turn from his expedition into India. From
the place of his birth, on the borders of the
Hellespont, he is sometimes named Helles-
pontiacus. His naked figure is indecent,
but as god of vineyards and gardens, he is
found there with a head resembling that
of a satyr placed on columns or termini.

We are told that Isis, having recovered
all the dispersed members of her husband
Osiris, excepting those of manhood, she
consecrated a semblance of them, and or-
dained that it should be worshipped.

As the Hindūs depend on their children for performing those ceremonies to their manes, which, they believe, tend to mitigate punishment in a future state, they consider the being deprived of progeny as a severe misfortune, and the sign of having offended the deity. By no people are duties towards the dead ever more strictly observed, or the effects of performing or neglecting them, more religiously believed, than by the Hindūs. The care of them is the obligation of the eldest male child, or in failure of male children, of the nearest male

relation. As with the Greeks, it is the elder surviving relative, who lights the funeral pile.*

Married women wear a small gold Lingam tied round the neck or arm; and worship is paid to Lingam to obtain fecundity.

The priests who devote themselves to the service of this divinity, swear to observe

*The author, happening to be at Rajahmundry, the capital of the province of that name, was visited by a Hindū; who was returning from a pilgrimage to Benares, whither he had gone to perform certain religious ceremonies for the benefit of the soul of his deceased father. He was a man of rank and fortune, and had come from Surat on the gulf of Cambay, across the peninsula, striking to the north. From a journal which he communicated, it appeared that he had visited Oudeapour, Oujein, and other places that are respected by the Hindus. He had been to offer his devotions also at the temple of Jaggernaut, on the coast of Orixa; and, when the author saw him, was on his way to visit that of Seringham near Trichinopoly, whence he proposed to return to Surat. It would be difficult to ascertain the number of miles he had travelled, as during his journey, several of the places he visited, led him into great deviations from the common route,

inviolable chastity. They do not, like the
priests of Atys, deprive themselves of the
means of breaking their vows; but were it
discovered that they had in any way de-
parted from them, the punishment is death.
Husbands, whose wives are barren, send
them to worship Lingam at the temples;
and it is supposed that the ceremonies on
this occasion, if performed with proper
zeal, are generally productive of the de-
sired effect.

In the accounts of the festivals of Rama,
and others of their demigods or heroes, a
strong resemblance may be observed with
those of Hercules and Theseus.*

The Hindūs, like the Greeks and Romans, have their household gods as well as their genii and aerial spirits. The Greeks ascribed the diseases to which men, and even cattle, are exposed, to some angry god, or

* See on the subject of the Hindū, Greek, and Italian divinities, the notes of M. Langlès to the translation of the first two volumes of the Asiatic Researches into French, vol. i. p. 273.

evil genius. The Hindus do the same. Pythagoras pretended that the evil genii not only caused diseases, but frightful

dreams.*

In India, as formerly in Greece, every wood and mountain, every fountain and stream, is sacred to some divinity. "Nullus enim locus sine genio est, qui per anguem plerumque ostenditur."+ The great rivers claimed beings of superior order; the rivulets and fountains had those of inferior rank. Three goddesses of the waters, highly venerated, and from whom three celebrated rivers take their names, are-Ganga, "who sprang, like armed Pallas, from the head of the Indian Jove; Yamuna, daughter of

* Diogenes Laertius in Pythag. tom. ii. p. 900. (edit. Longolii).

+ Servius in Æneid.

"The Hindu mythology has animated all nature. It has peopled the heavens, the air, the earth, and waters, with innumerable tribes of imaginary beings, arrayed in tints borrowed from the fervid imaginations of tropical climes."-Edinburgh Review, vol. xvii. p. 315.

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Surya, or the sun, and Sareswati.
three met at Prayaga, thence called Tri-
veni, or the three platted locks; but Sares-
wati, according to the popular belief, sinks
under ground, and rises again at Triveni
near Hugli, where she rejoins her beloved
Ganga."*
The Brahmaputra, as the name
expresses, is the son of Brahma; and that
noble river, the Krishna, is sacred to
Krishen, the incarnate Vishnu. It would
be almost endless to enumerate the various
sacred streams.

“We have mentioned the Lotos as being
highly venerated by the Hindūs. It is
particularly sacred to Lacshmi, the wife of
Vishnu, in her attributes of Sris, goddess
of plenty, who presides over the harvests.
She is sometimes represented holding a
Lotos in her hand; at others sitting on
one; and by poets she is frequently deno-
minated Padma-Devi,+ the goddess of the
Lotos, Padma being one of the Sanscrit

* Jones.

+ Mr. Wilford however ascribes that epithet to Cali.