BERS's Account of the Ruins of Mavalipuram, of the SOMMONACODOM, or StoneDeity of the SIAMESE, and of the Superftition of ВOODH.-Additional Evidence of an early and familiar Intercourfe fubfifting between the EGYPTIANS and INDIANS adduced. First, in their mutual Veneration of the facred Loros.-Secondly, in their early Cultivation of the SUGAR-CANE.-Thirdly, in their ancient and once univerfal Diet having confifted of VEGETABLES.-Fourthly, in their mutual poffeffing a SACRED SACERDOTAL LANGUAGE, called in India the DEVANAGARI.-Fifthly, in the Divifion of the People into TRIBES or CASTS.Sixthly, in the numerous ABLUTIONS practifed by both People.-And, finally, in their univerfal Reverence of the Cow and the SERPENT.-The PYRAMIDS, the COLOSSAL STATUES, and the TEMPLES, of EGYPT, together with their fymbolical Decorations, are now at large confidered in a new and mythological Point of View, and the Analogy which they bear to the ancient My

thriac

thriac Superftitions of the Greater Aha are pointed out.

IMP

MPRESSED with ideas tolerably correct of the unfullied purity of the genuine laws and of the uniform fimplicity of the original mode of worship established by the first great legiflator of Hindoftan, and not ignorant, at the fame time, of the awful fanction by which the natives were bound, through the wife policy of the legislator, to the strict obfervance of both, many zealous admirers of the celebrated inftitution of Indian jurifprudence and theology have been filled with astonishment at the rapid increase of idol-deities, and efpecially of Egyptian deities, in that country. It is evident from every review of the ancient history of the two countries, that, in the moft early ages, a very familiar intercourse subsisted between India and Egypt. Upon evidence, that appears neither irrational, nor unfupported by collateral proof, we have seen that fome authors of credit have confidered the Indians as defcended from Rama, the grandfon of HAM, the parent of idolatry. However ftrong that evidence, the more generally prevalent opinion feems to be that the Indians

are

are of the nobler and more devout line of SHEM. If we confider them in the latter point of view, as the progeny of that holy patriarch, one of the most probable folutions of this deviation, in his defcendants, from their primeval fimplicity of worship that has been offered, is to be found in the learned Athanafius Kircher,* who has made the theologic fyftems of the various Oriental nations, and, in particular, the hieroglyphic emblems of deity adored in Egypt, the fubject of his minute researches. The frantic outrages committed by Cambyfes, after his conqueft of Egypt, his murder of APIs, their most venerated deity, the wanton cruelties which he inflicted upon his priests, and the confequent burning of those lofty and unrivalled edifices, the remains of which, at this day, conftitute the proudeft glory of that defolated country, are related at large in the third book of Herodotus. It feems to have been the intention of that monarch, at once to extinguish the Egyptian religion and to extirpate the order of the priesthood; nor can we wonder that the real madness, which fucceeded to the temporary phrenzy that dictated those outrages, was imputed by the fame facred order to the immediate

* Kircher. Chin. Illuftrat. part iii. p. 151. edit. Amft. 1667.

immediate vengeance of heaven for the unheard-of facrilege. From the lacerating fcourge and the deftroying fword of Cambyfes, Kircher represents the Egyptian priefts as flying with horror, and taking up their refidence in all the neighbouring countries of Afia, whofe inhabitants would afford them fhelter. Thefe holy and perfecuted men, throughout the regions which received them, are faid to have propagated the superstitions of Egypt, and both India, Scythia, and China, became in time polluted with the multiform idolatry, which, in fo remarkable a manner, prevailed on the banks of the Nile. If this explication of the introduction into India of fo many idols, peculiar to Egypt, be allowed to have any weight, it will also account for various striking features of resemblance in the idolatrous ceremonies common to thefe countries, as well as the monftrous forms of many of the idols adored with equal reverence in the pagodas of China and Hindoftan; and it will partly explain the reason of that very particular and univerfal veneration in which the two facred animals of Egypt, the Cow and the SERPENT, are holden.

To the authority of Kircher may be added that of a ftill greater writer, who, to the vari

ous

ous learning obtained from books united the lefs fallible evidence arifing from ocular inveftigation. The profound Kampfer,* in his hiftory of Japan, afferts his belief that the great Indian faint, BUDHA SAKIA, was a priest · of Memphis, where the God APIs was particularly adored, who, about that period, fled into India, and, together with many other Egyptian superstitions, introduced the worship of Apis, before unknown to the natives. Sir W. Jones seems, in fome degree, to confirm the opinion of both these refpectable authors,† when he fays that BOODH was undoubtedly the WOD or ODEN of the Scandinavians; and, under the softer name of Fo, was, in fucceeding ages, honoured with adoration by the Chinese. The only objection to a perfect coincidence in fentiment between these Oriental critics feems to lie in the point of chronology; for, the last, in the fame page with the above affertion, fixes the appearance of BooDH, or the ninth great incarnation of VEESHNU, in the year one thoufand and fourteen before Chrift, whereas the invafion of Egypt, by Cambyfes, took place, according to Archbishop Ufher, in the year 525 before the Chriftian æra.

* See Kæmpfer's Hist. Japan, vol. i. p. 38, edit. 1728. † Afiat. Researches, vol. i. p. 425.

In