovered that Hermes and Juno were the tute
lary deities of Elephantine and Nubia, and the
most ancient Speos at Ibrim, or Primis, was dedi
cated to them.4 It is situated in Meroe, which,
like Elephantine, is insulated, and so far they both
resembled No Amon, which was situate among the
rivers, and had the waters round about it. The
temple, then, to which strangers resorted from so
great a distance, was probably that ofthe most ce
lebrated place in Upper Egypt, Diospolis or Thebes.
Its celebrity, indeed, made its destruction a proper
warning to the great city of Nineveh ; it was an
1 Bruce, ii. 121.
2 Parammon means king Ammon, whence also Pharaoh. Hera
Ammonia, or the Ammonian Lady, is the same in female disguise.
3 Pausanias. Eliac. 1. v. c. 15. Altars, jS^o/.
4 Eleventh Letter, dated El Melissah, Febr. 10th, 1829.

NO AMON. 427
argument d fortiori. If Thebes with all its alliances
and strength fell notwithstanding, when it pleased
God to humble its pride, why should Nineveh
expect to stand, when he is angry ? The whole force
of the argument would be lost, if No Amon had been
a less considerable place. The misfortunes too of
that enormous city could not be unknown to the
Assyrians ; for their own kindred, the descendants
of Chus, had been the instruments of its subversion :
some suppose that it had recently been effected by
Sennacherib ; but the context does not favour their
opinion. " Yet was she carried away ; she went
into captivity ; her young children also were dashed
in pieces at the top of all the streets, and they cast
lots for her honourable men, and all her great men
were bound in chains." ¦ This is just the language
of one who alludes to a well-known fact in history;
but far different from that which we should expect,
if it were addressed to those, who were personally
engaged in the transaction. It breathes not the
present time at all. Bochart, no doubt, is right in
his suggestion, that it was a Chaldaean invasion.2
The tradition of a contest between the fire worship
pers and the priests of Canobus justifies the infer
ence, that at a former period the Chaldaeans had
vanquished Egypt, revolutionised its religion, and
corrupted its annals. To this cause we may
ascribe the new names and characters given to their
hero gods.
1 Nahum, iii. 10.
2 Phutsei censentur inter populos, qui suppetias ferunt urbi, No
Amon, id est, Thebis, adversus ingruentes Chaldaeos. — Geographia
Sacra, 1. iv. c. 33.

428 horus.
An old Egyptian chronicle inSyncellus places He-
phaistus first ; that is to say, Phut, or Phtha is altered
into Vulcan, or fire ; then comes the reign of Helius,
the sun, which lasted three myriads of years ; and
then the common herd of deities. The object of
this fiction is obvious enough. The Magi wished
to give the greatest possible antiquity to the wor
ship of fire and the sun : in another catalogue, with
the same view, the first name given is Alorus \ that
is to say, " The divine light ; " from AI, and Aor,
both Hebrew words. He was more commonly
called Horus ; but a little metamorphosis of his
name was convenient ; for, as Horus, he was
apt to have an addition appended to it, which too
plainly contradicted their assertion : it was some
times written Hor-si-esi, which, according to the
explanation of Young, means Hor, the son of Isis,
Si being an abbreviation for Shiri.2 But the true
import of Esi is to be found in the Celtic Ess, a
ship ; and thus we obtain another possible etymology
of Osiris, Hor Shiri Ess, that is, the mountain god
that issued from the ark ; for Hor, which is the
Coptic way of writing the name of Horus 3, signifies
a mountain 4 : and hence the hill on which Aaron
was buried was called Hor — the mount par excel
lence ; but if this be so, Horus and Osiris are one
and the same : let them be ; it is quite conformable
with the practice of confounding the son with the
1 Berossus apud Apollodorum.
2 See Article Egypt in Supplement to Encyclop. Brit.
3 Le nom Horus en Copte s'e'crit g,(JUp : "Up. Akerblad.
4 in> Mons> in Hebrew.

horus. 429
father, which so much prevailed, and also with the
fact mentioned by Plutarch, that the Egyptians re
cognised an elder Horus, who was called Apollo '
and Aroeris.2 The latter seems to be no more
than a reduplication of the name Har, Har, which
is still preserved by the Hindoos in the invocation
already noticed, O Hara, Hara 3 ! Now, Cham
pollion states, among his discoveries in the Rhames-
seion, formerly called the Memnonium, not only that
the double Horus is the same as Ammon generator,
but that he was the great God of Thebes 4 ; and
both the city of Diospolis (parva), and the district
in which it stood, had in Coptic the name of Ho 5,
which, if the vowel be pronounced broad, has the
same sound as Hor. In the same way Tho was
sometimes written for Thoor, as in Ri-tho, and in
our own language formerly Mo for More : hence
Akerblad concludes that the divinity adored there
was called Ho, or No ; and he suggests the pos
sibility of thus furnishing an explanation ofthe No
Amon mentioned in the prophets.6 The reason
1 Herod. 1. ii. sect. 156. De Iside et Osiride, sect. 12.
2 Mr. Wilkinson says, that Aroeris should have been left by
Hermapion and Champollion, as it is in the Bible, in the original
language : Phre, or Phra, Pharaoh.
3 See Wilford's Sanscrit Inscription.
4 Fourteenth Letter,
5 La ville de Jupiter ou Diospolis (parva) dans la Theba'ide
porte dans les Dictionaires Coptes le nom de PJJJ. Dans un MS.
du Vatican il est fait mention du Nome Ho : c'est le Nomos Dios-
polites des anciens. — D'Anville.
6 II me paroit assez probable, que ce nom etoit celui d'une divinite
adoree dans la Haute Egypte. Ceux qui aiment les rapprochemens
etymologiques retrouveront peutetre ce mot dans le No Amon dans
les Prophetes. — Akerblad, Lettre sur I' Inscription Egyptienne de
Rosette, p. 36.

430 HORUS.
ofthe transition from Ho to No would not be very
obvious, if it were not recollected at the same time
that Horus and Noah were the same person.1
Young has endeavoured to combat Akerblad's sug
gestion, by asserting, that in the Enchorial language
the symbol of Ammon, or Amun, is almost uni
formly employed for M and N, and consequently
that such must have been its original pronuncia
tion.2 However much this may be a proof that the
idol was not called Ho, it avails nothing against
the other form of title : on the contrary, it is ac
knowledged that the symbol was used for N. But
suppose that the M and N must occur together, as
his argument certainly implies, still it only proves
that Ammon, or rather, according to the statement
of Sir W. Drummond3, Man, or Mon, or Men,
was the first and commonest name of the object of
their worship, while the other was only occasionally
added, sometimes before and sometimes after it.
In the Bible No is twice placed last, though the
English reader would scarcely discover what it fol
lows. In Ezekiel, God threatens to " cut off the
multitude of No 4 : " but the Hebrew reading is
Hamon No. In Jeremiah there is a similar threat
to " punish the multitude of No ° : " but here,
again, the original reads Amon No6, which, in
1 Noa in Greek means a fountain. Noa, irqyq. — Suidas. And
Noemon, a wise man. No-qfAo>v, a-vvEroq. — Hesychius.
2 Dr. Young on Hieroglyphical Literature, p. 129.
3 Origines, p. 399. 4 Ezekiel, xxx. 15.
5 Jeremiah, xlvi. 25.
e Or rather Mino. The Mem is taken by the translators for a

MENES. 431
fifteen of Kennicott's Codices is written Noa.
In both cases, the idolaters are threatened in their
idol, which is a figure of speech by no means un
common in the language ofthe prophets : "I will
cut off the remnant of Baal." ' " Babylon is taken,
Bel is confounded." 2 "I will punish Bel in Ba
bylon." 3 " Chemosh shall go forth into captivity." 4
Jeremiah and Ezekiel predicted a desolation, which
, was inflicted more than a century afterwards ; but
Nahum, as before observed, pointed to a conquest
achieved several centuries before.
There may have been several invasions and over
throws of Thebes ; but one at least, and that too
at a very early period, partook largely of religious
animosity. There is a story .in Plutarch of a king
who, during a warlike expedition, inscribed upon a
column at Thebes execrations of a former monarch,
whose name was Meinius 5, that is to say, Menes.
The motive assigned is ridiculous enough : the
king's baggage not having arrived, he made the
pleasing discovery, that he could enjoy a hearty
meal upon ordinary food, and sleep soundly after
it : and as Menes was reputed the civiliser of
Egypt, he deserved eternal execration for in
troducing wealth and luxury in the room of

preposition, and perhaps properly ; but if it chanced to be an or
dinary adjunct to No from its combination with Men, Young's argu
ment falls to the ground at once.
1 Zephaniah, i. 4. 2 Jeremiah, 1. 2.
3 Jeremiah, li. 44. 4 Ibid, xlviii. 7.
5 Meinius shows the transition from Menes to Minos.
6 De Iside et Osiride, c. 8.

432 MENES.
poverty and hard fare.1 The offence thus given by
Meinius is so obviously disproportionate to the
anger and ignominy with which he was treated,
that it is necessary to look for the real motive else
where ; and none is more probable, than the an
tipathy of the priesthood then in favour, to one
who was supposed to be the founder of an opposite
system of religious rites. A similar feeling may be
discerned in the sculpture that adorns the tomb of
Pharaoh Rhamses.2 There the serpent Apophis,
the emblem of the deluge, is described (at least so
Champollion says) as the brother and enemy of
the Sun ; and part of the design represents how the
gods dragged him out of the water and strangled
him. Now Apophis was the name of one of the
shepherd kings. That a great revolution did take
place in their system of theology, the records of
Egypt prove. Amenophis wished to bring back
his subjects to the religion of their forefathers ; but
death intercepted his' projects: his son, however,
Sothis, and after him Ramesses, raised eight obe
lisks in Heliopolis.3 Manetho says, that Sothis built
many pyramids. 4 What connection these obelisks
and pyramids had with the ancient religion, I
shall endeavour to show hereafter ; at present we
1 The same story is told by Diodorus Siculus, who, however,
calls him Menas ; he further says, that he taught the people how to
worship the gods ; and to offer sacrifice, and he considers this artifice
the cause for which the name of Menas has not descended to poste
rity with more honour, 1. i. 42.
2 This Rhamses belonged to the nineteenth dynasty ; that is, the
second after the expulsion of the Shepherds.
3 Kircheri Historia Obelisci Pamphilii.
4 Manetho apud Africanum.

CHNOUPH. 433
may pass on to another testimony of Manetho, who
relates that Salatis founded in the Saite Nome, to
the east of the Bubastite channel, a city, which was
called Avaris, from someancient system of theology.
Now this was precisely the name of the last strong
hold in the north of Egypt occupied by the Palli,
or Shepherds, before its inhabitants withdrew into
Palestine, where they still continued to distinguish
the mountains that bounded their horizon on the
east by the diluvian designation of Abarim. Baris
was the real name with the A prefixed, as in Amon,
and Anubis, and Athothes.
It is tolerably clear, therefore, that the ancient
religion of Egypt was the Arkite, in opposition to
the Helioarkite, which succeeded it. In the neigh
bouring country of Ethiopia it lasted longer in its
full purity, though I scarcely think Diodorus can
be correct in assigning so low a date as the reign
of Ptolemy Philadelphus to the massacre of the
Ethiopian priests ; for where history is trusted to
the keeping of oral tradition, chronological mis
takes may very easily be made. Ergamenes is
said to have attacked their temple, which was
made of gold, and built in a place difficult of
access.1 The report of its materials is probably a
mistaken translation of Chnouph, or Cnuphis, to
whom it might be dedicated 2 ; and its elevated
1 Diodorus Siculus, 1. iii. 146.
2 A similar mistake has been the cause that the sacred mountain
of the Hindoos was said to be of gold. Sommier, they say, is
a golden mountain, on whose summit and sides are the different
degrees of Paradise. — Maurice Ind. Ant. p. 225.
VOL. I. F F

434 HERMES.
situation, on the top of a mountain, was exactly
such as the Arkites would naturally choose. It
does not appear that he destroyed the temple to
enrich himself; but he cut the throats of the
priests, and altered every thing according to his
pleasure.1 Violent measures are usually followed
by a re-action : some of the Ethiopians used to
abuse the sun at his rising as their greatest enemy,
and denied his divinity, and betook themselves to
watery places. In Egypt, however, the conflict
was not determined without a severe struggle :
the people were not willing to abandon their
ancient customs, or to admit at once the usurp
ations of the Magi. Hence it is that the ancient
writers talk of the gods concealing themselves
under the forms of different animals, to avoid the
fury of Typhon ; Jupiter in the ram ; Osiris in the
bull ; Pan in the goat, &c. It was, in truth, more
by the invention of these fables, than by the
forcible substitution of Magian rites, that the pa
triarchal worship was finally subverted. Their
own Hermes Trismegistus foresaw and deprecated
the corruption, apostrophising his country thus :
O Egypt, Egypt, of thy religion fables alone will
survive, and those incredible to thy posterity." 2
The event has demonstrated the sagacity of the
prediction ; rival sects, anxious to appropriate to
1 Diod. Sic. 1. iii. 148.
2 Trismegistus in suo Asclepio hisce verbis vaticinatus est : O
iEgypte, iEgypte, religionum tuarum sola? supererint fabulse, eseque
incredibiles posteris tuis. — Kircheri Obelisci Interpretatio Hiero-
glyphica.

CANOBUS. 435
themselves the honour in which the memory of the
patriarchs was embalmed, distorted their names,
corrupted tradition, invented achievements, mul
tiplied mysteries, mixed their own figments with
the facts of history, and ransacked heaven and
earth for food to their idolatries. Truth thus torn
to pieces, like the body of Osiris, has been covered
with a thick veil of obscurity : the soil has been
overrun with rank weeds of fiction ; and Professor
Heyne had too much reason to complain, that the
real religion of the ancient Egyptians is unknown.
Enough, however, has been said to show that the
name of Noubei, assumed by Ousirei, in ad
dition to Athothi and Amonei was, like them,
borrowed from a deified ancestor, denominated
Cneph or Cnuph ', converted by the Greeks into the
Oceanic deity Canobus 2, but who was more pro
perly called Phtha, or Budha, by the Hindoos ;
Tho, Thoth, Tat, and Teut, by the Egyptians ;
Teutates by the Celts ; and Tuiston by the Ger
man tribes.3 It was, indeed, a title of which he
1 Vulgo, says Heyne, Phthas putatur idem esse cum Vulcano,
(Sc. Hephaestus) comparatur quoque cum Cneph vel Cnuph;
verum ignorantur antiquiores religiones iEgyptiorum novae. —
Jablonski, too, contends for their identity.
2 Tloo-Eth5voq Yiavitov hfibv. Apud Stephanum. — Vossius, De Or.
et Prog. Idol. p. 235.
3 In the old songs, says Barth, the Germans celebrated Tuisco,
den aus der Erde gebornen Genius, und seinen Sohn Man, des
Volkes Stammvater, — Karl Barth's Hertha, p. 21. Willawov
invokes him, with these additional titles : Thoit : Mann ! Wodan !
— Herman, p. 46. One of the days of the week has been dedicated
to him by all the Teutonic nations. Tuesday in English, Tisdag
in Swedish, Tirsdag in Danish, Dienstag in German, are all deduce4
by Ideler from Tuiston or Tyr. — Lehrbuch der Chronologie, p. 343.
F F 2

436 MANNUS.
might well be ambitious, if the etymology pro
posed by Jablonski is correct ; and it is not sur
prising that he or his flatterers should wish to
have it supposed that the spirit of his ancestor had
passed by transmigration into himself. He deduces
it from Ikh Noufi, the good Genius. Thus we
are brought back again, by a different route, to
Amon, or Menes; for it is justly observed by
Sir W. Drummond, that this object of their wor
ship appears under three forms, Man, Mon, and
Men. Now, in ancient Latin, Manis and Manus
signified " good ' " : and, moreover, it was that sort
of goodness which was reverenced in deceased an
cestors ; for this was the origin ofthe term Manes,
— a name which the Italians gave them, as Salma-
sius says, after the example of the Arcadians, who
inhabited Italy. Now the Arcadians were genuine
Arkites, which has been already proved in part,
and will be further confirmed in the progress of
this inquiry. Hence Mann was used by the an
cient Irish to signify a god ; and the Germans, in
the time of Tacitus, celebrated in their traditional
songs, which were their only literature, the gods
Mannus and Tuiston, from whom they deduced
their origin.2 As Mannus was the Menes of the

It will be readily seen that he might also claim Wednesday, which
is Woden's day, and Thursday, which is the day of Thor.
1 Manis et Manus antiquis Latinis erat bonus. Genita mana
idem est quod Genita bona ; ut Cerus Manus in Carmine Saliari
Creator bonus ; hine manes. Manes vero vocaverunt defunctos ex-
emplo et more Arcadum qui Italiam tenuere  Pliniance exercita-
tiones in Caii Julii Solini Polyhistora, i. 293.
2 Celebrant carminibus antiquis (quod unum apud illos memoriae

MANNUS. 437
Egyptians, so Tuiston was their Theuth ; for the
same author testifies that Mercury was the Deity
whom they principally worshipped ' ; and some of
the Suevi were accustomed to sacrifice to Isis. 2
The form, however, of her shrine abundantly con
firms the Celtic etymology, which I have assigned
to her, the ship or ark ; for these people, like the
Celts, were of opinion, that God was not to be
contained within walls, much less in an idol ; and
therefore, they had no statues in their religion :
the only visible representation was a ship 3 ; their
altar was a mountain. Brotier relates, that he saw
very many a monuments of Neptune in Germany ;
and at Baden, having ascended a hill to view the
place where Mercury was worshipped4, he found
nothing but huge stones thrown about, which
perhaps had formed a Celtic circle ; and though
on one of them a rude image was carved, he con
sidered it to be no more than a votive offering.
This hill may be compared with one in Wales,

et annalium genus est) Tuistonem deum, terra editum et filium
Mannum originem gentis conditoresque Manno tres filios adsignant.
— Taciti Germania, cap. ii.
1 Deorum maxime Mercurium colunt. Ibid. c. Q.
2 Pars Suevorum et Isidi sacrificat. Ibid.
3 Signum (Isidis) in modum liburnae figuratum. — Taciti Ger
mania, c. 9- Liburna, says Barth, was the name of a ship, so
called from a resemblance to the moon in its first quarter, which
was afterwards brought into general use by the Romans. — Herfka,
p. 61.
4 The same monument might belong either to Neptune or t»
Mercury ; for in the Akhteristan it is related that the statue of the
planet Mercury had the body and tail of a fish — Gladwin's Asiat.
Miscell. ; that is, he was an Oceanic deity.
F F 3

438 MANNUS.
called Mynydd Dormina ', which resembles it, both
as to the personage to whom it was dedicated, and
in the character of the antiquities which crown its
summit; for the name either imports — the Mount
of the water of Mina 2 (i. e. Mannus or Menes) ; or
it is a corruption of Tormina, which would be the
heights of Mina ; and the Mynydd is the pleonasm
of a later age.
On the top, in the middle of a circular row of
stones, thirty feet in diameter, there was a monu
ment, called y Gist maen, the stone chest; consisting
of four stones set up edgewise, and covered at top
by a fifth, but not joined together by cement. 3 A
rude stone being the constant representative of
Mannus, or Menes, it came to pass that Maen
signified either ; hence the original meaning might
be the Ark of Mann. But further, there is a
large upright stone, fourteen feet in height4, re
sembling those Bcetulia which were dedicated to
Mercury ; and hence perhaps these stones, when
used to mark boundaries, were called Termini ;
which, however, not only retained their sacred cha
racter, and were worshipped as gods, but also re
tained the very peculiarity already noticed in the
Celtic worship ; for the buildings, in which the
idol-stones were placed, were left uncovered over

1 About three miles from Neath, in Glamorganshire.
2 For a writer in the Archaeologia observes, that Dor in many
languages means water ; for instance, viap.
3 When Mr. Strange visited it, this chest was gone.
4 Fourteen feet in height, four wide, two thick. Archsologia,
vol. vi.

