the case. In this, his genial character, Parvati, another term for Bhavani and Durga, is allotted him for a consort, or, rather, is only one part of himself. Under these two forms, says M. Sonnerat, he is adored by the name of Parachiven and Parasati. In some temples these two figures are separate; but, in others, they are joined together, and compose one figure, half man and half women. The principal temple of Seeva, under this combined image, is at Tirounomaley.

In forming these conceptions, and in combining these images, I am ready to admit that mythology has had considerable influence; yet, am I not without strong suspicion, that the whole of this ANDROGYNOUS system is founded upon mistaken tradition, similar to that occurring in the writings of some rabbinical doctors, and founded on a false interpretation of a verse in Genesis, that God, at the beginning, created man of both sexes; male and female created he them. So far distant are the zealous adorers of Seeva, in this ca-. pacity, from being of a licentious character, that none of his votaries are doomed to a more rigid purity than these: they have all the frozen chastity of Atys, the well-beloved of Cybele, with this difference, that they retain Nn 4 the

the ability, which Atys wanted, of violating the vow of perpetual virginity. In fact, by the force of severe penances and habitual abstinence, some of them entirely vanquish the ebullition of natural desire; while others, by deadly stupifying drugs, lock up all the springs of genial passion and are absorbed in holy insensibility. The necessity for their arriving at this state of invincible apathy must be evident to those who consider the danger of these devotees, who appear constantly in public without the smallest covering, and in whom the least apparent deviation from their profession of entire abstraction in spiritual objects would be considered as an unpardonable crime; a crime for which they would be infallibly stoned to death by the enraged populace. These people bear the disgusting but too-expressive symbol of their god around their neck or fastened to their arm; and they rub the forehead, breast, and shoulders, with ashes of cow-dung. They use cow-dung, I presume, because it is the medium by which the barren soil is rendered prolific, and therefore reminds them of the famous Indian doctrine of corruption and re-production. They use it burnt to ashes, because fire is another emblem of Seeva, as a destroyer, and it is fire

that

that will finally reduce to ashes "the cloudcapt towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, and all which it inherit." It is very remarkable that the Assyrian Venus, according to Lucian, had also offerings of dung placed upon her altars. This custom could only originate in the Galli, her priests, considering her in the light of the great productive principle in nature personified, and connecting with that idea the maxim of the Brahmins, that the apparent destruction of an object is only the re-production of it in another form.

Such, surveyed in its general feature, is the vast, the complicated, system of Indian, or rather Asiatic, superstition. If some parts of the Brahmin ritual appear to have been blended with those adopted by the Jews, the difficulty can only be solved by one or other of the following suppositions; either, that, in the grand primeval theology of the venerable patriarchs, there were certain mysterious rites and hallowed symbols universally prevalent, the use of which has descended to their posterity, settled in the various regions of Asia, and retained among others by the progeny of the faithful Abraham; or else, that the supreme Deity, in condescension to the weakness

of

of the Jews, and the predilection which they had unhappily formed in Egypt for the religious habits and ritual of that country, thought proper to indulge his favoured race in the adoption of a few of the most innocent of the Gentile ceremonies. The former of these suppositions is by far the most agreeable to the hypothesis on which this book proceeds, and is by far the most consonant to the jealous honour of the God of Israel. After all, we must own, with Calmet, that the temple of the great Jehovah had many decorations similar to those in the hallowed temples of Asia. He was served there, says the last-cited author, with all the pomp and splendor of an Eastern monarch. He had his table, his perfumes, his throne, his bed-chamber, his officers, his singing-men, and his singing-women.*

* See Calmet's Critical Dissertations on the Hebrew Music, 9. Quarto, 1727.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER III.

From general Description the Author enters on minuter Details relative to the Indian Pooja, or Sacrifice.—A concise Chapter on the Subject from SONNERAT. — Extracts from the Ayeen Akbery.

Commutations of gold and

silver Utensils allowed instead of sanguinary Sacrifices of Men and Beasts.-Those Sacrifices, however, still in a degree prevail, which introduces the Subject of the PENANCES of the Hindoos. The excruciating Severities submitted to in the Course of the CHARASHERUM, or Four Degrees of Probation, during Initiation into the Indian Mysteries, detailed and compared with those undergone in the Mysteries of Mithra in Persia and at Eleusis.

THE

'HE general view previously exhibited of the rites practised in the Indian temples will prove a proper introduction to the peculiar ceremonies of the smaller distinct Poojas, which are numerous and varied according to the character and attributes of the Deity adored. Sonnerat has given an entire

but