[1098] Ibid., p. 221.

[1099] “Analysis of Religious Belief,” vol. i., p. 467.

[1100] See the “Gita,” translated by Charles Wilkins, in 1785; and the “Bhagavad-Purana,” containing the history of Christna, translated into French by Eugène Burnouf. 1840.

[1101] Matthew vii. 21.

[1102] “Of the People of India,” vol. i., p. 84.

[1103] Or “Researches into the Mysteries of Occultism;” Boston, 1877, Edited by Mrs. E. Hardinge Britten.

[1104] See “Stone Him to Death;” “Septenary Institutions.” Capt. James Riley, in his “Narrative” of his enslavement in Africa, relates like instances of great longevity on the Sahara Desert.

[1105] Russian Armenia; one of the most ancient Christian convents.

[1106] “Egyptian Book of the Dead.” The Hindus have seven upper and seven lower heavens. The seven mortal sins of the Christians have been borrowed from the Egyptian Books of Hermes with which Clement of Alexandria was so familiar.

[1107] The atrocious custom subsequently introduced among the people, of sacrificing human victims, is a perverted copy of the Theurgic Mystery. The Pagan priests, who did not belong to the class of the hierophants, carried on for awhile this hideous rite, and it served to screen the genuine purpose. But the Grecian Herakles is represented as the adversary of human sacrifices and as slaying the men and monsters who offered them. Bunsen shows, by the very absence of any representation of human sacrifice on the oldest monuments, that this custom had been abolished in the old Empire, at the close of the seventh century after Menes; therefore, 3,000 years B.C., Iphiscrates had stopped the human sacrifices entirely among the Carthaginians. Diphilus ordered bulls to be substituted for human victims. Amosis forced the priests to replace the latter by figures of wax. On the other hand, for every stranger offered on the shrine of Diana by the inhabitants of the Tauric Chersonesus, the Inquisition and the Christian clergy can boast of a dozen of heretics offered on the altar of the “mother of God,” and her “Son.” And when did the Christians ever think of substituting either animals or wax-figures for living heretics, Jews, and witches? They burned these in effigy only when, through providential interference, the doomed victims had escaped their clutches.

[1108] This is why Jesus recommends prayer in the solitude of one’s closet. This secret prayer is but the paravidya of the Vedantic philosopher: “He who knows his soul (inner self) daily retires to the region of Swarga (the heavenly realm) in his own heart,” says the Brihad-Aranyaka. The Vedantic philosopher recognizes the Âtman, the spiritual self, as the sole and Supreme God.

[1109] “Wheel of the Law,” p. 54.

[1110] A. Wilder: “Ancient and Modern Prophecy.”

[1111] While at Petrovsk (Dhagestan, region of the Caucasus) we had the opportunity of witnessing another such mystery. It was owing to the kindness of Prince Melikoff, the governor-general of Dhagestan, living at Temerchan-Shoura, and especially of Prince Shamsoudine, the ex-reigning Shamchal of Tarchoff, a native Tartar, that during the summer of 1865 we assisted at this ceremonial from the safe distance of a sort of private box, constructed under the ceiling of the temporary building.

[1112] Does not this afford us a point of comparison with the so-called “materializing mediums?”

[1113] The Yezidis must number over 200,000 men altogether. The tribes which inhabit the Pashalik of Bagdad, and are scattered over the Sindjar mountains are the most dangerous, as well as the most hated for their evil practices. Their chief Sheik lives constantly near the tomb of their prophet and reformer Adi, but every tribe chooses its own sheik among the most learned in the “black art.” This Adi or Ad is a mythic ancestor of theirs, and simply is, Adi—the God of wisdom or the Parsi Ab-ad the first ancestor of the human race, or again Adh-Buddha of the Hindus, anthropomorphized and degenerated.

[1114] Within less than four months we have collected from the daily papers forty-seven cases of crime, ranging from drunkenness up to murder, committed by ecclesiastics in the United States only. By the end of the year our correspondents in the East will have valuable facts to offset missionary denunciations of “heathen” misdemeanors.

[1115] “Evolution,” art. Paul, the Founder of Christianity.

[1116] We find in Galatians iv. 4, the following: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”

[1117] The date has been fully established for these Pali Books in our own century; sufficiently so, at least, to show that they existed in Ceylon, 316 B.C., when Mahinda, the son of Asoka, was there (See Max Müller, “Chips, etc.,” vol. i., on Buddhism).