EXPLANATION OF ISAIAH, lxv. 11. 439
their heads, as the only compensation for sur
rounding them with walls. We shall soon see how
these pillars and cromlechs are connected with the
deluge. In the meantime it may be sufficient to
observe, that if the Menis there commemorated,
were an Arkite deity, we should find him in those
places where the memory of the catastrophe was
most vividly preserved ; and, accordingly, we do
find him worshipped in Asia, in Phrygia, where
the city called Cibotus \ or the Ark, was built, and
in Armenia, where the mountain of Meni 2, i. e.
Ararat, was situated : Jeremiah gives the latter
country the names of Ararat and Minni. 3 The
extensive worship paid to this personage will help
to elucidate a very obscure passage in the Prophet
Isaiah ; our translators have rendered it thus : —
" Ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget
my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that
troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that
number." 4 From these words it is extremely dif
ficult to elicit any sense, especially as no troop and
no number have been mentioned before. Bishop
Lowth rightly suggested, that they are proper
names, and proposed to read — " that set in order
a table for Gad, and furnish a drink offering unto
Meni." He then proceeds to observe, that " the
1 Theophilus, in speaking of Noah's Ark, calls it a Cibotus. —
Ad Autolycum, 1. iii. 336.
2 Est deus Menis, quem in Armenia et Phrygia eultum discimus
ex Strabone et Jamblicho in vita Pythagorae. — Grotius in Isai.
lxv. 11.
3 Jeremiah, li. 27. 4 Isaiah, lxv. 11.
F F 4

440 GAD.
conjectures of the learned concerning Gad and
Meni are infinite and uncertain ; perhaps, the
most probable may be, that Gad means, good for
tune, and Meni, the Moon." Y But Meni signified
the Moon no otherwise than as the Moon was a
symbol of the Ark. Forerius takes it for the
planet Mercury2: if he had said the person so
called, instead of the planet, he would have been
right ; but it was not Sabianism with which the
Jews were reproached on this occasion. What the
Prophet complained of, was, that they had forsaken
the mountain which the Lord had sanctified by
placing his name there, for other mountains, where
other names were adored, and rebellious sacrifices
were offered : — " They had burned incense upon
the mountains, and blasphemed him upon the
hills." 3 They had blasphemed him by bestowing
the name of God upon a creature of corrupt tradi
tion, called Meni, and transferring to that ancestor,
whose spirit was supposed to haunt the mountain
top, the honours due only to Jehovah. Gad and
Meni are obviously only two names for one di
vinity. It would be strange, indeed, if the banquet
were to be so divided, that the meat was to be the
property of one daemon, and the drink offering of
another. Agreeably to this view, three of the an
cient versions substitute for Gad, the daemon, or

i Notes on Isaiah, p. 374.
2 Est planeta Mercurius, sic dictus a supputatione cui libabant
ut in negotiationibus feliciores essent. — Forerius in loco.
3 Isaiah, lxv. 7.

GAD. 441
idols. l Aben Ezra and Munster suppose it to be
equivalent to Jupiter, and consequently to Amon ;
but Forerius insists that it is Mars ; and in Syriac,
Gadna is the constellation Capricorn. It is evi
dent the real meaning must be something which
has a common relation to all these secondary
senses. Now, the verb Gad, in Syriac and Sama
ritan, is the origin of our English word, to guide ;
and in Arabic, it signifies to be eminent 2, and the
substantive formed from it is, " an Ancestor." But
there is another Hebrew word for an idol, to which
it bears so near a relation, that it is impossible not
to suspect a community of origin. It occurs in
another passage of Isaiah, in which the common
translation seems much too arbitrary. It is a pas
sage in which God threatens to consume those
" that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in
the gardens, behind one tree in the midst, eating
swines' flesh and the abomination." 3 Now there is
no such word as " tree" in the original : it has been
inserted only from the difficulty of making any
sense at all without it. The Hebrew word for one,
is Achath ; and hence Lowth has judiciously sug
gested that it is not a numeral in this place, but
an idol : for the Syrians had an idol not dissimilar

1 The Seventy have daemoni — the Chald. and Ar. idolis. Gad,
Stella Jovis, eo nomine Arabibus dicta. — Aben Ezra in Drusii notis.
2 Syr. r^ Gad; Sam. °f 1 ; Gadduxit; Arab. Jc=- Zjad;
Magnus fuit dignitate ; the noun : Avus, Plur. Majores. — Castelli
Lexicon. 3 Isaiah, lxvi. 17-

442 GAD.
in sound, and exactly the same in sense. They
worshipped Adad, and held him to be the greatest
of the gods ; and Macrobius states that the name
signified one.1 " Wherefore," says Lowth, " many
learned men have supposed, and with some pro
bability, that the prophet means the same pretended
deity. Achad, in the Syrian and Chaldaean dialects,
is Chad ; and perhaps, by reduplication of the last
letter, to express perfect unity, it may have become
Chadad, not improperly expressed in Latin by Ma
crobius, Adad, without the aspirate. It was also
pronounced by the Syrians themselves with a
weaker aspirate, Hadad, as in Benhadad, and Ha-
dadezer, names of their kings, which were certainly
taken from their chief object of worship."2 San-
choniatho calls him Adod. His story is, that
Adodus, the king of the gods, and Jupiter Dema-
roon, the son of Dagon, were permitted by Cronus
or Saturn, whose character must be reserved for
future consideration, to reign over the country,
together writh Astarte the great, who placed upon
her head the horns of a bull, as a mark of sove
reignty. 3 In this mention of the horns there is
plainly no allusion to the moon, but to something
else ; and what that is, we may guess from the in
troduction of Dagon, the fish-formed idol of the
Philistines. 4 Neither can there be any allusion to
1 Plin. Nat. Hist, xxxvii. 11. Macrob. Sat. i. 23.
2 Lowth on Isaiah, p. 382. 3 Cory's Fragments, p. 13.
4 Dagon, says Hesychius, is the Cronus of the Phoenicians. Cro
nus, says Vallancey, is our Crean and Dagh, iv. 33. He is cer
tainly right in identifying them. Jupiter was the son of Dagon ;
but he was also the son of Saturn.

GAD. 443
the unity of God, in the name of a deity who is
jumbled with so many others, and who reigns only
by permission. I cannot therefore agree with
Lowth, that the reduplication of the last letter had
any such motive; and to any one who considers the
resemblance between Adod and Thoth, or Athothes,
as well as between Adad and Tat, which is another
form of the same name, it cannot appear unlikely
that the second syllable has been formed by the
addition of tbe Egyptian god. The first, however,
was certainly Chad, which, being pronounced hard,
became Gad. There are three arguments, besides
the similarity of sound, to prove their identity.
1. They were both understood to signify Jupiter.
2. The Chaldee Paraphrast must have considered
them equivalent; for, in the Targum of Jonathan,
Achar achath l is rendered, Troop after troop, in
stead of, behind one (tree). The word used by
Jonathan for troop, is Siha2; and, considering the
equivocal meaning of Gad, it is rather singular
that, in Loo Choo, and consequently in China,
" Shih is the same as Foo or Budh." 3 3. The
Masorites have given in the margin another read
ing, or rather another spelling, of the same word :
they propose Achat. Le Clerc approves of the
correction, and supposes it to mean Hecate, or the
moon. Now we learn from Lucian, that it was

1 Isaiah, lxvi. 17. 2 WD
3 Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific, ii. Ip5. Moreover, some of
their junks retain to this day the semilunular form, which made the
crescent an emblem of the Ark.

444

GAD.

customary to set a table for Hecate : ; and Jerome
observes, that this remnant of idolatry was practised
in Egypt in his own day.2 A custom still prevail
ing in India throws some light upon this subject.
The Tudas are a race inhabiting the summit ofthe
Neilgherry hills, or blue mountains of Coimbatoor,
in the southern part of the peninsula. Captain
Harkness, in his description of them, says, that their
temple is of a conical form : there is no idol in it ;
but occasionally they offer libations of milk before
three or four bells, their Gad and Meni, which are
plainly, like the temple itself, emblems of the di
luvian mount : hence bells are sacred also among
the followers of Budha. Two of them are placed
before his image in his temple at Candy3, and
covered up with great care, as objects of veneration.
In like manner, at Kennery near Salsette, a solid
mass of rock in the principal Buddhist temple is
cut into the form of a dome. " This," says Heber,
" appears to be the usual symbol of Buddhist ador
ation, and may be traced in the Shoo Madoo of
Pegu, and other more remote structures ofthe same
faith." 4 Even the Brahminical temple of Siva at
Carlee, said to be founded by king Pandoo, the
reputed architect of all cave temples, and ancient
1 In Dialogo Mortuorum.
2 Hieronymus. ad Isaiah, lxv. 7.
3 Heber's Correspondence, iii. 179-
4 Ibid. p. 93. The Birman explanation of Shoo Madoo Praw,
which is the name of their temple, is, a Promontory that overlooked
land and water. Shoo is golden, which is the description of the
summit of Meru. Madoo is a corruption of Mahadeva. Praw is,
like Phra, Lord. — Capt. Symes, in As. Res. v. 115.

HERMES. 445
monuments, whose history is unknown, contains
no visible object of devotion, except the mystic
Chattah, or Umbrella.1 The Brahmin ists are far
more idolatrous than the Budhists ; yet even they
retain the miniature mountain, not only in their
monuments, but as ornaments on their idols, and
are bound by the laws of Menu to offer oblations
to the manes of their ancestors.2 The history of
Pandoo is buried under a heap of allegories ; but
his name brings to mind the Egyptian Mandou, or
Mendes, which is undoubtedly composed of Man,
or Menes, and Thouth, the final ' th ' being mute,
as the final frequently is, both in Chinese 3 and
Celtic. Now it has been shown, that Menes, the
first king, was in reality Ham; and, according to the
interpretation of Diodorus Siculus, Pan, Deus Ar-
cadise, who embraces the moon 4, is also equivalent
to Ham. Moreover, there is indirect evidence
that Thoth was associated with Man, not only in
the worship of rocks, but also in the notion of some- '
thing good in his name ; for that Thoth was Her
mes5 no one questions.
Not far from Tunis, on the Lybian coast, a
head-land projects into the sea, which was called
' Heber, iii. 112. 2 Sir W. Jones, vii. 166.
3 Hence Boodh becomes Foo, or Voo. 4 L. i. 1 6.
5 If Sir W. Drummond is right in supposing that Hermes signi
fies, faciens gignere, aut parere, (Origines, p. 465.,) it is needless
to point out his identity with Pan. But further it may be observed,
that Pandora, is Pan and Thor, under a female form. It was
another name for Rhea, the Ark. — (Diod. Sic. 1. iii. 190.); and she
was the mother of Deucalion. The manifold corruptions of human
nature came with the family of Noah out of the Ark, which was
Pandora's box. It was the name also of an Indian people.

446

MERCURY.

the Hermaaan Promontory. It could scarcely
he a fortuitous coincidence, that this almost in
sulated hill of Hermes has since obtained the double
appellation of Good Cape (Capo Bon) ' ; and the
Nubian Cape, Capo di Nubia2, which may be
a corruption from Noufi, that is, good. The sys
tem of theology which assigned it to Hermes, may
be conjectured from the designation of some rocky
islands in its vicinity : they were called jEgimuri, or
iEgimori Aras, and were, doubtless, the same which
Virgil denominates simply, The Altars 3, of which
one in particular was Hiera, or the sacred island.
Yet these were barren rocks, with no temples,
oracles, or priests : they had no other sanctity than
as they were representatives of the diluvian mount,
when the Ark rested upon it. -ZEgimurus means
the Lord of the Ocean, being derived from Aigeion,
a collection of waters ; and Maur, which, in Arabic
and Chaldee, signifies Lord : it may, indeed, be
said to imply in itself, the Lord of the flood ; for
Mor, in Celtic, as well as in Arabic, is used for
water ; and hence the Latins derived their Mare.4
Mauritania, consequently, is the Tan or Land of
this same Maur or Mauri. I think this gives a
fair insight into the true etymology of Mercury, on
the hypothesis which I have assumed, that many
roots of the most primitive language may be found

1 Capo Bon, in Mercator. 2 Capo di Nubia, in Olivarius.
3 Saxa vocant Itali, mediis quae in fluctibus, Aras. — Mn. i. 113.
4 See Borlase's Antiquities, Vallancey 's Collectanea, and Castelli
Lexicon.

MERCURY. 447
scattered through its different branches.1 Mer-
curius is compounded of Mar and Guru (Sanscrit),
the chief preceptor : his other name, Mercolis,
comes to the same purpose.2 It is formed from
Mar and Col (Hebrew), Lord of the voice ; that
is to say, the interpreter ; and this is exactly the
sense of his Greek name, Hermes, and accounts
for his being considered the secretary to Osiris. He
seems to have been worshipped under the scrip
tural name of Gad on the southern coast of Spain,
which was, therefore, probably styled Gaditania,
or the country of Gad ; for the sea between it and
Mauritania was certainly called the Gaditanian sea :
at all events, he was honoured further west, in the
island of Gades, the pronunciation of which has, sin
gularly enough, undergone the same change as for
merly in Chaldea, from hard to soft, and is called
Cadiz. The peninsula on which this city stands was
formerly two islands, both of which bore the name
of Gad, Gadeira, which Avienus deduces from
the Phoenician Gadir, an enclosure3, and Gades,
which is, Gad Ess, the ship of Gad. Whether
Avienus be right or not, the two words ultimately
meet in the same point ; for the Celts spoke of
the Ark, as the enclosure, with a strong door 4 ; and
1 Sharon Turner says : I think the Greeks and Romans were a
mixture of Phoenicians and Egyptians with Kimmerians or Kelts :
their language contains many Keltic words. — Hist, of Angl. Sax.
i. 38. 2 C'/lp'HD, 's tne name used by Maimonides. — De Idololatism.
3 Poenus quippe locum Gadir vocat undique septum. — R. Avienus
in Descriptione Orbis. .
4 Davies's Mythology of the Druids, p. 226.

448 GADES.
hence, perhaps, Gadeira was a term applied to both,
though Gades was the proper title of one, and the
other had a city of the same name.' They were
subsequently distinguished by two other names,
Cotinusa 2 and Erythia 3 ; but Vallencey, interpret
ing both through the medium of the Celtic language,
pronounces both to be the Ship Island ; the latter
from Arthar-aoi 4, an etymology which is, in some
degree, countenanced by the legend of their con
nexion with the Erythraean sea, the residence of
Oannes. Its original name was, perhaps, Erythraaa :
even its modern name bears marks of the same
origin ; for a Spanish writer affirms that it is the
modern Isle of Leon 5, which is a very slight cor
ruption of the Celtic Lonn, a ship.6 Cotinusa is
still more plainly derived from Inis, an island, and
Cot, a boat. In Egyptian, Ghot is, to navigate :
in Hindostanee, Khoda signified God, which, in
Irish, is Coide, and is pronounced Code.7 All
1 Ab eo latere quo Hispaniam spectat (Gadis Insula) passibus
fere centum altera insula est — in qua prius oppidum Gadium fuit.
Erythia dicta est, quoniam Tyrii aborigines eorum orti ab Erythraeo
mari ferebantur. apud Plinium.
2 Hanc quidem incolae sub prioribus hominibus
Dictam hodie Cotinusam vocarunt Gades.
Transl. of Dionys. Afer.
3 'EpvBEiav il ra, Td^Eipa eoiKE Xkyeiv b QepeKvl-qq. Strabo.
4 Vindication of the Anc. Hist, of Ireland, p. 60.
6 De suerte que es la Erythia antigua la que oy se llama
Isla del Leon.
Espana primitiva. Don Xavier de la Huerta, t. i. p. 194.
6 An island called Lunae insula is mentioned, near Erytheia, by
R. Fest. Avienus. — Ora Maritima, p. 361.
7 Vallancey on Ancient Irish. — Preface, pp. 74. and 80. Hence

TEMPLE OF HERCULES. 449
tjiese seem to be only different versions of the
Hebrew Chad or Gad, which has been already
proved. It is not unreasonable to resort to the
Celtic for an explanation of these and similar an
cient names, since Masdeu, and other native
writers, assert that the Celts crossed over from
Africa into Spain.1 In Gades there was a cele
brated temple of Hercules.2 Who that person was,
we have partly seen, and shall presently have occa
sion to consider more at large. For the present it
may suffice, that in the medals of Carteia and Gadiz,
published by Florus, he is represented with a
trident in his hand, the emblem of the flood.
The Hindoo Siva wears it also, whose name bears
the same relation to the Celtic Si as Neptune does
to the Coptic Neph : both those monosyllables mean
a ship. The pillars which bore the name of Her
cules are referred by Vallancey to the same origin.
One of them was Abila, which he thinks is a cor
ruption of Bolo or Bologh (0aX;«j), a ship ; and its
Spanish name, Ximia, is only the plural of Si 3 : the
other was Chalpe, originally Briarius, from Bari

the Cottian Alps had their name ; hence too the Catti, who have left
Druidical monuments in the Orkneys, or Orcades, and in Caithness ;
hence too Septa, which is only a translation of Gadir, was also called
Ceuta on the African coast, and a neighbouring promontory was
Cote. ; J Historia Critica de Espana.
2 In the old coins of Spain he is called Endovecelius, which,
according to Vallancey should be Aniphiselius, from »J£( navis, and
• T
7D£3j sculpsit.
3 Vindication of the Ancient History of Ireland, p. 100.
VOL. I. G G

450 HERCULES AND MERCURY.
Ros, the promontory ofthe ship, which, in England,
we have transposed into Rosebury ; but the
Syrians named it Alpi, because Alpha is either a
bull or a ship. But, what is more to our present
purpose, Hercules and Mercury appear to be but
one person, when we trace them both up to the
point from which the multiplying spirit of idolatry
has caused them to diverge. The Phoenicians,
from whom he was stolen, and wrapped in dis
guise by the Greeks, called him Hericol, or Her-
col, which is exactly equivalent to Mercolis.1 The
first word ofthe compound equally denotes pre-emi
nence, and the root is, doubtless, Har ; for the Lord
ofthe flood was the Lord of the mountain too : hence
the Egyptians derived their Horus, whom Jablonski
and Sir W. Drummond have identified both with
Hermes and with Hercules ; the Latins, their
Herus ; the Hindoos, their Heri, which was a title of
Krishna, and Hara, which was a title of Siva.2
The latter being transferred by the Greeks to Juno,
gave rise to the opinion that the temple at Gades
was consecrated to her.
The other element which enters into the com
position of Hericol (Col vox), was also employed
to designate that divinity whom the Lycaonians
thought they recognised in St. Paul, because he
was the chief speaker.3 The Celtic glossarists
explain it thus : " Coll, i. e. Tait, i. e. Mercurius." 4
1 Sir W. Drummond's Origines, p. 465.
2 Moor's Hindu Pantheon.
9 \cts of the Apostles, xiv. 12.
A Vallancey, Vindication, p. 82.

