permiffion of the Vedas, travels either to the Eaft, whence the bright fymbol of the deity darts its first ray upon the earth, or directs his progress towards the North, doubtless for an aftronomical reafon, fince, in defcribing the two gates of heaven, through which the migrating foul glides, Homer informs us,

That on the north is pervious to mankind,

The facred fouth to immortals is configned,

purfuing his folitary journey to the land unknown. Disdaining all obstruction, rejecting all nourishment, and absorbed in intense contemplation on the state to which he is rapidly advancing, he preffes forward in his fancied career to happiness and glory, till exhaufted nature faints under the task: he ftaggers, falls, and expires ! If a lefs tedious and toil fome death should prove more agreeable to him, he is not restrained to this mode of departure, but he may plunge at once into consuming fire, he may bury himself in the overwhelming flood, or he may precipitate himself from a rocky eminence, that he may be dashed to pieces in the fall. These fuicidal executions they confider as the fure road to paradife; but, unless the penitent has reached the fourth degree, and fuffered the tortures of the state. of Sanyaffi, he has no title, from this action alone,

alone, to the fublime rewards of MOKT.* The faft of Chanderayan, mentioned above, is thus practifed: the devotee eats on the firft day only one mouthful, two mouthfuls during the fecond day, and he thus continues increasing a mouthful every day for a month. He then decreases gradually a mouthful on each day, till he is at length reduced to the fingle mouthful with which he began. Such is the Chanderayan, and it must be owned to be a very ingenious mode of inflicting progreffive and lingering torture: but the ingenuity of the Hindoos in this refpect still more wonderfully displays itself in many of those enumerated in the following fection, which forms a proper appendix to the tremendous. excruciations of the third Asherum.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF HINDOO FASTS.

The first kind is, when the penitent neither eats nor drinks for a day and night. There are twenty-nine fuch fafts in the courfe of the year, which are indifpenfable.

The second kind. He fafts during the day, and eats at night.

The third kind. He eats nothing but fruits, and drinks milk or water.

* Heaven, See Ayeen Akbery, vol. iii. p. 223.

The

The fourth kind.

He eats once during the

day and night.

The fifth kind. He eats only one particular kind of food during the day and night, but as often as he pleases.

The fixth kind. Chanderayan, which has been described.

The feventh kind. He neither eats nor drinks for twelve days.

The eighth kind. This lafts twelve days. During the first three days, he eats a little once in a day. During the next three days, he eats only once in the night. During the three days next fucceeding, he never taftes any thing, unless it be brought to him by the hand of accidental benevolence. During the last three days, he neither eats nor drinks.

ner:

The ninth kind. This faft lasts fifteen days, and is observed in the following manFor three days and nights, the penitent eats only one handful at night. For the next three days and nights, if accidental charity fhould bestow upon him fuch a handful, he eats it, otherwife he does not take any fuftenance. For the three fucceeding days and nights, he eats nothing.

During the

* Ayeen Akbery, vol. iii. p. 223.

three

three days and nights following, he takes only a handful of warm water each day. The last three days and nights of this dreadful penance, a handful of warm milk each day is his only allowance.

The tenth kind. For three days and nights, he neither eats nor drinks. He lights a fire, and fits contemplative at a door, where there enters a hot, fuffocating wind, which he draws in with his breath.

The eleventh kind. This alfo lafts fifteen days, and is performed after the following manner. Three days and nights he eats nothing but leaves; three days and nights, nothing but the feed of the lotos; three days and nights, nothing but peepul-leaves; three days and nights, the expreffed juice of a particular kind of grafs called DOOBAH.

The twelfth kind. The following is his regimen for a week. The first day he lives entirely upon milk; the fecond, upon milkcurds; the third, he tastes nothing but ghee; the fourth, his disgusting beverage is the urine of the cow; the fifth, the excrements of that holy animal are his allotted food; the fixth, water is his only nourishment; on the feventh, the ftern mandate of a fevere fuperftition ordains to be a total fast.

During every kind of fast, he abftains from flesh, adefs, lubya, honey, and molaffes, fleeps on the ground, plays not at any game, has no connection with woman, anoints not himfelf with oil, neither shaves himself; but every day, while it lafts, he bestows charity, and performs other good actions.

The FOURTH ASHERUM being the state of Saniaffi, and the Saniaffi differing but little in point of unexampled severity from the gymnofophift of the ancients, or modern YOGEE, a character on the investigation of which I must enter at confiderable length, and with which it is my intention to conclude the Indian Theology, I fhall, in this place, infert the relation of the kindred tortures endured by the initiated in the MYSTERIES of Mithra; stupendous and nefarious mysteries, equally dishonourable to the deity and destructive to

man !

THE DREAD. UL RITES OF INITIATION INTO THE MITHRIAC MYSTERIES UNVEILED.

The account, given in a preceding page of the discovery of the Mithriac sepulchral cavern of Alexandria, is decifive in regard

to