book ii., appendix viii., 23.

[1025] The fact is vouchsafed for by Epiphanius. See Hone: “Apocryphal New Testament;” “The Gospel of the Birth of Mary.”

In his able article “Bacchus, the Prophet-God,” Professor A. Wilder remarks that “Tacitus was misled into thinking that the Jews worshipped an ass, the symbol of Typhon or Seth, the Hyk-sos God. The Egyptian name of the ass was _eo_, the phonetic of Iao;” and hence, probably, he adds, “a symbol from that mere circumstance.” We can hardly agree with this learned archæologist, for the idea that the Jews reverenced, for some mysterious reason, Typhon under his symbolical representation rests on more proof than one. And for one we find a passage in the “Gospel of Mary,” is cited from Epiphanius, which corroborates the fact. It relates to the death of “Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, murdered by Herod,” says the Protevangelion. Epiphanius writes that the cause of the death of Zacharias was that upon seeing a vision in the temple he, through surprise, was willing to disclose it, but his mouth was stopped. That which he saw was at the time of his offering incense, and it was a man STANDING IN THE FORM OF AN ASS. When he was gone out, and had a mind to speak thus to the people, _Woe unto you, whom do ye worship?_ he who had appeared unto him in the temple took away the use of his speech. Afterward when he recovered it, and was able to speak, he declared this to the Jews, and they slew him. They (the Gnostics) add in this book, that on this very account the high priest was commanded by the law-giver (Moses) to carry little bells, that whensoever he went into the temple to sacrifice, he _whom they worshipped_, hearing the noise of the bells, might have time enough to hide himself, and not be caught in that ugly shape and figure” (Epiph.).

[1026] “Phallism in Ancient Religions,” by Staniland Wake and Westropp, p. 74.

[1027] Hercules is also a god-fighter as well as Jacob-Israel.

[1028] “Phallism in Ancient Religions,” p. 75.

[1029] Antiochus Epiphanius found in 169 B.C. in the Jewish temple, a man kept there to be sacrificed. Apion: “Joseph, contra Apion,” ii., 8.

[1030] The ox of Dionysus was sacrificed at the Bacchic Mysteries. See “Anthon,” p. 365.

[1031] “Paus.,” 5, 16.

[1032] Judges iv. 4.

[1033] 2 Kings, xxii. 14.

[1034] xiv. 2; xx. 16, 17.

[1035] xxvii. 28, 29.

[1036] The festival denominated Liberalia occurred on the seventeenth of March, now St. Patrick’s Day. Thus Bacchus was also the patron saint of the Irish.

[1037] Prof. A. Wilder: “Bacchus, the Prophet-God,” in the June number (1877) of the “Evolution, a Review of Polities, Religion, Science, Literature, and Art.”

[1038] “Edinburgh Review,” April, 1851, p. 411.

[1039] “Indian Sketches; or Life in the East,” written for the “Commercial Bulletin,” of Boston.

[1040] See chapter ii. of this vol., p. 110.

[1041] It would be worth the trouble of an artist, while travelling around the world, to make a collection of the multitudinous varieties of Madonnas, Christs, saints, and martyrs as they appear in various costumes in different countries. They would furnish models for masquerade balls in aid of church charities!

[1042] Even as we write, there comes from Earl Salisbury, Secretary of State for India, a report that the Madras famine is to be followed by one probably still more severe in Southern India, the very district where the heaviest tribute has been exacted by the Catholic missionaries for the expenses of the Church of Rome. The latter, unable to retaliate otherwise, despoils British subjects, and when famine comes as a consequence, makes the heretical British Government pay for it.

[1043] “Ancient Faiths and Modern,” p. 24.

[1044] “Fétichisme, Polythéisme, Monothéisme.”

[1045] “Oriental and Linguistic Studies,” “Vedic Doctrine of a Future Life,” by W. Dwight Whitney, Prof. of Sanscrit and Comparative Philology at Yale College.

[1046] “Oriental and Linguistic Studies,” p. 48.

