Ultor, Genitor; like the preserving power of India, Conservator, Soter, Opitulus, Altor, Ruminus; and like the creative power, the Giver of Life, an attribute which I mention here on the authority of Cornutus,* a consummate master of mythological learning."

The Olympian Jupiter fixed his court and held his councils, on a lofty and brilliant mountain; so the appropriated seat of Mahadeva, whom the Saivas consider as the chief of the deities, was mount Cailasa, every splinter of whose rocks was an inestimable gem. His terrestrial haunts are the snowy hills of Himalaya,+ or that

* Vide Cornuti sive Phurnuti de Natura Deorum Gentilium, &c. Basileæ, 1543.

+ Himalaya, meaning the Mansion of Snow, is the name given by the Hindus to that vast chain of mountains that bound India to the north; and which, separating Bharat, or what is now generally called Hindustan, from the Great Thibet, extend westward to Cashmire. Major Rennel supposes them to be the same as those named by the Greeks, Imaus, &c. for in different parts of the chain the Greeks gave them distinct names (see p. 4,

branch of them which has the name of

supra). Sir William Jones says, that the eastern part of those mountains is called by the Hindus, Chandrasechara, or the Moon's Rock. "These hills," says he, "are held sacred by the Hindus, who suppose them to be the terrestrial haunt of the god Iswara. The mountain properly Himalaya, being personified, is represented to have been a powerful monarch, whose wife, Mena, bore him a daughter, named Parvati, mountain-born, and Durga, or difficult of access; but the Hindus believe her to have been married to Siva in a pre-existent state, when she bore the name of Sati." The extreme height of Himalaya is calculated by observations at 21,000 feet above the level of the plains of Hindustan.

The Ganges is supposed to enter India by a subterraneous passage through these mountains, near to Gangotri. The government of Calcutta ordered a survey to be made of that river from Hurdwar,t where it enters the plains of Hindustan, to its source. It is only, we believe, about ten miles above Hurdwar, at a place named Caremsapur, where it properly takes the name of Gunga, or Ganges. Before that, the different streams which compose it, bear different names. The surveying party set out from Hurdwar the 10th of April, 1808, and on the 31st of May, reached Badri-Nath, on the banks of the Alcananda, where there is a temple highly venera

* See argument of a Hymn to Pracriti, Works of Sir William Jones, vol. xiii. p. 242, 8vo. edit.

† In N. Lat. 29o, 57′, and E. Long, from Greenwich, 78°, 8′, 30′′.

Chandrasechara, or the mountain of the
Moon."*

ted by the Hindus. Though then but little more than forty miles from Gangotri, it was, for reasons to be found in the narrative of the journey, resolved to return,† a circumstance much to be regretted. Major Rennell states Gangotri to be three hundred miles from Hurdwar.

This celebrated place is said to derive its name from Hara, and pilgrims resort thither annually, not only from every part of India to the east of the Indus; but also from Cabul, Candahar, Paishawar, and other countries to the west of that river, and which, as already observed, once formed part of the Hindu empire. The meeting begins early in March. Besides the religious festival, a great fair is held. The ablutions are performed in the sacred Ganges, at a place named Haraca-Pairi, or the foot of Hara. The grand day of bathing answers to our 11th of April. The number of persons who assemble annually, has been computed at about a million of souls. Devotees resort at certain seasons to numerous other celebrated places, as Jaggernaut in Orixa, Trippety, Conje veram, Chelumboum, Seringham in the Carnatic: and, as anciently in Greece, serious contests for precedency, frequently occur at those meetings.

* Jones.

↑ See Narrative of a Journey, &c. Asiat. Res. vol. xi.

T

Cuvera, likewise named Vetesa and Paulastaya, the Indian Plutus, is a magnificent deity, who resides in the palace of Aloca, and in his travels is borne through the sky in a splendid car named Pushpaca. He is the chief of the Yakshas and Rakshas, and is attended by good and evil genii.

Varouna, the god, or genius of water, is but an inferior deity: he is sometimes represented riding on a crocodile.

The ancients mention the god of love in the double character of divine and earthly. As such he has different names, and different parentage ascribed to him. In his former character, of pure and virtuous love, he is supposed to be the son of Jupiter and Venus; but the goddess being told by Themis, the patroness of oracles, that her son Eros would not grow to maturity till she had another son, she accordingly had one by Mars, whom she named Anteros. She is hence called by Ovid, the mother of two loves. This Cupid is sometimes represented with a torch in his hand, sometimes as armed with a bow and a quiver of

arrows, to testify his power of inflaming the mind, or wounding the heart; he is crowned with roses as emblems of the delightful but transitory pleasures of the passion he conveys;* sometimes he is represented with a bandage over his eyes, to intimate that those under his influence are blind to the faults and failings of the object beloved by them: at others, he appears with a rose in one hand and a dolphin in the other, the last perhaps as relative to the birth of his mother, or to shew that his empire even extends over the ocean. He is depicted in the air, on the earth, on the waters; he is seen dancing, playing, and climbing on trees; riding on panthers and lions, and guiding them at his will. The Indian god of love, is generally named Cama, or Camadeva. In the argument

Perhaps also the common proverb of, there are no roses without thorns, or in French, il n y a point de roses sans épines, to express that those pleasures are frequently accompanied with, or productive of misery, may have been taken from this allegorical ornament.