BOOK IV. great ancient traced, which the gods composed, which Woden the sovereign of the gods engraved.'

The eastern Buddhists sometimes gave a horse to their deity: for that animal was early and very widely adopted, as one of the sacred arkite symbols; whence originated the many fables of the great father and mother assuming the forms of a horse and a mare. Thus the Japanese have a temple of Buddha, which they call the temple of the white horse; because the holy book of their god is supposed to have been brought over on an animal of that colour." The Gothic Buddhists, in a similar manner, ascribed a wonderful horse to Woden. It had eight legs: and it was produced, when the gods were in great danger from the attacks of those impious giants who were swept away by the deluge. Mounted on this horse, Woden, the father of inchantments, descended into the infernal regions; and was reconveyed by him to light and life from the drear abode of Hela.' The horse of Woden, like the horse of the Japanese Budsdo, was, I have no doubt, what the old Scandinavians were wont to call a horse of the sea, by which they meant a ship: and that ship was the Ark or the Ceres-Hippa of Greek and British mythology. Nor did the Gothic hierophants shadow out the primeval vessel solely under hieroglyphics: we find that same direct and literal allusion to it, which occurs so perpetually in the superstition of the Gentiles. As the Egyptians depicted their hero-gods, not standing on dry land, but sailing together in a ship; and as Buddha under the name of Iswara floated on the surface of the deluge in the ship Argha, and under the name of Menu-Satyavrata was preserved in an ark when the rest of mankind perished by water: so the Goths assigned to their deities, of

3 Edda. Fab. xxi, iv. Bartholin. lib. iii. c. 2. apud Mallet. vol. ii. p. 220. From the colour of the horse of Woden or Buddha, as it is still emblazoned in the arms of Saxony, I conclude, that in the west as well as in the east it was thought to be white. A similar inference may be drawn from the stupendous representation of the same mystic animal in the English vale of the white horse. Mr. Gray, in his beautiful poetical translation of the descent of Woden speaks of this horse as being coal-black: but the epithet is entirely his own addition; the original, as preserved by Bartholin, does not define the colour,

whom Woden was chief, a wonderful ship, which with ease contained them all when completely armed, and which never failed to be wafted by a favourable wind to the place of its destination.'

There are yet two other points of coincidence between Buddha and Woden; which, as they are both purely of an arbitrary nature, carry with them the greater weight of evidence.

Nothing more singularly marks the superstition of Buddha, than a belief that the deity left in various quarters of the globe impressions of his gigantic foot. He is said to have travelled into very remote countries, and generally to have bequeathed to his votaries one of these sacred marks. Thus his footstep is shewn by the Cingalese on the top of Adam's peak, by the Siamese of the Burma empire on a large stone covered with hieroglyphics, by the Chinese in the temple of Machodar-Nath, by the Arabs on a stone at Mecca in short, numerous are the temples of Buddha, in which the priests exhibit an ill-formed impression of the holy foot. This piece of superstition was not forgotten by the Goths in their progress westward. Herodotus concludes his curious account of the ancient Scythians by informing us, that near the river Tyras or Dneister they shewed an impression of the foot of Hercules. It was cut in a rock, and resembled the footstep of a man but its size was gigantic, for it was no less than two cubits in length.* This Gothic Hercules was undoubtedly the Cuthic Buddha, metamorphosed into the god of military prowess, and venerated under the name of Woden.

The identity of the two divinities appears also from another point of arbitrary coincidence. In the east, Buddha gives his name to the fourth day of the week, which from him is called Bhood-War: in the west, Woden has

Edda. Fab. xxii.

2 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 295, 483. vol. vii. p. 414. vol. viii. p. 305. Symes's Embass. to Ava. vol. ii. p. 183, 197, 198.

'Herod. Hist. lib. iv. c. 82. Mr. Wilford says, that the people of the country, where this footstep of Hercules was shewn, were certainly Buddhists, and that their high-priest who resided on mount Gocajon at present named Casjon was believed to be regenerate, exactly like the Lama of Thibet. Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 196. If this assertion be well-founded, it would indeed establish the point of the Scuths being Buddhists, which may reasonably be concluded in the way of argument and induction.

CHAP. V.

BOOK IV.

communicated his name to the very same day, which by all the Gothic nations that have eminently retained the language of their ancestors is designated by an appellation similar to the English Wednesday.'

Thus, I think, there is sufficient evidence, that the religion of the Goths or Scythians was originally pure Buddhism, that Woden is the same as Buddha, and that the religion was corrupted and the character of the god in some measure altered during their progress westward precisely in such a manner as might be expected from a warlike and roving people. Whether they migrated literally, under the command of a chieftain or succession of chieftains, who assumed the title and claimed to be incarnations of Buddha, or figuratively under the supposed protection of the hero-god of their fathers; is a question, which at this distance of time cannot be positively determined. The genius of Buddhism renders the first supposition by no means improbable at least I think, that Mr. Pinkerton is far too positive in his mode of advocating the second."

