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BOOK IV.

1. The Oannes of the Chaldeans is feigned to have emerged from the Erythrean sea in the mingled form of a man and a fish, and to have been the instructor of a new race in every useful art. We are told, that four of these mermen successively appeared, or rather, I apprehend, that the same merman exhibited himself at four different times; and that, under one of his manifestations, he bore the name of Dacon. In this legend we may evidently trace the doctrine of a transmigrating great father, appearing at the commencement of each mundane system after he had floated on the surface of the intervening deluge: and it is almost superfluous to observe, that Oannes-Dacon is palpably the Philistean and Phenician Dagon. Each Oannes was likewise called Annedot. It is not unlikely, as Dacon is the same title as Dagon, that Oannes is the same as Jain-Esa, and Annedot as Jain-Dot or Jain-Datta. All these are appellations of Buddha: so that both the names and the character of the Babylonian or Philistean god clearly identify him with that ancient Indo-Scythic divinity."

2. Equally well known is the title Dugon in the regions which lie to the east of Babel. The word itself signifies the fish On or Om: the first syllable of it being the Chaldean Dag; and the second, the mystic name of the triplicated great father venerated in the Sun.

Some of the temples of Buddha, which are constructed in the figure of a dome or egg surmounted by a pyramid, are still called Daghope and Dogon. And this mode of designating them is perfectly agreeable to the principles of old mythology. The Ark was symbolized by a fish, and was considered in the light of a temple: whence, Paganism being for the most part founded on a commemoration of the deluge, the temples of the diluvian gods were generally copies of the mundane Ark or ship of Noah.

Dogon however is not only the name of the temple, but likewise of the god Buddha himself, agreeably to his character of the sovereign prince in Hamelton speaks of two temples in Pegu, one of the Buddhic superstition, which so much resembled each

the belly of the fish.

principal seats of the

'The Greek translator, by prefixing the article, has changed Dacon into Odacon: but the oriental name of the god was clearly Dacon or Dagon.

2

Syncell. Chronog. p. 29.

Euseb. Chron. p. 5.

3 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 451.

Purch. Pilgr. b. v. e. 4. p. 468. See Plate III. Fig. 23.

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other in structure that they seemed to be built by the same model. The CHAR, Y. former of them stands in a lofty situation, and is called Kiaki-Ack or the temple of Kiaki: the latter is built in a low plain, and is called the temple of Dagun. The doors and windows of the one are always open and every body has free permission to see the gigantic image of the deity within; which is sixty feet long, reclines in a sleeping posture, and is supposed to have lain in that state of deep repose six millenaries. But of the other the doors and windows are always shut, so that none can enter except the priests. These refuse to describe the precise shape of Dagun; and only say, that his form is not human. They teach, that, when Kiaki awakes, the world is annihilated; but that out of its fragments Dagun will form a new one." The import of this superstition can scarcely be mistaken. Kiaki and Dagun represent the great father in his two characters of the destroyer and the renovator of the world: and the mysterious opening and closing of the doors of their respective temples seem to be founded on notions similar to those, which form the basis of the worship of Janus. The sleep of Kiaki is the famous allegorical sleep of the transmigrating patriarch: and the colossal mode of representing him, as well as his posture of repose, would leave us no room to doubt of his being the same as Buddha, even if his name Kiaki or Sakya and the country in which he is worshipped did not sufficiently decide the point. His companion Dagun is a mere reduplication of himself: for he is certainly the Dac or Dak-Po of the Thibetians; and Dak-Po is equivalent to Dag-Pout or Dag-Buddha. This Dak-Po is said to be the father of Bhavani ; who floated on the deluge in the form of the ship Argha, and who was the universal mother of the hero-gods: and there is a notion, that he presides over a celestial mansion called Doca; by which we ought, I think, to understand the arkite Moon.* It may be observed, that in one of the temples of Ceylon there is a colossal statue of Buddha eighteen cubits long, which appears in the same sleeping posture as the statue of Kiaki described by Hamelton.' Doubt

'Hamelton's Acc. of the East Ind. vol. ii. p. 57. See also Symes's Embass. to Ava. vol. ii. p. 110.

⚫ Collect. de reb. Hib. vol. iv. numb. 14. p. 161.
'Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 451. See Plate II. Fig. 2.

BOOK IV.

less a similar mythological opinion consigned the god to a deep slumber both among the Burmas and the Singalese.

3. It is a curious circumstance, that the name and the superstition of Dagon should alike have been found in one of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. The natives of Easter Island adore two large stones; one of which is flat and broad, and the other erect and about ten feet in height. The top of the latter is carved into the form of a man's head crowned with a garland : and the two are called Dago and Taurico.' This is the precise worship of Buddha or Terminus and the combined veneration of Dago and Taurico is not dissimilar to the joint adoration of Kiaki and Dagun.

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4. But the worship of Dagon not only prevailed in the east: it extended also far into the west. The ancient Irish had a deity, whom they called Dagh-dae or the god Dagh: and he is evidently the same as the Phenician Dagon, the Siamese Dagun, and the Thibetian Dak-Po or Dag-Buddha. They esteemed him the god of fertility: and, extending his influence to the watery element, they supposed him to preside over the produce both of the sea and of the land. They likewise reckoned him to have been skilled in the arts and sciences, and to have taught their ancestors letters and the art of poetry. He was their Dia-Teibith or god of the Ark: and, as such, he was made the consort of their great mother and the general father of all their deities. Such particulars sufficiently mark the prototype, to which we ought to refer the character of Dagh-dae.

