by the name of Purana, will tell you that our earth is a plane figure studded with eight mountains, and surrounded by seven seas of milk, nectar, and other fluids; that the part which we inhabit is one of seven islands, to which eleven other smaller isles are subordinate; that a god riding on a huge elephant guards each of the eight regions, and that a mountain of gold rises and gleams in the centre; but we (meaning persons well informed) believe the earth to be shaped like a cadamba fruit, or spheroidal, and admits only four oceans of water, all which we name from the four cardinal points, and in which are many great peninsulas with innumerable islands. They will tell you that a dragon's head swallows the moon at an eclipse, but we know that the supposed head and tail of the dragon mean only the nodes or points formed by the intersections of the ecliptic and the moon's orbit. In short, they have imagined a system which exists only in their fancy; but we consider nothing true without such evidence as cannot be questioned."w

The Cadamba above mentioned is the Nauclea Orientalis

of European botanists.* The fruit is a capsule, inferior small, turbinate, corticate, crowned with a callous ring, the remains of the fallen flower. The whole plant is one of the most elegant of the Indian trees. Its flowers are finely fragrant; its seeds are numerous, which renders the capsule an approved symbol of the fertility of the earth. For these reasons the plant is held in high reverence, and is even regarded as holy. It appears from this statement of the learned Pandit, that the Hindu philosophers have acquired the idea, which has now become universal, that the earth is of a spherical form; but, adhering to the doctrine of the Sastra, they cannot be induced to relinquish their sacred Merù, which misleads them into the erroneous assertion that the polar diameter of the earth is greater than the equatorial. w Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. No. 16, p. 290.

* Ibid. vol. iv. No. 16. Martyn's Gardener and Botanist's Dictionary.

It appears from the Purana distinguished by the name of Calica, that the worship of Siva, the Destroying Power of the Hindu Triad, had become so sanguinary in the sacrifice not only of animals, but of men also, as to excite a deep abhorrence in many minds, and a wish to restrain and even abolish the use of all animal sacrifices whatsoever. To effect this, it is affirmed in certain books, that Vishnu, the Preserving Power of the Triad, became an eighth avatara, and was miraculously born of the wife of a Hindù Rajah. y

This newly-born personage took the name of Buddha, a name which signifies a wise man, or a person well qualified to teach right principles of action. Besides Buddha, he took several other names, each significant of particular tenets. Among them was the name of Sacya, which signifies a person feeding on vegetables and entertaining an abhorrence of animal food.

It appears from various authorities, that this new sect was opposed especially by the votaries of Siva; that violent persecutions and bloody wars were carried on between the partizans of the Brahmens and Buddhists; that the latter prevailed for a long time in some of the provinces of Hindosthan, till at length the Buddhists were driven from the continent to the island Ceylon, where the religion of Buddha now exclusively prevails. In all the countries of eastern India beyond the Bay of Bengal, even in the islands

y This avatara was the ninth of those births by which the Deity became incarnate, mostly in a human form, but in some instances, as in the tortoise avatara, the form of an animal was assumed. Bishop Heber states that twenty-three of these avataras are enumerated by some of the Hindù sects, but nine only are admitted by all. The doctrine of these incarnations may be presumed to have been borrowed from the expectation of the birth of the Messiah, which it were easy to shew had been entertained from the time of the fall of man and the expulsion from the Garden. It is certain from true dates of chronology that several of the avataras were anterior to, and several posterior to the birth of the Redeemer.

of Japan, Buddhism is, with some few exceptions, the established religion. There will be occasion in the following pages of this treatise, to notice the forms of the religious structures of these nations, which, being built according to the general principle of idolaters, in imitation of the form of the created world, require some notices of the cosmography adopted by this numerous sect, which is briefly as follows.