[1118] “A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam,” by M. de la Loubère, Envoy to Siam from France, 1687-8, chap. xxv., London; “Diverse Observations to be Made in Preaching the Gospel to the Orientals.”

The Sieur de la Loubère’s report to the king was made, as we see, in 1687-8. How thoroughly his proposition to the Jesuits, to suppress and dissemble in preaching Christianity to the Siamese, met their approval, is shown in the passage elsewhere quoted from the Thesis propounded by the Jesuits of Caen (“Thesis propugnata in regio Soc. Jes. Collegio, celeberrimæ Academiæ Cadoniensis, die Veneris, 30 Jan., 1693), to the following effect: “... neither do the Fathers of the Society of Jesus dissemble when they adopt the institute and the habit of the Talapoins of Siam.” In five years the Ambassador’s little lump of leaven had leavened the whole.

[1119] In a discourse of Hermes with Thoth, the former says: “It is impossible for thought to rightly conceive of God.... One cannot describe, through material organs, that which is immaterial and eternal.... One is a perception of the spirit, the other a reality. That which can be perceived by our senses can be described in words; but that which is incorporeal, invisible, immaterial, and without form cannot be realized through our ordinary senses. I understand thus, O Thoth, I understand that God is ineffable.”

In the Catechism of the Parsis, as translated by M. Dadabhai Naoroji, we read the following:

“Q. What is the form of our God?”

“A. Our God has neither face nor form, color nor shape, nor fixed place. There is no other like Him. He is Himself, singly such a glory that we cannot praise or describe Him; nor our mind comprehend Him.”

[1120] “Contemporary Review,” p. 588, July, 1870.

[1121] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. ii., pp. 304, 306.

[1122] Ibid.

[1123] Ibid.

[1124] “Dec.,” v., lib. vi., cap. 2.

[1125] “Travels in Tartary,” etc., pp. 121, 122.

[1126] “Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. ii., p. 340.

[1127] His twenty or more volumes on Oriental subjects are indeed a curious conglomerate of truth and fiction. They contain a vast deal of fact about Indian traditions, philosophy and chronology, with most just views courageously expressed. But it seems as if the philosopher were constantly being overlaid by the romancist. It is as though two men were united in their authorship—one careful, serious, erudite, scholarly, the other a sensational and sensual French romancer, who judges of facts not as they are but as he imagines them. His translations from Manu are admirable; his controversial ability marked; his views of priestly morals unfair, and in the case of the Buddhists, positively slanderous. But in all the series of volumes there is not a line of dull reading; he has the eye of the artist, the pen of the poet of nature.

[1128] Les Fils de Dieu. “L’Inde Brahmanique,” p. 296.

[1129] In its general sense, Isvara means “Lord;” but the Isvara of the mystic philosophers of India was understood precisely as the union and communion of men with the Deity of the Greek mystics. Isvara-Parasada means, literally, in Sanscrit, grace. Both of the “Mimansas,” treating of the most abstruse questions, explain Karma as merit, or the efficacy of works; Isvara-Parasada, as grace; and Sradha, as faith. The “Mimansas” are the work of the two most celebrated theologians of India. The “Pourva-Mimansa” was written by the philosopher Djeminy, and the “Outtara-Mimansa” (or Vedanta), by Richna Dvipayaa Vyasa, who collected the four “Vedas” together. (See Sir William Jones, Colebrooke, and others.)

[1130] Suetonius: “August.”

[1131] Plutarch.

[1132] “Pliny,” xxx., pp. 2, 14.

[1133] “Servius ad. Æon,” p. 71.

[1134] Peary Chand Mittra: “The Psychology of the Aryas;” “Human Nature,” for March, 1877.

[1135] The Boulogne (France) correspondent of an English journal says that he knows of a gentleman who has had an arm amputated at the shoulder, “who is certain that he has a spiritual arm, which he sees and actually feels with his other hand. He can touch anything, and even pull up things with the spiritual or phantom arm and hand.” The party knows nothing of spiritualism. We give this as we get it, without verification, but it merely corroborates what we have seen in the case of an Eastern adept. This eminent scholar and practical kabalist can at will project his astral arm, and with the hand take up, move, and carry objects, even at a considerable distance from where he may be sitting or standing. We have often seen him thus minister to the wants of a favorite elephant.