GERYON. 451
The picture of the Celtic Hercules in Lucian fully
confirms this statement. He is represented as an
old man, drawing after him a multitude of people
by a chain which connects their ears with his
tongue ; for " we Gauls," said the native who ex
plained it, " do not suppose, like you of Greece,
that Mercury is speech (Coll) ; but we attribute it
to Hercules, because he is far superior in strength." l
This dispute between the votaries of the two
names is similar to that which gave rise to the
fable of Geryon. He was said to have reigned in
Erytheia ; and it was one of the labours of Hercules
to drive away his oxen.2 But a very ancient his
torian assures us that it is all a mistake to lay the
scene of this exploit in Spain. Geryon reigned
over the Ambraciots in Epirus.3 As far as his
torical truth is concerned, both stories perhaps are
on a par ; in either case Geruon, which the
Greeks have contracted into Geron, an old man,
means the same as Mar Guru4, or Mercury. But
there is one part in the description of his person
which ' strongly stamps his name with a mystic
character : Hesiod makes him three-headed. Now
it has already been shown that the first resting-
place of the ark-preserved family, between two
lofty peaks of the mountain, was commemorated
1 Luciani Dialogi. De Hercule Gallico.
2 Dionysius de Situ Orbis, p. 558. Prop. iv. 10. Ovid. Fast.
p. 5.
3 Hecataeus in Arriani Arab. 1. ii.
4 Gerus in Greek is exactly the same as Coll in Hebrew,. Vox>
o^S* "a yripvq, nee una vox. — Homer, II. A.
G G 2

452 HERCULES AND MERCURY.
by forming their vessels with the horns of a cres
cent ; and when the Ark, or the Patriarch (for it
was sometimes one, and sometimes the other), was
represented standing in the centre, the whole
formed three sacred points, of which the trident of
Neptune, and the triple heads of Geryon, were
equally significant emblems. But Euripides carries
us a step further in our pursuit : he gives the giant
three bodies.1 If, then, this description can be
proved to be consistent with the actual state of
any prevalent superstition, the solution of the
enigma may reasonably be sought for in the his
tory of those rites. Now the shrine of Mercolis
consisted of three huge stones, two of which sup
ported the third2, and since the images of Mercury
consisted of single rectangular stones 3, the three
combined fairly entitled him to be considered as
three-bodied. The driving away, therefore, of his
oxen, signifies the success of a rival sect in divert
ing the sacrifices from the old Celtic altars to those
which had been more recently erected to the same
personage under the name of Hercules. It is
evident, therefore, that Count Caylus need not
have been so much astonished at finding a caduceus
in the hand of Hercules4, or that Cicero should
1 Tov rpieriftarov /SoxSjp' 'EpvBelaq. — Eurip. Here, furens.
2 Those who have travelled in India must have observed three
stones disposed, as in a Ciomlech, in many places, particularly along
the highways. — • Trans. As, Soc. iii. 376. Rabbi Nathan autor Baal
Aruch ait, Lapides fani Merkolis sic disposita erant, ut unus hine
alter illinc, tertius super utiumque collocaretur. — Selden de Diig
Syriis, c. xv. 353.
3 Phurnutus de Natura Deorum. 4 Caylus, Antiq. ii. 2\8.

HERCULES AND MERCURY. 453
have talked of Hercules Mercurii. An Etruscan
inscription found in Herculaneum begins with-
Herentates sum. Sir W. Drummond supposes it
to mean Hercules ; and indeed it is the Arkite Tat,
or Thoth. The innovations and interpolations of
the priests in the names and rites belonging to
their religion, of which Selden justly complains1,
deceived Cicero, and made him imagine that many
persons, wholly distinct and unconnected with
each other, passed under the same name ; whereas,
in fact, one person, or at least one family, was
always kept in sight, though viewed as it were
under different angles of refraction, through the
corrupting medium of tradition. Thus he enume
rates many Hercules's, and many Mercury's ; but
one part of the history of each is so much the same,
that I know not how he could avoid perceiving
that they were only two names of one person.
Of Hercules he tells us, that he was an Egyptian,
the offspring of the Nile, and that he taught the Phry
gians letters.2 Now Phrygia was the country in
which the giant Typhon warred against the gods, and
in which the mountain deity Oreia, or Rhea, was
worshipped 3 : it was full of Arkite monuments. Of
Mercury, he says that he fled into Egypt after the
death of Argus, and taught the inhabitants laws
1 Sacerdotum et antistitum arbitratu dein innovata, interpolata,
aucta erant nimis, sacra et numina passim. — DeDiis Syriis Syntag.
p. 53.
2 Traditur Nilo natus, ^gyptius ; quem aiunt Phrygias litteras
conscripsisse. — De Natura Deorum, 1. iii.
3 'Opsia fA-qr-qp itpoo-ayopEvBq. — Diodor. Sic. 1. iii. 192. and, 1. v.
338.
G G 3

454

STORY OF IO.

and letters, and they gave him the name of Thoth.1
He had slain the guardian of the temple consecrated
to Io, or the moon 2 ; and in Egypt, where the name
was still retained with the same signification, he
introduced her worship under the name of Isis.
Hence Ovid metamorphoses the one into the other,
on her reaching the banks of the Nile. But in what
sense she was the moon, it is easy to learn from
the origin assigned to her. Her father was either
Archus, or Neptune, or Inachus 3, i. e. Noachus.
Some called him Eunouchus, which is a still greater
change from Noachus ; yet Theophilus makes light
of it, and has no doubt that the one was a cor
ruption of the other 4 ; and when he further states
that, by the general consent of authors, Noah was
the person honoured by the name of Saturn, he
leads us to suspect that tradition had exaggerated
the crime of Ham, and given it the turn which
the name Eunouchus suggests. That Inachus the
king, was not historically the father of Io, is quite
certain ; for he not only built a city called after her
name, lopolis, but a temple too, in which she was
worshipped : and the Argasans, or Arkites, long
attached a mysterious import to the name.5 Her
1 Cic. De Nat. Deor. 1. iii.
2 loh, the Moon. — See Young on Egypt.
3 Patet Io, sive Isin, Archi, vel Neptuni, vel Inachi fluvii filiam,
modo lunam, modo terram significasse. — Kircheri Obelisci Interpre-
tatio Hieroglyphica.
4 Na>a%o? Eivovxoq. — Theophilus ad Autolycum, 1. iii. 339.
5 Ol yap 'Apyetot fAverrtKaq rb ovoft,a r-qq a-EX-qvqq rb dnoKpvfpov T£
Xkyovo-tv ioiq dpn — Johannis Antiocheri cognom. Malalce Historia
Chronica, p. 31.

STORY OF 10. 4,55
whole history, indeed, as it is recorded by John
Malala, is a history, not of individuals, but of rival
sects. Her violation by Picus, the son of Saturn
and Rhea in Italy, was the robbing the moon of her
honour there ; and since Picus has left his name on
so many hills in the west of Europe \ which are
called Pic or Pico, or Peake, we may safely attri
bute the insult to the Celtic worshippers of rocks
and mountains. His sons were Hercules and Mer
cury ; and the latter reigned in Egypt, which is in
perfect harmony with the explanation already given.
But Io, not satisfied with the fate which brought her
back to a ship in Isis, retired to Syria, where the moon
was more decidedly honoured ; and there, on the
banks of the Orontes, another Iopolis and temple
were built. Still it was to a mountain that she
withdrew2, — from Mount Casius in Egypt, to
Mount Casius in Syria, both of them showing a
connexion with the diluvian Cau-Casus, which in
India undergoes a mere transposition of its ele
ments, and is called Khaisa Ghurl But the peak
of this mountain has another name, Kala Roh, or

1 Picis in Italy, now M. di Venzone ; Pico^ an island in the
Atlantic ; Pico, or the Peak in Teneriffe ; Peak, in Derbyshire ;
and Adam's Peak, in Ceylon, where Samana Dewa, or Budha, reigns.
This word is singularly connected with Budha. Cum Galli Nar-
bonenses ac Aquitani Podii (i. e. Budi) nomine saepe montem de-
signabant, vocem hanc nunc Puis, nunc Pech et le Puech, nunc et
Pic nuncupare consueverunt. — Hoffman. Lexicon.
2 Malala calls it the Silphian mountain. Now the plant Silphium^
is also written Sirpium : if the same liberty may be allowed to the
mountain, it may a corruption of Serapian ; Serapis being very
plausibly derived from a-opoq Aittq, the coffin or tomb of Apis, from,
2tf, father  V. Vossius de Or. et Prog. Idol, p, 219. '
G G 4

456

MERCURY.

the black rock.1 It may be doubted whether
" black " was the original meaning of Kala. Kal, in
Sanscrit, is Time ; in Greek, Chronus ; that is, in
mythology, Saturn ; for Cronus and Chronus are
one and the same.2 Now in the Akteristan, it is
stated that the image of Saturn was carved out of
black stone 3 ; the stone, therefore, being the stone
of Kal, Kala and black became synonomous. The
same authority states that the image of Mercury
was blue : but it is evident, that the distinction is
arbitrary ; and that one person is designed under
different names ; for Mercury is described with the
body and tail of a fish ; a complete Dagon, or
Oannes. Cala Roh, therefore, may be interpreted
the rock of Coll, i. e. Mercolis, just as the Celts
called an island in the Hebrides the Isle of Coll ;
and if so, it is equivalent to Khaisa Ghur, the
mountain of Guru, i. e. Mercury. In short, the
name of that primitive teacher was applied, under
its different forms, to so many memorials of the
flood, that, in process of time, A-Thoth became an
appellation for any remarkable signs 4: of course it
was peculiarly appropriate to a mountain, such as
that which was almost insulated by the iEgean sea.
Athos is so lofty, that Pliny gravely records it as
a fact, that its shadow reached to Lemnos, at the
distance of more than thirty miles.5 The opinion
was founded on a proverb, which says that its
1 Wilford on Caucasus. — As. Res. vi. 458.
2 Macrobii Saturnalia, I. i. 191- 3 Gladwin's Asiatic Miscellany.
4 n/IK' Signa. — Exod. x. 2. 5 Plinius, 1. iv. c. 10. 12.

HERMES. 457
shadow hid the Lemnian ox ', which is supposed to
have been a figure of that animal carved in white
stone. Such a figure there may have been ; for it
has been shown that, as in Egypt and at Thebes, it
was purely an Arkite symbol : but the real meaning
of the proverb was, that the sacred rites of that
island were thrown into the shade by the superior
sanctity of its towering neighbour ; and to this day
it preserves its reputation, and is called by the
Greeks the sacred mountain 2 : for that character,
it is indebted quite as much to antiquity as to its
celebrated monastery ; and the fable of its origin,
which will be noticed in another place, bespeaks
the cause. Athos was also the name of a place in
Egypt, its natural soil, where it, as well as Caisa,
was inhabited by the Hermiotes, a people con
founded by Artapanus with the Israelites 3, but
evidently worshippers of Hermes. It was a worship,
indeed, which extended from one end of the an
cient world to the other : it has been traced even
to Thibet. The inhabitants of that country were
in the habit of raising upon rocks the tall stem of
the marshy reed, bearing labels of mysterious im-

1 Athos celat latera bovis Lemniae.
2 "Ayiov opoq. Valdus, a place in Russia, has a large convent in
the middle of a lake, renowned for a picture of the Virgin Mary,
brought hither from Mount Athos, whence the convent bears the
hame of Aphonsky, the Russians pronouncing the Sr,' <p. — Heber's
Life, p. 140. So Hieronymus, the Rhodian, used aKvBia-ai. a-vyysvlq
yap, says Athenseusj-nup, rbB; theMethymneans,accordingtoParmeno,
in his work on dialects, called Scyphus, Scythus. Hence Phouth
became Thouth.
3 Euseb. Prap. Evan. 1. ix. 430.

458 janus.
port, and to these monuments they gave the name
of Manus, or Mercury.1
There is another argument to show that Gad
and Meni had a common origin, which, though not
so directly to the purpose, is yet too curious to be
quite omitted. In that passage of Isaiah where
Achar Achath is rendered by our translators " be
hind one," the Septuagint reads, " in the vesti
bule 2 ; " that is to say, behind the door. It is
evident that Achath sounded to them like some
Word signifying " a door," janua : perhaps it had
the same relation to it as janua had to Janus, for
any beginning, whether it were the entrance into
a house, or the entrance into a new year, was
called after him whose entrance into the post
diluvian world was the epoch from which all events
were dated ; for it has been shown that Janus was
Noah 3, and that his double front, one before and
one behind, regarded the state of the world before
and after the flood. Nor was this the only in
stance in which a similar association of ideas in
fluenced the idolatry of the heathen world. From
the reduplication of ziz, or zus, as Vossius thinks 4,
1 Gentes eo nomine coluisse Mercurium, viae ducem, ostendit Sel-
denus ; inter saxa harent in altum erecti trunci arundinum palu-
strium cum linteolis ad eorum summitatem alligatis ; in his etiam
vexillis impressa est magica ista oratio ; unde Mani usitatissimq
vocabulo nuncupantur. — Georg. Alphab, Tibetanum, p. 508.
2 Isai. lxvi. 17. 'Ev roTq itpoBvpoiq. The Vulgate renders it,
post januam.
3 De Jano multorum ea opinio est, hunc Noe esse, et favet voca-
bulum, Vii, vinum, pro eadem opinione est quod Janus dicitur
bifrons, &c. — Vossius de Orig. et Progr. Idololatriee.
4 Ibid. Tanquam postis, sive limen, vel janua, hoc est primordium
omnium qui ab diluvio fuere, sunt, vel erimt.

NOAH. 459
or else, what seems more probable, from zuz, which
in Hebrew and Chaldee signifies a door-post \ and
zutar, a flood, the Noah of Abydenus and Poly-
histor was called Xisuthrus, because he was the
gate or first beginning of all things after the flood.
The history of Xisuthrus furnishes an excellent
example of the progress of fiction. In the first
place Berosus relates that when he disappeared on
leaving the ark, a voice was heard recommending
religion, and saying that he was gone to dwell with
the gods, and that his wife, his daughter, and the
Pilot had shared the same honour, on account of
their piety.2 Here then the flood, the ark, and
the religious character of the Patriarch, are suf
ficiently true to history : and since he and his sons
were the whole crew of men within the ark, there
can be little doubt that the person here designated
the pilot was that son from whom the family de
scended, in which the tradition was preserved. The
idolaters having translated him to the skies, very
naturally placed his residence in a star3, which was
not only one of the first magnitude, but was also
seated upon the rudder of Argo, the ark ; and as
his virtues were the cause of his apotheosis, they
called him Uc Noufi, or, according to the statement
of Jablonski, already cited, Ikh Noufi, the good
1 J!|J, Postis, ~ltD1T> inundatio — Castell. The Grecian Ztvq,
therefore, is unquestionably the same as Janus,
2 Berosus apud Apollodorum. — Cory's Fragments, p. 30.
3 The Hindoo philosophers think that the stars are the souls of
men, raised to this high dignity in reward for their virtues, and auste
rities — Ayeen Akbery, ii. 301.

460 CNOUPHIS and canopus.
Lord, which afterwards became Cnouphis and
Canopus. But he had also another title, which
signified exactly the same thing, Menelaus ; from
Mann, good, and Laoc, which in Celtic is a hero or
•chief.1 The transition from Laoc to Laos is the
more obvious, when it is considered that formerly
the Greek sigma was written like c, as Martial
testifies in one of his epigrams.2 The Greeks,
however, because they had a Menelaus of their
own, transferred the story to him ; but not being
able very well to graft the fiction upon himself,
they gave him Canopus for his pilot. According
to Homer, his father was Atreus : now Atri was
one ofthe Munis of India, the father of Chandra3
or the moon, i. e. the maker of the Ark. The
male Chandra, however, or lord of the moon, was
also called Boudhu, and was cast into the sea, the
earth being left in darkness for two Culpus, on
account of his adultery with Tara, a form of
Dourga, or Parvati, that is to say, the Ark of the
mountain : and yet he was born at the churning of
the sea, i. e. at the deluge : he was the father of
Boudha the sage, i. e. Mercury.4 It is only an
1 Vallancey on Ancient Irish, p. 51. in Cornish Celtic, Leu is a
rudder, and Lyv, a deluge — Borlase's Ant. of Cornwall. Hence Aaaq
was a stone, and Aaoq, a people of heroes.
2 Accipe lunata scriptum testudine sigma. — See Montfaucon's
Palceographia Grmca, p. 7-
3 Som is another name of the moon, and is equally said to have
been the offspring of Atree, and also a favourite of the Most High.
Inscription on a pillar near Buddal, in which Aroon, 'H'"^, Area is
-called the charioteer ofthe sun. — As. Res. i. 135.
4 Ward's Hindoo Mythology, p. 99- Wednesday, Dies Mercurii,
was also Boudha's day ; it is, indeed, nothing more than the day of
Woden, or Bod. With this Mercury generation is said to have
commenced. — Ayeen Akbery, ii. 337.

MENELAUS AND CANOPUS. 46l.
occasional gleam of light that breaks through the
obscurity of eastern fable ; here, though father, son,
and grandson are confounded, both in name and
action, yet it is plain that it alludes to the Noa-
chidas, and that Atri must be Noah. If therefore
Homer's story be not a fiction, it can only be con
cluded that the family of Menelaus followed the
example of the Egyptian kings in assuming names
which properly belonged to the Noachidas, as in
the instance of Osiris, Horus, Rhamses, of all of
whom statues were found by Champollion in the,
Memnonium of Thebes. Rhamses is more usually
written Ra-messes, and seems to be the same as
Mes-ra (i. e. Mizraim1), only that the syllables are
transposed, which might easily happen in hierogly
phic writing. Much in the same way, as before
mentioned, the Greeks are supposed to have formed
their Athena by reading the Egyptian word Neith,
according to their own practice, from left to right,
and not according to the Oriental custom, from
right to left. But there is another version of
Menelaus's parentage : he is said to have been the
son of Philisthenes.2 Perhaps, however, this only
means that his father was a Philisthine, one of the
Palli ; and in that case it will be no wonder that
he had an Egyptian name ; for the same place in
Egypt was called Menelaus and Canopus. If,
therefore, the first astronomers had assigned these-
1 In the Septuagint, the Egyptians are called Mesraim : Mess, in-
Egyptian, signified a birth, and Ra, a king  Young on Egypt.
2 Hoffman in Lexicon.

