BOOK III. assured, that once in their anger the great gods broke the whole world into pieces, and that all the islands around them are but little parts of what once was the great land, of which their own island is the eminent part. They speak likewise of a man born of the sand of the sea, who married his own daughter. The daughter bore him three sons and three daughters—The father and mother dying, the brothers said; Let us take our sisters to wife, and become many. So men began to multiply upon the earth.' This notion of the great father espousing his own daughter is precisely the same as that, which has prevailed both among the Hindoos and among so many other ancient nations. Menu or Buddha marries his daughter Ila or the mundane Ark; just as the Otaheitean son of the ocean marries her, who is said to have been born from him. In both cases, the Ark is meant, of which Noah was esteemed the father, because he was its fabricator: and the old established pagan theory, that the great father was the demiurge or the creative artizan of the World, arose from his having been the builder of the Ark, which was considered as a little World, and which therefore was constantly represented by the very same symbols as the larger World. Thus we find, that there is scarcely a country upon the face of the globe, in which some recollection of the general deluge and of the preservation of Noah has not been preserved. CHAPTER V. Respecting the sacred books. I. A notion has very generally prevailed, particularly in the east, that there were certain sacred books, either composed or preserved or recovered by the great father. Whoever might have been the authors of such volumes, some of them are still extant: and, whatever may have been the precise age of their composition, this at least is certain, that we may trace up to very high antiquity a belief in the existence of writings as old as or even older than the deluge. The books in question appear to have contained treatises, partly theological, partly historical, partly ethical, and partly physical. 1. In the Chaldean account of the deluge, as extracted from Berosus, we are told, that the god Cronus enjoined Xisuthrus to commit to writing a history of the beginning, procedure, and final conclusion, of all things, down to the era of the flood; and directed him to bury the manuscript securely in the city of the Sun at Sippara or Sisparnis. The command of the deity was obeyed: and afterwards, when the children of Xisuthrus migrated from Armenia to Babylon, they found the writings in the precise spot where they had been deposited.' Syncell. Chronog. p. 30. BOOK III. 2. There was a similar opinion among the Jews, which they most probably adopted during the Babylonian captivity, moulding it agreeably to their own humour. Josephus tells us, that the children of Seth, who were great astronomers, knowing that the world was to be successively destroyed by water and by fire, engraved their discoveries on two pillars, the one of brick and the other of stone; that so their writings, being committed to such materials, might escape the violence of either catastrophe. He adds, that one of the pillars still remained in the land of Seriad.' 2 3. This legend is palpably the same as that of Manetho, even to the very name of Seriad: and Manetho's tale is evidently but a modification of that respecting the books of Xisuthrus. Manetho, as preserved by Syncellus, pretends to have extracted his history from certain inscriptions, engraved before the deluge by the first Thoth on columns, which were erected in the land of Seriad. The Thoth therefore of Manetho is the Seth of Josephus: and .both of these are the same as the Xisuthrus of the Chaldèans; or rather, to speak more agreeably to pagan notions, they are the same as the great father successively appearing as Adam, as Enoch, and as Noah. Thus we are brought to the conclusion, that the celebrated books of Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus are no other than the books, which the Babylonians ascribed to Xisuthrus the fables differ only respecting the mode, in which they were originally committed to writing. : 4. The Egyptian Thoth is the Phenician Taut or Taautus: and accordingly this personage is also represented as being the author of books coëval with the deluge. Sanchoniatho makes him contemporary with the seven Cabiri and their father Sydyk, who were the builders of the first ship, and who consecrated the relics of the ocean at Berytus. He was contemporary therefore with the builders of the Argo or Argha, and flourished at the period of the flood. He was, I believe, the very same as Sydyk or Noah himself; though in the Phenician genealogy he is said to be the son of Misor or Mizraim. Sanchoniatho informs us, that he employed the Cabiri as his amanuenses, and enjoined them to write down the early history which he had composed. From this history Sanchoniatho professes to have borrowed his mythological narrative, just as Manetho pretends to have copied from the CHAP. V. pillars of Thoth." 