XI. The Buddhism of the Goths will explain a point of considerable difficulty, in ancient mythology.

The religion of the Celts, as professed in Gaul and Britain, is palpably the same as that of the Hindoos and Egyptians; the same also as that of the Canaanites, the Phrygians, the Greeks, and the Romans: but the religion of the Goths, whose tribes previous to their final establishment in the western empire spread themselves irregularly over the countries which intervene between the north of Hindostan and the eastern boundary of Europe, is manifestly of a very different school; though the same herodivinities, the great father and the great mother, are equally venerated under each system. Now the wonder is, that the Britons and the Hindoos at the two extremities of the line should have adopted the very same superstition, and should have been theologically united at some remote period by

* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 162. vol. iii. p. 562. Maurice's Hist. of Hind. vol. ii. p. 481. The fourth day of the week, the Bhood-War of Hindostan, is called in Icelandic Wonsdag, in Swedish Odinsdag, in low Dutch Woensdag, in Anglo-Saxon Wodensdag, and in modern English Wednesday; that is to say, the day of Woden or Odin. Junii Etymol. Auglic, fol. 1748.

2 Pinkerton's Dissert. on the Goths. p. 180, 181.

a very frequent intercourse; and yet that the Scuths, who occupied the CHAP. V. middle of the line and who therefore intervened between those two nations, should have professed a religion of a materially different contexture.'

The preceding discussion will in some measure account for the circumstance. Those tribes, that either remained in Babylonia or that emigrated from it in a mixed state, chiefly advocated the Brahmenical system: while those, that retired from Shinar in an unmixed state, preferred the more simple theology of Buddha. Now the mixed tribes were universally so mixed, by being under the rule of a Cuthic priesthood and nobility and the unmixed tribes were altogether composed of certain Cuthim or Scuthim, who under some impressions of disgust had separated themselves from their brethren. The Celts then and the Hindoos, being equally mixed tribes, professed the same mode of religion: while the unmixed Goths or Cuths, being descended from a race of pure and genuine Buddhists, pertinaciously refused to abandon the peculiar theology of their forefathers. Yet, since the military and sacerdotal castes both of India and of Britain were of the same great Cuthic family as themselves, they freely allowed the passage of devout pilgrims whom they recognized as their brethren by a common descent from one patriarchal ancestor.*

1. The Goths then brought with them into Europe pure Buddhism; that is to say, pure so far as it was unblended with the peculiarities of Brahmenism: but, what shews the very great antiquity of the former mode of worship, they found it already established among the Celts whom they at length drove to the utmost extremities of the west; though established in that mingled form, in which it was perhaps universally carried off by the Brahmenical theologists.

The Gauls venerated with human sacrifices Teutates and Hesus and Taranis.' But the Celtic Teutates is clearly the same as the Gothic Teut or Tuisto and, in both these words, we recognize one of Buddha's well-known

1

The striking difference between the Gothic and Celtic theologies has been observed and pointed out by Bp. Percy and Mr. Pinkerton, who judiciously expose the gross error of Cluverius and Pelloutier on that topic. See Pref. to Mallet's North. Ant. and Dissert. on the Goths. 2 These topics are discussed at large in book vi. c. 3. § VI. and c. 4.

3 Lucan. Pharsal. lib. i. ver. 444-446. Lactant. Instit. lib.i. c. 21.

Pag. Idol.

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2 Z

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titles, Tat, Datta, or Twashta. In a similar manner, Taranis is Thor: and each of those names, compounded or uncompounded, is equally Tara-Nath, another of the titles of Buddha. Hesus, both in name and in character, seems to afford the connecting link between the two superstitions. This appellation is another of Buddha's titles; but he bears it, in consequence of his being esteemed the same as Siva or Iswara. He is called Esa, MaHesa, and Har-Esa, which is properly a name of Siva, the sanguinary cruelty of whose imagined character of the destroying power accurately corresponds with that of Hesus.' The identity of Tuisto and Teutates is further proved from the circumstance of their being each called by the Latin writers Mercury. Tacitus says, that the Germans, who were Goths and votaries of Woden or Tuisto, worshipped Mercury as their principal deity: and Cesar, Minucius Felix, and Livy, agree in saying the same of the Gauls, who adored Teutates. Nor is this assertion thrown out at random, or hazarded merely on account of some slight and partial resemblance between Teutates and Mercury: this divinity, as we shall presently see, much as his dignity has been lowered in classical mythology, was the same character as the oriental Buddha. At present I shall only notice the arbitrary coincidence of the fourth day of the week bearing the name of Buddha among the Hindoos, of Woden among the Goths, and of Mercury among the Romans.

2. If the Hindoo religion be taken in a large sense, as including the two systems of Brahmenism and Buddhism, Mr. Burrow will be right in his assertion, that there are signs of it in every northern country and in almost every national mode of worship: but, that the centre whence it overspread the whole earth was the high land of Bokhara or the region of mount Meru, does not appear to me equally certain. Pure Buddhism was indeed, I believe, for the most part carried in various directions from that tract of country but we must look for the primeval origin of both systems to the land of Shinar and to the first Scuthic empire under Nimrod. From this

2

Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 272, 285. vol. viii. p. 355, 359.

Tacit. de mor. Germ. c. 9. Cæsar. de bell. Gall. lib. vi. c. 17. Minuc. Fel. Octav. p. 295. Liv. Hist. lib. xxvi. c. 44.