took its rife from the idea, that, the nobler was the victim offered, the more propitious and benignant was rendered the deity adored. With how dreadful a profufion human blood was anciently shed on the altars of India has already been related; that the caverns of the furious Mithriacs were little better than vast fepulchres of facrificed men is evident, not only from Porphyry's fecond book, De Abftinentia,* in which the dreadful pangs of hunger and thirst, and various other miseries undergone by the emaciated candidate during initiation, are enumerated; but is farther evinced by a very curious fact, related in the Ecclefiaftical History of Socrates, a Christian writer who flourished in the fifth century, shortly after the final extinction of the Mithratic fuperftition at Rome, by order of Gracchus, præfect of the prætorium. In this author's time, the Christians of Alexandria having difcovered a cavern that had been confecrated to Mithra, but for a long period clofed up, refolved to explore it, and examine what remnants of that fuperftition it contained, when, to their astonishment, the principal thing they found in it was a great quantity of human fkulls, with other bones of men that had been facrificed,

* De Abstinentia, lib. ii. p. 71, et feq.

facrificed, which were brought out, publicly exposed, and excited the utmost horror in the inhabitants of that great city.*

This general though dreadful feature of refemblance between the Mithriac and Suryatic devotees, having been thus again brought before the view of the reader, I proceed, in the first place, from that authentic register the Ayeen Akbery, to present him with the account of

THE BRAHMIN CHAR-ASHERUM, OR FOUR

DEGREES OF PROBATION.

THE FIRST DEgree, or BraHM-CHAREE.This state may be entered into by the young brahmin noviciate, fo early as his eighth year, when the first ceremony of initiation is the putting on of the facred zennar, or cord of three threads, in memory and honour of the three great deities of Hindoftan. Those who refuse to admit the hypothefis, fo amply detailed in the former chapter, relative to what I fuppofe to be the genuine origin of those three deities, must continue to confider them as the three elements perfonified; earth, fire, and air, which latter element condenfed, according

Hift. Ecclefiaft. lib. ii. cap. 2.

cording to the brahmins, is water. Thefe, fay the antagonists of that hypothefis, are the principles of which all bodies in nature, and man himself, are compofed. These were therefore confidered as first principles, and in that sense deified by a race plunged in materialism. I have thus ingenuously ftated the oppofite argument, that the reader, who is not inclined to degrade the human foul into a portion of respired air, may judge which of the two is the nobler hypothefis.

The materials of which the zennar is compofed, and the mystic ceremonies with which it is formed, have been already described in page 739. This cord must be twisted and put on the young brahmin by his father or tutor; and, when put on for the first time, it is accompanied with a piece of the skin of an antelope, three fingers in breadth, but fhorter than the zennar; the meaning of which I cannot conjecture, except it be allufive to the life which the holy hermit leads in those woody folitudes, where beafts of the chase are his companions, and their skins his only covering from the inclemency of the weather. This doctrine of sylvan feclufion is farther inculcated by their alfo investing the brahmcharee or brahmaffari, as the word is fometimes

૦ ૧ ૧

fometimes better written, by a circular belt, formed of a facred grafs, called moonj.*

He now learns the gayteree, or hymn in honour of the fun; and he is presented with a staff of sacred palass-wood. He then leaves. the house of his natural for the abode of his fpiritual father, under whofe tuition he learns. all the fublime doctrines and mysterious rites inculcated in the Vedas. There is no occafion for me to recapitulate all the routine of his various ablutions. The precifeenumeration of these would be in many instances in-. delicate, fince it is with the brahmins as with the Mahomedans, every call of animal nature is attended with reiterated lavation. Let us attend to his dress, for the reader will ever bear in remembrance the difference fubfifting between a brahmin, who is the old, brachman, and wears apparel; and the yogee, or old gymnofophift, who, warm with fervid piety, fpurns external clothing. A gymnosophist, or Hindoo penitent, is not properly a brahmin; though a brahmin, by adopting feverer aufterities, may become a gymnofophift.

His drefs confists of, first, a lungowtee, or cloth of decency, which covers the wafte; fecondly,

fecondly, a lungee, another cloth which folds. over the former; thirdly, a linen robe without any future, a kind of vestment, which, it is remarkable, the great high priest himself condescended to wear; fourthly, a linen cap. He bathes every morning without any covering but the lungowtee and the grafs cord of moonj. His morning ablution and the attendant ceremonies, extracted from this part of the Ayeen Akbery, are inferted in my fecond chapter with fome obfervations, which need not be repeated here, although the account of the bathing itself muft by no means be omitted. "The brahmin bathes every morning before fun-rife. He begins his ablution with taking up in his right hand a little water, and says, Pardon my offences ! After this, he throws away the water; then he rubs himself all over with earth; and, if he be in a river, dives three times, or else he throws water thrice over his body, and rubs himself with his hands. Next he repeats the name of GOD, and, afterwards, thrice takes up in his right hand a little water, which he fips, and repeats certain prayers, during all which time he sprinkles water upon his head. Then, with his fore-finger and thumb, he ftops his noftrils, and, bowing down his face to the surface of the water,