give at length, previously to his affuming the prophetic character, retiring to the gloom of a lonely CAVERN in Media, and ornamenting that cavern with various aftronomical fymbols and mathematical apparatus, displaying and imitating what he had there probably seen and been instructed in, "Bracmanorum monitu, rationes mundani motus et fiderum;" when we find him in Perfia, reviving, with additional fplendour, the ancient, but decayed, worship of the SUN and of FIRE; especially when, upon a more full investigation of the matter, we discover in the mountainous regions of India, which he vifited, that the EXCAVATIONS were equally numerous and prodigious; and, in the very midft of thofe mountains, according to the exprefs words of Abul Fazil,* who had, in all probability, perfonally examined them in his various excurfións with Akber into that neighbourhood, that no less than "twelve thousand receffes were cut out of the folid rock, all ornamented with carving and plafter-work, and remarkable for three aftonishing IDOLS; the firft, representing a man eighty ells in height; the second, a woman fifty ells in height; and the third, a gigantic child fifteen ells in height:" when

Ayeen Akbery, in the Soobah of Cashmere, vol. ii. p. 208.

we

we read that in Cashmere, after the defection of the inhabitants from their original fimplicity and purity of worship, there were no less than "700 places where CARVED figures of a ferpent," that ancient hieroglyphic emblem of, the fun, were worshipped :— on a due confideration of all these circumstances united together, it is impoffible to avoid fuppofing, that, at the period alluded to, the fecret mysteries, both of the Hindoo religion and the Hindoo fciences, were performed and taught in the gloom of SUBTERRANEOUS retreats, hollowed for that purpose out of the ROCK, and decorated with fimilar sculptures and ornaments; that the mystic rites performed in them were thofe in honour of elementary FIRE, and that the prevailing religion of the nation was the worship of the SUN. This appears to me a more certain clue to guide us through the labyrinth into which we are entering than any other yet devised; and with this clue I shall proceed to the immediate confideration of those curious remains of ancient industry and genius, which have, through fo many ages, excited the admiration of travellers and exercised the fpeculations of the learned, in the neighbourhood of the English fettlements at Bombay.

SECTION III.

The Caverns of Elephanta and Salfette defcribed, as well from the most esteemed printed Accounts as from authentic Documents tranfmitted by living Witnesses to the Author. The Statues with which they are decorated are, in part, fymbolical Representations of the Supreme Deity and bis Attributes; and, in part, deceafed Rajabs exalted to divine Honours for their Virtue and Bravery. - The Species of Superftition anciently practifed in these CavernPagodas inquired into. That Worship of a phyfical Nature. Exemplified in the conftant Appearance of the Phallus, or Lingam, in all the Sacella, or more fecret Shrines. And deeply connected with the Sabian or fidereal Superftition, fo widely diffused in the most early Periods over the Greater Afia.

IN

NGENUITY hath been tortured, and conjecture exhaufted, by fruitless endeavours to discover at what periods the stupendous

caverns,

caverns, at ELEPHANTA and SALSETTE, were hewn from the native rock; the purposes to which they were originally devoted; and the meaning of the hieroglyphic figures fculptured on their walls. While fome writers have imagined them to have been places of retreat and security from an invading enemy, others have confidered them as the tony fanctuaries of a religion no longer exifting; while others, again, with ftill less probability, have supposed them to have been the hallowed receptacles of the ashes of the more illuftrious dead. English and French writers have equally exerted their critical acumen upon this abftruse subject; but both with fuccess by no means proportionate to the labour bestowed in the investigation. M. D'Ancarville* is willing to ascribe them to Semiramis, when The invaded India, whofe king, he fays, opposed her at the head of elephants covered with mail, and of troops armed with lances, fimilar to thofe on the walls of Elephanta; and he quotes Diodorus Siculus to prove that fhe caufed fuch memorials of herself to be constructed. According to Dr. Fryer, the first Englishman who gives any account of these caverns, the honour of excavating them

* D'Ancarville, vol. i. p. 121, 124.

has

has been contended for in favour of Alexander the Great by thofe who thought his army alone equal to the achievement of fo arduous an undertaking; and it is not a little remarkable, that a large and fpirited figure of a horse, hewn out of the rock on the island of Elephanta, is really called the horfe of Alexander.* The third opinion, and full as rational as any of the romantic ones before- mentioned, is that which Ovington and other travellers affert the natives themfelves entertain concerning their fabrication; viz. that they were the work of giants and genii in the earliest ages of the world!

As thefe fubterraneous receffes are admitted to be of the most profound antiquity; of fuch profound antiquity, indeed, that we are unable to obtain any light concerning the particular æra of their fabrication, either from books or from tradition; yet, as there exifts at the fame time the strongest reafon for fuppofing them to have been originally applied to religious purposes, it feems to follow, as a neceffary confequence; that in them was practifed the most ancient fuperftition known to

have

* See the account communicated to the Society of Antiquaries, by Alexander Dalrymple, Efq. in the Archæologia, vol. vii. P. 324.