Historical Account of Discoveries and Travels in Asia: From the Earliest Ages to the Present Time, Volume 2

Front Cover
A. Constable and Company, 1820

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 250 - He, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first with a thought created the waters, and placed in them a productive seed : that seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams ; and in that egg he was born himself, in the form of Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits.
Page 247 - Let us adore the supremacy of that divine sun, the god-head who illuminates all, who recreates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understandings aright in our progress towards his holy seat.
Page 247 - What the sun and light are to this visible world, that are the Supreme Good and Truth to the intellectual and invisible universe ; and as our corporeal eyes have a distinct perception of objects enlightened by the sun, thus our souls acquire certain knowledge by meditating on the light of truth, which emanates from the Being of beings ; that is the light by which alone our minds can be directed in the path to beatitude.
Page 460 - Bootan presents to the view, nothing but the most mishapen irregularities; mountains covered with eternal verdure, and rich with abundant forests of large and lofty trees. Almost every favourable aspect of them, coated with the smallest quantity of soil, is cleared and adapted to cultivation, by being shelved into horizontal beds: not a slope or narrow slip of land between the ridges, lies unimproved. There is scarcely a mountain, whose base is not washed by some rapid torrent, and many of the loftiest,...
Page 381 - A general knowledge of history or geography will at once disperse that cloud of more than Egyptian darkness, which for so many ages has confined their view. . . . When they cease to consider Mount Meru as 20,000 miles high, and the world as a flower, of which India is the cup, and other countries the leaves, their minds may become more open to rational views on the subject of religion.
Page 301 - It is inconceivable, and not to be encompassed by sinful man; and it is guarded by dreadful serpents. Many celestial medicinal plants adorn its sides; and it stands, piercing the heaven with its aspiring summit, a mighty hill, inaccessible even by the human mind.
Page 95 - Missionaries] could never make any impression. Not only did he adore the sun, and make long prayers to it four times a day ; he also held himself forth as an object of worship; and though exceedingly tolerant as to other modes of faith, never would admit of any encroachments on his own divinity.
Page 500 - ... with amazing boldness and grandeur. The stupendous height of these mountains ; the magnificence and variety of their lofty summits; the various nations by whom they are seen, and who seem to be brought together by this common object ; and the awful and undisturbed solitude which reigns amidst their eternal snows, fill the mind with admiration and astonishment, that no language can express.
Page 247 - Without hand nor foot, he runs rapidly and grasps firmly; without eyes, he sees all; without ears, he hears all. He knows whatever can be known ; but there is none who knows him. The wise call him the Great, Supreme, Pervading Spirit.
Page 316 - It is the business of all, from the ryots to the dewan, to conceal and deceive. The simplest matters of fact are designedly covered with a veil through which no human understanding can penetrate.

Bibliographic information