462

ORION.

names to two distinct constellations, it would have
been no proof that two distinct persons were in
tended to have that honour ; neither can it be any
objection to the identity of Anubis and Canopus, if
it should appear that each had a separate part of
the heavenly sphere assigned to him. Anubis,
indeed, was not introduced by name, nor till the
mysteries of fiction had in some measure sup
planted the truth ; for the southern hemisphere
seems to have been much earlier arranged than the
northern, and therefore bears more distinct traces
of the deluge. But it is easy to recognise him in
Orion l ; for M. de la Croze has observed, that
Horo in ancient Persian signified, like the Egypt
ian Noufi, " good," and Hormuzd means the good
genius. But Orion was the constellation in which
the soul of Horus was supposed to reside. In the
next place, Anubis was a hunter : Julius Firmicus
calls him Venator.2 Orion is represented with his
dogs at his heels ; and so little doubt has been
entertained of his being designed for a hunter, that
he has been usually taken for Nimrod, who was " a
mighty hunter before the Lord." 3
It must be admitted, that there are two points
in which Nimrod and Orion coincide sufficiently to
make it probable that his character was at least
blended with the memory of his ancestors. 1. Orion
was the husband of Side, just as Ganesa was of
1 Brucker is inclined to adopt this conjecture. — Burton's Bampton
Lectures, p. 268.
2 De Errore Profanorum Religionum, c,2.
3 Gen. x. 9.

HORUS. 46S
Sidhi ; which union seems to be derived from his
being Tsid, the Hunter or the Ancestor : and 2.
the violence which he is supposed to have offered,
as some say, to Diana, that is, the moon, and, as
others say, to Pleione, the wife of the mountain
Atlas, and the spretae injuria formaa suffered by
Juno from his wife Side ; for which offences the one
was thrust down to the lower regions, and the other
was slain by a scorpion, the slayer and the slain
being both successively transferred to the skies
these are evidences that he attempted some re
volution in the religious customs of his age, for
which he was honoured by some, and hated by
others. It must be remembered that Scorpius was
the name of a fish, as well as ofthe insect. Icesius
divides them into two sorts, the red and the black,
one living in the sea, and the other in mud.
Athenaaus mentions that he had eaten both.1 The
same writer, after noticing Pindar's observation upon
the propriety of Orion's position near the mountain
of the Pleiades, who were the daughters of Pleione,
suggests that he must have meaned Oureian, in
stead of Oreian ; because the Pleiads are in the
tail of the Bull 2 ; which only shows how little he
knew about the matter. Pindar calls them Pe
leiades, which, it has been already stated, signifies
Priestesses; and when iEschylus speaks of the
wingless Peleiades, having the form of nocturnal
phantasmata, and weeping over their father's toil 3,
' Lib. vi. s. 115. 2 'Eri r^q ovpaq tto ravpov. Ibid. sect. 79-
3 Xlarpbq fAeyiarov dBXov tipavoo-reyrj — kXauo-xov, zvBa vvK-r-epuv
pavraerft,dra)V !%outn fAoppdq aitrEpat TlEXEtaosq.

464 PELEIADES AND CU0N.
there can be no doubt that he spoke of them in'
this sense. The voyage over the ocean, where
there was nothing but interminable sea and the
sky above them to be seen, is often represented to
be a great toil. In a poem of Taliessin, entitled
" The Elegy of Aeddon of Mona,"1 (Aeddon being,
a name of the Helioarkite God transferred to his
priest; perhaps the Hebrew Adonai, Lord;) the
Arch of Aeddon is mentioned as commemorated
in the island of Hu, or Buddwas, the Dragon chief;
and the poet refers to the time, when " the just
ones toiled; on the sea, which had no land, long
did they dwell ; of their integrity it was, that they
did not endure the extremity of distress." Now as
the original meaning of the word Peleiades has
been lost sight of, because it subsequently acquired
a different meaning, so the true reason for repre
senting Anubis and Orion to be hunters, has been
forgotten from the equivocal meaning of Cuon2, or
Kyon, or the more primitive word, from which it
has been derived. Thus the fable of Actaeon, who
was torn to pieces by his dogs, is best explained by
supposing that he was put to death by the priests,
for intruding upon the mysteries of Diana. There
is even a tradition, which acknowledges that he
was torn in pieces, not by dogs, but by Bacchana
lians in their orgies.3 Pausanias adds, that tlie
1 Marwnad Aeddon o Von — Davies' s Mythology of the Druids
p, 553.
2 Plutarch, speaking of Anubis, says, that Kvoiv was the same with
Cronus. 3 In Commentariis Apollonii, 1. iv,

cuon. 465
Orchomenians were haunted by his apparition
bearing a huge rock, till they appeased him by
funeral obsequies. Rock worship, no doubt, had
been the subject of dispute. In like manner it is
related, that in Egypt, Menas being pursued by his
own dogs, fled to the lake Myris, where a crocodile
received him on his back, and carried him in safety
to the opposite shore.1 Now what is the meaning
of this, but that a prince who had taken the sacred
name of Menes, and was therefore probably an
Arkite, fled from the priests of a rival sect, and was
received by his friends the Arkites, who naturally
had their establishment upon the margin of the
lake. It is worthy of remark, that the oracle of
Ammon, and the temple of the sun, were on the
western side of the lake ; while on the other was
Crocodilopolis. The crocodile was an emblem ofthe
Ark ; and therefore Varuna, the aquatic deity of
the Hindoos, and one ofthe eight guardians ofthe
world, is represented sitting on an animal, half fish
half crocodile, shaped like a crescent by the eleva
tion of the tail and head.2 Cuon was in fact the
same as Cohen, which in most of the eastern lan
guages, with only some small variation of the vowels,
signifies a priest 3 ; and as the priestly office was
sometimes united with the chief command, as in
the Chaliphs of the Mussulmans, the rulers of Tar-
1 Diodor. Sic. 1. i. 80. 2 Sir W. Jones, iii. 360. and vii. 260.
3 The Persian Kuhen is the nearest to Cuon, which must have
had originally a somewhat different form, to account for the manner
in which the oblique cases are declined from it. Kw»;, or Kvevoq,.
would come naturally from kvev.
VOL. I. H H

466

CUON.

tary retain to this day the title of Kohan, or Khan.
The chief of a Mongolian tribe near China was
called Wang Kohan ; in which the first word so
nearly resembles the Syriac name for John, that
hence arose the report long current in Europe, that
a Christian king reigned there, named John the
Priest, or Prester John. Thus from the equivocal
meaning of the word, a dog became the emblem of
a priest; and if the Egyptians were in the habit of
looking up to the grandson of Noah, as the head
of their religious system, and the founder of the
sacerdotal caste, it may be easily imagined that
the titles of The Good one, and, The Priest, which
rightly belonged to the Patriarch, would be trans
ferred by them to his descendant, in whom their
retrospective views terminated. Thus it came to
pass, that Anubis in his character of Mercury was
represented with the head of a dog : ; in his cha
racter of Hercules, the teacher of philosophy, his
name was Chon 2, though it properly belonged to
the Egyptian Saturn, who in the tables of Kircher
is called Rephan ; but that name in many of the an
cient versions (Copt., Ar., iEth., LXX., and Vulg,,)
1 Mercurius pingitur ab iEgyptiis Cynocephalus. — Kircher and
Diod. Sic. The AbM Le Fontenu quotes Diodorus, Isocrates,
Pausanias, Aristotle, and Dion. Halicarn. to prove that Hercules was
a man of universal knowledge.
2 A Greek writer, cited by Favorinus, says, that Hercules was
called Xav in the Egyptian language ; which, in the opinion of Sir
W. Drummond, was only a dialect of Hebrew : he supposes, that
Gigon, another name of Hercules, in Hesychius, is intended to
imitate the same sound. Plautus calls Saturn Chion in the Phoe
nician. Radak gives Chewan as the Persian and Arabic name for
the planet Saturn. — Herculanensia Dissert, iii. 21.

cuon. 467
is substituted, at Amos, v. 26, for Chiun, an image
of the Phoenicians and idolatrous Jews, which the
Hebrew writers interpret of Saturn. Aben Ezra
tells us that Chaiwan, the Arabic name for Saturn, is
the same with Chion ; and Sir W. Drummond agrees
with Mazzochi in thinking, that the Grecian Chro
nus is only a corruption from the same word.1
Other points of resemblance will be noticed here
after, which fully justified Orpheus in consider
ing Hercules and Saturn to be the same 2 ; but as
far as the former represented Hermes, he was no
more entitled to that pre-eminence than the Irish
Saint, Kievin, whose name and artificial cave in the
side of the mountain of Lugduff, which hangs over
a lake, sufficiently identify him with the Chiun of
the Phoenicians, and the Chewan or Chaiwan of
the Persians and Arabs.3 To this subject we shall
have occasion to revert in the further prosecution
of our inquiry. Plutarch, then, was only so far
right in his assertion, that Cuon and Cronus were
the same, inasmuch as the elder Anubis was
Saturn or Noah.
Lastly, in his character of Orion, he was attended
by priests in the shape of dogs ; one called by the
Egyptians Astrocuon, i. e. the sidereal Pontifex ;
the other, Proeuon,, i. e. the regal priest, from
Phroh, the title of their kings, or, as it is commonly
written, Pharaoh. The hare, which these dogs are
1 Xpovoq and Kpovoq being the same. 2 Apud Athenagoram.
3 A day at the ehurches of Glendalaugh. — Christian, Examiner,
No. 51.
H H 2

468

OSIRIS.

supposed to be hunting, has been added at a sub
sequent period ; for four out of the twelve stars
composing it in Ulugh Beg's tables are called by
that astronomer the throne of Orion, and that was,
probably, the name of the whole constellation at
first. Orion's true character may be discovered in
his Arabic name, AI Ghauza : not, however, ac
cording to the interpretation given by Hyde, as if
it was the middle of heaven ; an interpretation which
is palpably untrue, for the whole of the constella
tion is to the south of the equator. But Ghauzah
is an irrigation \ and Ghauaz is water that overflows,
and in Chaldee it signifies an Ark 2 : hence it fol
lows, that he was the genius of the Ark, stepping
out of Eridanus, or the flood, and separated from
the Argo itself, only by the intervention of the
priests. In Hebrew, his name is Chesil, which, if
it be derived from Che, Chief3, and Siol, Offspring,
will exactly correspond with O-Siris, for O, in
Celtic, is a Chief4, or Lord, and Shiri, in Coptic, is
a son. If this be so, both the names allude to Ham,
who was the first king of Egypt, and of course
considered by the Egyptians the principal of the
Noachidse ; and as for the Hebrews, their astro-
1 ^ Rigatio una. J _^ aqua qua rigatur terra.
2 i"HJ- Raschi and Nissim explicant, H^Tl* Arcam. — Cast.
Lex. 3 Ce in Irish is, a Prince. Ch. j-Q, Ce (rather Che) ; in Pers.
Ke is, a Prince, a Governor. — Vallancey on Ancient Irish, p. 25.
and, Sir W. Jones in the Life of Nadir Shah.
4 Ibid. p. 71. Hy, Ui, and O have all the same meaning, says
the above author.

osiris. 469
nomy, no doubt, was all drawn from Egypt : for
some of the Egyptian historians say that Osiris
was their first king, and that it was he who
brought Egypt into a habitable state.1 If then
Orion be, as I have suggested elsewhere, a patro
nymic similar to Cronion, and signifying the son of
that Horus, whom Champollion has identified with
Ammon generator, the great god of Thebes, and
with the commander of the Baris, or Ark, in
Egyptian pictures, it follows, that Chesil is a link
connecting him with Osiris. But there is yet a
closer approximation effected by the additional fact,
that Osiris was written by the Thebans, Ashili ;
and from this as well as many other instances already
cited, it may be concluded that the prefix A an
swered the same purpose among the Egyptians as
O did among the Celts. " The old Egyptians,"
says Dr. Young2, " seem to have been as incapable
as their schoolfellows, the Chinese, of distinguish
ing the R from the L; and hence, M. Champollion
is inclined to believe the Thebaic dialect more
ancient than the Memphitic, and to consider Ashili
as a more ancient form than Oshiri." To complete
the resemblance between the two, we may further
observe, that, as both exhibit an allusion to the son
of the Patriarch, so both confound him with the
Patriarch himself; for Orion's Arabic name,
Ghauza, may be recognised first in the fables of
1 Kircheri Obelisci Interpretatio Hieroglyphica.
2 A Letter to W. J. Bankes, Esq., on Champollion's discoveries,
in the fourteenth vol. of the Journal of Science, p. 258.
H H 3

470 OSIRIS AND OGYGES.
Gyges ', the son of heaven and earth, who, like
Orion, was a giant. As Thebes, the city of the
Ark, had a hundred gates, so Gyges, the giant of
the Ark, had a hundred hands, and as Gygfeus 2
obtained the sense of darkness, so the Nile, the
Eridanus of the sphere from which Orion rises,
was called Aeria, or the dark water.3 With the O
prefixed, as in Osiris, he became Ogyges, which is
generally acknowledged to be a title of Noah 4 : it
was sometimes, indeed, attributed also to others, ei
ther on account of local floods, or on account of local
appropriations ofthe general flood, which was a very
common practice ; but the first and great deluge no
one contests with him.5 Sir W. Jones remarks, that
the traditional history of the Tartars seems to begin
with Oghaz, as that ofthe Hindoos does with Rama.6
Now, the Tartars of all descriptions have ever called
themselves descendants of Noah 7 ; and as the
1 Hesiod. Theogon. p. 149. Cottus and Briareus were his
brothers. The former from Kata, in Ch., an upright stone ; whence
Katab, the writer, a name of Mercury ; and Kitts Cotty house ;
the Cromlech in Kent — Vallancey. Briareus, from Bari Rhos, the
hill of the Ship.
2 TvyaToq o-KorEivbq. — Hesych.
3 Isychius ad Levit. 3. and 6. iEgyptus contenebratio inter-
pretatur ; and Euseb. in Chronic, says, that, before iEgyptus; it was
called Mestraea, and by the Greeks, Aeria, dark. — Selden de Diis
Syriis, iii. 69-
4 Inter aha Noae cognomina meritissime censetur Ogyges. -^--
Dickensoni Delphi Phwnicizantes, p. 168.
5 Plures inundationes fuere, prima novimestris inundatlo terrarum
sub prisco Ogyge. — Solinus.
Ex diluvio universali fecerunt particulare Egyptii quale nullum
fuit. — Vossius de Orig. et Prog. Idolalat. p. 141.
6 Sir W. Jones's Works, iii. 79. Stephanus says, that Rama is
a height, and in Hesychius, PaftA. tnpyXii, and Vaftdq b vipurrtiq ®Eoq.
? Ranking, in Journal of Science, xxxvi 140.

OSIRIS AND OGYGES. 471
Egyptian princes borrowed the names of their deified
ancestors, so, in Tartary, the father of Tamerlane
was called Og.1 The Jews, finding that Og was
the name of a person reported by tradition to have
been preserved from the deluge, and yet unable to
discover it in Scripture, endeavoured to recon
cile the one with the other, by adopting part of
the fable of Orion. They supposed him to be a
giant, better than his brethren, and to have been
saved, either by riding on the top of the Ark, or by
walking by the side of it, and receiving his food from
Noah : the soles of his feet were forty miles long.2
He was king of Bashan ; and, doubtless, it was in
the Abarim, or Ark mountains of that country,
that they heard his history. Allied to this fable
is that of the Greeks, which makes Ogyges the
husband of Thebe, the Ark : just as Hercules was
married to Erythia, and in Irish history, Mil-Ess
to Scota, both signifying a ship.3 Now, the deity
of Ogygia, which Plutarch seems to consider as
the Atlantis of Plato, was Dionusus. Ausonius
makes him say 4, Ogygia calls me Bacchus, i. e.
Dionusus; the Egyptians, Osyris; and the Arabians,
Adoneus ; which is obviously the Hebrew Adonai,
or Lord. Tzetzes entertained no doubt that the
person thus designated was Noah ; for he says, that
1 Histoire du Grand Empereur Tamerlane ; par M. Jean du
Bee. 2 Jonathan's Tatgurn. in vol. iv. of "Walton's Polyglott, and
SteheKn, i. 81, 82.
3 Vallancey de Rebus Hybernicis, iv. 3. Vindication.
4 Auson. Epigram, p. 29- in Myobarbum Liberi Patris.
H H 4

472 OSIRIS, DIONYSUS.
Atlas, the Lybian, lived in the age of Osiris, Dio-
nyssus, Noah ; at the same time with Hermes,
Prometheus, Hercules, and Typhon, who were all
Egyptians.1 Perhaps he thought it a great stretch
of liberality to combine two mythological characters
in the person of Noah ; and it never occurred to
him, notwithstanding the suspicious circumstance
of their being all Egyptians, that all met together,
either in him, or his son, or his grandson 2, with
the exception of Typhon, of whom, by a remarkable
variation from the current story, he rightly reports
that he was conquered by Osiris Dionyssus ; and
even Typhon is not to be excluded, if he be consi
dered as the beneficent deity of the flood, in which
light he was looked upon as the father of Osiris.
So far, however, Tzetzes was right ; the worship
of the mountain was contemporary with the inven
tion of those names for deities ; and Sanchoniatho's
story of Atlas being thrown into a deep cavern in
the earth by Cronus, by the advice of Hermes 3, is
only a record of the first institution of those sacred
rites, which were adopted by the Arkites in their
1 ArXaq b Aitovq, aq pace) ital&Eq ruv Alyvnriuv
'Ev %po'yoi; yv 'Ocriptioq rov Aiovvacrov Nat,
"Ot' ijV 'Epftfjq rpm-fAEyio-roq, oq Evpervjq ypaftfAaroiv
'EpfArjq bfAov, Kal QpofttqBlvq, Kal 'HpaKXrjq Tvipoiv TE
01 trvfAitavrEq Alyijitnot. Johannis Tzetzee Hist. Chilias, 5.
And again : A0q Nsi£ Kal Aiovvaoq Ka) 'CXrlpiq KaXEirai. Chil. 10.
2 The disciples of Anaxagoras, called Prometheus, Nous, i. e.
Noah. — Euseb. Hist. Synag. p. 374. Osiris ob diversos effectus
Jupiter, Bacchus, Mercurius, Hercules, diversis nominibus Grsecis
appellatur. — Kircher. 1. ii. de Instit. Hieroglyph.
3 Sancheriatho, p. 10. of Cory's Fragments.

