perfon, who, after a ftrict examination and comparison of their mythological fuperftitions, and their aftronomical periods, directly affirmed them to be a race of emigrated Indian philofophers. The affertion, bold and unqualified as it was, made, at the time of my reading it, a confiderable impreffion on my mind; and, in confequence, I fate down to that elaborate investigation of their rites and fymbols, of which the prior Differtation in this volume is the refult.

The bafis of my argument for their Indian extraction is, that the elder Buddha of India, who fhould never be confounded with the fecond Buddha, or Bedou, the Fo of the Chinese, and the founder of an atheistical fect, in periods far more recent, is, in fact, the Mercury of the Weft, and this is not only afferted by Sir William Jones, from the fimilitude of their rites and fymbols, but can be aftronomically proved; fince, in India, the day of the week affigned to Buddha is by the Greeks affigned to Hermes, by the Romans to Mercury, and by the northern Nations to Woden; being denominated, in the refpective dialects of thofe nations, Boodh or Buddha

* See Afiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 488, in the Appendix, Calcutta quarto edition.

war,

war, Eguỡ nueça, Mercurii dies, Woden's day, and, from the laft, corruptedly by us, Wednefday. The ancient MERCURIAL HEAPS, or CARNS, of thofe fire-adoring fages; their veneration for the CUBIC, the fymbol of Mercury among the early Greeks; their reprefenting the Deity in their immense groves under the form of the letter T, THAU, as the Egyptians defignated their Thoth, or Hermes; their reverence for the ANGUINUM, or ferpent-egg, which is only the mundane egg of Tyre, rendered prolific by the embrace of the Ayaboda av, or good genius, fymbolized by that ferpent; and, finally, the evident CADUCEUS of Mercury, defignated in the globe, wings, and ferpent, that formed their grand temple at Abury, and not only that but other confpicuous DRACONTIA, in Britain: all these circumftances enumerated, and fully difcuffed in the courfe of the Differtation alluded to, are to myself abundant teftimony of their connection with, if not descent from, Buddha. Under this appellation I contend muft be understood fome deified prince of the family of the Noachida, a diftinguished AVATAR of India, who, in the lofty regions of the Tauric range, the remoteft from the danger of inundation, but in æras to which regular annals

cannot

*

cannot be expected to afcend, feems to have established an empire and a religion, which diffused their combined influence over every region of the Higher Afia, and many evident veftiges of which are ftill visible. Among these are the Thibetian rolls infcribed with Sanfcreet characters, alluded to by Sir William Jones,, as cited in page 15 of this volume, as well as the ancient medals and imperial fignets engraved with Thibetian characters, mentioned by Mr. Halhed, and the frequent pilgrimages at this day undertaken by the more rigid devotees of India, from the banks of the Ganges and the moft diftant provinces of the Peninfula, to the territories of the Grand Lama. Accurately to afcertain, at this diftant period, the cause, the mode, the time, of this emigration, exceeds the limit of human research: but poffibly the firft may be found in the general caufes of emigration, curiofity, perfecution, or the ambition, of men, who, in those early ages, combined a fort of regal with the priestly character. The mode was, doubtlefs, by land-journies, in company with the Celtic tribes, previous to the establishment of the great Indian empire and fyftem of jurif

See the Preface to Mr. Halhed's Sanfcreet Grammar, p. 5.

prudence

prudence which forbad emigration, in the more fouthern provinces; or allowing the early branches of the family of Noah for the purpose of effecting the gracious defigns of Providence in peopling the earth to have had a knowledge of the MAGNET, by the way of the great Ocean itself. The period was, probably, when the true religion began to be corrupted, but before its total corruption, by the Sabian idolatries. In this view the matter appears to myself; if all my readers fhould not be equally convinced by the arguments which I have been able to produce, I ftill flatter myfelf, that the detail of many other curious facts which nearly concern them, as Britons, may yet amply reward them for the trouble of perufal.

I think it abfolutely neceffary, however, to fhield myfelf from cenfure, for fo warmly espousing an opinion that must appear entirely novel, if not extremely eccentric, to readers not converfant in Indian manners and history, by laying before them the following fhort extracts from the Differtation of Mr. Burrow, before alluded to, in the Afiatic Re fearches, although I am far from esteeming it equally neceffary to adopt his hypothefis of the alteration of the place of the equator, connected

connected with the afferted migration. I have endeavoured to fupport his positions by arguments not hoftile to religion, and far lefs violent to nature. "From the aforefaid country, (he means Siberia, rendered habitable and fertile by the equatorial line paffing through the centre of Afia,) the Hindoo religion probably spread over the whole earth: there are figns of it in every northern country, and in almost every fyftem of worfhip: IN ENGLAND IT IS OBVIOUS; STONE

HENGE IS EVIDENTLY ONE OF THE TEMPLES

OF BOODн; and the arithmetic, aftronomy, aftrology; the HOLIDAYS, GAMES, names of the ftars, and figures of the conftellations; the ANCIENT MONUMENTS, LAWS, and COINS; the LANGUAGES of the different nations; bear the strongest marks of the fame original." Again he obferves, on the fuppofition that the Indians were, in the infancy of their existence as à nation, divided into the two great fects of Brahma and Buddha "that the Brahmins were the true authors of the Ptolemaic system, and the Boodhifts of the Copernican,* as well as of the doctrine of attraction, and that probably the established religion of the Greeks;

See page 192 of this volume, on the Druids' prefumed knowledge of the elliptical courses of the orbs.

and