[1047] In his article on “Paul, the Founder of Christianity,” Professor A. Wilder, whose intuitions of truth are always clear, says: “In the person of _Aher_ we recognize the Apostle Paul. He appears to have been known by a variety of appellations. He was named _Saul_, evidently because of his vision of Paradise--Saul or _Sheol_ being the Hebrew name of the other world. _Paul_, which only means ‘the little man,’ was a species of nickname. _Aher_, or _other_, was an epithet in the Bible for persons outside of the Jewish polity, and was applied to him for having extended his ministry to the Gentiles. His real name was Elisha ben Abuiah.”

[1048] “In the ‘Talmud’ Jesus is called AUTU H-AIS, אותו האיש, _that man_.”--A. Wilder.

[1049] See Moor’s plates, 75, No. 3.

[1050] Max Müller’s estimate.

[1051] Dr. Lundy: “Monumental Christianity,” p. 153.

[1052] Buddhaghosa’s “Parables,” translated from the Burmese, by Col. H. T. Rogers, R. E.; with an introduction by M. Müller, containing “Dhammapada,” 1870.

[1053] Interpreter of the Consulate-General in Siam.

[1054] “Ancient Faith and Modern,” p. 162.

[1055] Ibid.

[1056] The words contained within quotation marks are Inman’s.

[1057] See vol. i. of this work, p. 319.

[1058] p. 57.

[1059] Matthew vii. 2.

[1060] P. 25.

[1061] See Draper’s “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 224.

[1062] This is the doctrine of the Supralapsarians, who asserted that “He [God] _predestinated the fall of Adam_, with all its pernicious consequences, from all eternity, and that our first parents had no liberty from the beginning.”

It is also to this highly-moral doctrine that the Catholic world became indebted, in the eleventh century, for the institution of the Order known as the Carthusian monks. Bruno, its founder, was driven to the foundation of this monstrous Order by a circumstance well worthy of being recorded here, as it graphically illustrates this _divine_ predestination. A friend of Bruno, a French physician, famed far and wide for his extraordinary _piety_, _purity of morals_, and _charity_, died, and his body was watched by Bruno himself. Three days after his death, and as he was going to be buried, the pious physician suddenly sat up in his coffin and declared, in a loud and solemn voice, “that by the just judgment of God he was eternally damned.” After which consoling message from beyond the “dark river,” he fell back and relapsed into death.

In their turn, the Parsi theologians speak thus: “If any of you commit sin under the belief that he shall be saved by _somebody_, both the deceiver as well as the deceived shall be damned to the day of Rasta Khéz.... There is no Saviour. In the other world you shall receive the return according to your actions.... _Your Saviour is your deeds_ and God Himself.[1063]

[1063] “The Modern Parsis,” lecture by Max Müller, 1862.

[1064] “De Isid. et Osir.,” p. 380.

[1065] Every tradition shows that Jesus was educated in Egypt and passed his infancy and youth with the Brotherhoods of the Essenes and other mystic communities.

[1066] Bunsen found some records which show the language and religious worship of the Egyptians, for instance, not only existing at the opening of the old Empire, “but already so fully established and fixed as to receive _but a very slight development_ in the course of the old, middle, and modern Empires,” and while this opening of the old Empire is placed by him beyond the Menes period, at least 4,000 years B.C., the origin of the ancient Hermetic prayers and hymns of the “Book of the Dead,” is assigned by Bunsen to the pre-Menite dynasty of Abydos (between 4,000 and 4,500 B.C.), thus showing that “the system of Osirian worship and mythology was already formed 3,000 years before the days of Moses.”

[1067] It was also called the “hook of attraction.” Virgil terms it “Mystica vannus Iacchi,” “Georgics,” i., 166.

[1068] In an Address to the Delegates of the Evangelical Alliance, New York, 1874, Mr. Peter Cooper, a Unitarian, and one of the noblest _practical_ Christians of the age, closes it with the following memorable language: “In that _last and final account_ it will be happy for us if we shall then find that our influence through life has tended to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and soothe the sorrows of those who were sick and in prison.” Such words from a man who has given two million dollars in charity; educated four thousand young girls in useful arts, by which they gain a comfortable support; maintained a free public library, museum, and reading-room; classes for working people; public lectures by eminent scientists, open to all; and been foremost in all good works, throughout a long and blameless life, come with the noble force that marks the utterances of all benefactors of their kind. The deeds of Peter Cooper will cause posterity to treasure his golden sayings in its heart.

[1069] “_Aus dem Tibetischen übersetzt und mit dem Originaltexte herausgegeben_,” von S. J. Schmidt.

