examine what internal evidence that furvey may afford to determine the question.

Previously to that furvey, however, it is necessary that the reader fhould be acquainted with another predominant feature in the Hindoo religion, upon which I have not as yet touched, because, in the first place, the fubject is not the most inviting, and, in the fecond place, because it does not appear to have any foundation in the original Vedas attributed to Brahma, which, throughout, inculcate a reverence for FIRE, as the pureft fymbol of the divinity in the whole extended circle of nature. Imaginations lefs pure have conceived, and priests lefs abforbed in mental abstraction, have elevated in the very temples of India, a very grofs reprefentation of the great celestial Angyos: they have instituted a fpecies of devotion at once degrading to the Creator, and dishonourable to his creatures. This fpecies of devotion made an early and rapid progress among the inferior cafts, but particularly infected the inhabitants of the peninsula, whose manners, like the conftitution of people fituated in warmer climates, seem to have been fooner relaxed and depraved than those of their brethren in the northern and lefs enervating regions of Upper India.

I

*

I will not affirm, though it is far from bing improbable, that these indecent rites were imported into that peninfula from Egypt, where the first inftitution of the worship of Ithiphallic images is afferted by Diodorus Siculus, to have taken place upon an occafion which I shall hereafter explain, and whence, Herodotus acquaints us, thofe rites were carried by Melampus into Greece. For the present, I fhall content myself with informing the reader, on the authority of Mr. FORSTER, who has written a concise but elegant treatise concerning the mythology of the Hindoos, that all the numerous fects into which they are divided, are ultimately included under two grand divifions, the one denominated the Veefonu Bukht, and the other the Seeva Bukht. The followers of the first, Mr. Forster says, are distinguished by marking the forehead with

Diod. Sic. lib. i. p. 15. + Herodot. lib. ii. p. 123.

‡ This valuable little book is entitled, SKETCHES OF THE MYTHOLOGY AND CUSTOMS OF THE HINDOOS, and was obligingly lent me, with fome other original publications of an Indian kind, by the fecretary of the East-India Company. It was printed in 1785, but never published. A publication has lately appeared under a fimilar title, the author of which appears to me to be fomewhat indebted to that book, but it would be injustice to deny that he profeffes very confiderable original merit of his own.

with a longitudinal, and thofe of the fecond with a parallel, line; as in the great temple of JAGGERNAUT in Oriffa, all diftinctions were laid afide, and devotees of every caft, though at other times ftrictly prohibited from eating together, were permitted to take their food in common, fo it is not improbable that, at ELEPHANTA, the two great fects, diftinguished by the name of Veefhnu and Seeva, might forget their accustomed animofity, and worship their feveral deities with equal fervour.

At the weft end then of this grand pagoda is a dark recess, or SACELLUM, twenty feet fquare, totally destitute of any external ornament, except the altar in the center, and those gigantic figures which guard the four feveral doors that lead into it. These figures, according to Niebuhr, are naked, are eight in number, stationed on each fide of every door, and are of the enormous height of thirteen feet and a half; they are all finely fculptured in high relief, and appear as if ftarting from the wall to which they are attached. Their heads are decorated in a manner fimilar to the other flatues they have rich collars round their necks, and jewels of a vaft fize in their ears. Of the striking attitude of one of those statues, which remains moft entire, Mr. Hunter has recorded

recorded the following particulars: that the whole weight of the figure feems to rest upon the right leg, while the knee of the left is fomewhat bent, the right humerus hangs downward parallel to the body, and the forearm is bent in such a manner that the hand is oppofite to the navel, the palm is turned upwards and fuftains a GLOBE, and the fingers are bent backwards in a ftyle that admirably. represents, or rather makes the spectator feel, the weight of the ponderous body they fupport. He adds a judicious remark, that the people, whoever they were, that carved these figures, must have made confiderable progrefs in the art of ftatuary, fo accurately to have observed, and fo fuccessfully to have expreffed, as in many inftances they have, the alteration which the form of the limbs undergoes from mufcular action and external impulfe, as well as the various effects of mental fenfation upon the human countenance. These formidable guardians of this facred recefs point out the ufe to which it was applied, and the veneration in which it was holden. It was devoted to the most facred mysteries of their religion; but our pity and abhorrence are at once excited by the emblem under which they reprefented, in this recefs, the fu

preme

preme Creator. It is indeed an emblem of deity, which was common in the ancient ages of the world, and which, it has been obferved,* is but too visible at this day in the various pagodas and paintings of Hindoftan. It is, in fhort, the aλhos of the Greeks, the PRIAPUS of the Romans, and in India it is called the LINGAM divinity, by which they mean to express the power of the first creative energy, by whofe operations all nature is produced. According to M. Sonnerat, the profeffors of this worship were of the pureft principles and the most unblemished conduct; and, however offenfive the idea may prove to Europeans, happily educated under different impreffions, it seems never to have entered into the heads of the Indian legislator and people, that any thing natural could be grofly obfcene, "a fingularity," obferves Sir W. Jones, "which pervades all their writings and conversation, but which is no proof of depravity in their morals !"

A fear of offending the delicacy of my readers would induce me to decline saying a word more on the fubject of a devotion, at which modesty cannot help revolting; but as,

Afiatic Refearches, vol. i. 1254.

+ Sonnerat, Voy. aux Indes Orient. Vol. i. p. 118.

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