OSIRIS. 473
mystic representations of the ark. Hesiod tells the
same story of the giants ' ; and in order to explain
the subsequent transaction, is it too great a refine
ment to suppose, that the sons of God, or heaven,
meditated in their mystic cells on the power of
God ; while the children of men, instigated by the
earth, that is, by their earthly and sensual passions,
substituted for the diluvian mountain the worship
of the Phallus ? In this way, too, Plato's story of
Gyges is capable of some sort of explanation.
Initiated into the Arkite mysteries in a cavity be
neath the earth, left open after a deluge of rain, he
obtained a magic ring, which enabled him to become
invisible at pleasure.2 The ring was a Druid's
circle ; and he disappeared by hiding himself in the
mystic cell, from which he could see without being
seen. Osiris was Typhon in the same sense in
which he was the Nile 3, which was called by the
Ethiopians Siris 4, and by the prophets Shihor.5
If we would know what that name implied,
we may refer to the recent discoveries of Cham
pollion. " The God ofthe Nile," says he, " is called
in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, Hapimoou, the
vivifying father of all." Since, however, Apis was
1 Tldvraq aitOKpvitTEo-KE, Kal iq ipdoq ovk dvi-q<TKE
Tal-qq ev kevBjauvi KaK$ 8* iitnLpittro epyoi
Oipavoq ij 8' hroq arovax%Ero Tata itEXapy.
Hesiod. Theogon. 157.
2 Cicero, Offic. 1. iii.
3 Osiris idem deus erat cum Nilo, ipsa nomina sublato primo
elemento sunt synonoma. — Selden de Diis Syriis, p. 154.
4 Dionysius Afer de Nilo, £*]»{ vit' AlBwituv kikXijo-ketoh. Etiam-
num Siris nominatur per aliquot millia. — Plin. 1. v. c. 9.
5 nnts>-

474 osiris.
a father (from Ab, Heb.), and Moou signified water,
as Josephus informs us, it is evident that the strict
interpretation is, the father of the waters. " To this
last divinity," ho proceeds, " this and two other
chapels were particularly consecrated. He is called
the father of the gods* and identified with the
celestial Nile, Nenmoou, the primordial water, the
great Nilus, whom Cicero calls the father of the
principal divinities of Egypt, even of Ammon ' :
which I have found attested also by monumental
inscriptions." 2 This must have been Osiris in
the character of Noah ; for Hermes in that book,
which professes to be a revelation of Egyptian
secrets, declares that Osiris was the father of
Spirits, i. e. the gods, and the head of every nation
of mankind.3 When, therefore, we are told, that
the wiser Egyptians denominated the Nile Osiris,
and the sea Typhon 4, there is no way of explaining
the story of the latter compelling the former to
enter an ark, except by supposing the Nile to re
present the man, who really was subjected to that
necessity. And then too it is easy to understand

1 Cicero de Nat. Deor. 1. iii. c. 22.
2 Twelvth Letter from Egypt.
3 "Vvx/Sv fAev — b nar\p — o-UfAariiiv Se iKacrro'i iBvovq •qyE^Auv. —
Ko'ft) Koo-ft.ov. — Fabric. Rib. Grcec. vol. i. c. 7-
4 Plutarch de Is. et Osir. c. 33. Levesque was much perplexed
by finding mariners mentioned in Herodotus among the Egyptian
castes, and asks what they could be in a country which regarded
the sea with horror, as the symbol of the evil principle Typhon, and
had no navy after the time of Sesostris, whose existence may be
doubted ; for he considered Sesostris to be another name for Osiris
and Dionusus. — Etudes de t Histoite Ancienne, i. 58. and 313.
They were Arkites.

OSIRIS. 475
why the Egyptians honoured their gods with tears,
as well as with rejoicings ; why the commemoration
of his entering the Ark was solemnised with lamen
tations ; why he was said to be born on the right
side of the world, that is, at his exit from the Ark,
and to have perished on the left, that is, at his en
trance into it ; and, finally, why a ship was borne in
procession in the solemnities of Isis, when she was
said to mourn for Osiris.1 Some notion of the real
origin of these wailings so remarkable at a religious
festival, seems to have been retained in a pro
verb handed down to us by Hermogenes — > " to
weep after the manner of Annacus."2 The name,
however, being also spelled Cannacus, and Nanna-
cus, it is not unlikely that the first syllable was
merely a prefix liable to change, and that the real
word was Noachus ; for he is said to have lived
to the age of three hundred ages, and foreseeing
the deluge, which afterwards destroyed mankind,
commonly called the deluge of Deucalion, he as
sembled all the people to divine worship, and
mingled tears with his supplications; tears, however,
which could not be shed upon his own account 3 ;
for an oracle had pronounced his exemption from
a share in that catastrophe. Osiris, indeed, died,
1 Pausanias 1. x. c. 33.
2 Stephanus in 'Ikoviov. Erasmus in Adagiis, p. 19. Suidas.
3 One account states that his neighbours had learned from an
oracle that when he died all mankind would be destroyed ; in this
case his death must be understood figuratively of his interment in
the Ark; for it is manifest, says Bryant, that Annacus, and Nan-
nacus, and even Inachus relate to Noachus, or Noah. — Analy. of
Mythol. ii.206.

476 osiris.
and was mourned ' ; but his entrance into the
Arkwas death, and his continuance there the period
of mourning. Hence the ark, like the receptacle
for departed souls, was considered a place of con
finement ; and his name, under whichever form it
may be viewed, conveys an allusion to this opin
ion ; in either case, too, it is connected with the
flood. Siris, we have already seen, was a name
for the Nile, the Egyptian ocean ; and Sira both
in Syriac and Chaldee signified a prison. In the
same spirit, the Celtic bard denominates the Ark
the inclosure of Caer Sidi 2, and the prison of
Kud, and the prison of Gwair or the just one in
Caer Sidi.
This serves to explain the history of the two
constellations which are now called Canis Major
and Canis Minor. One of them was the Dog
of Isis, and consequently of Osiris ; for they always
go together, she being the female genius of the
Ark, as he was the male3; and as her ship was
reverenced not only in Egypt but also in Greece
and Italy, so he had a ship 230 cubits in length
1 ditoBvqo-KEi StEoq Alyvitrioiq Kai itEvBElrai. — Maximus Tyrius.
2 Taliessin's Spoils of the Deep, and the Triads. — Davies' s Celtic
Mythology, p. 404.
3 Communis unicuique Deo uterque sexus erat. — Selden de D. S.
c. iii. p. 50. One of the most remarkable instances of this is the
conversion of Orion into a female. Abdurrahman Suphi records
an Arabian tradition, that Canopus, having broken the back of his
wife Orion, fled away to the south pole, for fear of inquiry, and was
followed across the galaxy by one of his dogs, who are also called
his sisters, but were in fact his priests : and the murder, which he
perpetrated, must have been the destruction of a ritual with which
he was intimately connected. — See Hyde's Syntagma Dissertatio-
num, i. 65.

OSIRIS. 477
dedicated to him at Thebes. The other dog was
Osiris too, for Sirius was his ordinary name, which,
according to the statement of Diodorus, was in
more ancient times the name of Osiris.1 But the
Arabic names of both were AI Shira, which, if the
Coptic meaning be supposed to have been retained,
will signify that each of them was a son of the first
king Ham, and consequently they will be Mizraim
and Phut. But if the Syriac word be taken into
account, we must add this further meaning, that
they were the constellations in which the souls of
those heroes were detained : hence chains and
bolts were called, in Greek and Latin, Seira and
Sera. In the next place, if the Theban form of
spelling the name be examined, we shall find the
very same allusions, for Shail in Arabic is a tor
rent2, and Shalshall signifies not only the pouring
out of water, but also includes the notion of
chains ; hence there is great reason to believe that
Sheol used for Hades, or the place of departed
spirits, was originally derived ; for it has no natural
connection with the root usually assigned to it,
and Shir being the same in sense as Sira, Sheol
may also be the same with Sil ; at all events to
this source we may certainly trace the name of a
place in the Thebais, which is written Silsilis and
Selseleh, where there was a great Speos or mystic
cell, excavated in a mountain and dedicated to
Ammon, and the Nile, and to Sevek8, who is
1 lEipiov. — Diod. Sic. 1. i. p. 11.
2 From VDj and bSO- — Castelli Lexicon.
3 Champollion's Eighth and Twelvth Letters from Egypt. Bel-

478 osiris.
Saturn with a crocodile's head,, that is, the same
personage who was fabled to have been saved by
crossing a lake on a crocodile's back ', and is also
described as the most terrible form of Ammon.
Hence, too, arose the name of the Selli, who
dwelled round Dodona ; for Homer expressly
describes them as having their beds in the ground 2>
because they reposed sometimes in those mystic
excavations which are still found where the Celtic
religion prevailed ; and thence the SciUy Islands*
formerly inhabited by the Silures,, obtained thej?
appellation. One of them is still called the Long,
i. e. the ship. Mr. Ranking mentions some cireu^
lar inclosures on the summits of the mountain?
between which the river Sele flows in the Com
mune de Breingues.3 On the rocks, of the right
bank there are several cavities: or grottoes 300
metres above the river. It is true that; bones were.
found there ; but whether they were brought from
the Roman amphitheatre at Cahors, or whether
they are the remnants of Druidical saoriflqes, as
M. Delpon supposes, it is quite clear that the
grottoes were not originally intended to receive
them, but for far different purposes. They must

zoni speaks of the Silsili mountains^ as having the, name of the.
Chained mountains, but ridicules the common idea, that there ever
was a chain stretched from one to the other across the Nile, ii. 106.
1 Hence the crocodile was revered in some towns of Egypt ; but
the Tintyrites, or people of Dendera, who devoted their worship to
Isis, viewing him as the Typhonic power and the emblem of de
struction, abhorred him and carried on an irreconcilable war against
him. — Etudes de I'Hist. Anc, par P. C. Levesque, i. 267.
2 ZeXXoI xajAauvvai. — Horn. Iliad, n. 235.
3 Journal of Science, for 1828, p. 267-

osiris. 479
have been constructed by a people like the Selli,
for their mysteries. Probably Selyvria in Thrace,
formerly Selubria ', imported the cell or inclosure
of the Baris ; and in fifty other instances the same
etymology may be observed.2 If, therefore, the
first syllable of Chesil, which our translators call
Orion 3, be the prefix which frequently enters into
the composition of Hebrew words, either in a
sense of comparison or pre-eminence, the remainder
of the word may have the same root as Ashili or
Osiris, or Sirius; all bearing an allusion to the
enchainment, or imprisonment, or entombment, in
an ark of that common ancestor whose spirit was
sometimes supposed to look abroad from the sphere
of the sun, or the dog-star, or from the beneficent
waters of the Nile ; hence it was that all these
obtained the same name : they were all called
Siris or Sirius. For the same reason we find a
river of that name in Italy, and at the mouth of it
1 Bria is the name for a town in Thrace, -^- Walsh's Journey,
p. 115. ; just as Bury, Barry, Boro, and Burg, in other parts of
ttye world.
2 The Arkite system of religion is known to have prevailed very
much on the northr-western coast of Africa towards the Atlas, of
whrch, however, more hereafter. At present it may suffice tp observe,
that many Qf the most striking features in that, country seem to
have roots for their names, analogus to thqse now mentioned. Thus
between one and two degrees eastward of Tripoli is the valley of
Selen, and near it a range of hills, called S^lem, from the summit of
which Beechey noticed several remains of what appeared to be towers
(i. e. temples),, conspicuously situated on the peaks of the hills to
the northward. Selma and Ipsila,ta are ruins conspipuqus on high,
and nointed hills ; the guides called them Gussers, a name which
they applied to all ruins- Ipsilata in the map, is called Insellata,
and one of the valleys, the Wady of Silil. -*— Captain Beechey' s Ex
pedition, to the North Coast of Afriea,
3 Job, xxxviii, 31.

480 osiris.
a town, Siris, which is called by Cluverius Hera-
cleum ; and in this respect there is a great resem
blance between it and the Egyptian town Busiris,
or Abousir, which its later inhabitants have con
verted into Aboukir, by an alteration of sound
like that which has changed Cedron into Kedron,
and Aceldama into Akeldama.1 Scholz describes
the ruins of a temple there, " probably dedicated
to Osiris, from whom the whole country obtained
the name of Busir or Abusir."2 Quatremere sug
gests that Bousiris3, which is often written in
Coptic books Pousiri, is nothing more than the
name of Osiris with the Coptic article prefixed4,
but Lacroze derives it from B>] Ouo-*p«, the tomb
of Osiris5, which would agree with the Hellenic
name of Taposiris (ratpos Oo-iptios), which is usually
assigned to the same neighbourhood6, and with
that of Serapis 7, who had certainly a temple there,
1 Veteribus non minus in usu fuit K, quam C: itaque PAKUNT,
in lege xii. tabularum, pro Pagunt vel Pacunt, scribebant. Sic
ARK A PONTIFICUM. — Montfaucon's Palceographia Grosca,
p. 130.
2 Reise in die Gegend zwischen Alexandrien und Paraetonium,
p. 50.
3 The foundation of Thebes is ascribed by some to the fabulous
Osiris, by others to Busiris ; but Strabo says no prince of that
name reigned in Egypt — Et. de VHist. Anc., par Levesque, i. 247.
4 Memoires Ge'ographiques sur l'Egypte, par E. Quatremere,
p. 116.
8 Jablonski Opusc. i. 54.
6 Lettres sur l'Egypte, par M. Savary. In Egyptian, Busiris
(the name of a city) must have meant the tomb of Osiris, and not
a cow, as Diodorus supposes. — Hieroglyphics. 1823. p. 101.
7 On changeait souvent les noms de personnes de'ifie'es. Osiris fut
appelle' Serapis. — Mythologie compare'e avec I'Histoire, par M.
t 'Abbe de Tressan. Yet Kircher gives an etymology still more to
the purpose. Sora, in Coptic, he interprets, Area, and Pos Dominus,
quasi Arcse dominus. — Idees Hieroglyphicce, lib. iv.

osiris. 481
if the etymology be correct which deduces it from
<ropog A7nhog ; for that Apis and Osiris were the
same there is no doubt. Upon the whole, then,
there is sufficient reason to conclude that Aboukir,
or, as it is sometimes still more corruptly called,
Bekier ', derives its name from the same source as
Siris in Italy, a dangerous encouragement to ety
mologists to derive quidlibet a quolibet ; yet such
is the fact. But here too Denon fixes the ancient
Heraclea, mentioned by Strabo. Aboukir, says
he, the situation of which can have undergone
little alteration, because it stands on a calcareous
rock, and is joined to the land by so narrow an
ithsmus that no considerable city could have been
built there, must have been the fortress or chateau-
en-mer of Canopus, or of Heraclea, which Strabo
places there, or thereabouts.2 Thus it appears that
the same spot was once sacred to Canopus and
Serapis, to Osiris and Hercules. Were these then
four heroes or four deities ? No, they were but four
titles of the same diluvian divinity who was wor
shipped everywhere on rocks and in islands ; for,
according to Pliny, this rock was formerly insu
lated like its neighbour the Pharos, which had its
temple of Serapis too ; and being opposite to the
port of Cibotus 3, i. e. the ark, its own name may
be only a corruption of Baris.
1 Alboukir is called by sailors Bekier. — Lettres sur l'Egypte, par
M. Savary.
2 Voyage d'Egypte, par Denon, p. 66.
3 Lettres sur l'Egypte, par M. Savary, i. 44. Horn. Od. A, 355.
VOL. I. II

482

CHAP. XIII.
ON THE WORSHIP OF FIRE.
THE WORSHIP OF TIRE.  ITS CONFLICT WITH THE ARKITES.
 AFFINITY OF IRISH MYTHOLOGY TO THE INDIAN AND
CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY  THE SHIP TEMPLE  PATRICK'S
PURGATORY  KIEVIN's BED ALL ARKITE MONUMENTS.
 COMBAT OF HERCULES THE REFORMER WITH ACHE-
LOUS. — FIRE-TEMPLE OF PERSEUS IN THE CITY OF IO
OR ISIS. — VARIATIONS OF THE CALENDAR.
The worship of fire seems to be so diametrically
opposite to that of the Arkites, that it may be sup
posed there could be no relationship between them ;
yet it will be found, upon inquiry, that they touch
one another at a thousand points of contact, and
that the history of the former is perpetually inter
woven with its parent stem.
The Persians think that it was first established
in Adherbigian ] ( Adher being fire), a province very
near the Gordian mountains, where, according to
oriental tradition, the Ark rested.2 But let us
examine it nearer home ; in Ireland, where it is
supposed by many to have been the established
religion of the country. In this translation of an
Irish poem, " I worship the king of mercy,
whose fire from the mountain-top ascends 3," if
1 Adair in Irish is used to express the fine of the Sacrifice.
2 Vallancey's Collect, vi. 147. 3 Vol. vi. p. 87.

THE WORSHIP OF FIRE. 483
Duile is the element of fire, it has, at least, a close
connection with Tuilti, the element of water.1
Indeed, according to Vallancey, it is literally any
element ; and Cear Tuilti is the offspring of the
flood ; for Ti is a circle : therefore Tuilti is the
sacred element of the circle, or temple. It might
be rendered the encircling element ; but the lan
guage of the people is more likely to have been
framed from familiar superstitions than from
geographical considerations. Now, it is remark
able, that Timor is one of the names of God, i. e.
the great circle, — the God of circular temples 2 : it
may, indeed, mean the great circle of the sun ; but,
at least, it shows how nearly tbe two forms of wor
ship were associated — diluvian and fire worship.
In Cormac's Glossary, Righ na Duile is explained,
King of Mercy. If Duile signifies mercy, because it
is an attribute of God, then the Deity was identified
with the element of fire. But the heathens were not
accustomed to view the Deity in this light : in the
religion of nature, mercy is not so much his attri
bute as terror. But if the reverse is the truth, if
Duile came to signify God from some tradition of
one special act of mercy, then mercy can only be
connected with the elements, which is obviously the
primary sense of the word s, by connecting it with
1 Dile Ruad is acknowledged by Vallancey to be the flood of
Noah, iii. 71.
2 All the temples were oval, or circular : a circle is expressed
by the word Circe, or Kirke : hence to go to Kirke, was to go to
worship, p. 142. Kyrka, Kirke, sedes sacra, templum, quia forma
circulari, quum Cirk circulum notet. Lipsius. — Vail. Coll. vi. 85.
3 Aireac Duile is Prince of the Elements, says Vallancey ; and
I I 2

484 THE WORSHIP OF FIRE.
preservation from the deluge : at all events, it is
evident that it cannot be separated from the wor
ship of the sun ; both, therefore, may be traced
up to one common origin.
" Cal-ain, or Altoir na greine, both meaning the
altar of the sun, are names of a mountain in the
county of Clare, where the altar still exists." But
observe, the mountain is the altar ; and the stone
built upon that, is only piling Pelion upon Ossa.
If Kal is in Irish an altar, derived from the
Hebrew Kala1, Ain is, in the same Hebrew, a
fountain, and so it signifies the altar ofthe fountain ;
but in Hindostanee, Kala signifies the sea ; and at
Chalane, or Caine, as our version writes it 2, in the
land of Shinar, the Septuagint supposes the Tower
of Babel to have been built, in which it is followed
by several of the fathers.3 Now, it can scarcely be
doubted, that the builders of that tower had a
retrospect to the deluge, even if we reject the
opinion of Josephus, that it was intended to be an
asylum upon any future recurrence of the same
calamity. It is certain, however, that the mountain
in Ireland, and the site of the mimic mountain
he refers to 7'1tf~l nD~lN> Area Douil, the Princeps omnium
materia of the Tyrians. Now the primary material, from which
mankind issued after the deluge, was the Ark of the Waters,
p. 142.
1 nbps torruit — KaXoq, ignis — Hesych. Coill, Sanscrit, fire
and temple. Bel-ain, or Bliain, i. e. the an or revolution of Belus,
is the general word in Irish to express the year, iv. 396. If so,
Kal ain may be the revolution of the sea, the churning of the sea,
p. 139-
2 Gen. x. 10. Isai. x. 9.
3 Cyril, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Constantine Manasses. — See
Bochart. Geog. Sac. c. 9-

