LETTER V. MY DEAR SIR, You will, perhaps, think that I have dwelt too long on the Chaldean history. But if it can be proved, that the early rulers of that country were the descendants of Cush the son of Ham; then must all the rulers hitherto recorded of the different nations be so likewise: for it is on the authority of the new system of ancient mythology, that the writers on Hindu chronology have ventured to pronounce the Indian system replete with absurdities. They proceed from chronology to history, and from history to religion; denying to the Hindus even the knowledge of a God, when the epithet under which he is worshipped becomes discordant to their humour. One author asserts that " Brahma was either Noah, or a visionary being" another, "that Rama-Swamy," (the Eternal Spirit Narayana in an incarnate form) "was no other than Semiramis," a libidinous queen of Assyria: "for the word," say they, "was doubtless originally written Sami-Rama, which, through ignoVOL. II. A rance, has been inverted, and at length written Rama-Swamy." Again, "Brahma was Cush the son of Ham; Brahma being derived from BarAchmanes, contracted Brachmen, and afterwards Brahmen." Shall man presume to fix the mode by which Omnipotence shall be adored? shall he confine that adoration to one name, and dare blaspheme his Maker under every other? what must an Hindu, who worships the great First Cause, the Eternal Spirit, the Saviour of the world, as "the God with many a name," think of those, who denythe divine essence of the Eternal, because adored under the name of Brahm, or Rama-Swamy, that great First Cause described in the Manæva-Sastra as follows? "that which is the invisible cause, eternal, selfexisting, but unperceived, becoming masculine from neuter: he, who is celebrated among all creatures by the name of Brahm.” own essence. In the Bhagavat the Deity thus describes his "Even I was, even at first, not any that which exists unperceived supreme: afterwards I am that which is, and he that must remain, am I.” other thing Compare these with the Hebrew account. When the prophet enquires of the Deity by what name he shall proclaim him, he answers, "I am that I am, thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me." Again, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by the name Jehovah was I not known to them."+ Again, "I am the Lord, the first and with the last; I am he." Again, "I am the first and I am the last, and besides me there is no God."§ I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."|| The extracts from the Sastra and Bhagavat are literal. How can we find a difference between the Alpha and Omega of St. John, and the first and last of the Brahmans? Is the great God of all less worthy of adoration, because divine goodness induced his appearance to every nation by the name most congenial to their language? or because divine wisdom thought it expedient to appear to one nation as God Almighty; to another as Jehovah ; and to a third as Brahm? I am, or O M, the Hindu believes to be adored in a thousand worlds, and by a myriad of names. Let Europeans benefit therefrom, and be cautious how they enforce a doctrine, which must be considered as profane by every Hindu, and should have been so considered by those Christians, who have of late years, under the plea of investigating Hindu chronology, theo↑ Isai. xli, 4. Exod. iii. 14. § Isui. xliv. 6. + Exod. vi. 3. logy, and mythology, indulged a vein of irony at the expense of truth: who have represented the deity (Brahm) as Cush, the grandson of Noah; the first-created, named by the Chaldeans and Egyptians Protogenes, and Oannes, as Noah; the Orphic egg of Proclus as the ark, and divine love, as the waiting-woman of Cleopatra. That the idea of the Oannes and Sisuthrus being the same, and the supposition that they represent Noah, is borrowed from Bishop Stillingfleet, is certain. But Stillingfleet wrote near an hundred and fifty years ago, and died long before we had any certain knowledge of Hindu chronology; and therefore might easily pass into an error, which would be less excusable at the present time. No one who reads the Cosmogony of the Hindus, as detailed in the Institutes of Menu, can believe that either Brahm (the eternal), Brahma (the creative attribute), or Menu (the first-created), was intended to represent Cush (the grandson of Noah). "He, whom alone the mind can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, even he, the soul of all beings; whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person.” "He, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first, with a thought, created the waters, and placed in them a productive seed." "That egg became a seed, bright as gold; blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams; and in that egg he was born himself, in the form of Brahma, the great Forefather of all spirits." "The waters are called Nara, or the Spirit of God; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; ** and since they were his first Ayana, or place of motion; he thence is named Narayana or moving on the waters." "From that which is the First Cause, not the object of sense, existing every where in substance, not existing to our perception, without beginning or end, was produced the divine male, famed in all worlds under the appellation of Brahma." "In that egg the Great Power sat incarnate, a whole year of the Creator; at the close of which, by his thought alone he caused the egg to divide itself." 66 And from the two divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth beneath. In the midst he placed the subtile ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacles of waters." "From the supreme soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially, though unperceived by sense, * Gen. i. 2. |