XVII. This divinity is said to have been the brother of Hercules-Ogmius; who was also the reputed parent of literature, and who was no less highly venerated aniong the Celts. Identity however of attributes will prove the two mythological brethren to be really one and the same person: and there is ample evidence to demonstrate, that the ancient hero, whom the Greeks venerated under the name of Heracles or Hercules, but whose worship spread over the face of the whole earth, was no other than the oriental Buddha.

Account of discov. in Pac. ocean. London, 1767.

Collect. de reb. Iib. vol. iii. numb. 12. p. 594. vol. iv. numb. 14. p. 161, 502, 503. 3 Collect. de reb. Hib. vol. iv. p. 503.

1. I have already had occasion to notice those legends, which connect Hercules with the Paradisiacal garden of the Hesperides and with the serpent that was fabled to be the keeper of the golden apples. In such tales we behold him sustaining the character of Adam, the Menu-Swayambhuva of the Hindoos and the elder Buddha of the Samanèan superstition: but, like most of the hero-gods, he is far more celebrated as the second great father or the scriptural Noah. It is in this capacity therefore, that I have at present chiefly to consider him.

2. Under the name of Menu-Satyavrata or Dherma-rajah, Buddha appears as the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish and as the navigator of the Ark at the time of the deluge. Here he at once identifies himself with Dagon and Hercules.

A tradition prevailed, that the latter of these deities was swallowed up by a large fish, and that he remained three days within it.' This large fish or Cetus was nothing more than a symbol of the Ark; whence we are informed by Hesychius, that Cetenè denotes a ship large like a whale: and the three days related to the three years of Noah's inclosure within the Ark, calculated after the ancient manner so long preserved among the Jews. The whole period of his confinement was a year and ten days: so that he entered the Ark in one year, remained within it an entire second year, and quitted it in the third year. Hence, by the old mode of computation, Hercules is said to have been three mystic days or three literal years within the whale; precisely in the same manner, as Jonah is reckoned to have been three days in the belly of the fish, and Christ to have lain three days in the tomb.

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That the import of this fable is similar to that of Buddha's inclosure within the fish, which is declared by his votaries to be literally the Ark, may be inferred from what we are also literally told respecting the maritime Hercules. He is feigned to have sailed over the ocean in a golden cup, which was given to him by Apollo: but this cup is rightly declared by Macrobius to have been a ship; and the same author tells us from Pherecydes, that Jupiter presented Alcmenè the mother of Hercules with another golden

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CHAP. V.

BOOK IV.

cup which was shaped like a boat. The cup of Hercules is certainly the Argha of the Indo-Scythic mythology, in which Siva floated on the surface of the deluge, and which was transformed into a dove when the waters subsided. In the sacred rites of Hindostan it is represented by a cup or dish, which ought always to be shaped like a boat, though Arghas may sometimes be seen of different forms, oval, circular, or even square. This vessel is the Argo of the Greeks and Egyptians: and accordingly we find, that, as the Hindoo sacred ship is typified by a navicular cup, and as Hercules also sailed over the ocean in a navicular cup, so he is sometimes said to have been at once the builder and the captain of the ship Argo.' He shadowed out in fact the same common progenitor of mankind as Jason and Osiris and Danaus, each of whom is likewise made the captain of the Argo; though on the whole he appears to be more nearly allied to Buddha, than to the gods of the Brahmenical family. Agreeably to this part of his character, it was usual to depict him in a boat. Thus in his temple at Erythræ he was represented on a wooden raft, and was supposed to have sailed upon it from Tyre in Phenicia. Pausanias truly remarks, that the image of the god resembled neither those of Egina nor those of Athens, but that it had a near affinity to those of Egypt. Doubtless it was a representation similar to that of Osiris or Ammon in the holy ship Baris or Argo.

3. Both in Egypt and in Phenicia the worship of Hercules was of very remote antiquity. Herodotus tells us, that he was one of the oldest gods of the former country, and that he was reckoned among the twelve who were

i Apollod. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 5. Athen. Deipnos. lib. xi. p. 470. Macrob. Saturn. lib. v. c. 21. Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 133, 134.

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3 Ptol. Heph. Nov. Hist. lib. ii. p. 310. Apollud. Bibl. lib. i. c. 9. § 19.

* Paus. Achaic. p. 405. I think it however right to observe, that the unfortunate ambiguity of the original Greek renders it somewhat uncertain, whether Hercules or Minerva was seated on this raft. In the beginning of the passage, Pausanias seems to speak of the latter; but, at the conclusion of it, he appears rather to mean the former. On the whole I am inclined to assent to Mr. Bryant's opinion, that Hercules was the person seated on the raft: which is rendered the more probable by the known veneration of the Tyrians for that deity, and by the annexed tale of an imagined voyage from Phenicia. Bryant's Anal, vol. ii. p. 223.

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