THE WORSHIP OF FIRE. 485
in Mesopotamia, had nearly the same name.
Vallancey further assures us that the active prin
ciple of nature, the chief of the genii, in old Irish
and Celtic etymology, was called Mogh or Magh ',
wisdom; Tlacht, the universe, and Eadhna, from
Ean, water ; considered as the genius of plenty, he
was called Satarn, which is theSiton of Philo Byblius,
and Saturn of the Romans. Whether the former
name was derived from the latter, is more than I will
venture to assert ; but it is, at least, highly probable
that the same personage to whom the myths of
Ceres and Bacchus are to be referred, was honoured
by the Celts under the name of Satarn. Mogh
adair were the temples of Mogh, or Sodorn, cir
cular areas, consisting of upright stones enclosing
an altar, the whole circumscribed by a rampart and
ditch. This is an exact description of those
Druidical temples, sometimes mistaken for Danish
encampments, though, perhaps, adopted occasionally
for purposes of defence, which abound on all our
hills. For what sort of worship they were designed
will be seen hereafter ; at present I would only
notice what Vallancey says of the story told "by
Demetrius in Plutarch. Being sent to survey
the western coasts of Britain, the people told
him that in a certain island the giant Briareus held
Saturn bound in the chains of sleep, attended by a
number of genii. The island is Man, where the
1 Mag, or Mugh, or Mogh, a servant, is properly a sacred name :
this is the explanation in many ancient Irish glossaries ; a name
common to the Chaldees, Phoenicians, and Scythians, JQ, Mayoq,
in Arabic Magjus, iv. 242.
ii 3

486 THE WORSHIP OF FIRE.
story is told by the inhabitants at this day, with
little variation ; and the part of the island where
Saturn is supposed to be confined, is called Sodor.1
Briareus is said, in the Celtic tongue, to signify
the same as Noah, which, however, is very incon
sistent with the part which he is supposed to act; for
Sodor or Sodorn is evidently Saturn : and I shall
have occasion to show, that although Briareus may
have lent his aid to persecute the Arkites, and
might, therefore, be reputed their gaoler, yet he
belonged in truth to the same party ; and that
the imprisonment, in which he was concerned, was
merely the figurative imprisonment of Saturn, or
Noah in the Ark, and subsequently of his repre
sentatives in the mystic cell : hence, they sacrificed
to Satarn at the vernal and autumnal equinox, not
from any reference to the solar system ; for Irish
history is more concerned with the moon. The
aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland, the Momonii, or
Nemethae2, pronounced Momas or Noma?, undoubt
edly belonged to the same class of religionists ; for
they invariably denominated their country Momon,
from the old Celtic word Mou or Nou, a country,
and Mon, which is the same as Man 3 ; and, accord
ing to Vallancey, gives name to many places in
that kingdom, where Druidical temples are always
to be found.4 We have seen that it is the origin
1 Beauford's Ancient Topography of Ireland  Collectanea, iii. 414.
2 Nemethce, from Nem, divine, and Atha, habitation, iii. 265.
3 Beauford makes the second syllable Mam, or Mae, maternal.
4 Vallancey on the Brehon Laws, Preface, iii. 52. Even those
who resort to a different etymology bear witness to the nature of
those temples and the rites there celebrated. Muma, or Moma

THE ARKITE CONFLICT. 487
of Mona, or Anglesea, and Man, and of the Mon,
i. e. Sanctus, of the Japonese. If this was its mean
ing in ancient Irish, as well as in that cognate lan
guage, it is a proof that a peculiar sanctity was
ascribed to the island long before St. Patrick's days,
because it was the country of the moon, which
etymology is still preserved in the name of Mun-
ster. The Momonii therefore were Arkites : but
about five hundred years before the Christian era,
the Phoenicians introduced the worship of Baal, or
Fire : for though the Arkite and the Fire-worship
had the same origin, were celebrated in the same
places, and regarded the same deities under dif
ferent characters, yet they armed their respective
votaries with mutual hatred, and their struggles
for pre-eminence have introduced great confusion
into the history of Irish mythology. There are
two places called Magh Turey \ one in the north,
the other in the south ; and at both, not long
before the Christian era, that is, about the time
when the Arkites received a strong reinforcement,
by a Scythian swarm from the north, called
Tuath de Doinan, a battle was fought between
the Belgas, the worshippers of Bel, or Baal, on the
one side, and the Danans, i. e. the Danai, the
Dionusans, the Arkites, and the Caledonian or

from the old Celtic Mam, Mori, the sanctuary of the great mother ;
a cave celebrated for Druidic mystic rites, sacred to Aonach, in
which the chiefs of the Bolgse met on any emergency to consult the
manes of their heroes, p. 397-
1 Magh Tura, a great hill. I I 4

488 THE ARKITE CONFLICT.
Deucaledonian, diluvian tribes, on the other. In
both instances the latter were victorious ; and, in
truth, there is no country in the world which
retains so many traces of the Arkite worship.
Nevertheless, it would seem that the dispute was
compromised between the two parties for a time,
by dividing the whole island into two parts, by an
entrenchment drawn from Drogheda to Galway,
in the west; the northern division being left in
possession of the new comers, and called Leith
Conn \ the portion of the Moon, or Arkites ; the
other, Leith Mogh, being the portion of the Magi,
or fire-worshippers ; and, accordingly, most of the
fire-towers in Ireland are in Leith Mogh. These
towers, however, may have had another destination,
as I shall endeavour to prove in a subsequent
chapter of this work. D'Herbelot mentions a
similar wall made by the Persians, to divide them
from the Scythians, and called Sedd Jagioug'u
Magioug, the intrenchment of Gog and Magog ;
meaning the north and south people of the same
nation. But the latter word is evidently com
pounded of Mag and Uige, the wisdom of the
Ship ; so that the Persian Magi, or Magogians,
were originally Arkites. Now the Irish Seana-
chies derive their descent from Magog. A dif
ferent version of this struggle is given from Irish
1 From Cann, Chandra, Luna. Chandra has probably the same
origin as Vendra, the Tuscan Venus. Ban-deara in Irish, HimD,
filia maris : so the Cann of the ocean is Chandra. — Collect. Val
lancey, iv. 251. The Chinese Confulu was the inventor of letters
and arts, like the Cannfoola, or Konnfoela, of Irish history.

THE ARKITE CONFLICT. 489
MSS. by the translator of Keating ; which, how
ever, Vallancey takes to be an Eastern story, im
ported by the colonists from Persia : he supposes,
that Eirinn means, not Ireland, but Iran, Persia ¦,
and that " the battles of the Towers" were those
in which the Pishdadian prince Zerdusht, or Zoro
aster, who first introduced Pyrea, or fire-towers,
was defeated by the Scythians, and lost his life.
The story is, that Eochad Mac Earg, the chief of
the Firbolgs, in the second battle, cut off the head
of Nuadhat, the leader of the Tuatha Dadanns. 2
But, in the first place, as it is agreed that the Firbolgs
were routed, it is not likely that they succeeded in
cutting off the head of their conqueror. And, in the
next place, the Fear Bolgs are supposed to be a
different people from the Belgaa, and to take their
name from Bolg, a boat ; so that even if there be
not as much confusion in their names as in the
name of the country, we may suppose that Eochad
the Arkite was endeavouring to introduce the
Phallic worship among the Dadanns : for that the
war must have been produced by religious motives,
all the circumstances, as Vallancey admits, conspire
to show.
An Irish MS. giving a list of the Dadann deities,
1 Sir W. Jones confirms this, and proves that the Western Islands
were peopled from Iran, and that their language, customs, and
religion were the same, all originating in Chaldaea, i. e. in Me
sopotamia. 2 Vail. Vind. of Hist, of Ireland, Coll. iv. 154. Tuatha is the
Irish plural of Thua ; but, Babylonii haruspices, says Bochart, G.
S. 1. i. c. 18., a Symmacho vocantur Qvai, and the Dadanns are
accused of conquering their enemies by necromancy.

490 IRISH AND INDIAN MYTHOLOGY.
enumerates Nuadhat and Eochad, who is also called
Daghdaa l : and one of his sons is called Budth-
Dearrg, i. e. the Boudh of the Ark. Daghdaa was
the deity of fire ; but he was also the god of the
elements, of prosperity, of generation, and of ve
getation.2 Now Daa is a prophet, andDahg is good ;
and who this good prophet was, we may learn from
a very singular mass of testimony to diluvian wor
ship, extant both in the names of places in Ireland,
and in customs still retained. Daabeen, " the
pointed tomb ofthe prophet3," is a mountain from
which the river Gooibarith4, "the oracle of the
covenant," runs into Lough Dearg, the lake of the
Ark. Near it is the highest hill in that range,
Aragil, which is Arga El, the Ark of God : or if
it be derived from Airigh, a chief, even that owns
its origin in Argoz, an Ark. Sannon, which is one
of the names of the Ganges in the East, becomes
Shannon, or Scannan in the West, and flows into
Lough Rea, the lake of Rhea, the moon, a Titanis,
or diluvian goddess, the mother of Neptune 5 : she
1 Vail. Coll. iv. p. 157. 2 Ibid. p. 226.
3 Carn-daagh, says Vallancey, is the altar of the prophets;
Arabice, Keren-daa — daa, an augur, a diviner. — Pref. cxxxii. Bin-
goor, the giants' causeway, or oracle of the prophets : Arabice, Been-
goor, a prophet ; but perhaps Bin means here a pointed tomb, vol. iii.
Preface, xcv.
4 Gooibarith from Goo, an oracle, and Barith, the Ark or cove
nant ; but Go also signifies the sea. Goi in Woide's Egyptian Diet.
is navis. Kircher writes it Ogoi, and Egeou, (hence Ogyges and
Egean). In Turkish, Ghemi, is a ship, (hence Ogmius). In Chal
dee, Dag-ugith, is navis piscatoria. Jl'J'n, navis, scapha. —
Vindicat. of A. H. of Ireland, p. 33. Ogyges, in Irish, Oig-uige,
heros navium, p. 138.
5 Diod. Sic.

IRISH AND EASTERN MYTHOLOGY. 491
was both Diana, and the Regina undarum of Arte-
midorus, Pausanias, and Strabo.1 Afterwards it
enters the lake of Derg, which is called Dearg-ait,
the abode of the Ark. Below Lough Deargh is
Kill-da-loo, the temple of Luan, the moon 2 ; from
whence Athlone derives its name, Ait Luan, the
abode of the moon. It then descends to Lum-
neach 3, as Limerick is called in Irish, which is
surely the port of Noah. In the centre of this
country is Alt Ossoin, a lofty mountain so called
from the Chaldaaan Asa4 Oin, the old diviner, or
prophet, called Oes by Helladius, Oen in Photius,
Oanes by Berosus, Oannes by Polyhistor, who
describes him as having the body of a fish, but with
a human head under his fish's head, and human
legs under his tail : he was the first instructor of
mankind, the teacher of every art, and at the set
ting of the sun he descended beneath the ocean,
and remained there all night.6 Helladius says that
he taught letters and astronomy, and sprang from
the primogenial egg 6 (coov). Hyginus, corrupting
the name still further, calls him Euhannes, and
makes him the teacher of astrology to the Chal-
Lunam eandera Dianam, eandem Cererem, eandem Junonem,
eandem Proserpinam dicunt. — Servius in Georgie. i. 5.
2 Re and Luan, both signify the moon ; but Luam is a priest,
and Re is a king, and in Egyptian the sun ; so closely is the memory
of the Patriarch associated with the worship of the moon.
3 Neach, indeed, is rendered divine, heavenly, excellent ; and
thus it may be applied to Lough Neach, the largest lake in the
island : but it is evidently derived from Noah. Naash, in Heb. a
prophet. Ir. Neas. — Collect, iii. Pref. exxxii.
4 Asa, Senex, Sapiens. (Buxtorf). Oin, Diviner, xcvi.
5 Syncelli Chronographia. 6 Photius.

492 IRISH AND EASTERN MYTHOLOGY.
dees. The expression used by Berosus, in describ
ing him Zoon Aphrenon ', is so inconsistent with
his character, that it is not unreasonably supposed
to be a corruption from Oin, a prophet, and Aphe-
rin, a Chaldaean, Persic, and Irish word implying
" blessed." Who could this be but the prophet,
who issued from the Ark after the deluge, and was
long venerated as the founder of society, the teacher
of the new world, and was at length confounded
by his worshippers with the sun, the restorer of
life ? When the idol Dagon fell before the Ark of
God at Ashdod, his human parts were broken off,
and nothing but the fishy stump remained.2 Dagon,
therefore, or Dag-Oannes, was obviously the Dagh
daa, or good prophet of the Irish, brought to them,
with other oriental words and customs, from the
East. It is very remarkable that, in the Phoenician
mythology, as it is explained by Sanchoniatho,
heaven and earth are said to have had four children
in the beginning of the world. El or Ilus, who
was also called Cronus, or Saturn ; 2. Betylus ;
3. Dagon, who was also called Siton, and Zeus

1 Zaov dppEvov, animal ratione destitutum. — Coll. iii. 96.
Maurice observes, there must have been some distinguished
character among the immediate descendants of Noah, to whom the
several branches of the Patriarchal family laid claim as a common
ancestor, assumed his name as the chieftain of their tribe, regarded
him as their tutelary genius, and in their respective systems of
theology in succeeding ages adored him as divinity. — Ind. Ant.
vi. 44. It is plain that the only common ancestor was Noah
himself. 2 See the margin of our Bible, 1 Sam. v. 4 : only Dagon was
left to him. No sense can be made of this, unless the marginal
interpretation be received. Dag is a fish.

IRISH AND EASTERN MYTHOLOGY. 493
Arotrius ; and, lastly, Atlas ' ; all four being in fact
the same person, worshipped, 1. as the sun ; 2. in
the form of a pillar ; 3. as a sea god ; and lastly,
as a mountain god. Now in the Irish mythology
Nemed, i. e. the heaven, has also four sons, Stairn
or Storn 2, Earcoloin, Beoan, and Semeon ; in
the two first of which it is easy to recognise the
Siton or Dagon, the sea god of the Phoenicians;
for it is a contraction from Si-tiearna, the chief of
the ship ; and therefore it is a false gloss of Philo
Byblius, when he says that Siton was so called
from the Greek word signifying wheat, because he
was the inventor of cultivation. That he was so, is
true ; but the etymology is a blunder. In these
matters the vanity of the Greeks often led them
astray. 2. Earcoloin is the Arkite El, or Hercules ;
of the other two, Semeon will be found to cor
respond to Atlas, and Beoun to Betylus.3 Val
lancey, who took a very different view of this sub
ject, yet saw that these four names must belong to
the same person ; a conclusion to which he could
only have been led by observing the interchange
of character and actions ascribed to each, which
inevitably results from their common origin ; for it
was not the man alone that superstition remembered ;
everything connected with that great catastrophe,
1 Euseb. Prspar. 1. i. c. 10. If sol comes from El, as BXioq
certainly does, B,Evq may come from Oes. The sacred stones were
called Boetulia.
2 Stairn, i. e. p^-'V, Si-tarn.
3 Semeon, o-qfAa. Beoan, from Ban, water and arrow, in Hindo
stanee ; there is a river Ban in Ireland ; or from Ban, a covenant,
in Egypt. Bann in Irish.

494 THE SHIP TEMPLE.
from which all the streams of tradition flow, were
converted into objects of worship, sometimes se
parately, and sometimes blended together in strange
confusion by the genius of polytheism, water,
rocks, hills, and that luminary whose genial warmth
seemed to revive dead nature ; but most of all, a
reverence for the Ark was entwined with the wor
ship of its ruler.1 It is probable, that an opinion
of sanctity would adhere to it long after the re-
peopling of the earth ; and pious men would na
turally repair to it, as long as they could, to
worship the God of their salvation. It was a
structure framed by His own express directions,
and admirably calculated for a Church, by the mag
nitude of its dimensions. In after ages tradition
raised similar temples in imitation of the original
ship : in Ireland, for instance, Wright in his Lou-
thiana gives a drawing of a ship temple. It was
built like the hull of a ship, and called by the na
tives Fas na heun oidhche, the growth of one
night ; by which, it is evident, they supposed that
it was supernaturally constructed at some very re
mote period. But Vallancey thinks it is a cor
ruption from Faghas na heun naoi, the remains of
the only ship. But if the two last words were, oin,
or ain, Naoi, it will be the remains of the prophet
Noah. There was an order of Druids called Naoidh's.2
1 At Elephantine, Amunoph III. is represented making offerings
to the sacred Ark of Kneph, or Chnubis, who presided over the
inundation. — Wilkinson's Thebes, p. 461.
2 Naoidr is a talisman, and a serpent.