[1070] “Buddhism in Tibet,” by Emil Schlagintweit, 1863, p. 213.

[1071] “Ecclesiastical History,” l. i., c. 13.

[1072] Tathagâta is Buddha, “he who walks in the footsteps of his predecessors;” as _Bhagavat_--he is the _Lord_.

[1073] We have the same legend about St. Veronica--as a pendant.

[1074] “Introduction à l’Histoire du Buddhisme Indien,” E. Burnouf, p. 341.

[1075] Moses was a most notable practitioner of Hermetic Science. Bearing in mind that Moses (Asarsiph) is made to run away to the Land of Midian, and that he “sat down by a well” (Exod. ii.), we find the following:

The “Well” played a prominent part in the Mysteries of the Bacchic festivals. In the sacerdotal language of every country, it had the same significance. A well is “the fountain of salvation” mentioned in _Isaiah_ (xii. 3). The water is the _male principle_ in its spiritual sense. In its physical relation in the allegory of creation, the water is chaos, and chaos is the female principle vivified by the Spirit of God--the male principle. In the “Kabala,” _Zachar_ means “male;” and the Jordan was called Zachar (“Universal History,” vol. ii., p. 429). It is curious that the Father of St. John the Baptist, the Prophet of _Jordan_--Zacchar--should be called _Zachar-ias_. One of the names of Bacchus is _Zagreus_. The ceremony of pouring water on the shrine was sacred in the Osirian rites as well as in the Mosaic institutions. In the _Mishna_ it is said, “Thou shalt dwell in Succa and _pour out water_ seven, and the pipes six days” (“Mishna Succah,” p. 1). “Take _virgin earth_ ... and work up the _dust_ with _living_ WATER,” prescribes the _Sohar_ (Introduction to “Sohar;” “Kabbala Denudata,” ii., pp. 220, 221). Only “earth and water, according to Moses, can bring forth a _living soul_,” quotes Cornelius Agrippa. The water of Bacchus was considered to impart the Holy _Pneuma_ to the initiate; and it washes off all sin by baptism through the Holy _Ghost_, with the Christians. The “well” in the kabalistic sense, is the mysterious emblem of the _Secret Doctrine_. “If any man thirst, let him come _unto me and drink_,” says Jesus (John vii.).

Therefore, Moses the adept, is naturally enough represented sitting by a well. He is approached by the _seven_ daughters of the Kenite Priest of Midian coming to fill the troughs, _to water their father’s flock_. Here we have seven again--the mystic number. In the present biblical allegory the daughters represent the _seven occult powers_. “The shepherds came and drove them (the seven daughters) away, but Moses stood up, and helped them, and watered their flock.” The shepherds are shown, by some kabalistic interpreters, to represent the seven “badly-disposed Stellars” of the Nazarenes; for in the old Samaritan text the number of these Shepherds is also said to be seven (see kabalistic books).

Then Moses, who had conquered the seven _evil_ Powers, and won the friendship of the seven _occult_ and beneficent ones, is represented as living with the Reuel Priest of Midian, who invites “the Egyptian” to eat bread, _i.e._, to partake of his wisdom. In the Bible the elders of Midian are known as great soothsayers and diviners. Finally, Reuel or Jethro, the initiator and instructor of Moses, gives him in marriage his daughter. This daughter is Zipporah, _i.e._, the esoteric Wisdom, the shining light of knowledge, for Siprah means the “shining” or “resplendent,” from the word “Sapar” to shine. Sippara, in Chaldea, was the city of the “Sun.” Thus Moses was initiated by the Midianite, or rather the Kenite, and thence the biblical allegory.

[1076] Schmidt: “Der Weise und der Thor,” p. 37.

[1077] “Rgya Tcher Rol. Pa.,” “History of Buddha Sakya-muni” (Sanscrit), “Lalitavistara,” vol. ii., pp. 90, 91.

[1078] “Protevangelion” (ascribed to James), ch. xiii. and xiv.

[1079] “Pali Buddhistical Annals,” iii., p. 28; “Manual of Buddhism,” 142. Hardy.

[1080] “Gospel of the Infancy,” chap. xx., xxi.; accepted by Eusebius, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Jerome, and others. The same story, with the Hindu earmarks rubbed off to avoid detection, is found at Luke ii., 46, 47.