[1136] Answer to a question at “The National Association of Spiritualists,” May 14th, 1877.

[1137] “A Buddhist’s Opinions of the Spiritual States.”

[1138] See the “London Spiritualist,” May 25, 1877, p. 246.

[1139] See Coleman’s “Hindu Mythology.”

[1140] Russian subjects are not allowed to cross the Tartar territory, neither the subjects of the Emperor of China to go to the Russian factories.

[1141] These are the representatives of the Buddhist Trinity, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, or Fo, Fa, and Sengh, as they are called in Thibet.

[1142] A Bikshu is not allowed to accept anything directly even from laymen of his own people, least of all from a foreigner. The slightest contact with the body and even dress of a person not belonging to their special community is carefully avoided. Thus even the offerings brought by us and which comprised pieces of red and yellow pou-lou, a sort of woollen fabric the lamas generally wear, had to pass through strange ceremonies. They are forbidden, 1, to ask or beg for anything—even were they starving—having to wait until it is voluntarily offered; 2, to touch either gold or silver with their hands; 3, to eat a morsel of food, even when presented, unless the donor distinctly says to the disciple, “This is for your master to eat.” Thereupon, the disciple turning to the pazen has to offer the food in his turn, and when he has said, “Master, this is allowed; take and eat,” then only can the lama take it with the right hand, and partake of it. All our offerings had to pass through such purifications. When the silver pieces, and a few handfuls of annas (a coin equal to four cents) were at different occasions offered to the community, a disciple first wrapped his hand in a yellow handkerchief, and receiving it on his palm, conveyed the sum immediately into the Badir, called elsewhere Sabaït, a sacred basin, generally wooden, kept for offerings.

[1143] These stones are highly venerated among Lamaists and Buddhists; the throne and sceptre of Buddha are ornamented with them, and the Taley Lama wears one on the fourth finger of the right hand. They are found in the Altai Mountains, and near the river Yarkuh. Our talisman was a gift from the venerable high-priest, a Heiloung, of a Kalmuck tribe. Though treated as apostates from their primitive Lamaism, these nomads maintain friendly intercourse with their brother Kalmucks, the Chokhots of Eastern Thibet and Kokonor, but even with the Lamaists of Lha-Ssa. The ecclesiastical authorities however, will have no relations with them. We have had abundant opportunities to become acquainted with this interesting people of the Astrakhan Steppes, having lived in their Kibitkas in our early years, and partaken of the lavish hospitality of the Prince Tumene, their late chief, and his Princess. In their religious ceremonies, the Kalmucks employ trumpets made from the thigh and arm bones of deceased rulers and high priests.

[1144] The Buddhist Kalmucks of the Astrakhan steppes are accustomed to make their idols out of the cremated ashes of their princes and priests. A relative of the author has in her collection several small pyramids composed of the ashes of eminent Kalmucks and presented to her by the Prince Tumene himself in 1836.

[1145] The sacred fan used by the chief priests instead of an umbrella.

[1146] See vol. i., p. 476.

[1147] See his “Lectures on Sound.”

[1148] From the compound word sûtra, maxim or precept, and antika, close or near.

[1149] It sounds like injustice to Asôka to compare him with Constantine, as is done by several Orientalists. If, in the religious and political sense, Asôka did for India what Constantine is alleged to have achieved for the Western World, all similarity stops there.

[1150] See “Indian Sketches;” Appleton’s “New Cyclopedia,” etc.

[1151] Aum (mystic Sanscrit term of the Trinity), mani (holy jewel), padmé (in the lotus, padma being the name for lotus), houm (be it so). The six syllables in the sentence correspond to the six chief powers of nature emanating from Buddha (the abstract deity, not Gautama), who is the seventh, and the Alpha and Omega of being.

[1152] Moru (the pure) is one of the most famous lamaseries of Lha-Ssa, directly in the centre of the city. There the Shaberon, the Taley Lama, resides the greater portion of the winter months; during two or three months of the warm season his abode is at Foht-lla. At Moru is the largest typographical establishment of the country.

[1153] The Buddhist great canon, containing 1,083 works in several hundred volumes, many of which treat of magic.

[1154] “Crawfurd’s Mission to Siam,” p. 182.

[1155] “Semedo,” vol. iii., p. 114.

