so much an avatar, as the person of the great Veeshnu himself, in a human form.”[1] That is, he was incarnate, or in the flesh, as Jesus was said to be.
For reasons which the reader will soon see, I am inclined to think that Osiris was not the copy of Cristna, but of the earlier God, Buddha.
That by Osiris was meant the Sun, it is now allowed by every writer who has treated on the antiquities of Egypt. Mr. Maurice, as the reader sees, states him to have been black, and that the Mnevis, or sacred bull, of Heliopolis, the symbol of Osiris, was also black. Osiris is allowed, also, to be the Seeva of India,[2] one of the three persons of the Indian God—Bramha, Vishnu or Cristna, and Seeva, of whom the bull of the Zodiac was the symbol,
It is curious to observe the number of trifling circumstances which constantly occur to prove the identity of the Hindoos and Egyptians, or rather the Ethiopians. The word Nile, in the Indian language, means black. Dupuis[3] says, “Nilo in Indian signifies black, and it ought to signify the same in Egyptian; since, whenever the Arabs, the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Latins, have wished to translate the word Nil, they have always made use of a word which in their language signifies black. The Hebrews call it Sichor; the Ethiopians, Nuchul; the ancient Latins, Melo; the Greeks, Melas—all names signifying black. The word or name Nilos, then, in Egyptian, presents the same idea as the word Nilo in Indian.” But the name of Nile was a modern one, (comparatively speaking,) a translation of the ancient name of this river, which was Siri, Speaking of the word Nile, Tzetzes says, το δε Νεῖλος νεον εςι.[4]
Selden[5] says, “Sit Osiris, sit Omphis, Nilus, Siris, sive quodcunque aliud ab Hierophantis usurpatum nomen, ad unum tandem solem antiquissimum gentium Numen redeunt omnia.” He says again, “Osiris certe non solum idem Deus erat cum Nilo, verum ipsa nomina Nili et Osiridis, sublato primo elemento, sunt synonyma. Nam lingua prophetarum שחר schichor est Nilus, ut doctissimi interpretum volunt, quod שחר schichori, lingua Æthiopica (ita monet illustrissimus Scaliger filius) prolatum—in Σεῖρις aut Σῖρις Græca scriptione, transmigravit.” See also Parkhurst’s Lex. שחר pp. 728, 729.
The word Osiris may be a Greek word, composed by the Greeks from their own emphatic article Ο, and the Hebrew word שחר shr, written with their customary termination Οσιρις. The meaning of the Hebrew word is black. And one meaning of the Greek is evidently the black, or the black God. This is confirmed by Plutarch, in his treatise de Iside et Osiride.
The Nile was often called יאר iar, which is the Hebrew word for river, and was probably the Egyptian one also. It was simply the river παρ’ εξοχην. It was never called Neilos by the Egyptians, but by the Greeks, and that only from the time of Hesiod, in whose writings it is first so called. This pretty nearly proves it a translated name.[6] If the author be right in this conjecture, the reason is evident why this word sets etymological inquiries at defiance. Sir W. Jones says, Nila means blue; but this blue is probably derived from the colour of the stone—a dark blue, meant originally to describe black. The Nile was called Αιγυπτος Ægyptus, before the country had that name. This last name also defies the etymologists. But it was probably an Eastern word mangled by the Greeks, who mangled every thing. It will be explained hereafter.
M. De Lambre tells us, from Censorinus, that the Egytians called the year of 365 days by the word Νειλος, Neilos. And he observes that, in the Greek notation, the letters of which this word is composed denote 365. Sir W. Drummond calls this buffoonery, and asks if M. De Lambre has
