ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 273 the words of a Tartarian priesthood, and the language "SALUTATION TO THE THREE HOLY ONES." The present Lamaic doctrines relative to the incarnation of successive Bud'has, will throw some light upon the history of Zagreus, the "Horned Child," and demonstrate the doctrine of the impossibility of the non-existence of a supreme Jaina Pontiff. The passage is from the popular work of Mr. Prinsep, on the social and political condition of Thibet, Tartary, and Mongolia. The Lamaic ideas are as follows:— "Everything proceeds from God, and will return to him; but the soul passes, in transmigration, to inferior or superior animals, according to its desert. There are six grades of animals vested with souls. Angels, demons, men, quadrupeds, birds, and reptiles. A soul in each state has its means of attaining perfection; the highest of all is to be absorbed into the Divinity, whence again living Boodhs are detached, to take a human shape, in order to recall men from errors, and teach the road to perfection. The highest of existing regenerate Boodhs are the Delai Lama of Lassa; the Band-shan Remboochi, of TeeshooLoomboo, the same who was visited by Captain Turner, in the time of Warren Hastings; and the Geesoo Tamba of Grand Kooren, Oorga, on the borders of Siberia; and the C'hangkia-fo, or great almoner of the court of Pekin. Of all these, the Delai Lama of Lassa is the pope, or 1 The full formula, is Dkon (Mch'og)—Qsum-(la) p'hag—Hts (-'hal-lo). See Csoma de Cooroos, As. Res., vol. xx. p. 45. 2 Om, with Brahmins, is Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa; with Bud'hists, it is, Bud'ha, Dherma, and Sanga; generally conceived to be typical of Bud'ha—the Law and the Clergy. The Sanscrit formula is Namo Ratna Triyaya. tou-tse. spiritual guide of all Boodhists. He was only nine years old when our missionaries were there, and had been recognised pope for six years, having been taken from an obscure family of Sifans, in the province of Ming-chenWhen this Boodhist dies everybody falls to meditation and prayer to discover the new birth. Prayerbarrels1 turn with redoubled vigour. All who fancy they have a regenerate Boodh in their families give notice, and a council of holy ones, that is, of Kotooktoos, sits, and selects three infants, who are sent for to Lassa to be examined. For six days they are shut up, and the examiners devote themselves this while to earnest meditation and prayer. On the seventh day they write the names of the three infants on golden plates, and place them in an urn. The senior Kotook too draws the lot; and the child whose name is drawn is immediately proclaimed Delai Lama, and carried in state through the town; while the two rejected children are returned to their families, with liberal pensions." " The Bud'histic faith, notwithstanding the depression under which it ultimately laboured as the state religion of Hellas, permeated every branch of society, maintaining, in extraordinary vigour, the ever-present idea of the visibility and non-visibility of the deified saints, according to their own volition. Hence, Poseidon is sometimes represented as a chief engaged to build the walls of Troy : thus he is in his grosser capacity of substantial agent. On the other hand, Ares is wounded, and a celestial ichor 1 Every Lama has his prayer-barrel. Prayer and meditation being regarded as the only effectual means of attaining sanctification, the continued repetition of the mystical " Om mani padme hom," is considered as the first essential of faith. Hence the number of repetitious is the test of merit, and for multiplication of them the devise of turning a barrel, on which the words are written, has been imagined, and obtains universal credence in its efficacy. Prinsep, "Mongolia," p. 107. flows from the wound. Apollo transforms himself into a dolphin; and, in fact, the power of the saints of the middle ages over the elements is a very general characteristic of the Budha deities. At length the strongest peculiarities of each deified hero became, as it were, the stereotyped characteristics of each divinity. Thus, the Chief of Sidon, that is, Chief of the Saints1 (Bud'ha), having been both in Phoenicia and at Dwarica, and