[1156] There was an anecdote current among Daguerre’s friends between 1838 and 1840. At an evening party, Madame Daguerre, some two months previous to the introduction of the celebrated Daguerrean process to the Académie des Sciences, by Arago (January, 1839), had an earnest consultation with one of the medical celebrities of the day about her husband’s mental condition. After explaining to the physician the numerous symptoms of what she believed to be her husband’s mental aberration, she added, with tears in her eyes, that the greatest proof to her of Daguerre’s insanity was his firm conviction that he would succeed in nailing his own shadow to the wall, or fixing it on magical metallic plates. The physician listened to the intelligence very attentively, and answered that he had himself observed in Daguerre lately the strongest symptoms of what, to his mind, was an undeniable proof of madness. He closed the conversation by firmly advising her to send her husband quietly and without delay to Bicétre, the well-known lunatic asylum. Two months later a profound interest was created in the world of art and science by the exhibition of a number of pictures taken by the new process. The shadows were fixed, after all, upon metallic plates, and the “lunatic” proclaimed the father of photography.

[1157] Schott: “Über den Buddhismus,” p. 71.

[1158] “The Book of Ser Marco Polo,” vol. ii., p. 352.

[1159] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 130, quoted by Col. Yule in vol. ii., p. 353.

[1160] No country in the world can boast of more medicinal plants than Southern India, Cochin, Burmah, Siam, and Ceylon. European physicians—according to time-honored practice—settle the case of professional rivalship, by treating the native doctors as quacks and empirics; but this does not prevent the latter from being often successful in cases in which eminent graduates of British and French schools of Medicine have signally failed. Native works on Materia Medica do not certainly contain the secret remedies known, and successfully applied by the native doctors (the Atibbā), from time immemorial; and yet the best febrifuges have been learned by British physicians from the Hindus, and where patients, deafened and swollen by abuse of quinine, were slowly dying of fever under the treatment of enlightened physicians, the bark of the Margosa, and the Chiretta herb have cured them completely, and these now occupy an honorable place among European drugs.

[1161] The Hindu appellation for the peculiar mantrâm or charm which prevents the serpent from biting.

[1162] Between the bells of the “heathen” worshippers, and the bells and pomegranates of the Jewish worship, the difference is this: the former, besides purifying the soul of man with their harmonious tones, kept evil demons at a distance, “for the sound of pure bronze breaks the enchantment,” says Tibullius (i., 8-22), and the latter explained it by saying that the sound of the bells “should be heard [by the Lord] when he [the priest] goeth in unto the holy place before the Lord, and when he goeth out, that he die not” (Exodus xxviii. 33; Eccles. xiv. 9). Thus, one sound served to keep away evil spirits, and the other, the Spirit of Jehovah. The Scandinavian traditions affirm that the Trolls were always driven from their abodes by the bells of the churches. A similar tradition is in existence in relation to the fairies of Great Britain.

[1163] An elemental dæmon, in which every native of Asia believes.

[1164] Lady, or Madam, in Moldavian.

[1165] The hour in Bucharest corresponded perfectly with that of the country in which the scene had taken place.

[1166] Capt. W. L. D. O’Grady: “Life in India.”

[1167] Neither Russia nor England succeeded in 1849 in forcing them to recognize and respect the Turkish from the Persian territory.

[1168] Persepolis is the Persian Istakhâar, northeast of Shiraz; it stood on a plain now called Merdusht. At the confluence of the ancient Medus and the Araxes, now Pulwân and Bend-emir.

[1169] “Ægyptiaci Theatrum Hierogliphicum,” p. 544.

[1170] We have twice assisted at the strange rites of the remnants of that sect of fire-worshippers known as the Guebres, who assemble from time to time at Baku, on the “field of fire.” This ancient and mysterious town is situated near the Caspian Sea. It belongs to Russian Georgia. About twelve miles northeast from Baku stands the remnant of an ancient Guebre temple, consisting of four columns, from whose empty orifices issue constantly jets of flame, which gives it, therefore, the name of Temple of the Perpetual Fire. The whole region is covered with lakes and springs of naphtha. Pilgrims assemble there from distant parts of Asia, and a priesthood, worshipping the divine principle of fire, is kept by some tribes, scattered hither and thither about the country.

[1171] Baadéy-ku-Ba—literally “a gathering of winds.”

[1172] See also “Magic and Mesmerism,” a novel reprinted by the Harpers, thirty years ago.