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and of the fect of the elder Buddha, because they venerated Mercury, and Buddha is the Indian Mercury, honoured with the fame rites, and decorated with the fame symbols.

Various writers alfo on British antiquities have judged, from a partial examination of the Phoenician mythology, that the whole of the Afiatic fuperftitions imported into Britain were brought into this country by a Phoenician colony; but this decifion, though partly juft, because colonies did undoubtedly in very early ages migrate hither from Tyre, with poffibly a chief affuming the name of Hercules for their conductor, fince Hercules was the grand agent of antiquity on all these occafions, is not true in the extent contended for. It will be recollected, that, at the remote period at which I fuppofe the first colonies to have moved off from the great Tauric range, the whole mass of Eastern fuperftitions was concentrated in Affyria, and that the Phoenician religion, as well those parts of it which were of a purer nature as those which were corrupted by the prevailing Sabian idolatry, was, with exception to a few local divinities, and peculiar rites afterwards adopted in Phoenicia, the established religion of the higher Afia and the Brachmans.

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Of a great and comprehenfive argument, it is impoffible, confiftently with propriety in a mere Differtation, to unfold more than a few leading traits; and thofe I fhall devolve in as much order as the inveftigation of a fubject fo remote, and, in its nature, defultory, will allow of. There are few facts in ancient hiftory which can be fo clearly proved, as that the god Buddha, or Boodh, of the Indians, was the Oden, or Woden, of the northern nations. The firft proof of it is, that very curious circumftance with which the acquaintance of Mr. Halhed with the Sanfcreet language enabled him first to make his countrymen acquainted; that the days of the week, in India, are named after the fame planets to which they were affigned by the Greeks and Romans; and that ВOODH WAR, or Dies Boodh, is that fourth day of the week, which, in our language, derived from the Celtic and Getic, is denominated WODEN DIES, that is, Oden's, or Woden's Day, corruptly pronounced Wednesday. The period in which the Indian Boodh flourished, which was in the earlieft poft-diluvian ages, as well as his planetary defignation, and the aftronomical fymbols with which he is adorned, evince him to be the fame identical perfon as the Taut of Phoenicia,

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Phoenicia, whom all antiquity, not dreaming of an Indian Boodh, with united voice, allows to have originally migrated from Phoenicia, and to have settled in Upper Egypt. Taut, in truth, was no other than the elder Hermes, or god Anubis, of that country; and it was this exotic god-king, as I have elsewhere endeavoured to make fully evident, who caused that most ancient and fublime symbol of the Tri-une Deity, the WING, the GLOBE, and the SERPENT, to be exalted on the lofty portals of all the Egyptian temples, as an eternal me'mento to revolving ages, that such a patriar

chal notion of a diftinction in the divine nature did actually exift; and, where it now ftands, as may be seen in the correct and beautiful engravings of Pococke and Norden, many of them copied into the preceding vo lumes of Indian Antiquities. It was also this identical Taut, who, under that other name of Hermes, inftructed the Egyptians in the elements of aftronomy, mufic, and letters; and who, borrowed from the mythology of those nations, under the later name of Mercury, was venerated by the Greeks and Romans as the God of Eloquence and Commerce. That in the mythologies of Afia there fhould have been two Boodhs and two

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Hermes

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Hermes will not appear ftrange to those rea ders who may reflect on the general prevalence in the ancient world of the doctrine of divine and fucceffive emanations. Each was worshipped as a deity, and each decorated with fimilar illuftrative infignia; for, it was the uniform fyftem of the ancients, when they exalted to divine honours fome diftinguifhed mortal, to inveft the deified perfon with the fymbols of the virtues and the fciences for which he was, when living, most celebrated; while, in a conftant contemplation of the allegorical and fpiritualized character, they forgot, by degrees, his terrestrial origin. Thus Hermes, having taught the Egyptians mufic, they gave him a testudo, or lyre, a fymbol for ever occurring in the caverns of the Thebais; that teftudo afterwards exalted to the fkies for one emblem; while, for another, they gave him wings, and called him the Meffenger of the Gods, either alluding to the rapid revolution of the planet that bore his name, or because, as an aftronomer, he had explored the heavens, and revealed to man the fecrets of the fky. In fact, Taut, Buddha, and Hermes, are only the varied appellations of fome diftinguished character, the immediate defcendant of Noah, who ear

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lieft cultivated the arts reviving after the deluge, and who, leading colonies to distant regions, diffufed the light of fcience over the renovated globe. To this illuftrious character, as was before obferved in the case of the Affyrian or Hercules Belus, the founder of the race of the Heraclidæ and the Belidæ, the feveral branches of the patriarchal family laid claim as a common anceftor; affumed his name as the chieftain of their tribe, regarded him as their tutelary genius, and, in the respective systems of mythology, instituted athem in fucceeding ages, adored him as a divinity.

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If the reader fhould be of opinion, that the very remarkable circumftance, of the fame planetary deity giving name to the fame day of the week in India and Britain, will not prove the abfolute identity of Boodh, of Woden, of Taut, and of Hermes, let us go from Britain to Gaul, where another branch of the great Celtic family fettled, for corroborative evidence of that identity, and we shall find, in the appellation of one of their chief deities, the very title of the Phoenician and Egyptian God. The name of Thoth and Taut is found very little disguised in Theutates, though I own the benign character of the

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