[1081] Alabaster: “Wheel of the Law,” pp. 29, 34, 35, and 38.

[1082] E. Upham: “The History and Doctrines of Buddhism,” p. 135. Dr. Judson fell into this prodigious error by reason of his fanaticism. In his zeal to “save souls,” he refused to peruse the Burmese classics, lest his attention should be diverted thereby.

[1083] “Indian Antiquary,” vol. ii., p. 81; “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. i., p. 441.

[1084] “Ssabismus,” vol. i., p. 725.

[1085] Murray’s “History of Discoveries in Asia.”

[1086] “Manual of Buddhism,” p. 142.

[1087] See Inman’s “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” p. 92.

[1088] “Rgya. Tcher. Rol. Pa.,” Bkah Hgyour (Thibetan version).

[1089] Gospel according to Luke, i. 39-45.

[1090] Didron: “Iconograph. Chrétienne Histoire de Dieu.”

[1091] There are numerous works deduced immediately from the “Vedas,” called the “Upa-Ved.” Four works are included under this denomination, namely, the “Ayus,” “Gandharva,” “Dhanus,” and “Sthāpatya.” The third “Upaveda” was composed by Viswamitra for the use of the Kshatriyas, the warrior caste.

[1092] Bunsen’s “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 93.

[1093] Alabaster; “Wheel of the Law,” pp. 43-47.

[1094] “The Debatable Land,” p. 145.

[1095] “We divide our zeal,” says Dr. Henry More, “against so many things that we fancy Popish, that we scarce reserve _a just share of detestation_ against what is truly so. Such are that gross, rank, and scandalous impossibility _of transubstantiation_, the various modes of fulsome idolatry and lying impostures, the uncertainty of their loyalty to their lawful sovereigns by their superstitious adhesion to the spiritual tyranny of the Pope, and that _barbarous and ferine cruelty against those_ that are not either such fools as to be persuaded to believe such things as they would obtrude upon men, or, are not so false to God and their own consciences, as, knowing better, yet to profess them” (Postscript to “Glanvill”).

[1096] Payne Knight believes that Ceres was not a personification of the brute matter which composed the earth, but of the female _productive principle_ supposed to pervade it, which, joined to the active, was held to be the cause of the organization and animation of its substance.... She is mentioned as the wife of the Omnipotent Father, Æther, or Jupiter (“The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology,” xxxvi.). Hence the words of Christ, “it is the Spirit that quickeneth, _flesh profiteth nothing_,” applied in their dual meaning to both spiritual and terrestrial things, to spirit and matter.

Bacchus, as Dionysus, is of Indian origin. Cicero mentions him as a son of Thyoné and Nisus. Διόνυσος means the god Dis from Mount Nys in India. Bacchus, crowned with ivy, or _kissos_, is Christna, one of whose names was _Kissen_. Dionysus is preëminently the deity on whom were centred all the hopes for future life; in short, he was the god who was expected to _liberate the souls of men_ from their prisons of flesh. Orpheus, the poet-Argonaut, is also said to have come on earth to purify the religion of its gross, and terrestrial anthropomorphism, he abolished human sacrifice and instituted a mystic theology based on pure spirituality. Cicero calls Orpheus a son of Bacchus. It is strange that both seem to have originally come from India. At least, as Dionysus Zagreus, Bacchus is of undoubted Hindu origin. Some writers deriving a curious analogy between the name of Orpheus and an old Greek term, ὀρφος, _dark or tawny-colored_, make him Hindu by connecting the term with his dusky Hindu complexion. See Voss, Heyne and Schneider on the Argonautis.

[1097] “Vie de Jesus,” p. 219.

[1098] Ibid., p. 221.

[1099] “Analysis of Religious Belief,” vol. i., p. 467.

[1100] See the “Gita,” translated by Charles Wilkins, in 1785; and the “Bhagavad-Purana,” containing the history of Christna, translated into French by Eugène Burnouf. 1840.

[1101] Matthew vii. 21.

[1102] “Of the People of India,” vol. i., p. 84.

[1103] Or “Researches into the Mysteries of Occultism;” Boston, 1877, Edited by Mrs. E. Hardinge Britten.

