tions, perfonages upon whom, on account of fimilarity of genius or talents, though flourifhing in ages very remote from each other, they beftowed one common name. This cir cumftance has given birth to a multitude of imaginary Zoroafters and Orpheufes, and this has doubtless been the real caufe, that on two perfons, living in very different periods of the Indian and Scythian empires, the distinguished denominations of ВооDи and WODEN have been conferred. The etymology of the name Sacya, or Sakia, according to Sir William Jones, is to be found in a Sanfcreet word fignifying a feeder on vegetables, and the term BUDDHA, or Boodhift, means, in general, a fage or philofopher. Well aware how important a point it was to fix as nearly as poffible the era of the original BooDH, Sir William has bestowed upon the investigation a confiderable portion of that indefatigable industry, which he has fohonourably to himself, and with fo much advantage to Oriental literature, employed upon Indian fubjects. A fimilar conviction of the importance of that point has induced me, in another place, to extend and amplify his obfervations, and to collect together all the circumftances to be met with in antiquity that might throw any light on the character

character and æra of the Egyptian Hermes, or Anubis, who was indubitably the fame perfon: with the elder Boodh of India. The reader will find the refult of my inquiries ftated in the history of the ninth incarnation of Veefhnu, under the name and form of Boodh. For the prefent, it will be fufficient to remark, that, according to the BHAGAVATAMRITA, or cream of the Bhagavat, a commentary, written by a learned Gofwani, of good authority, the prior Boodh appeared on earth towards the commencement of the Cali Yug, or prefent age; and, what is extremely to our purpose, that he married ILA, whofe father was preferved in a miraculous ark from an univerfal deluge.* Now it is a very remarkable fact, and fingularly corroborative of the Indian as well as facred records, that Noah himfelf is called Ilus in the Phoenician Hiftory of Sanchoniatho; for Xgovos, or Noah, is there reprefented as the fon of Ougavos and Fn, or Heaven and Earth, allufive to his being the first man after the deluge; and Chronus and Ilus are terms throughout that history ufed as fynonymous.†

Afiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 376.

+ See Bishop Cumberland's Sanchoniatho, p. 29. et feq..

G 4

I muft

I must here, therefore, again request the reader to obferve, that as I have all along contended for a prior Buddha, existing in the firft ages of the poft-diluvian world, and one of the immediate defcendants of Noah, throughout the whole of this differation I alfo allude to the firft, or God Woden, immemorially canonized through all the regions of the Northern Afia, the true hyperborean Mars, and not to that renowned Scandinavian conqueror of later periods who affumed his name and arrogated his rites, that common artifice of the times in which he flourished, to infpire his followers with the deeper refpect. In another part of his learned work Mr. Mallet remarks; "I will not anfwer for the truth of the account given of the original of this God-man; I only fufpect that at fome period of time, more or lefs early, either he, or his fathers, or the authors of his religion, came from fome country of Scythia, or from the borders of Perfia. I may add, that the God, whofe prophet or priest he pretended to be, was named ODIN, and that the ignorance of fucceeding ages confounded the Deity with his priest, compof.ng, out of the attributes of the one and the hiftory of the other, a gross medley, in which we can at present distinguish nothing

nothing very certain. New proofs of this confufion will occur in all we fhall hereafter produce on this fubject; and it will behove the reader never to lose fight of this observation."*

In fact, both this author's fubfequent relation, and all other genuine accounts of the ancient fuperftitious doctrines and rites of the northern nations, invariably tend to confirm the hypothefis of their Afiatic original. The EDDA itself is little more than a collection of Indian mythological fables, relative to the origin of the world; the chaos; the impregnating fpirit; the good and evil race; the contests of the giants; the inundation of the globe, &c. &c. This very writer, after a large extract from that book, and an ancient Runic poem, called the VOLUSPA, confirms my argument in the following remarkable

comment.

"It is eafy to trace out in this narration veftiges of an ancient and general tradition, of which every fect of paganifm hath altered, adorned, or fuppreffed, many circumstances, according to their own fancy, and which is now only to be found intire in the books of

* Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 68. et feq.

Mofes,

Mofes. Let the strokes we have here produced be compared with the beginning of Hefiod's Theogony, with the mythology of fome Afiatic nations, and with the book of Genefis, and we fhall inftantly be convinced, that the conformity which is found between many circumftances in their recitals cannot be the mere work of chance. Thus, in the Edda, the defcription of the chaos; that vivifying breath which produces the giant Ymer; that fleep during which a male and female spring from his fides; that race of the fons of the gods; that deluge which only one man escapes with his family, by means of a bark; that renewal of the world which fucceeds; that first man and firft woman created by the gods, and who receive from them life and motion: all this feems to be only remains of a more ancient and more general belief, which the Scythians carried with them when they retired into the North, and which they altered more flowly than the other nations, One may difcover alfo in the very nature of thefe alterations the fame fpirit of allegory, the fame defire of accounting for all the phapomena of nature by fictions, which hath fuggefted to other nations the greatest part of

the