rites and fymbols of the Mithratic religion, The former, facing page 111, exhibits, in as many different compartments, no less than four ftriking emblematical portraits of Mithra, and the bull facred to him; but the one, which I wish particularly to point out to the reader's notice, is that in which an elevated figure, decorated with a high tiara, ftands erect upon the fame animal, with one foot placed upon his head and the other centred upon his back his right hand grasps a dagger, his left supports a globe.* These fymbols difplay, at once, the power of the God, and the extent of that power. The pofition of his feet on the head and back of the bull, and the perpetual recurrence of that animal itself in the attitude of proftration upon all these basreliefs, plainly manifeft, that the bull was not lefs than the horfe facred to the fun in Perfia, and from what fource the GOMEDHA JUG of India, in all probability, originated. On either fide of this figure, likewise, are seen the youths with their torches, who reprefent the morning and the evening ftar, but with this difference, that, whereas both are in the former table ftanding, in the latter table, the figure with the

Vide Hyde, de Religione veterum Perfarum, p. 111 and 113, edit. Oxon, 1760, ubi etiam fupra.

the uplifted flaming torch is alone in a standing posture, while the figure, with the torch just ready to be extinguished, is beautifully represented fitting in a melancholy attitude, as if overwhelmed with anguish for the lofs of his expiring light, and that the world was going to be wrapped in nocturnal clouds and incumbent darkness. In the fecond plate of the fame book, there is an engraving of Taurus geftans Solem, that is, of the sun rifing on the back of the BULL, which, Hyde informs us, is a device very common on the coins of the MOGUL EMPERORS OF INDIA. The reader will perhaps be pleafed to fee his words at length: Sic nempe pinguntur figna: adeo ut in dicto iconifmo exbibeatur soL in figno TAURI, Perfarum more defignatus. Sic etiam in nummis MAGNI MOGUL IMPERATORIS INDIA, exhibitur corpus folare Super dorfo tauri, aut leonis, qui illud eodum modo geftat. Nam fol videtur portari et circumduci fuper 12 zodiacalia fymbola, dum fingula dodecatemoria percurrit..

But, to return to the fubject of the ancient fanguinary facrifices in India, of which, however unaccountable, this of the bull was one, though in the prefent age forbidden. They constitute a feature of national character

E.2

racter fo directly oppofite to that of the modern Indians, who, according to Mr. Orme, the trueft delineator of that character, Shudder at the very fight of blood, who are totally ignorant of one great branch of medical science, becaufe anatomical diffections are repugnant to their religion, and who, in the opinion of the fame writer, are at this day the most pufillanimous and enervated inhabitants of the globe ;* that on this review it is impoffible to refrain from a high degree of aftonishment; and, fince the fubject is equally curious and profound, it is my intention not to pass it flightly over, but to give it a dif cuffion in fome degree proportionate to its importance. The object then of our inquiry is, of what nature and origin were the vindictive deities, whofe implacable fury exacted, from the benignant Hindoo, rites from which his nature feems to have been fo abhorrent? Let us explore the latent fources of this wonderful and complicated fuperftition.

From the earliest periods of time, among all idolatrous nations of antiquity, a constant and uniform belief prevailed of the agency of intellectual beings in the government of the world. They fuppofed the whole compass

• See Orme's Hift. of Indoft, vol. i. p. 5, first edition.

of

of creation to be animated with thofe imaginary beings, affigning to fome an elevated ftation in the celeftial orbs; to others a refidence in the elements of nature; while others again had more particularly in charge the management of this terreftrial globe, and fuperintended the concerns of mortals. But as they imagined there were good spirits, οι αγαθοδαίμονες, whole office was of this protecting and benevolent kind, fo they also believed in the existence of beings of a very contrary nature and difpofition, or xanodaiμoves, whose conftant employment and whofe infernal delight it was to derange the beautiful order and harmony of nature, and to spread defolation through the works of God. I fay the works of God; because there hardly ever existed a nation, notwithstanding the reprefentation of Sanchoniatho, and other writers of that clafs, who did not believe in one grand original prefiding Deity, but whom they supposed to be infinitely removed from the material univerfe which he had formed, and to govern that univerfe by celeftial agents. The Indians, in particular, are to this day of opinion that the fupreme felicity of the Deity confifts in a state of divine absorption in the contemplation of his own wonder

ful perfections; but ftill they imagine that his fpirit intimately pervades every part of the creation. Thefe good and evil Genii, or, as they are called in the language of Hindoftan, the DEOS, or DEWTAHS, are reprefented as eternally contending together; and the inceffant conflicts, that exifted between them, filled creation with uproar, and all its fubordinate claffes with dismay. The ancient Perfians, according to Dr. Hyde,* affirmed, that there were two mighty predominant principles in nature; the first they denominated ORMUZD, or OROMASDES, the fuperior and benevolent being; the second they ftyled АHRIMAN, or the inferior and malignant being. MITHRA feems to have. been the middle and mediatorial character, the oftenfible agent of the eternal beneficence, and, in the ORACLES OF ZOROASTER, is called THE SECOND MIND. Oromafdes is reprefented as reigning from all eternity; Mithra is described as a being formed of a nature and with powers only not INFINITE; Ahriman existed by fufferance only from the SUPREME, during that period, and for those purposes which his mind had resolved on. While the good spirits, appointed by Oromafdes,

• Hift. Relig. vet. Perf. c. ix. p. 160, edit. Oxon. 1760.