[1104] See “Stone Him to Death;” “Septenary Institutions.” Capt. James Riley, in his “Narrative” of his enslavement in Africa, relates like instances of great longevity on the Sahara Desert.

[1105] Russian Armenia; one of the most ancient Christian convents.

[1106] “Egyptian Book of the Dead.” The Hindus have seven upper and seven lower heavens. The seven mortal sins of the Christians have been borrowed from the Egyptian Books of Hermes with which Clement of Alexandria was so familiar.

[1107] The atrocious custom subsequently introduced among the people, of sacrificing human victims, is a perverted copy of the Theurgic Mystery. The Pagan priests, who did not belong to the class of the hierophants, carried on for awhile this hideous rite, and it served to screen the genuine purpose. But the Grecian Herakles is represented as the adversary of human sacrifices and as slaying the men and monsters who offered them. Bunsen shows, by the very absence of any representation of human sacrifice on the oldest monuments, that this custom had been abolished in the old Empire, at the close of the seventh century after Menes; therefore, 3,000 years B.C., Iphiscrates had stopped the human sacrifices entirely among the Carthaginians. Diphilus ordered bulls to be substituted for human victims. Amosis forced the priests to replace the latter by figures of wax. On the other hand, for every stranger offered on the shrine of Diana by the inhabitants of the Tauric Chersonesus, the Inquisition and the Christian clergy can boast of a dozen of heretics offered on the altar of the “mother of God,” and her “Son.” And when did the Christians ever think of substituting either animals or wax-figures for living heretics, Jews, and witches? They burned these in effigy only when, through providential interference, the doomed victims had escaped their clutches.

[1108] This is why Jesus recommends prayer in the solitude of one’s closet. This secret prayer is but the _paravidya_ of the Vedantic philosopher: “He who knows his soul (inner self) daily retires to the region of _Swarga_ (the heavenly realm) in his own heart,” says the _Brihad-Aranyaka_. The Vedantic philosopher recognizes the Âtman, the spiritual _self_, as the sole and Supreme God.

[1109] “Wheel of the Law,” p. 54.

[1110] A. Wilder: “Ancient and Modern Prophecy.”

[1111] While at _Petrovsk_ (Dhagestan, region of the Caucasus) we had the opportunity of witnessing another such _mystery_. It was owing to the kindness of Prince Melikoff, the governor-general of Dhagestan, living at Temerchan-Shoura, and especially of Prince Shamsoudine, the ex-reigning Shamchal of Tarchoff, a native Tartar, that during the summer of 1865 we assisted at this ceremonial from the safe distance of a sort of private box, constructed under the ceiling of the temporary building.

[1112] Does not this afford us a point of comparison with the so-called “materializing mediums?”

[1113] The Yezidis must number over 200,000 men altogether. The tribes which inhabit the Pashalik of Bagdad, and are scattered over the Sindjar mountains are the most dangerous, as well as the most hated for their evil practices. Their chief Sheik lives constantly near the tomb of their prophet and reformer Adi, but every tribe chooses its own sheik among the most learned in the “black art.” This Adi or Ad is a mythic ancestor of theirs, and simply is, Adi--the God of wisdom or the Parsi Ab-ad the first ancestor of the human race, or again Adh-Buddha of the Hindus, anthropomorphized and degenerated.

[1114] Within less than four months we have collected from the daily papers forty-seven cases of crime, ranging from drunkenness up to murder, committed by ecclesiastics in the United States only. By the end of the year our correspondents in the East will have valuable facts to offset missionary denunciations of “heathen” misdemeanors.

[1115] “Evolution,” art. Paul, the Founder of Christianity.

[1116] We find in Galatians iv. 4, the following: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, _made of a woman, made under the law_.”

[1117] The date has been fully established for these Pali Books in our own century; sufficiently so, at least, to show that they existed in Ceylon, 316 B.C., when Mahinda, the son of Asoka, was there (See Max Müller, “Chips, etc.,” vol. i., on Buddhism).

[1118] “A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam,” by M. de la Loubère, Envoy to Siam from France, 1687-8, chap. xxv., London; “Diverse Observations to be Made in Preaching the Gospel to the Orientals.”