generally on the coasts of Sinde, recognised as the patron of the Vaisya or Mercantile Caste (so much so in the former country as to have his memory preserved by his image on the figure-heads of the Phoenician vessels), was the object of adoration as the special protecting divinity of the sea. The faith of his adherents was as lively as that of the pilgrims to Apollo's shrine; and their thorough belief in his ever-living personality as the heavenly guardian of a special cosmogonic trust was as active and confiding as the faith of the pilgrims to Loretto's shrine; and while the more subtle philosophic principles, held by the Bud'hists of antiquity, were lost sight of, a faith more lively and more personifying supplied its place. Thus, whilst the Hindoo of the Himalaya could realise upon a substantial Meru, an unsubstantial Indra, the Indo-Greek of Thessaly could perceive his Budha on Tomarus—the Greek of subsequent ages could just as strongly fix for Poseidon, the great Patriarch guardian of Merchants, a fitting palace and sovereignty in the depths of the sea. Hence, with the Homerid of Chios, the vital action of the old Bud'histic principle is at work, as it was centuries previous to his time, to personify the power of Poseidon, the Lord of the sea-faring mariner. Ægæ, in Euboea, boasted the dignity of providing a palace for the Phœnician ruler of the waves, 1 Sidha, a saint; Sidhan, saints; Pa-Sidhan, chief of the saints. in whose depths was situated the goodly structure. Here were his steeds, glorious with their golden manes and brazen hoofs. Borne along in his chariot by those swift ministers of his will, he passes over the tumbling billows of the deep, whose waving crest sinks to perfect stillness on his approach, and whose monsters, recognising their sovereign lord, gambol in a thousand varying gaieties around his gliding car. "In the deeps of ocean flood, Where his glorious palace stood, He his fleet-footed steeds in their car is arraying; Now over the ocean his coursers on-urging. And wide smiles the ocean with joy at his sight!" "1 Select, from MS.—E. P. This vital and energetic faith, however, will not account for the basis of fable; it will only tend to show its own tendencies and intensity. In the patriarchal system of deification, already largely noticed, will be found the sum and substance of the whole system; as wide as the world, as craving as ambition, and as strong as the ties of kindred. 1 ἔνθα δὲ οι κλυτὰ δώματα βένθεσι λίμνης Χρυσείην, εύτυκτον, ἑοῦ δ ̓ ἐπεβήσετο δίφρου Βῆ δ ̓ ἐλάαν ἐπὶ κύματ ̓ ἄταλλε δὲ κήτὲ ὑπ' αὐτοῦ Πάντοθεν, ἐκ κευθμῶν, ουδ' ηγνοίησεν ἄνακτα Γηθοσύνῃ δὲ θάλασσα διίστατο . Hom. Il., xiii. 21-29. XVIII. PHOENICIAN BUD'HISM. Κάδμος απυργώτοιο θεμελεία πεγνυε Θήβης Ἑπταπορῳ πυλεῶνι, περίδρομον αστυ χαράξας.—Dionys. v. 50. "Son origine est place dans les temps les plus reculés, dans des temps mêmes anté-historiques. Le nom de Bud'ha est rapporté à plusieurs ages, dans différens pays. Une longue suite de Bud' has est donnée, non seulemeut d'un commun accord par tous les Bud'histes, mais memes par d'autres, a qui cette religion est indifférente, ou odieuse."—Troyer's Raja. Tarangini, vol. ii. 399. The reader will not fail to remember the Tartarian population I have already pointed out in the province of Bashan, and the "Lebanan," (Lebanon), or the "Tribes Of Leh." How thoroughly Lamaic these and other provinces were, on the entrance of the Children of Israel into Palestine, may be proved in a variety of ways. I shall mention one circumstance only as establishing this fact,— namely the Chaonim or Cakes offered to the Queen of Heaven, a Tartar rite that runs up to the most remote periods. "We arrived at Chaborté," observes M. Hue, "on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, an epoch of great rejoicing for the Chinese. This festival known under the name of the Yué-Ping, 'Cakes of the Moon,' runs up to the highest antiquity. It was established to honour the moon with a superstitious worship. During this solemnity all labours are suspended; workmen receive from their masters a pecuniary gratification; every one is appareled in his best clothes, and very shortly, in the midst of games and feasts, the joy becomes universal. BB |