The disciples of Buddha maintain, that the world consists of a tall column, or pillar, some say round, others octangular, on the top of which the supreme god resides, surrounded by the earth and its inhabitants. This they call the Mahà Merù Pargwette, that is, the Great Merù Stone: Pargwette signifying stone, in the Pali language. This pillar is the centre of several cylinders, of which each exterior cylinder is of less height than the next interior. Each of these cylinders is the abode of some governing spirit. The forms of these cylinders are very various: some are triangular, some quadrangular, octangular, semicircular, and the like. These stand around a column of a circular shape, whose rounded summit is the earth, supported in the same manner as is signified by other ancient theories. The columnar forms stationed in the adjacent regions represent, though somewhat imperfectly, the sun and other heavenly bodies, not only of the solar system, but some of those stars which are fixed in the regions of infinite space.

This theory of the Buddhists is evidently of a later age than the cosmography of the Brahmens; for the number of columnar structures standing on all sides of the central earth indicates a more extended acquaintance with the heavenly bodies, the result, doubtless, of a longer observation and continued study. This newer theory comprises all the principles of the preceding, but with additions. The earth rises in the central parts, and has its Mount Merù. The columnar

z Asiatic Researches, vol. vii. No. 15. Upham, chap. iv.

support of the earth is more positively declared than in other systems, and is extended somewhat whimsically to all the other bodies of the universe, in such a manner as amounts to absurdity. The theory is, however, of great importance to the present subject, for it shews the import of the forms of many sacred structures, as will be seen in the subsequent chapters of this treatise; at present it will be proper to observe, that the theory of a Mount Merù has been so generally received by nations distant from, and holding little intercourse with, the disciples of the Sastra, that the theory can only be referred to patriarchal tradition, and a reference to the first abode of man in the Garden of Eden. There can be no doubt that the Egyptians may claim an antiquity equal to that of the Hindus, but their records have not survived the lapse of time, and therefore, little is known of the opinions entertained by their theologues in the earlier ages of their history. Perhaps their opinions of the form of the earth, if ever they were recorded, may have been suppressed when found to be erroneous; or if ever recorded, they exist only in the form of hieroglyphics, which are not as yet well understood. It will be seen, however, when the forms of their temples become to be considered, that, like other nations, the Egyptians believed the whole earth to be one vast plain, of a quadrangular form, canopied by the heavens above, itself constituting a canopy or ceiling to the plane regions of hell beneath. Notwithstanding the supposed prevalence of these opinions, the knowledge of the spherical form of the earth was familiar to them in the early ages in which some of their temples were constructed. This is evident, from the symbol of a globe, supported on each side, as in armorial bearings, by a serpent, each accompanied with wings extended wide beyond them, occupying nearly the whole of the entablature above the entrance of many of their temples. Although the central figure in this symbol be called a globe, an egg, the symbol of the world, is perhaps intended, which,

according to the Egyptian mythologists, a issued from the mouth of the god Cneph, a personification of the divine Spirit, from which egg a deity called Ptha issued. This Ptha created the world. The Sastra, which does not admit the spherical form, has the same fable. The supreme Brahme produced an egg in the waters of creation, from which was born Brahmà, the acting creator. How nearly these fables coincide with our Scripture history! Were the globes, as they are called, of the Egyptian entablatures closely examined, they would perhaps be found to be oval-shaped, figurative of the creation, and not bearing any reference to the form of the world.

Whether the Greeks derived the doctrine of a sacred mount from Egypt, or from India, may be doubted. It is probable that they might have obtained it from either; or what is more probable, that it was known by them from general and patriarchal tradition. That they did entertain the doctrine is most certain, as the following authorities may serve to shew.

Many eminences in ancient Greece were distinguished by the name of (oμpaños) omphalos. This word signifies the boss in the middle of a shield; it also signifies the navel of the human body, the part by which the unborn infant receives nourishment from the mother until it arrives at the maturity of birth. Were the sanscrit scholar to give the etymology of the word, he would state that it was a compound of Om, the sacred name of the deity, and phala, a pinnacle or lofty pointed height. Such a derivation would be apt, if a reference were intended to be made to the height on which the Deity had planted the Garden of Eden: from whence, as from the nave or axle of a wheel, mankind migrated in succeeding generations into all the countries of the earth.

That the Greeks did regard the word oupaλos as bearing this signification is very certain. Every new colony established in the country, had its omphalos, or high station, on which

a Euseb. Ev. Præpar. lib. iii. c. 11.