by the brahmins. They are great curiofities, and one of them in particular appears to be of very high antiquity, in form very much refembling the cup of the lotos, and the tune of it is uncommonly foft and melodious. I could not avoid being deeply affected with the found of an instrument which had been actually employed to kindle the flame of that fuperstition, which I have attempted fo extenfively to unfold. My tranfported thoughts travelled back to the remote period when the brahmin religion blazed forth in all its splendour in the caverns of Elephanta: I was, for a moment, entranced, and caught the ardor of enthusiasm. A tribe of venerable priests, arrayed in flowing ftoles, and decorated with high tiaras, seemed affembled around me, the mystic song of initiation vibrated in my ear, I breathed an air fragrant with the richest perfumes, and contemplated the deity in the fire that fymbolized him.

With respect to the CONCH, or SHELL, blown during the Pooja by the brahmins, I have not obtained the fame advantage of perfonally examining it, as I was able to procure in the case of the facred bell, and can only af sert, on the authority of a gentleman profoundly versed in the Hindoo mythology, that Mmm 2

this

this venerated shell has, or ought to have, nine valves or foldings, in memorial of Veeshnu's nine paft incarnations. The facred inftruments of antiquity have nearly all of them a mythological allufion. The cymbals, whose exquifite notes refounded during the celebration of the rites of the Grecian Rhea, were allegorical of the harmony that pervades universal nature, that nature of which she herself was the perfonification. The fiftra of Ifis in Egypt, with their three cross bars of gold, filver, or brafs, denoted the three elements of nature, to a race who confidered water only as the aerial element condensed. The violent agitation and rattling noise of these bars, when the fistra were shaken at her festival, pointed out the concuffion of the primitive atoms, and the elementary conflict that prevailed at the birth of nature. The conch of India, indicative of the nine incarnations of Veefhnu, naturally brings to our recollection the testudo, or tortoisefhell, of which Mercury formed his famous lyre, whose three strings had a mythological allufion to the three seasons that compofed the Egyptian year, and were made of the finews of Typhon, the evil genius, to fhew that out of discord true harmony arifes. This fhell is always blown by the brahmins in the

fame

fame manner as the wind-inftruments of the Jews, the fhaphar, or trumpet, and the jubal, or ram's horn, during their religious ceremonies, were blown by the priests alone. When the walls of Jericho were miraculously overthrown, Seven priests blowing feven trumpets of rams' horns were commanded to make the circuit of that devoted city, at the terrific blast of which, on the feventh day, thofe walls were levelled with the duft.* * These facred inftruments were fuppofed to be defiled by the breath of the vulgar Hindoo and the unpurified Hebrew. The awful clangor announced the deity's descent to his throne upon the flaming altar; the ear of devotion was penetrated by the found; and the eye of ecstasy was riveted to the blaze. Even on the illumined fummit of Sinai, when the true God defcended in all the majesty of his glory to promulge the law, the voice of the trumpet founded long, and waxed louder and louder: and, we are farther told, that, at the dreadful day of final judgement for that law infringed, the Lord himself Shall defcend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the TRUMP OF GOD.†

Mmm 3

It

* Joshua vi. 20.

+ Thef. iv. 16.

It is not, however, only the conch-fhell that is venerated by the brahmins; there is a certain ftone of high mystical virtue, and, for the fame reason, confecrated to Vefhnu, called falagram, in which the Hindoos imagine they discover nine different shades, emblematical of his nine incarnations. It is found in the river of Cafi, a branch of the Ganges, is very heavy, oval or circular in its form, and in colour it is fometimes black and fometimes violet. Only a small cavity. appears on the outside, but within it is hollow, and almost concave, being furnished in the interior coats above and below with fpiral lines, which terminate in a point towards the centre. The fuperftitious brahmins fay, that they are formed by a fmall worm, which, working its way in the ftone, prepares in its bofom a habitation for Veefhnu. Some of them find in these spiral lines the figure of his chacra.

さ

These ftones are very rare and coftly: when they are quite black, and represent the gracious transformations of Veefhnu, especially under that of Creefhna, a Sanfcreet name fignifying black, they are ineftimable, but when they are tinged with violet, and reprefent his angry incarnations, as under the form

of

of a man-lion, or the Rama-avatars, they are of less value; indeed, if M. Sonnerat may be credited, in that cafe, no common follower of the god dares to keep them in his house: the Saniaffis alone, whose rigid penances have more fublimed their piety, are bold enough to carry them, and to pay them their daily ho

mage.

The Salagram is piously preferved in the temples of the Veefhnuvites, and is to them what the Lingam is to the Seevites. The ceremonies performed to these stones are nearly fimilar: they are equally borne about, as fomewhat fuperlatively precious, in the purest white linen they are washed every morning, anointed with oils, perfumed, and folemnly placed on the altar during divine worship, and happy are thofe favoured devotees who can quaff the fanctified water in which either has been bathed.

Let us return, to the confideration of the other fuperftitions practifed during the continuance of the Pooja. We have defcribed the general appearance of the pagoda, on the first entrance, as that of a gloomy and polluted dungeon. The Pooja, however, no fooner commences, than the fhades of darkness are turned to meridian fplendor, from the numeMmm 4

rous