No nation upon earth, fays the author of the Analyfis, was ever fo addicted to gloom and melancholy as these wandering fons of Ham. In confequence, the primitive, mild, and benignant, religion of Hindostan suddenly changed its feature, and the angel of benevolence, that before prefided over and directed the public worship of the Deity, was converted into a dæmon, with an aspect replete with wrath and menacing vengeance. This alteration in the religious worship foon became vifible in the appearance and manners of the people. The deep wrinkle of thought and the pale caft of despair and melancholy fat upon the countenance, formerly illumined with the brightest ray of hope; while the of hope; while the eye, that once fparkled with holy tranfport, now funk in all the languor of grief, or became darkened with the scowl of mistrust. A tedious round of superftitious ceremonies ufurped the place of genuine devotion. Modes of penance, the moft frightful and excruciating, were established in the room of that heart-felt contrition which is at once most pleasing, and must prove most pacificatory, to a God of benignity and compaffion. Emaciated with continued famine, and ftaggering through extreme weakness, in all the confecrated groves and forefts of India, were feen feen the expiring victims of voluntary torture. The temples echoed with the shrieks of penitentiary anguish, and the altars were deluged with a wanton profufion both of human and bestial blood. The deity himself, the great BRAHME, whom the Indians were originally taught was a spirit, and that every symbolic representation must neceffarily degrade him, was, in time, dishonoured by the most humiliating fimilitudes, and delineated by the most monftrous fculptures. Thefe fculptures, indeed, were not all defigned, nor executed, with equal want of skill. There is one on the Ganges highly deferving notice, of HAREE (a title of Veefhnu) fleeping, on a vaft ferpent, both figures of exquifite workmanship; and the fabrication of which, as well as of the caverns of Salfette and Elephanta, on the two oppofite fhores of India, may justly be affigned to the remotest æra of the Indian empire. It is thus described by Mr Wilkins, in his notes to the Heetopades; "Nearly oppofite to Sultangunge, a confiderable town in the province of Bahar, in the In the Heetopades, the foreft of the prophet Goutama is mentioned as the forest dedicated to acts of penitential mortification. Heetopades, page 243. the Eaft-Indies, there ftands a rock of granite, forming a small island in the midst of the Ganges, known to Europeans by the name of the Rock of Jehangeery, which is highly worthy of the traveller's notice, for a vast number of images carved in relief upon every part of its furface. Among the rest there is HAREE, of a gigantic fize, recumbent upon a coiled ferpent; whofe heads, which are numerous, the artist has contrived to fpread into a kind of canopy over the fleeping god; and from each of its mouths iffues a forked tongue, feeming to threaten inftant death to any whom rashness might prompt to disturb him. The whole figure lies almoft clear of the block on which it is hewn. It is finely imagined, and executed with great skill.” It was the peculiar delight of this enterprizing race to erect ftupendous edifices; to excavate long fubterraneous paffages from the living rock; to form vaft lakes; to extend over the hollow of adjoining mountains magnificent arches for aqueducts and bridges; in short, to attempt whatever was hazardous and difficult; and to carry into execution whatever appeared to the reft of mankind impracticable. Affyria and Egypt were co vered vered with these wonders in fculpture and prodigies in art, which their daring genius and perfevering industry executed. It was they who built the tower of Belus and raised the pyramids of Egypt; it was they who formed the grottoes near the Nile, and scooped the caverns of Salfette and Elephanta. Their skill in mechanical powers, to this day, astonishes pofterity, who are unable to conceive by what means ftones, thirty, forty, and even fixty, feet in length, and from twelve to twenty feet in breadth, could ever be reared to that wonderful point of elevation at which they were seen by Pococke and Norden, in the ruined temples of Balbec and the Thebais. Those that compofe the pagodas of India are scarcely less wonderful in magnitude and elevation, and they evidently difplay the bold architecture of the fame indefatigable artificers. What we cannot allow to Mr. D'Ancarville as to Semiramis, who probably was an imaginary being, or, if not imaginary, certainly never penetrated fo far into India, may yet be allowed to the primeval ancestors of the nation over whom the governed. Thus have I endeavoured to account, in a manner, I trust, somewhat more fatisfactory than hitherto attempted, for the immense difparity parity and viciffitude fubfifting, through fucceffive ages, in fentiment and practice, between the Indians, or rather between the two great fects of Vefhnu and Seeva; between those who delight in bloody facrifices, and those who fhudder at them. It appears to me the most plaufible method for folving the hiftorical difficulty, and the only certain clue for unravelling the theological mystery. Had Sir William Jones completed his ftrictures upon the origin and priority of the Afiatic nations, or fixed the central country, in which, he seems to intimate, mankind were first settled, and from which, he afferts, all nations emigrated, I fhould have been enabled to proceed with more confidence, and less danger of error. It will be remembered, however, that the whole, which I thus offer, is profeffedly conjecture; and nothing could afford me greater pleasure than to renounce conjecture entirely upon fo important a subject, and facrifice hypothesis and opinion at the altar of truth. After having thus unfolded the great outlines of the intended history, I proceed to the confideration of fome other interefting circumstances, relative to the brahmins, not yet detailed, with which, either their native books or the Greek |