The Sieur de la Loubère’s report to the king was made, as we see, in 1687-8. How thoroughly his proposition to the Jesuits, to suppress and dissemble in preaching Christianity to the Siamese, met their approval, is shown in the passage elsewhere quoted from the Thesis propounded by the Jesuits of Caen (“Thesis propugnata in regio Soc. Jes. Collegio, celeberrimæ Academiæ Cadoniensis, die Veneris, 30 Jan., 1693), to the following effect: “... neither do the Fathers of the Society of Jesus dissemble _when they adopt the institute and the habit_ of the Talapoins of Siam.” In five years the Ambassador’s little lump of leaven had leavened the whole.

[1119] In a discourse of Hermes with Thoth, the former says: “It is impossible for thought to rightly conceive of God.... One cannot describe, through material organs, that which is immaterial and eternal.... One is a perception of the spirit, the other a reality. That which can be perceived by our senses can be described in words; but that which is incorporeal, invisible, immaterial, and without form cannot be realized through our ordinary senses. I understand thus, O Thoth, I understand that God is ineffable.”

In the _Catechism of the Parsis_, as translated by M. Dadabhai Naoroji, we read the following:

“Q. What is the form of our God?”

“A. Our God has neither face nor form, color nor shape, nor fixed place. There is no other like Him. He is Himself, singly such a glory that we cannot praise or describe Him; nor our mind comprehend Him.”

[1120] “Contemporary Review,” p. 588, July, 1870.

[1121] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. ii., pp. 304, 306.

[1122] Ibid.

[1123] Ibid.

[1124] “Dec.,” v., lib. vi., cap. 2.

[1125] “Travels in Tartary,” etc., pp. 121, 122.

[1126] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. ii., p. 340.

[1127] His twenty or more volumes on Oriental subjects are indeed a curious conglomerate of truth and fiction. They contain a vast deal of fact about Indian traditions, philosophy and chronology, with most just views courageously expressed. But it seems as if the philosopher were constantly being overlaid by the romancist. It is as though two men were united in their authorship--one careful, serious, erudite, scholarly, the other a sensational and sensual French romancer, who judges of facts not as they are but as _he_ imagines them. His translations from _Manu_ are admirable; his controversial ability marked; his views of priestly morals unfair, and in the case of the Buddhists, positively slanderous. But in all the series of volumes there is not a line of dull reading; he has the eye of the artist, the pen of the poet of nature.

[1128] Les Fils de Dieu. “L’Inde Brahmanique,” p. 296.

[1129] In its general sense, _Isvara_ means “Lord;” but the Isvara of the mystic philosophers of India was understood precisely as the union and communion of men with the Deity of the Greek mystics. _Isvara-Parasada_ means, literally, in Sanscrit, _grace_. Both of the “Mimansas,” treating of the most abstruse questions, explain _Karma_ as merit, or the _efficacy of works_; Isvara-Parasada, as grace; and _Sradha_, as faith. The “Mimansas” are the work of the two most celebrated theologians of India. The “Pourva-Mimansa” was written by the philosopher Djeminy, and the “Outtara-Mimansa” (or Vedanta), by Richna Dvipayaa Vyasa, who collected the four “Vedas” together. (See Sir William Jones, Colebrooke, and others.)

[1130] Suetonius: “August.”

[1131] Plutarch.

[1132] “Pliny,” xxx., pp. 2, 14.

[1133] “Servius ad. Æon,” p. 71.

[1134] Peary Chand Mittra: “The Psychology of the Aryas;” “Human Nature,” for March, 1877.

[1135] The Boulogne (France) correspondent of an English journal says that he knows of a gentleman who has had an arm amputated at the shoulder, “who is certain that he has a spiritual arm, which he sees and actually feels with his other hand. He can touch anything, and even pull up things with the spiritual or phantom arm and hand.” The party knows nothing of spiritualism. We give this as we get it, without verification, but it merely corroborates what we have seen in the case of an Eastern adept. This eminent scholar and practical kabalist can at will project his astral arm, and with the hand take up, move, and carry objects, even at a considerable distance from where he may be sitting or standing. We have often seen him thus minister to the wants of a favorite elephant.

[1136] Answer to a question at “The National Association of Spiritualists,” May 14th, 1877.

[1137] “A Buddhist’s Opinions of the Spiritual States.”

[1138] See the “London Spiritualist,” May 25, 1877, p. 246.

[1139] See Coleman’s “Hindu Mythology.”

