creating power, the Giver of Life; an attribute, which I mention here on the authority of CORNUTUS, a confummate master of mythological learning. We are advised by PLATO himself to search for the roots of Greek words in fome barbarous, that is, foreign, foil; but, fince I look upon etymological conjectures as a weak basis for historical inquiries, I hardly dare suggest, that ZEV, SIV, and Jov, are the same syllable differently pronounced: it muft, however be admitted, that the Greeks having no palatial figma, like that of the Indians, might have expreffed it by their zéta, and that the initial letters of zugon and jugum are (as the instance proves) eafily interchangeable.

Let us now defcend, from these general and introductory remarks, to some particular obfervations on the resemblance of ZEUS or JUPITER to the triple divinity VISHNU, SIVA, BRAHMA; for that is the order, in which they are expreffed by the letters A, U, and M, which coalefce and form the myftical word O'M; a word, which never efcapes the lips of a pious Hindu, who meditates on it in filence: whether the Egyptian ON, which is commonly supposed to mean the Sun, be the Sanfcrit monofyllable, I leave others to determine. It must always be remembered, that the learned Indians, as they are inftructed by their own books, in truth acknowledge only One Supreme Being, whom they call BRAHME, or THE GREAT ONE in the neuter gender: they believe his Effence to be infinitely removed from the comprehenfion of any mind but his own; and they fuppofe him to manifest his power by the operation of his divine spirit, whom they name VISHNU, the Pervader, and NA'RA'YAN, or Moving on the waters, both in the mafculine gender, whence he is often denominated the First Male; and by this power they believe, that the whole order of nature is preserved and fupported; but the Védántis, unable to form a distinct idea of brute matter independent of mind, or to conceive that the work of Supreme Goodness was left a moment to itself, imagine that the Deity is

VOL. I.

M M

ever

ever present to his work, and constantly supports a series of perceptions, which, in one fenfe, they call illufory, though they cannot but admit the reality of all created forms, as far as the happiness of creatures can be affected by them. When they confider the divine power exerted in creating, or in giving existence to that which exifted not before, they called the deity BRAHMA' in the mufculine gender also; and, when they view him in the light of Destroyer, or rather Changer of forms, they give him a thousand names, of which SIVA, ISA or I'SWARA, RUDRA, HARA, SAMBHU, and MAHA'DE'VA or MAHE'S A, are the most common. The first operations of these three Powers are variously described in the different Purána's by a number of allegories, and from them we may deduce the Ionian Philosophy of primeval water, the doctrine of the Mundane Egg, and the veneration paid to the Nymphæa, or Lotos, which was anciently revered in Egypt, as it is at present in Hinduftán, Tibet, and Népal: the Tibetians are said to embellish their temples and altars with it, and a native of Népal made proftrations before it on entering my study, where the fine plant and beautiful flowers lay for examination. Mr. HOLWEL, in explaining his first plate, fuppofes BRAHMA to be floating on a leaf of betel in the midst of the abyss; but it was manifestly intended by a bad painter for a lotos-leaf or for that of the Indian fig-tree; nor is the fpecies of pepper, known in Bengal by the name of Támbúla, and on the Coast of Malabar by that of betel, held facred, as he afferts, by the Hindus, or neceffarily cultivated under the inspection of Bráhmans; though, as the vines are tender, all the plantations of them are carefully fecured, and ought to be cultivated by particular tribe of Súdras, who are thence called Támbuli's.

That water was the primitive element and first work of the Creative Power, is the uniform opinion of the Indian Philofophers; but, as they give fo particular an account of the general deluge and of the Creation, it can never be admitted, that their whole fyftem arofe from traditions concerning