THE SHIP TEMPLE. 495
Now the Druids had nothing to do with ships, but
might minister in ship temples, or be distinguished
as Arkites from the worshippers of Baal. So also,
Sesostris is said to have built a ship of Cedar, which
he dedicated to Isis : it was 120 yards in length,
and covered on the outside with plates of gold, and
in the inside with plates of silver.1 One of the
meanings of Dearc, or Dearg, in Irish, is just, or
liberal 2 ; wThich shows how much in process of time
the habitation was confounded with the inhabitant ;
and hence it came to pass, that Dagh daa, in Irish
history, is sometimes a god, and sometimes a
goddess. The Ark was considered the prolific
parent, from whose womb all nature issued : where
fore she was called Magna mater by the Latins,
and by the Greeks A^^vjr^p, who was the same as
Ceres ; and no wonder : for a first-rate ship is in
Irish 3 Karas ; and hence, perhaps, Ireland was
called Ith Nanu 4, the island of the mother god-

1 Some of the temples in Thebes have been thought to bear the
figure of the Ark. Its ancient name was Medinet Tabu, the town of
our father. They are dedicated, as we learn from Champollion, to
Ammon Ra : in Scripture called Ammon No.
2 At least so I infer ; for Dearc, or Dearg Feine, is said by
O'Brien to signify just and liberal guards; but Phenia or Phenaia, in
Chaldee, means troops for defence, i. e. guards. What then is Dearc ?
iv. 356.
3 From jyip, tabula navis. — Fall. Fin. of A. H. of Irl. Collect.
iv. 74.
4 Vallancey translates it Insula Veneris, seu matris Deorum,
iv. 20. ; for the Persian name of Venus was Nanea, and Metra ; the
Irish, Anu, and Nanu ; the Syrian, Anai, and Nanai. (iv. 224.)
Perhaps Noah's wife was named Anna ; for Anna Perenna was said
to be the wife of Janus, and worshipped as such at Rome. Anah
was the name of one of Esau's wives. In Scandinavian mythology,
Nanna, the wife of Balder, i. e. Baal Tor, was mother of Forsete,
i. e. Fo Sidi. — Hertha, vii. 7- In the Persian Metra, the name of

496 Patrick's purgatory.
dess ; for Nane, according to Reland \ is a Persic
word for mother. But further, so strict was the
partnership of adoration in which the inhabitant
and his habitation were joined, that, as on the one
hand Noah gave his name to the Ark, both being
expressed in Irish by Naoi, so on the other, the Ark
gave its name both to the sun, that seems to dwell
in heaven, and to the heaven itself: for Arc is in
Sanscrit the sun ; Earc in Irish, the heaven.2 But
the Ark is sometimes represented by a cave,
whether natural or artificial, and still the same
sanctity attends it ; the same opinion that it is the
abode ofthe blessed. It has given its name to two
lakes in Ireland, both containing sacred islands,
and both islands containing sacred cells : one of
them, in the county of Donegal, contains St.
Patrick's Purgatory, to which at this day the Roman
Catholic peasantry resort in crowds to perform cer
tain circuits round his bed and his prison, according
to the number of circles formed by sharp stones
standing around with the spike uppermost; in doing
which they are as scrupulously careful to move
from east to west, as if they were still worshipping
the sun in his Mithratic cave. The sacred cell is
still a place of penance, and the devotees are obliged,
notwithstanding the weariness of a barefooted pil
grimage all the day on the sharp stones, to pray,
Mithras has originated, with all his caves and mysteries ; for Mader,
sive Mather, unde facile Mitra deflectitur, Persice genitricem inter-
pretari ex R. Saadia? Pentateucho notavit Raphelengius. — Selden
de Diis Syr. Syntag. p. 255.
1 De Vet. Lin. Pers. p. 202. 2 Vallancey, vi. xiii.

kieven's bed. 497
without intermission, from midnight till the dawn
of day : l so easily does that Proteus superstition
shift its aspect, and yet remain the same, whether
the object of veneration be Noah, or Baal, or
Christ. The other is in Glendalough, or the glen
of the lake ; a lake which has been singularly
metamorphosed into Lugduff, instead of Loch-
deargh2, with the gh pronounced soft, as in the word
laugh. Here is an island, in which the sacred cell
has been supplanted by a church, called Tempul-
naskellig, the temple of the island, the oldest of
the seven churches in Glendalough, and supposed
to have been built by a saint, called Kievin 3, or
Koemgan, who still retains an Arkite bed, or arti
ficial Speos, in the perpendicular side of a moun
tain overhanging the lake. It is about as big as a
small baker's oven, and is a station to which preg
nant women resort to obtain the saint's aid in child
birth. In the same glen is a hollowed stone, which
confers regeneration on those who thrust their arm
through it.4 The same virtue is attributed to a
round hole in a stone near Struel wells, not far from
the mountain Slievenagrideal, in tne county of
Down ; and pilgrims, as they pass by, thrust their
fingers into it : but this is a subject that must be
reserved for further consideration. The rites still
1 Christian Examiner, No. 35. vi. 346.
2 The writer in the Examiner calls this lake Poolanass; but
Vallancey names it Lough Dearg ; and that he is right, is plain from
the meaning assigned to LugdufF, " the black gulf; " i. e. the dark,
or deargh Lake.
3 Kievin, from Kai Pheine.
4 Near the church of Rhefeart. — Christian Examiner, ix. 198.
VOL. I. K K

498 ARKITE MONUMENTS.
performed at these wells are so entirely Arkite,
that it is impossible to desire a more incontroverti
ble proof of the tenacity with which the Irish have
adhered to ancient superstitions under new names,
and without entertaining a suspicion of their real
origin. The wells are sacred, and supposed to have
miraculous powers. The votaries first kneel and
pray, and walk barefoot seven times round an equal
number of cairns of stones, muttering prayers ;
then round four circular bathing houses ; after
which they make seven circuits round the whole,
and then crawl on their bare hands and knees up
the rugged face of a very steep hill, to a spot where
a projection in the rock is called the Chair of St.
Patrick. Here they pray, and bow, and kiss the
stone, and again make a circuit seven times round
the chair ; lastly, they strip themselves and rush
into the baths.1 These, it is evident, are heathen
rites, derived from the worship of rocks, and hills,
and the sun, and the divinity of the waters. The
votary of Mithras was obliged to pass seven times
through the sacred fire, and each time to plunge
himself into cold water.2 But it appears that the
mountain of Glendalough, in which Kievin'sbed was
excavated, is also called Lugduff : the sound may
be much the same, but the signification different.
Logh is the sacred fire ; and Derg or Deargh is, in
a secondary sense, a cave or dark habitation : thus
Lugduff is in truth the name of Kievin's bed, the
cave of the sacred fire, the Mithratic cave ; for
Porphyry says that Zoroaster retired to a natural
1 Christian Examiner, ix. 234. 2 Collect, vi.212.

ARKITE MONUMENTS. 499
cave to contemplate on the Creator, and on Mithras,
the father of all ; that afterwards the Persians made
artificial caves, in which the mysteries of Mithras
were celebrated ; and as these caves were under the
earth, the water constantly dropped through the
roof, which was attributed to the nymphs Naiades
being always present. The cave was dark, yet the
symbols of all virtues were discernible in them ;
and they were sacred to Saturn and Ceres.1 Here
then we have idolatry acknowledging that these
cells were consecrated originally to the Patriarch,
the ruler of the Ark, who, in subordination to the
Creator, was the father of all mankind ; and the in
ferior deities, constantly present there, were the
Naiades, or nymphs of the ship. Now Dirgha was
in Ireland precisely a nymph of this sort. Vallancey
calls her a Mermaid ; which would effectually give
her the form of Dagon : Desinit in piscem mulier
formosa superne. But what his authority is, I know
not. A similar goddess is still worshipped in India;
and nothing can speak her Arkite origin more than
the traditional rites attached to this idolatry. M.
Degrandpre says 2, that the Ganges has been held
in most profound veneration, since Dourga, whose
Arkite exploits have been noticed before, precipi
tated herself into it : in her advanced age she de
scended into the Ganges, and now dwells in the
bed of that river. In consequence, the supreme
blessing of this life is to bathe in the river, and to
1 Vallancey Vind. Irish Hist. vol. iv. of Collect, p. 206.
2 Voyage dans l'lnde, 1790.
K K 2

500 DOURGA.
drink of its water, which has the virtue of purify
ing the soul and the body.1 At her feast, which is
celebrated in October, during the first two days-
every respect is paid to Dourga ; but on the third*
before they commit her image to the river, and
abandon it to the current, they abuse and curse
her with hideous yells and shouts. The meaning
of this puzzled M. Degrandpre, and his Brahmin
could give no satisfactory answer ; but it seems to
have arisen, like the mourning of Saman's Eve,
from a pantomimic representation of the scoffs of
the Antediluvians at the builders of the Ark, and
the subsequent yells of the drowning world. This
is made more clear by Captain Turner's account in
his embassy to Tibet.
The effigy of Durga, says he, is exhibited in
combat with Soomne Soom 2, the chief of the evil
genii, who is evidently the Saman of the Irish, and
the Asuman, or angel of death, of the Persians,
till Durga, and the auxiliary gods her associates,
are committed to the deep. Even in those parts
of Hindostan where the more ancient religion of
Boodha has been superseded, the festival of Doorga,
though much debased by Brahminical inventions,
is yet considered the greatest in India; and amongst
a multitude of ceremonies, some of which are too
trifling to be detailed, and others too disgusting,
some features may be observed, which plainly
1 Mr. Wilford quotes from a Sanscrit poem some verses, in which
Chrishna, the sovereign goddess, the propitious river, is said to be
united with the Nanda. She it is who expiates all sin  As Resi
iii. 59-
2 Som is the Irish Hercules.

DOURGA. ,501
mark its origin.1 In the month of Aswini, on the
ninth day of the decrease of the moon, she is wor
shipped before a pan of water. In one of her ten
hands she holds the tail of a serpent; and one part
of the ceremony is to present some water of the
Ganges, and after this the water of four seas. In
the evening the Brahmin waves a lamp with five
lights before her, and the temple is lighted up.
Many buffaloes, and goats, and sheep are sacrificed;
and formerly, under the name of Tara, or the de
liverer, human victims were immolated to her by
way of purification. At the conclusion the priest
immerses a looking-glass, her representative, in
water : the women set up a cry, and some shed
tears : after which she is sent back to her old abode
by being let down into the water. Among all the
wild fictions with which the history of Doorga has
been clothed by Indian mythologists, there is not
one circumstance that can in any degree account
for these rites, which certainly are not obvious or
natural modes of divine worship : they must, there
fore, have owed their origin to some remote and
forgotten facts, the practice having continued, when
the reason of it was no longer remembered. The
name, however, has been perpetuated with some
slight alteration of sound, and coincides with the
nature of the rites in pointing to the deluge.
Customs of a similar character, equally obscure and
equally significant, obtained in countries far distant
from India, and may be traced to the same source.
1 Ward's History of Hindoo Mythology, p. 107.
K K 3

502 ARKITE RITES.
Thus we are told by an Arabian writer, Murtadi ',
that it had been customary with the Egyptians to
sacrifice to the river Nile a young and beautiful
virgin, by flinging her in her richest attire into the
stream ; and by Savary 2, that they annually make
a clay statue in the form of a woman, and throw it
into the river previous to the opening of the dam.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports that formerly
the ancients, for instance, the Carthaginians and
Celts, and other people of the West, used to sacrifice
men to Cronus ; which custom was taken away by
Hercules, who taught them to substitute for the
men, whom they used to throw into the river bound
hand and foot, images of men adorned in the same
manner, that no scruple might remain in their
minds, the representatives of the ancient calamity
being still preserved.3 This custom remained up
to his time. Hercules and Cronus were in fact
one and the same person ; but as there was an
older and a later Buddha, and an older and a
later Osiris in Egypt, so there was an older and
a later Hercules ; or rather, such was the tradi
tional veneration for his character, that any act
of wisdom or power was apt to be referred to
him as its author. Even at Rome the Etrurians,
an ancient people, and very tenacious of diluvian
traditions, had introduced a similar custom. On
the Ides of May, a little after the vernal equinox,
on some day when, as in the Indian feast, the moon
bore the form of a crescent4, the Pontifices and
1 Maurice's Indian Antiquities. 2 Letters on Egypt, i. 118.
3 Eluovav rov itaXaiov itdBovq in cru^OfAEVoiv.
4 'ttft.kpav hxwqvila. In Plutarch's Life of Camillus it is said,

HERCULES THE REFORMER. 503
virgins who had charge of the eternal fire, and those
citizens who had the privilege to be present at the
rites, threw from the sacred bridge into the Tyber
thirty figures made to look like men ; and the ap
pellation given to them indicates, that they were
victims in memory of the Ark.1 Here again the
same Hercules is introduced, by tradition, sub
stituting unbloody sacrifices and the burning of
lights for the homicidal rites practised before.2 But
this reformer is plainly a different person from him
by whom the ancestors of those whom he per
suaded were left in Italy, and instituted the Sa
turnalia, the very festival which was afterwards
reformed ; because, having occupied a lofty hill,
which was called Saturnian, i. e. sacred to Saturn,
they felt themselves secure under the protection of
that deity3: for all high places used to be con
secrated to Saturn. *

that the Samothracian gods, whom Dardanus, after he had built
Troy, brought to that city, and caused to be worshipped, were con
cealed in the most secret part of the temple, under the care of the
Vestals. They were also thought to be the Palladium of Troy, the
signum fatale; and in his Life of Paulus iEmilius, Octavius is said,
out of reverence for the gods of Samothrace, to permit Perseus to
enjoy the protection of an asylum there.
1 Apysloq. — Euseb. Prcep. Evan. 1. iv. p. 160.
2 Herculem ferunt suasisse illorum posteris, ut faustis sacrificiis
infausta mutarent — aras Saturnias non mactando viros, sed accensis
luminibus excolentes. — Macrob. i. 188.
3 Ab Hercule in Italia relicti occupato edito colle Saturnios se
nominaverunt, quo ante nomine etiam idem collis vocabatur, et quia
se hujus dei senserunt nomine ac religione tutos, instituisse Saturn
alia feruntur. — Macrobius, lib. i.
4 Solebant enim olim loca omnia sublimia Saturno dicari — similiter
in Bibliis qui dicantur montes Dei non obscurum est. — Canter in
Lycophron.
K K 4

504 COMBAT OF HERCULES.
The only claim which either of these personages
had to the name of Hercules, seems to have con
sisted in this : they were both great navigators ;
they were both highly reverenced ; and they could
not be dignified by a higher title, than that which
properly belonged to the first navigator of the Ark,
and legislator of the newborn world. It is a name,
however, which seems to have been more peculiarly
attributed to those reformers of the Arkite worship,
who, as in the instance cited out of Macrobius,
adopted fire in their rites in preference to water :
for in mythology, as formerly in geology, there
were both Vulcanists and Neptunists ; and to the
occasional conflicts between these parties, some of
the most ancient writers allude in passages which
cannot be well understood without bearing this in
mind. Thus Lycophron, who, under the character
of the inspired Cassandra, has left on record many
dark specimens of traditionary lore, after reciting
some exploits, in which, though it is not expressed,
Hercules is undoubtedly the hero meant \ adds,
that the last was he who awakened the ancient
strife by lighting up the old flame of the fire- tower,
which had long slept in oblivion, when he saw the
Pelasgi drawing water from the streams of Rhyn-

1 The KipKoi, who took Pissa and all the land near the Umbri,
and reaching to the Alps, are referred to Tyrsenus by Tzetzes. Be
it so ; but Tyrsenus is the Tyrrhene Hercules ; "LaXitrnv ^tSa-av
bxBypwv itdyuv — not Salpian, says the commentator, but Alpian, great
mountains in Italy, from one of which the Danube flows, and from
another the Rhine, b 'Vrpoq.

COMBAT OF HERCULES. 505
dacus in vessels belonging to other rites.1 Rhyn-
dacus, says one of the commentators, was a river
between Greece and the Hellespont2: in other
words, he knew nothing about it. It is probably
an eastern Myth transplanted into Greece ; and in
one dialect of the Celtic, whose eastern affinity is
undoubted, Rhyn signifies a ford, or shallow stream ;
and Docam is the habitation of Dak-Po among the
Thibetians 3, who corresponds to the Dagh-daa of
the Irish. The Pelasgi were Arcadians : why then
were they so called ? Grecian mendacity will say,
because Pelasgus was the son of Areas. But how
will that help us out of the difficulty ? The Arca
dians were called Pelasgi before Areas was born.
It is plain that the name was not patronymic, but
mythological. They were Arkites. Again in the
Trachinias of Sophocles, the river Achelous4 is
represented fighting with Hercules, who has his
bow, and javelins, and club : they fought for Deian-
eira 5 ; rather for divine honours ; the one with his
1 AoTcrBoq h° iyEipEi ypyvoq (or ypvvoq) dpxaiav Ipiv
nvp ev^ov 'qhyj to itplv i^dirruv tyXoyl
EkeI TlEXao-yovq EihS Vvv^aKov itorSv
Kpoicrcro'io-iv bBvsioicri ftdipavraq ydvoq. 1362.
2 Rhyndacus fluvius inter Graeciam et Hellespontum.
3 Dak Po habent Tibetani, eumque principem et caput loci Docam
suner aera positi interpretantur. . — Alphabet : Tibet : by P. Aug. Ant.
Georgius. Fallancey, iv. l6l.
4 Achelous was the son of Oceanus and Nais. — Natalis Comes,
1. vii. c. 2. 'A%EXaoq, oq icrrlv b ipopbq Stsoq r-qq itoXvriftov hvvdft.Eo)q
rov viaroq. Hermias Comment. M. S. in Platonis Phsedrum 
Vide R. M. Van Goen's Animadversiones.
s Dicunt Deianeiram Herculis clava se interfecisse. — Nat. Com..
ut supra. It was, indeed, a suicide, when by these internal dissen
sions both parties lost the divine honours to which they pretended,
by suffering them to be transferred to more recent, superstitions.

506 COMBAT OF HERCULES.
horns, the other with his bow. It is not said that
he used his club. How should he indeed ? It was
no club, but a representation of Mount Mandar,
on which he is for ever leaning. At the beginning
Deianeira relates that Achelous courted her under
three forms ; first as a bull ; then as a dragon ; and
lastly, as a man with the head of a bull, and from
his chin flowed torrents of water.1 All were Arkite
forms. According to Palaaphatus, the fruit of this
victory was the horn of Amarthaea2, which Achelous
gave him in exchange for one of his own, which he
had lost in the contest. There was no other real
difference between the two, than that the one be
longed to the original diluvian worship ; the other
belonged to the constellation of the goat, and con
sequently to Sabianism. This he carried with him
wherever he went, and obtained from it all that he
desired.3 The cow of plenty, called by the Hindoos
Kamadeva4, was produced, as they say, at the churn
ing of the ocean, and seems to have some relation
to the tauriform Achelous, from whom Hercules
obtained the cornucopias. There is a singular
coincidence between the origin thus assigned to
Sabianism, and that which Cedrenus gives to Magi-
anism. The name of the hero is altered, and the
1 Trachinise, 515. A bull — ivapyqq ravpoq — an Arkite bull,
a dragon a'loXoc ipaKoiv kXiKroq.
2 Amalthaa seems to be nothing but Althaea, with the mystical
Om of the Hindoos prefixed. Now some said, that Deianeira was
Althaea, and that Dionusus was her father. 'Ek liovverov yevv-qa-ai. 
Apollod. 1. i. p. 17.
3 'E? ov iyivETo avrif otra e€ovXeto. — Palcephatus.
4 Kamadeva, says Mr. Crauford, is also called Vasoodeva, a cor
ruption of Isadeva. Isa is Sovereign, Queen, Nature.

FIRE-TEMPLE OF PERSEUS. 507
story is not so much disguised by fiction : but the
main circumstance, of a river defeated by the new
worship, is the same. Perseus, he says, coming to
the Silphian mountain \ (for on mountains, as was
natural, Arkite rites endured the longest,) found
there the Argive, or Arkite, Ionites, by whom he
was received as one of the same brotherhood. Now
the Ionites lived in Iopolis, a town founded by
Inachus, the Argive, and named Io from the moon2;
for the Argives called the moon Io.3 But Io was
also a cow in ancient fable ; and being the same as
Apis 4, was worshipped under the form of a heifer
with a half-moon marked upon her. While he was
there, a storm of rain came on, and the neighbour
ing river Orrontes, having inundated the country,
upon his prayers the lightning descended from
heaven, like a ball of fire, and the storm ceased,
and the inundation subsided. From that fire he
lighted his own, which he carried with him, and
introduced into his palace, and built a fire temple,
and appointed priests, called Magi, both in Iopolis
and in all parts of his dominions, and ordered that
it should be worshipped as a god descended from
heaven. In these scraps of ancient mythology, the
1 'Eiq to Y.iXitiov opoq
Toiiq ait' 'Apyovq 'loiv'traq
'Clq bfAotyvXoq.
2 But Io was also said to be his daughter.
3 Oi7«xp ApyEiot ti)v o-EX-qvqv la KaXovaiv, and the daughter of Io
married Neptune. — Cedreni Historiarum Compendium.
4 Meursius, in his notes on Lycophron, takes occasion to correct
a passage in Arnobius, lib. i. ; for bucculis, says he, scribe buculis,
et intellige Isidem, qua Io ante, at Apim, quibus, si voles, adjicies
Venerem, que ab iisdem bovis effigie culta.

