is three times to turn round them funways, all the while bleffing them and invoking heaven in their favour.* We come now to confider after what peculiar manner the fect devoted to Buddha reprefented this their favourite deity, which we fhall find to be exactly after the manner in which the Druids imaged their deity. 66 If the reader will be pleased to revert to my concise account of the fuperftition of BOODH, in a preceding volume of Indian Antiquities, he will there find, that, in the Indian peninfula, this deity was represented by a stupendous ftone idol, called the SOMMONACODOM, and that his followers took delight in erecting to his honour, temples and high monuments, as if," fays Mr. Knox, in his account of Ceylone there cited," they had been born folely to hew rocks and huge ftones, and lay them up in heaps." He has been likewise informed, from Norden, that the Egyptian priests refided near the pyramids in fquare ftone cells; and from M. Le Loubere, that the priests of BOODH, in Siam, a fuppofed colony from Egypt, refided in a kind of * Ibid. p. 118. † See the third volume, near the commencement. VOL. VI. G convent convent, confifting of many little cells, ranged in within a large fquare inclosure, in the middle of which ftood the temple. He then adds, certain pyramids ftand near and quite round the temple.* Of that fecluded race of men, who lived in the hallowed groves and caves of Mona, and erected the ftupendous circular ftructure and the lofty obelifks above referred to, can any defcription be more pointedly picturesque? But let us inquire more particularly what opinion the Indians themfelves entertain of their god BUDDHA. What was the exact period in which he lived? Whom did he marry? Where was he born? Whence did he come? I am aware that Kampfer fpeaking of Buddha boldly afferts him to be the fame with the renowned Budia Sakia, whofe priefts, when Cambyfes ravaged Egypt, were driven from that desolated country into every region that would afford them fhelter; who, it is faid, introduced their idol into China, under the foftened name of Fo, fince the inhabitants of that vaft empire, having neither B nor D in their alphabet, could not pronounce the ** See the third volume, near the commencement. former former harsh appellative; who gave their god Sommonacodom to the Siamese; and who, by the fhips of the Phoenicians, fince the commerce of that people with Britain for their envied tin was about that time in its fulleft vigour, might eafily find a paffage into this country. By the former fuppofition, the original occasion of introducing the ancient Oriental fuperftitions into Britain is indeed in fome degree accounted for; but, in that cafe, the priests of Mona fhould be descendants of the old Egyptians, with whom, though in fome general points of their religion they may agree, yet to whom, in many of their particular ceremonies and more diftinguishing tenets, they are directly oppofite. But befides this glaring incongruity and innumerable other abfurdities in this hypothefis, the æra affigned for the firft planting of the Afiatic fuperftitions in Europe is far too late in the annals of time. We know that the Druid fyftem of religion, long before the time of Cambyfes, had taken deep root in the British ifles. The Budia Sakia mentioned by Kæmp fer was doubtlefs the fecond Bhood, the ufurper of the honours of the firft, who, in fact, was one of the moft renowned of the Indian AVATARS, and a brilliant incarnation of the Deity himself. The Druid doctrines and manners are not of an Egyptian ftamp; they are altogether thofe of the patriarchal ages, and have a striking affinity to those of the Scythian and Celto-Scythian tribes, who, in different, but all remote, æras, defcending from that great hive, or, as it has been emphatically called, that forge of mankind, the Northern Afia, conquered Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and deluged the half of Europe with a new and hardier race of men. The Scandinavian hiftorians have recorded these invafions; and the conquering chieftain, or rather God in human form, according to the Hindoo fyftem of fucceffive incarnations of the Deity, who led the firft legions from the overcharged plains of Scythia, bore the renowned name of WODEN. Monfieur Mallet, previous to his History of Sweden, prefented his patrons with a work which he entitled Antiquitates Septentrionales, or Northern Antiquities; and I have presented mine with a work, which I have entitled Indian Antiquities. However different in name, in the end it may poffibly turn out, that the fubjects of our inveftigation, at least as far as their primæval manners and early history are concerned, do not fo materially vary. In the fourth fourth chapter of that book, the following intelligence is recorded. “A celebrated TRADITION, confirmed by the poems of all the northern nations, by their chronicles, by inftitutions and cuftoms, fome of which fubfift to this day, informs us, that, in very early periods, an extraordinary perfon, named ODEN, reigned in the North; that he made great changes in the government, manners, and religion, of thofe countries; that he enjoyed there great authority, and had even divine honours paid him. All thefe are facts which cannot be contefted: but as to what concerns the original of this man, the country whence he came, the time in which he lived, and the other circumftances of his life and death, they are fo uncertain, that the moft profound researches, the moft ingenious conjectures relative to them, difcover nothing to us but our own ignorance."* I have before obferved, that the belief of the Metempfychofis, and the fyftem of EMANATIONS, fo ancient and univerfal in India, has been frequently the occafion of introducing, upon the theatre of human tranfac • Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 58. tions, |