[1140] Russian subjects are not allowed to cross the Tartar territory, neither the subjects of the Emperor of China to go to the Russian factories.

[1141] These are the representatives of the Buddhist Trinity, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, or Fo, Fa, and Sengh, as they are called in Thibet.

[1142] A Bikshu is not allowed to accept anything directly even from laymen of his own people, least of all from a foreigner. The slightest contact with the body and even dress of a person not belonging to their special community is carefully avoided. Thus even the offerings brought by us and which comprised pieces of red and yellow _pou-lou_, a sort of woollen fabric the lamas generally wear, had to pass through strange ceremonies. They are forbidden, 1, to ask or beg for anything--even were they starving--having to wait until it is voluntarily offered; 2, to touch either gold or silver with their hands; 3, to eat a morsel of food, even when presented, unless the donor distinctly says to the disciple, “This is for your master to _eat_.” Thereupon, the disciple turning to the _pazen_ has to offer the food in his turn, and when he has said, “Master, this is allowed; take and eat,” then only can the lama take it with the right hand, and partake of it. All our offerings had to pass through such purifications. When the silver pieces, and a few handfuls of annas (a coin equal to four cents) were at different occasions offered to the community, a disciple first wrapped his hand in a yellow handkerchief, and receiving it on his palm, conveyed the sum immediately into the _Badir_, called elsewhere _Sabaït_, a sacred basin, generally wooden, kept for offerings.

[1143] These stones are highly venerated among Lamaists and Buddhists; the throne and sceptre of Buddha are ornamented with them, and the Taley Lama wears one on the fourth finger of the right hand. They are found in the Altai Mountains, and near the river Yarkuh. Our talisman was a gift from the venerable high-priest, a _Heiloung_, of a Kalmuck tribe. Though treated as apostates from their primitive Lamaism, these nomads maintain friendly intercourse with their brother Kalmucks, the Chokhots of Eastern Thibet and Kokonor, but even with the Lamaists of Lha-Ssa. The ecclesiastical authorities however, will have no relations with them. We have had abundant opportunities to become acquainted with this interesting people of the Astrakhan Steppes, having lived in their _Kibitkas_ in our early years, and partaken of the lavish hospitality of the Prince Tumene, their late chief, and his Princess. In their religious ceremonies, the Kalmucks employ trumpets made from the thigh and arm bones of deceased rulers and high priests.

[1144] The Buddhist Kalmucks of the Astrakhan steppes are accustomed to make their idols out of the cremated ashes of their princes and priests. A relative of the author has in her collection several small pyramids composed of the ashes of eminent Kalmucks and presented to her by the Prince Tumene himself in 1836.

[1145] The sacred fan used by the chief priests instead of an umbrella.

[1146] See vol. i., p. 476.

[1147] See his “Lectures on Sound.”

[1148] From the compound word sûtra, maxim or precept, and antika, close or near.

[1149] It sounds like injustice to Asôka to compare him with Constantine, as is done by several Orientalists. If, in the religious and political sense, Asôka did for India what Constantine is alleged to have achieved for the Western World, all similarity stops there.

[1150] See “Indian Sketches;” Appleton’s “New Cyclopedia,” etc.

[1151] _Aum_ (mystic Sanscrit term of the Trinity), _mani_ (holy jewel), _padmé_ (_in_ the lotus, padma being the name for lotus), _houm_ (be it so). The six syllables in the sentence correspond to the six chief powers of nature emanating from Buddha (the abstract deity, not Gautama), who is the _seventh_, and the Alpha and Omega of being.

[1152] Moru (the pure) is one of the most famous lamaseries of Lha-Ssa, directly in the centre of the city. There the Shaberon, the Taley Lama, resides the greater portion of the winter months; during two or three months of the warm season his abode is at Foht-lla. At Moru is the largest typographical establishment of the country.

[1153] The Buddhist great canon, containing 1,083 works in several hundred volumes, many of which treat of magic.

[1154] “Crawfurd’s Mission to Siam,” p. 182.

[1155] “Semedo,” vol. iii., p. 114.

