fabulous bird, but agree with him, that the Hindu God, who rides on it, resembles the ancient JUPITER. In the old temples at Gayà, VISHNU is either mounted on this poetical bird or attended by it together with a little page; but, left an etymologist should find GANYMED in GARUD, I must observe that the Sanferit word is pronounced Garura ; though I admit, that the Grecian and Indian stories of the celestial bird and the page appear to have some resemblance. As the Olympian JUPITER fixed his Court and held his Councils on a lofty and brilliant mountain, fo the appropriated feat of MAHA'DE'VA, whom the Saiva's confider as the Chief of the Deities, was mount Cailáfa, every fplinter of whose rocks was an ineftimable gem : his terreftrial haunts are the snowy hills of Himálaya, or that branch of them to the Eaft of the Brahmaputra, which has the name of Chandrafic'hara, or the Mountain of the Moon. When, after all these circumstances, we learn that SIVA is believed to have three eyes, whence he is named alfo TRILO'CHAN, and know from PAUSANIAS, not only that Triophthalmos was an epithet of ZEUS, but that a statue of him had been found, fo early as the taking of Troy, with a third eye in his forehead, as we see him represented by the Hindus, we must conclude, that the identity of the two Gods falls little short of being demonstrated.

In the character of Destroyer also we may look upon this Indian Deity as correfponding with the Stygian Jove, or PLUTO; especially fince CAʼLI', or Time in the feminine gender, is a name of his confort, who will appear hereafter to be PROSERPINE: indeed, if we can rely on a Perfian translation of the Bhagavat (for the original is not yet in my poffeffion), the fovereign of Pátála, or the Infernal Regions, is the King of Serpents, named SE ́SHANA'GA; for CRISHNA is there said to have defcended with his favourite ARJUN to the feat of that formidable divinity, from whom he instantly obtained the favour, which he requested, that the fouls of a Bráhman's fix fons, who had been slain in battle, might

reanimate

reanimate their respective bodies; and SE'SHANA'GA is thus described: "He had a gorgeous appearance, with a thousand heads, and, on each "of them, a crown fet with refplendent gems, one of which was larger "and brighter than the reft; his eyes gleamed like flaming torches ; "but his neck, his tongues, and his body were black; the skirts of " his habiliment were yellow, and a sparkling jewel hung in every one "of his ears; his arms were extended, and adorned with rich bracelets, “and his hands bore the holy fhell, the radiated weapon, the mace for "war, and the lotos." Thus PLUTO was often exhibited in painting and sculpture with a diadem and fceptre; but himself and his equipage were of the blackest shade.

There is yet another attribute of MAHA'DE'VA, by which he is too visibly distinguished in the drawings and temples of Bengal. To destroy, according to the Védánti's of India, the Súfi's of Perfia, and many Philofophers of our European schools, is only to generate and reproduce in another form: hence the God of Deftruction is holden in this country to prefide over Generation; as a fymbol of which he rides on a white bull. Can we doubt, that the loves and feats of JUPITER GENITOR (not forgetting the white bull of EUROPA) and his extraordinary title of LAPIS, for which no fatisfactory reafon is commonly given, have a connexion with the Indian Philosophy and Mythology? As to the deity of Lampfacus, he was originally a mere fcare-crow, and ought not to have a place in any mythological fyftem; and, in regard to BACCHUS, the God of Vintage (between whofe acts and those of JUPITER we find, as BACON obferves, a wonderful affinity), his Ithyphallick images, measures, and ceremonies alluded probably to the fuppofed relation of Love and Wine; unless we believe them to have belonged originally to SIVA, one of whose names is Vágís or BA'GI's, and to have been afterwards improperly applied. Though, in an Effay on the Gods of India, where the Bráhmans are pofitively forbidden to taste fermented liquors, we can have

little to do with BACCHUS, as God of Wine, who was probably no more than the imaginary President over the vintage in Italy, Greece, and the lower Afia, yet we must not omit SURA'DE'ví, the Goddess of Wine, who arose, say the Hindus, from the ocean, when it was churned with the mountain Mandar: and this fable feems to indicate, that the Indians came from a country, in which wine was anciently made and confidered as a bleffing; though the dangerous effects of intemperance induced their early legislators to prohibit the use of all spirituous liquors; and it were much to be wished, that so wife a law had never been violated.

Here may be introduced the JUPITER Marinus, or NEPTUNE, of the Romans, as resembling MAHA'DE'VA in his generative character; efpecially as the Hindu God is the husband of BHAVA'NÍ, whose relation to the waters is evidently marked by her image being restored to them at the conclufion of her great festival called Durgótsava: she is known also to have attributes exactly fimilar to those of VENUS Marina, whose birth from the sea-foam and splendid rise from the Conch, in which she had been cradled, have afforded fo many charming fubjects to ancient and modern artists; and it is very remarkable, that the REMBHA' of INDRA's court, who seems to correfpond with the popular VENUS, or Goddess of Beauty, was produced, according to the Indian Fabulists, from the froth of the churned ocean. The identity of the tris'úla and the trident, the weapon of SIVA and of NEPTUNE, feems to establish this analogy; and the veneration paid all over India to the large buccinum, especially when it can be found with the spiral line and mouth turned from left to right, brings inftantly to our mind the musick of TRITON. The Genius of Water is VARUNA; but he, like the rest, is far inferior to MAHE'S'A, and even to INDRA, who is the Prince of the beneficent genii.

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