island of Ieua, i. e. יהוה ieue. Mr. Franklin makes an observation which is new to me, that the ancient Etrurians had the countenances of Negroes, the same as the images of Buddha in India.[1] This is very striking, when compared with the proofs which I have given in my Celtic Druids, Ch. II. Sect. xxv. Ap. p. 304, of the identity of the Sanscrit and the ancient language of Italy. Cristna having been made out to be the sun, the consequence necessarily follows, that Buddha is the Sun; and this easily and satisfactorily accounts for the similarity in the history of Cristna and of Buddha. And all these circumstances are easily accounted for, if Buddha and Cristna were the Sun in Taurus and Aries. In the quotation above, from Mons. Schegel, the second Hermes Trismegistus is alluded to. In the sequel I shall shew that these alleged appearances of second persons of the same name were derived from a system of renewed incarnations, and of unceasing revolving cycles.
The elder Buddha being now admitted by all oriental scholars to have long preceded Cristna, I have no occasion to dwell longer on this subject.
CHAPTER II.
CASSINI. LUBÈRE. CYCLES.—ISAIAH’S PROPHECY KNOWN TO THE EGYPTIANS AND THE CELTS OF GAUL.—MYSTICAL MEANING OF THE LETTER M.—EXPLANATION OF THE ORIENTAL ASTRONOMICAL SYSTEMS.—SUBJECT CONTINUED. MR. BENTLEY. BEROSUS.—MOSAIC AND HINDOO SYSTEMS. VARIOUS PROPHECIES.—MARTIANUS CAPELLA. SUBJECT CONTINUED.
1. The following observations of the very celebrated astronomer Cassini, made more than a hundred years ago, and extracted from La Loubère’s History of Siam, will enable me to elicit several conclusions respecting the famous Neros, of the greatest importance. As an astronomer, M. Cassini is in the first rank. No one will deny that his calculations upon acknowledged or admitted facts are entitled to the highest respect. I think they will enable me to point out the origin of many of the difficulties respecting Buddha and Cristna, and to explain them. They will also enable me to shew the mode which was adopted by the early popes and other priests, in fixing the times of several of the most important Christian epochas; as well as to exhibit the mode in which the Gods Buddha and Cristna have been regenerated. These circumstances have either been unobserved, or they have been concealed from Europeans. After a long discussion on the formation of the Siamese astronomical and civil epochas, in which, with profound learning, Cassini explains the process by which they have been formed, he says,
“The first lunisolar period, composed of whole ages, is that of 600 years, which is also composed of 31 periods of 19, and one of 11 years. Though the chronologists speak not of this period, yet it is one of the ancientest that have been invented.
“Josephus,[2] speaking of the patriarchs that lived before the deluge, says, that ‘God prolonged their life, as well by reason of their virtue, as to afford them the means to perfect the sciences of geometry and astronomy, which they had invented: which they could not possibly do, if they had