508 FIRE-TEMPLE OF PERSEUS.
names introduced have no more historical reality
than the facts related : the whole is mystical., Thus,
with respect to Perseus, Perses is said to have been
his, son l; but he was also the son of a Titan : there
fore Perseus was a Titan. But the Titan's name
was Crius3 ; and here we discover the character of
the original Perseus, the offspring of the ship : for
Crius was a ship i, like that which carried Phryxus
across the Hellespont ; and accordingly he is reported
to have floated for some time in an ark, when he
was an infant 4 : for the patriarch is supposed to
have been regenerated to a new life when he issued
from the Ark. But it was the reformer Perseus,
the subsequent Avatar of the Patriarch, who con
quered the Cetus, which is the Ked of the Welsh
poets, and the Gorgon 5, who turned every object
into stones, pillars, and Cromlechs, and Atlas into
a sacred mountain. With respect to Io, we may
glean some further information of its meaning, and
connection with Arkite worship, from a fragment
of tradition in Lycophron : " Perish," says Cassan-
1 Herodotus. Polymnia, his ancestor on the mother's side, was
Belus. 2 Apollodorus, lib. i. In the Iphigenia of Euripides, Argos is
called the city of Perseus. 1510.
3 'Ecrri Se riva itXota Xv£ia Xeyoft-Evoi Kpio) Kal rpdyot. — Julii Pol-
lucis Onomasticon.
4 Apollodorus, lib. ii.
5 Gorgo and Deianeira were sisters, the daughters of Althaea : but
if the latter was in fact, as some said, Althaea herself, then Gorgo
her sister was, like her, the offspring of Dionusus : indeed, the other
story makes him take a great interest in them ; for it was to him they
were indebted for retaining their original forms, when Diana changed
their sisters into birds for weeping so long over Meleager. — Ni-
¦eander de Mutationibus. lib. iii. cited by Antoninus Liberalis, in his
Metamorphoses.

FIRE-TEMPLE OF PERSEUS. 509
dra, " the sailors, those Carnite dogs, who carried
away the tauriform damsel (Io), from Lerne, to be
the wife of the Memphite chief, and raised the
torch of discord to both continents." ' Io, there
fore, was Isis, the wife of Osiris, which Apollodorus
confirms. The Egyptians, says he, made a statue
to Demater, whom they call Isis, and Io also they
call Isis.2
Now the original meaning of Isis has been
traced to the Irish Ess or Essis, a ship ; and the
original rites belonging to her long survived in that
mournful festival, celebrated in Egypt on the 17th
of the month, called by the Egyptians, Athyr ; and
by the Boeotians, Damatrian. It corresponded with
the Indian festival of Doorga, and was celebrated at
the same time ; and the reason for fixing it at that
time is not a little remarkable. The ancient
Egyptian year began in September ; and conse
quently the 17th day of the second month, when
the deluge took place3, must have been the be
ginning of our November, when the sun was in
Scorpio4, the old symbolical asterism of Typhon
1 OXoiiro vavrai itpSra Kapvtrat Kvvee
Ot TVJV fiouniv ravpoitapBEVOv Kop-qv
Akpvqq dvnpEi-^avro popr-qyol Xvkoi
XlXdriv itopEvcrai Kr/pcc Mt^piTj itpo/Aoi
"ExBpoq Se itvpaov rjpav rjitEipoiq ttitXalq.
In the Alcestis of Euripides the Chorus talks of the circling hour,
KapvEiov ft-qvbq, returning, 445. The moon, therefore, was Carnean,
as well as the sun.
2 Lib. ii. 3 Genesis, vii. 11.
4 Sir W. Jones, iv. 556. In the Alexandrian Chronology the
first of Thoth was the 29th of August ; but this, says Ideler, is a
reckoning of later date. — Lehrbuch der Chr. p. 73.

510 FIRE-TEMPLE OF PERSEUS.
(the deluge), the foe of Osiris, and inundator of
Egypt. However, there is not much stress to be
laid upon the sign belonging to any particular
season ; for it has been justly observed that, as the
mythological year of the Egyptians contained only
365 days, their anniversary festivals must have
passed in succession through all the signs. " Most
of the Greeks," says Geminus, the astronomer,
" think that the winter solstice falls on the feast of
Isis, which is utterly false : it was the case 120
years ago, but now there is a whole month between
them." ' He states, indeed, most distinctly, that
the Egyptians did not wish their sacrifices to the
gods to be always at the same time of the year,
but that they should pass through all the seasons.2
This will serve to account for the want of uniform
ity in the date of that commemoration. However,
there is a confusion of dates in Plutarch's account
of it, which must be explained upon other prin
ciples. In one place he states that Osiris died on
the 17th day of the month Athyr, and that day
was called by the Pythagoreans, Antiphraxis 3, the
term usually applied to an eclipse, and wholly in
applicable at that particular time to the phenomena
of nature. Now Noah entered into the ark, his
M-qvl yap oXa itapaXXdacrEi ra "itrta itpoq rdq x^'f-Epivaq rpoitdq. —
Gemini Eisagoge in Phenomena. 119 years are required for the
passage of the sun's place through each sign, and 1424 for an entire
revolution. BotlXovrai rdq Slvo-iaq roiq SSEotq ft)q Kara tw avrbv Kaipbv toi? iviav-
rov yiveirUai, dXXa Sij itaoSv roiv to? iviavrov apav iuXBsTv. — Geminus,
Eisagoge in Phcenomena.
3 De Iside et Osiride, iv. 506.

FIRE-TEMPLE OF PERSEUS. 511
mythological grave, on the 17th day ofthe month,
and therefore, in the solar character afterwards
ascribed to him, was eclipsed or rendered invisible
by the intervention of the moon or ark. In another
place he says, that on the new moon of Phamenoth
the seventh month being the commencement of
the spring, they celebrated a festival called the en
trance of Osiris into the moon \ an enigmatical
expression, the obscurity of which, however, is in
stantly removed, when we farther learn that, in
preparing for the pretended burial of Osiris, they
cut the wood into the form of a moon-shaped ark.2
And here we behold the true reason why the moon
was called the mother of the world, the universal
recipient and nurse, who bore all creatures in her
womb 3 : she was a type of the Ark. Thus, then,
the subject of both the festivals was precisely the
same : they both commemorated the entrance of
Noah into the Ark. Now if the Egyptian fixed
or Alexandrian year began at the autumnal equinox,
Athyr, beginning in the last week of October,
would be the second month, and so far their com
memoration of the catastrophe would accord with
history; for Moses says that "in the sixth hundredth

1 'EfA^atftq slq r\v J.tX'fivqv. — 508.
2 Karao-KEvd^ovcri XdpvaKa fArfVOEi&q. — 507.
3 'liriq, who was ov% krkpa r-qq creX'qvqq, was also Sektixov aitdo-q(
ysvko-Eaq, KaBb riB-qv-q na! itav^Exqq vitb to? MXaroivoq KErOX-qrai. — 526.
MvjTtpa r-qv asX-qvqv to? koo-jaov KaXovcri na! tpv<riv e%eiv dpo-EvoQv]Xvy
o'tovrat. — 509. Hence, Dr. Young, in the Supplement to tlie Encyc.
Brit. art. Egypt, says that Ioh, the Egyptian name for the moon,
was a masculine deity. But Io was Isis; therefore Io was both
male and female, Lunus and Luna.

512 FIRE-TEMPLE OF PERSEUS.
year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seven
teenth day of the month, the same day were all
the fountains of the great deep broken up." ' But
in all probability they were not equally correct in
their choice of the season. When Moses reformed
the Jewish calendar, by removing the commence
ment of the ecclesiastical year to the vernal
equinox, it is highly probable that he only re
stored the ancient computation of time ; for it is
not likely that the renovation of the world would
be consigned to the winter, rather than to the
summer : at all events, it must be supposed that
he would use his own method of reckoning in his
history of religion : the flood, therefore, actually oc
curred in the second month after the vernal equinox.
But Plutarch mentions one circumstance which
accounts for its commemoration six months later
naturally enough ; he observes that the festival in
Athyr was celebrated at the rising of the Pleiades.2
Now it is certain, that if the chronology ofthe He
brew text 3 be correct, the path of the sun at the
vernal equinox, about the epoch of the deluge,
was among the stars in the constellation of the
bull ; and the Pleiades being the most remarkable

1 Gen. vii. 11.
2 "Etrrt Se bfA'qv oiroq itEpi itXEiata critopiftoq, bv 'AOvp Alyvitnoi Tlva-
l/EipiSva Sf 'A8-qvatot Boibtoj Se AafAarpiov KaXoveri. — 549- As there
is an autumn sowing, as well as a spring sowing, the ft-qv cnopifAoc\
proves nothing.
3 A few hundred years more would bring us back into Gemini,
allowing about 70 years for every degree of advance westward, by
what is called the precession of the equinoxes, calculated from their
present station.

VARIATIONS OF THE CALENDAR. 513
group in that asterism, and associated in the
minds of men with diluvian traditions ', their rising
would be a signal for acting over again their com
memorative rites. Perhaps in the selection of the
month Phamenoth, there might be some further
meaning ; for if Thoth be reckoned the first of the
year, Phamenoth is the seventh ; and it was in the
seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the
month, that the ark rested upon the mountains of
Ararat.2 Plutarch, therefore, may so far be mis
taken as to the occasion of those festivals that one
only, and that of a mournful character in No
vember, alluded to the entrance into the Ark ; the
other may have had principally for its object the
more joyful events of deliverance, though not
without some mixture of more fearful recollections,
as in the Indian festival of Durgatsava. Analogous
customs may be observed to have long existed in
various parts of the world, so remote from one
another, and so disconnected in all respects, that
they can only be explained by referring them to
a common origin, before the branches of population
issued from the parent stem. Thus, for instance, the
Tapuyes, in South America, celebrated the rising
of the Pleiades with songs and dances, seeming to
consider them as divinities.3 Vincentius Belova-
1 I am inclined to think that Aldebaran, the great star in Taurus,
owes its name to diluvian tradition. AI is an Arabic particle : Debar,
says Castell, means sometimes Petra in mari, in quam modo affluit
aqua, de qua modo defluit. Also aqua ingens : perhaps it was the
Egyptian Sirius, or Osiris; for Euripides speaks of lEipioq being
near the iitrairbpov JJXEidhoq. — Iphigenia.
2 Gen. viii. 4. 3 Southey 's Brazil, p. 380.
VOL. I. L L

514 VARIATIONS OF THE CALENDAR.
censis makes mention of two Indian nations, among
whom it was an ancient custom to go round their
idols with their hair torn off, naked, and howling,
and to cast stones on a heap, which was raised to
the honour of their gods.1 This they did twice a
year, at the vernal and autumnal equinox. These
were not fire worshippers, and therefore their actions
could have no reference to the sun, or his motions,
or ingresses : it is evidently the commemoration of
a catastrophe. AI Kaswine, an Arabian author,
relates, that when Mohammed came to Medina,
and asked the Jews why they fasted on the day of
Ashura, the tenth of Moharram, or seventh month,
they told him it was because on that day Pharaoh
and his people were drowned, Moses and those
that were with him escaping 2 : yet, AI Barezi says,
it was observed by the Arabs before. Thus it is
that ancient customs are sometimes preserved, but
misunderstood. The Jews of Medina had adopted
the Arabian usage, because it had some agreement
with their own, although quite at variance with it
on the most important points. The day of the
1 The common people of Boutan make themselves a little
domestic altar near the house, consisting of a pile of stones, about
three feet high, before which they lay leaves, fruits, or blades of
corn. — Trans. As. Soc. ii. 495. It is a mistake to call these piles
altars ; for, if that was the intention, the offerings would have been
laid, not before them, but upon them.
2 Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 151. The tenth day of Mo
harram (the first of the year), called Yom Ashoora, is held sacred,
because it is believed to be the day on which Adam and Eve first
met, after they were cast out of Paradise, and that on which Noah
went out from the Ark, and because the ancient Arabs before the
time of the prophet observed it by fasting. — Lane's Modern Egyp
tians, ii. 166.

VARIATIONS OF THE CALENDAR. 515
Exodus was not the tenth, but the fourteenth of
the month, and it was not a fast but a feast. " This
day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall
keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your gener
ation, ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for
ever." ' The truth is, the providence of God had
so ordered the course of events, that the drowning
of the Egyptian army exactly coincided in point of
season with the drowning of the world ; and the
Jews of Arabia erroneously referred to the former
event, and therefore adopted a pagan rite, which,
in truth, belonged to the latter. A festival, called
Beltane, or Beltein, is annually held in Scotland on
the 1st of May, 0. S. It is chiefly celebrated by
the cowherds, who assemble to dine on boiled
milk and eggs, and cakes, having small lumps in
the form of nipples raised all over the surface.2
These conical hills, though of such pigmy stature,
are characteristic of diluvian customs. Another
writer adds some further information on this sub
ject. Be-il tin, says he, i. e. the tein or fire of
Beil, was held on the beginning of May, and is still
the Gaelic name for Whitsunday. It was at this
time that the Celts began their year, as appears
from the Gaelic name still used for the month of
May, being Ceituin, or Ceud-uin, the first month,
or time. The Samh'in, or fire of peace, was
kindled on Hallow Eve, which still retains the
name." 3 This gives us a clue to the original
1 Exod. xii. 14.
2 Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish Language.
3 Smith's Gaelic Antiquities. L L 2

516 VARIATIONS OF THE CALENDAR.
meaning of these fires : they were fires of peace,
imitations of the sacrificial fires that blazed on
Noah's altar, when he stepped out of the Ark, and
offered burnt offerings, and the Lord smelled a
sweet savour, and said, I will not again curse the
ground any more for man's sake.1 Upon the same
principle the tumuli, or conical mounds on which
these fires were made, were called Si'uns, or
Mounts of Peace, and are still supposed by the
vulgar to be inhabited by fairies, who derive their
name from thence, — Si-ichean or Daoine Si ;
the men who dwell in the Mount of Reconcili
ation.2 In Ireland the festival of Saman3 was
kept on the eve of Allsouls, November 1st, called
Oidhche Shamhna. The peasantry went about
collecting eggs and money for it. All fires were
extinguished on that day, but the sacred fire, from
which all others were kindled. That this was a
memorial of the fire on the first postdiluvian altar,
is strongly confirmed by a custom recently, if not
still maintained by the people of the Western Isles.
On this festival, says Martin4, " They wade into the
sea to search of Shony, a sea god." The ale which
1 Gen. viii. 21. 2 Smith's Gael. Antiq.
3 The month of November is called Mi Saman, or Mi Du, which
is equivalent to Duw, or Dewa, and Deus, and Dieu ; or Naoi
Mi, i. e. Noah's month. Vallancey interprets Saman, Affliction ; and
affliction was certainly indirectly associated with the festival ; but
it is also the same as Sommono in the East, a Saint : Samhain is
Allsaintstide. — O'Brien, Shaw, Lhwyd. Bochart derives it from Sem,
or Sam, the son of Noah, cum Semi nomen idolatris invisum esset
Deum quidem fecerunt, sed Inferorum Deum : hence the Chaldaean
Samael. — See Collect. deReb. Hyb. vol. iii. The Afghans call him
Sam. 4 Martin's Western Islands, p. 28.

VARIATIONS OF THE CALENDAR. 517
they offered to him, and the speech which they
made to him, are, of course, improvements of mo
dern manufacture. The ancient Celts would as
soon have thought of asking a steam-boat for their
conveyance, and sea-weed to manure their land.
On the 1st of May, two fires were lighted in every
district in honour of Beal, and it was usual to
drive the cattle between them, as a preservative
against all distempers ! ' But it seems this Beal-
tinne, or Beal's fire, was lighted not only on the
1st of May, but at the vernal equinox, the summer
solstice, the- 1st of August, and the eve of the
1st of November.2 The observation of the 1st of
August came from Persia ; for Gjimshid is said to
have instituted the Nauruz 3, or solemn observation
of the new year, during six days, on the last of
which a youth went about, crying, " I am AI
Mansur," i. e. August.4 It is said to be still cus
tomary in the neighbourhood of Giggleswick, in
Craven, to make huge bonfires on the eve of
St. Lawrence (10th of August). Kennel night, as
it was called, was consecrated formerly to every spe
cies of rustic revelry round the Bale fires.5 There
is an idle story of a defeat of the Danes, which is

1 Vallancey 's Vindication of the Ancient History of Ireland,
p. 345. 2 Beauford on the Ancient Topography of Ireland, p. 286.
3 Sir J. Malcolm states, that the first day of the solar year, as it
was determined by Gemshid, the fourth king of Persia, when the
festival called Nauroze was kept, coincided with the vernal equinox.
— Hist, of Persia, p. 17-
4 Vallancey, iii. 184.
5 A writer in No. cxlviii. of Blackwood's Magazine.

518 VARIATIONS OF THE CALENDAR.
thus commemorated : the origin of the Bale fire
evidently belongs to a much more remote period.
That these Celtic festivals had a diluvian origin
is confirmed by the etymology of the two principal
places in Ireland, where they were celebrated.
Tlachgo is the name of a place in the county of
Eastmeath, supposed to be the tumulus of New
Grange near Drogheda, where the Druids used to
sacrifice on the eve of the first of November.
Now Go, in Irish, means the Sea, and Tlach has
two senses attributed to it, the Globe \ or Fire. 2
The compound word, therefore, signifies either the
inundated globe, or the diluvian fire, or altar on
which the fire was placed. The first is the most
probable ; for all sacred tumuli were types of the
Diluvian Mount. Uisneach, or Nuisneach, was
the name of a mountain in Westmeath, where fires
were kindled by the Druids on the first of May :
here the states assembled ; criminals were burned ;
and cattle, as well as children, were purified by
passing them between the two fires of Beal. 3
Now the meaning of the word is, obviously, Navis
Noachi. 4 It is worthy of remark, that the great
banks of sand at the mouths of rivers are called
1 By Mr. Beauford. — Ancient Topog. of Ireland, p. 420.
2 By Colonel Vallancey, from the Chaldee p^"l, Ardere.
3 Beauford, p. 426. " :
4 So also we discover the name of Noah in another Celtic appel
lation, Teach Naoi droma raithe, the house of the elder (i. e.
Noah), at the rath of the cave or hollow mount. Upon this hollow
mount was built the royal palace of Taragh, thence called Bruighen
da darg, the habitation of the cave, p. 296. The hill of Taragh, or
Taurus, was also called Laberus, from Labar, "Q7, Liburnica
navis. Cedrenus says, that Noah died at Leabar. — Compend. Hist.

VARIATIONS OF THE CALENDAR. 519
Beal, Bela, and Bull ', in Ireland ; for they are
sometimes covered with water, and again appear
to emerge from the retiring tide. Thus Belfast
has obtained its name, Beal-feasda ; and hence the
Bela at the mouth of the Shannon, and the North
and South Bulls of Dublin Harbour. In China, a
similar custom has been retained in attendance
upon the New Year, though it has no connection
with either of the equinoxes : for it commences
with the first new moon, nearest to the ingress of
the sun into the fifteenth degree of Aquarius. On
New Year's Eve they bathe in perfumed water;
and when the New Year begins, they illuminate
splendidly some domestic idol, and burn candles
and incense. 2 On the same day, a huge clay
figure of the Buffalo, called by the Chinese Water-
bullock, is borne in procession to the Eastern gate
of every capital city, where the governor strikes it
thrice with a whip, and then the people break it
in pieces, and from its hollow inside a multitude
of smaller images in clay fall out, for which they
scramble. The opening of the Water-bullock, to
let out the multitude of animals contained in its
interior during the preceding year, sufficiently
shows the reason why the sacrificial lights were
first kindled. 3
1 Vallancey 's Vindication, iv. 381.
2 Creuzer, on the Religions of Antiquity.
3 Davis's Chinese, i. 310.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

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