lahs* and four mashahs, nor more than 3410 tolahs. The height must be seventy-two fingers; the breadth forty-eight fingers. This is adorned with jewels, and, after the performance of certain ceremonies, given away in alms. 3. An egg is made of gold divided in two parts, which join together so as to make a perfect oval. It must not be fmaller in breadth and heighth than twelve fingers, nor larger than a hundred and ten fingers. The weight must be from fixty-fix tolahs fix mafhahs to three thousand three hundred and thirty-three tolahs four mashahs.

5°

4. This donation confifts of a tree which was one of the fourteen things difgorged by the fea in the Courma Avatar. Birds are represented fitting upon the branches. It is made of gold, and must not weigh less than two tolahs. This confifts of one thousand cows, with the points of their horns plated with gold, and their hoofs with filver, with bells and katasses about their necks. 6. This confifts of a cow and calf, made of gold, weighing from 850 to 3400 tolahs. 7. The feventh is a horse,

The tolah, we are informed by Tavernier, a merchant in gold and jewels, is a weight peculiarly appropriated, throughout the Mogul empire, to thofe precious commodities, and, according to that author, a hundred tolahs amount to thirtyeight ounces.

horfe, made of gold, weighing fram to tolahs to 3333 tolahs four mashahs. 8. A fourwheeled chariot, made of gold, with four or eight horses, weighing from 10 tolahs to 6660 tolahs eight mashahs. 9. A carriage, drawn by four elephants, all of gold, weighing from 16 tolahs to 6660 tolahs eight mashahs. 10. Four ploughs of gold, of the same weight as the last article. 11. A representation of a piece of land, with mountains and rivers made of gold, not weighing less than 16 tolahs eight mashahs, nor more than 3333 tolahs. 12. A golden fphere, weighing from 66 tolahs eight mashahs to 3333 tolahs four mafhahs. 13. A golden vine, weighing from 16 tolahs to 3333 tolahs four mashahs. A representation of the feven feas in gold, weighing from 23 tolahs four mashahs to 3333 tolahs four mashahs. 15. A cow and calf made of precious ftones. 16. A golden figure, with the head of an elephant and the other parts human, weight from 16 tolahs eight mashahs to 3333 tolahs four mashahs.

14.

According to fome purauns, toladan is the only kind that is proper, and none of the others fhould be less than 106 tolahs fix mafhahs, or more than 833 tolahs four mashahs. There are alfo different opinions about the

manner of diftribution; fome brahmins maintaining that it ought to be first given to the ACHAREYA, and by them diftributed to others. The ACHAREYA are those who teach the Vedas and other fciences. There are diftinct ceremonies appointed for each kind of Dan, but it may be bestowed at any time; although, offerings made during eclipses, and when the fun enters the fign of Capricorn, are esteemed more especially meritorious. Great rewards are promised to those who are charitable; infomuch, that, for the first kind of dan, when a man gives away his own weight in gold, he is ordained to remain in paradise for one hundred million kalps, (periods of Brahma,) and, when he re-affumes a human form, he will become a mighty monarch.

I now hasten to fulfil my promise, so often repeated, of detailing the dreadful prescribed penances which the brahmins undergo in their progress through the CHAR ASHERUM, or four Hindoo degrees of probation; and the still more tremendous fufferings fpontaneously inAlicted upon themselves by the Yogees, or devotees of India, to attain a certain and speedy admiffion into the delights of paradise. This description will, in fact, amount to little less than the history of the human foul, that æthereal

thereal spark, as the old philofophers of Afia confidered it, which emaned from the bright central fource of light and heat; of its various toils and wanderings during its earthly pilgrimage; and its inceffant and ftrenuous efforts to reunite itself to that fource. Nothing can be more interefting or important than this inquiry. I am about to bring forward, on the great theatre of human tranfaction, agents, who equally brave the dangers of the raging flood and the devouring fire; whofe courage is not to be shaken by the sharpest pangs of torture, or the approach of death in its most ghaftly and appalling form. On this most curious and affecting fubject, let us take, as a basis of our difquifition, that obfervation of Strabo, which he lays down as the first principle of their theology: τον μεν ένθαδε βις, ὡς ἂν ἀκμην κυομενων εἶναι, τον δε θανατον γενεσιν εις τον έπως Biov: or, that this prefent life is but the life of embryo-existence, a mere conception; but that death is a generation or birth into TRUE LIFE. The reader will now please to compare this true representation of Strabo with all the numerous paffages previously extracted by me in the first chapter of the Indian theology from the Geeta, the Heetopades, and the SaPpp 2 contala,

contala, relative to the inceffant migration of the foul, its afcent through the several spheres, and its ardent defires after and final abforption in Brahme, THE SUPREME GOOD. He will likewife pardon me, I truft, for once more bringing to his view the consequent remark in page 354, with the circumftances there enumerated of the peculiar and dreadful feverities inflicted on himself by the infatuated Yogee, the truth of all which circumftances I fhall presently proceed to prove from the most respectable authorities.

"From the collective evidence exhibited in the preceding pages, the affertion with which I commenced these particular strictures on the Mctempfychofis, that the profeffed design of it was to restore the fallen foul to its priftrine state of purity and perfection, is proved beyond contradiction. Thus, an interesting and aftonishing profpect unfolds itself to our view. Their facred writings, we fee, represent the whole univerfe as an ample and auguft theatre for the probationary exertion of millions of beings, who are fupposed to be fo many spirits degraded from the high honours of angelic diftinction, and condemned to afcend, through various gradations of toil and fuffering, until they fhall have reached

that