Several of the Hindoo incarnations, particularly that of Salivahana and of Guatama, of whom I shall treat by and by, are said, like Scipio, Augustus, Alexander, &c., to have been born after a ten months’ pregnancy of their mothers, and also to have been produced by a serpent entwining itself round the body of the mother. The coincidence is too striking to be the effect of accident.[1]
The author of Nimrod has shewn, at great length, that about the time of Augustus, and a considerable time previously, there had been a very general idea prevalent in the world, that a supernatural child would be born, in consequence of a new age which was then about to arise; but the certain time of which was either unknown or a profound secret. All this was connected with the eighth cycle, which I have explained. To these supernatural births I shall return in a future page.
If my reader have gone along with me in the argument, he must have observed that there is a difficulty arising from the blending of the cycle of 600—the Neros and the cycle—and the distinguished personage who was the hero of it. I find it difficult to explain what I mean. Expressions constantly refer to the cycle of 600 years, and to a person, an incarnation of the divine mind. The age and person are confounded. This, it might plausibly be said, operates against my theory, if I could not shew that it was the custom of the ancient mystics thus to confound them. But we have only to look to the words of Virgil in the prophecy of the Sibyl, B. V. Ch. II. Sect. 7, and the quotation from Mr. Faber, and we have a clear example of what I allude to. The ninth age was to arrive, but a blessed infant also was to arrive with it, to restore the age of gold. The age lasted 600 years, but it did not mean that the child was to live 600 years. The Buddha, the Cristna, the Salivahana of India, each arrived in a period, and they are identified with the period, but they are none of them said to have lived the whole term of 600 years. Cyrus was foretold, and I have shewn that he was born in the eighth age or cycle, but he was not supposed to live to the end of it. I acknowledge this would form a difficulty if it were not obviated by the express words of Virgil, which cannot be disputed. To the objection I reply, that the cycle or age in India and Judæa was used, precisely as it was by the mystics of Virgil. Whatever one meant respecting the child being born, was meant by the other. And this leads to another observation respecting the Messiah of the Jews. We have here express authority from the record itself what a Messiah was—what was meant when a Messiah was foretold. He was a man endowed with a more than usual portion of the divine spirit or nature, and as such was considered to be the presiding genius of the cycle—the αιων των αιωνων—the father of the succeeding ages. We have seen that the word Cyrus meant Sun.
The mother of Cyrus, or of the incarnation of the solar power, had, as we might expect, a very mythological name. She was called Manda-ne.[2] In the oriental language this would have the same meaning as κοσμος, correctly a cycle. In the same spirit the mother of Constantine was called Helen, her father Coilus. Great mistakes (perhaps intended) have been made in the construing of the word mundus. It has often been construed to mean world, when it meant cycle. It was, I think, one of the words used by the mystics to conceal their doctrine, and to delude the populace.
The results of the calculations made by Cassini are in a very peculiar manner satisfactory. They are totally removed from suspicion of Brahminical forgery, either to please Mohamedan conquerors, or European masters, or sçavans, because they are strictly Buddhist, and have no
