but it means also, I think, the same as the Greek word Σα, from Σαω to save, or the Hebrew word ישע iso, and means Saviour.
The Arca-bandhu, above-mentioned, is the same as the word Nau-banda, and has the same meaning, as well as that of Kinsman of the Sun, if Arca-bandu have that meaning; ארג arg, in Chaldee, means ship. Of the probability of this, we shall be better able to judge hereafter.
M. Matter has made a very correct observation (as we proceed in our inquiries, every new page will produce some additional proofs of its truth); he says, L’Antiquité vraiment dévoilé, nous offrirait peut-être une unité de vues, et une liaison de croyances, que les temps modernes auraient peine à comprendre.[1] This was the doctrine of the learned Ammonias Saccas, of which I shall treat hereafter.
7. The farther back we go in history the more simple we find the icons of the Gods, until at last, in Italy, Greece, and Egypt, we arrive at a time when there were no icons of them. And from this circumstance, which seems to have been applicable to all nations, I draw a conclusion favourable to the superior antiquity of the Buddhist worship. For Buddha is never seen in the old temples, where his worship alone prevails, but in one figure, and that of extreme simplicity. And in many temples about Cabul, known to be Buddhist, there are no images at all. In this case they can only be known by tradition.
The stone circles, and the ruins at Dipaldinna,[2] are undoubtedly among the most ancient in India. They are evidently not Brahminical, but Buddhist or Jain. The execution of them may well compete with the works of the most skilful of the Greeks. The drawings which Colonel Mackenzie employed the natives to execute, are very beautifully done, but in many instances a close comparison with the originals at the India House will shew, that they by no means equal them. In these works none of the unnatural monsters, with numerous heads or arms, which we see in the later works of the Brahmins or Buddhists, are to be found. These facts seem to shew, that in the most remote periods of Indian history, good taste, as well as skill, prevailed—circumstances which are very worthy of observation.
Though in these drawings, by Col. Mackenzie, of sculptures, at Dipaldinna, near Amrawatty, which are most beautifully executed, no example of a monstrous figure will be found—a figure with three or four heads—yet the Linga and Yoni are every where to be seen as well as the favourite Cobra Capella, shielding or covering its favourite God with its hood.
The images of Buddha can be considered only as figures of incarnations, of a portion of the Supreme Being; in fact, of human beings, filled with divine inspiration; and thus partaking the double quality of God and man. No image of the supreme Brahm himself is ever made; but in place of it, his attributes are arranged, as in the temple of Gharipuri, thus:
|
Brama |
Power |
Creation |
Matter |
The Past |
Earth. |
Thus each triad was called the Creator. In the last of these divisions we find the Trinity ascribed to Plato, which I have noticed in B. I. Ch. II. Sect. 4. We see here whence the Greeks have obtained it, and as was very common with them, they misunderstood it,[3] and took a mere figurative, or analogical, expression of the doctrine, for the doctrine itself. Probably the Earth, fire, water, might be given to the canaille, by Plato, to deceive them, as it has done some moderns, to whose superstition its grossness was suitable.
