ed with rich bracelets; and his hands bore the holy shell, the radiated weapon, the mace for war, and the lotos." The writers who flourished in Greece and Rome had, as I before-remarked, but a very imperfect idea of the true principles of the religion of the Indians. Jupiter Ammon, Bacchus, Pan, and Pluto, are faid, by those writers, to have been the principal divinities worshipped in India. Strabo expressly says, that they worshipped Jupiter Pluvialis, the river Ganges, and Eyxwgious Aalpoves, Indigetes Genios. Such were the Grecian appellations for the feveral deities, or rather attributes of deity, adored throughout Hindoftan. With far more truth was the celebrated GANGES affirmed, by the fame writer, to be an object of fuperftitious veneration, when, charged with the bleffings of Providence, he defcended in majesty from the mountains, and, with his overflowings, fertilized the thirsty foil. In fact, the legiflator; whofe fublime precepts improved; the hero, who refiftlefs fword defended; the patriot, whofe inventive fancy adorned with. useful arts the country that gave them- birth; received the fervent prayers of the grateful Hindoo, were first remembered with admira * Strabonis Geograph. lib. xv. p. 682. tion, tion, and then idolized. Without referring to the Ægyptian Apis, we may affert, that the very animal whofe milk nourished him, and whofe labours turned the fruitful fod, received his tributary homage, and was ranked in order next to a divinity. This is the general key that unlocks the portals of the grand temple of Indian fuperftition, and perhaps, taken in a more general point of view, of all the fuperftitions of every region and of every denomination upon earth. To the philofophic eye, that contemplates without prejudice their endless variety, this is the univerfal clue to their full developement, and thus only can the mighty maze be intimately and fuccefsfully explored. Befides the deities above-enumerated, the Indians have a guardian genius, prefiding over water, named VARUNA;* over fire, named AGNI; the forger of the fiery shafts, called from him Agnyaftra; and over the winds,‡ named PAVAN. All the fanciful characters of a mythology, not greatly diffimilar from that of Greece and Rome, feem to have prevailed among the Hindoos from the earliest periods. They * See an engraving of Varuna with her infignia, oppofite p. 215, of the first volume of the Afiatic Researches. Afiat. Refearch. vol. i. p. 248. + Ibid. 258. They have CARTICEYA, the god of war, formidable with fix heads, and bearing, in his numerous hands, fpears, fabres, and other hoftile weapons; whofe prowefs is not inferior to the Mars of Rome. They have LACSHMI, the goddess of plenty, and the wife of Veeshnu the preferver; who, in Mr. Holwell's descriptive print, is represented crowned with ears of grain, and encircled by a plant, bearing fruit, forcibly reminding us of the Ceres of the ancients. They have SERASWATTI, the protectress of arts and fciences, with her palmiraleaf, and her reed or pen for writing; ornaments more peculiarly characteristic of her high station than those which graced the armed Minerva of the Greeks. They have a more beautiful Cupid in CAMA, the god of love with his flowery fhafts and cany bow: although a regard to truth forbids me to add, that they have a more decent Venus in BHAVANI, the confort of Seeva, and goddess of generation; in honour of whom, on all the walls of the pagodas of Hindoftan, facred to that deity, fuch pictures are delineated and such images are engraven, as though by no means inconfiftent with their, are not at all compatible with our, Afiat. Refearch. 252, with an engraving. Carticeya is generally written Karteek. The former is the Sanfcreet word unabridged. |