[1156] There was an anecdote current among Daguerre’s friends between 1838 and 1840. At an evening party, Madame Daguerre, some two months previous to the introduction of the celebrated Daguerrean process to the _Académie des Sciences_, by Arago (January, 1839), had an earnest consultation with one of the medical celebrities of the day about her husband’s mental condition. After explaining to the physician the numerous symptoms of what she believed to be her husband’s mental aberration, she added, with tears in her eyes, that the greatest proof to her of Daguerre’s insanity was his firm conviction that he would succeed in nailing his own shadow to the wall, or fixing it on _magical_ metallic plates. The physician listened to the intelligence very attentively, and answered that he had himself observed in Daguerre lately the strongest symptoms of what, to his mind, was an undeniable proof of madness. He closed the conversation by firmly advising her to send her husband quietly and without delay to Bicétre, the well-known lunatic asylum. Two months later a profound interest was created in the world of art and science by the exhibition of a number of pictures taken by the new process. The _shadows_ were fixed, after all, upon metallic plates, and the “lunatic” proclaimed the father of photography.

[1157] Schott: “Über den Buddhismus,” p. 71.

[1158] “The Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. ii., p. 352.

[1159] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 130, quoted by Col. Yule in vol. ii., p. 353.

[1160] No country in the world can boast of more medicinal plants than Southern India, Cochin, Burmah, Siam, and Ceylon. European physicians--according to time-honored practice--settle the case of professional rivalship, by treating the native doctors as quacks and empirics; but this does not prevent the latter from being often successful in cases in which eminent graduates of British and French schools of Medicine have signally failed. Native works on Materia Medica do not certainly contain the secret remedies known, and successfully applied by the native doctors (the Atibbā), from time immemorial; and yet the best febrifuges have been learned by British physicians from the Hindus, and where patients, deafened and swollen by abuse of quinine, were slowly dying of fever under the treatment of enlightened physicians, the bark of the Margosa, and the Chiretta herb have cured them completely, and these now occupy an honorable place among European drugs.

[1161] The Hindu appellation for the peculiar mantrâm or charm which prevents the serpent from biting.

[1162] Between the bells of the “heathen” worshippers, and the bells and pomegranates of the Jewish worship, the difference is this: the former, besides purifying the soul of man with their harmonious tones, kept _evil_ demons at a distance, “for the sound of pure bronze breaks the enchantment,” says Tibullius (i., 8-22), and the latter explained it by saying that the sound of the bells “should be heard [by the Lord] when he [the priest] goeth in unto the holy place before the Lord, and when he goeth out, _that he die not_” (Exodus xxviii. 33; Eccles. xiv. 9). Thus, one sound served to keep away _evil_ spirits, and the other, the Spirit of Jehovah. The Scandinavian traditions affirm that the Trolls were always driven from their abodes by the bells of the churches. A similar tradition is in existence in relation to the fairies of Great Britain.

[1163] An elemental dæmon, in which every native of Asia believes.

[1164] Lady, or Madam, in Moldavian.

[1165] The hour in Bucharest corresponded perfectly with that of the country in which the scene had taken place.

[1166] Capt. W. L. D. O’Grady: “Life in India.”

[1167] Neither Russia nor England succeeded in 1849 in forcing them to recognize and respect the Turkish from the Persian territory.

[1168] Persepolis is the Persian Istakhâar, northeast of Shiraz; it stood on a plain now called Merdusht. At the confluence of the ancient Medus and the Araxes, now Pulwân and Bend-emir.

[1169] “Ægyptiaci Theatrum Hierogliphicum,” p. 544.

[1170] We have twice assisted at the strange rites of the remnants of that sect of fire-worshippers known as the Guebres, who assemble from time to time at Baku, on the “field of fire.” This ancient and mysterious town is situated near the Caspian Sea. It belongs to Russian Georgia. About twelve miles northeast from Baku stands the remnant of an ancient Guebre temple, consisting of four columns, from whose empty orifices issue constantly jets of flame, which gives it, therefore, the name of Temple of the Perpetual Fire. The whole region is covered with lakes and springs of naphtha. Pilgrims assemble there from distant parts of Asia, and a priesthood, worshipping the divine principle of fire, is kept by some tribes, scattered hither and thither about the country.

[1171] Baadéy-ku-Ba--literally “a gathering of winds.”

[1172] See also “Magic and Mesmerism,” a novel reprinted by the Harpers, thirty years ago.

INDEX.

INDEX.

Abarbanel, his explanation of the sign of the coming of the Messiah,