5. As Thoth or Taut is the same as Xisuthrus on the one hand; so he is the same likewise as Mahabad, Buddha, or Menu, on the other hand. Hence we still find certain ancient books ascribed to each of these nearly allied characters in the several regions where they are venerated. (1.) Mahabad or the great Buddha was reputed to be the first monarch of Iran and of the whole earth. Like the Indian Menu, he was the head of a series of fourteen persons, each bearing his name. And, like Menu, he was thought to have been the original institutor of the four castes. Mahabad therefore is the great transmigrating father, or Adam reappearing in the person of Noah. Now the Persians supposed, that he received from the creator, and promulgated among men, a sacred book in a heavenly language; to which Mohsan, the Musulman author of the Dabistan, gives the Arabic title of Desatir or Regulations.* (2.) Much the same fable is attached to the legend of Buddha. As there are many Mahabads, so there are many Buddhas, or, to speak more properly, numerous manifestations of the great father under the name of Buddha. Among these, the first Buddha is Adam: while Buddha Gautama is undoubtedly Noah; because he is described, as flourishing at the period of the deluge, and as espousing Ila or the mundane Ark. With respect to this last personage we are told, that, at the time when the earth poured forth an universal inundation to assist him against the Asoors or impenitent antediluvians, five holy scriptures descended from above; which confer the powers of knowledge and retrospection, the ability of accomplishing the impulses of the heart, and the means of carrying into effect the words of the mouth.3 (3.) The whole of the character of Buddha proves him to be no other than Menu: and the diluvian Buddha is clearly the same as the diluvian Menu. This appears, not only from the general circumstance of their being each ascribed to the era of the flood, but likewise from a particular point which indisputably establishes their proper identity. Menu is said to have espoused Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. 3 BOOK III. his own daughter Ila: and Buddha is also said to have espoused Ila, who is described as the daughter of one that was preserved in an ark when the rest of mankind perished. Buddha therefore and Menu, equally espousing one allegorical female, must be the same person; who, under the name of MenuSatyavrata, is literally represented as having been saved in a large ship at the time of the deluge. Now, as the first Persian Mahabad received from heaven a sacred book of regulations; so the first Menu is fabled to have left a book of regulations or divine ordinances, which the Hindoos hold equal to the Vedas, and the language of which they believe to be that of the gods.' The Vedas constitute their other sacred books. These, we are told in the fable of the first Avatar, flowed from the lips of Brahma; but they were stolen from him by the demon Hayagriva, while he slumbered at the close of a prior world. For the purpose of recovering them, Vishnou became incarnate in a fish. Under that form he preserved Menu in an ark, while the whole world was inundated by a deluge: and, when the waters retired, he slew the demon, and recovered the holy volumes from the bottom of the ocean. 6. What the Vedas and the Institutes are to the Hindoos, the laws of Minos were to the ancient Cretans. I think with Sir William Jones, that Menu and Minos are clearly the same person. Consequently, in the laws of Minos we again recognize those holy books, which the pagans deemed coëval with or prior to the deluge. 7. Menu or Buddha, under these precise oriental titles, was equally venerated by the Celts of Britain and here again we find the same belief in the existence of books no less ancient than the flood. The Druids styled them the books of the Pheryllt and the writings of Prydain or Hu: and I hesitate not to denominate them the British Vedas. Ceridwen consults them before she prepares the mysterious cauldron, which shadows out the awful catastrophe of the deluge: and Taliesin, while he speaks of them as the first object of anxiety to the bards, declares, that, should the waves again disturb their foundation, he would again conceal them deep in the cell of the holy sanctuary which represented the interior of the Ark. Here he evidently Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 59. * Taliesin's Min Dinbych. Vide supra book iii. c. 4. § IV. 1. |