The cycle of 19, a common number of the Irish stone circles, is called, in the Irish language, Baise-Bhuidin.[1] I confess I can read this no other way than Bud-base or Buddhist foundation—it being the foundation, in one sense, of the famous Neros. The temple in Cornwall, called Biscawoon, said to be a corruption of Baise-bhuidin, contains in its circle 19 stones. The meaning of this can scarcely be doubted.[2]
It is curious to observe how often trifling circumstances keep occurring to support the claim of the Etruscans to be placed among the most ancient of the nations. The cycle of 666 is an example of this kind. It is found with them, as the following passage of Niebuhr proves, but its meaning was lost. “In the year of Rome 666 the Haruspices announced, that the mundane day of the Etruscan nation was drawing to a close.” This cycle has a strong tendency to prove, what no one who looks impartially at the apocalypse of John, and the continual recurrence in it of the numbers contained in the ancient cycles, can doubt, that it is an allegorical mythos, and relates chiefly to them; though perhaps only emblematically.
The Etruscan cosmogony is exactly that of one of the earlier Brahmin systems. It supposes that the author of the creation employed 12,000 years in his work. In the first thousand he made the planets and earth; in the second, the firmament; in the third, the sea and waters; in the fourth, the sun and moon, and also the stars; in the fifth, living creatures; in the sixth, man:—that after they were finished in the six thousand years, they were to last six thousand years, then a new world was to begin, and the same things to go over again.[3] Here is the renewal of the Cycles of Virgil and Juvenal; but as may be expected of a system, if it can be called a system, which has ripened into form, as circumstances favoured, through thousands of years, the length of the period is unknown, a subject of speculation varying in different nations and different times.
Although Nonnius is perfectly in the dark respecting the length of the great year, making it to be 456 years long, yet he accidentally makes a calculation, from various circumstances, that the Phœnix must have made its appearance in the year 608 before Christ, which evidently produces, to that time, one of the Neroses. This I can attribute to nothing but the fact, that one of the periods had been discovered, though not understood. This is the best kind of evidence to establish facts of this nature.
The Irish expressly state the life of the Phenn or Phennische to have lasted 600 years.[4] In Egyptian, Pheneh is cyclus, periodus, ævum. (Scaliger.)
Phœnix, Egyptiis astrologiæ symbolum.Bochart.
Una est quæ reparat seque ipsa reseminat
Ales, Assyrii Phœnica vocant.Ovid.[5]
If I mistake not, I have pointed out the origin of the Hindoo cycles; and it is probable, that the principle which I have unfolded will account for the various systems which are found among the learned in different parts of India. One system founded on one series of observations would be adopted by the sect of one nation of that widely-extended country, and another of another. And thus have arisen the different systems which we find. The festivals, forms, and ceremonies, (matters of the very first importance to devotees in all nations,) depending on the cycles, we need not be surprised that old, incorrect systems should have been continued in different places. And after the religion was divided into sects, the fortunate detectors of the early mistakes, by which they were enabled to keep their own festivals in order, would probably be very unwilling to
