BOOK IT. speak of Cusha-dwip within and Cusha-dwip without: meaning by the former the vast tract of country which comprehends Persia, Babylonia, India, Bactria, Cashgar, Boutan, and Thibet; and, by the latter, those African districts separated from them by the sea, which were also colonized by the descendants of Cush, and to which we at present exclusively apply the name of Ethiopia. Perseus therefore is eminently to be sought for in the oriental Cusha-dwip: and, in that country, we doubtless find him, venerated both by the old Buddhic Persians to whom he communicated his name, and by the warlike Chasas or Indo-Scythæ of Cashgar and Thibet. The scene of his adventure with Andromeda and the sea-monster is sometimes laid, not in India, but at Joppa in Palestine.' Of this the reason may easily be ascertained. The Philistim, in whose country Joppa was situated, were a branch of the Palli or Scythian Shepherds, who subjugated Egypt; and they were members of the very same family as the Chasas or Goths of northern India. Hence Tzetzes calls Joppa a city of Ethiopia or Chusistan. Being thus brought into the land of Palestine, he there espouses Astarte or Astoreth, the Magna Mater of the Phenicians; for Asteria and Astartè are one character: and by her he becomes the father of the triple Brimo or Hecate, who is the triple Cali or Devi of the Hindoos and the Chasas. His wife Asteria is afterwards metamorphosed into the floating island Delos, a legend which requires no comment. Cali or Brimo is clearly the Diana of the Tauric Scythians: and, accordingly, we find Perseus described as being also a king of Taurica, the child of the Sun, and the brother of Eetes king of Colchis. Thus we are still led to identify him with Buddha, the great god of the Scythians in all their settlements. Of these, Colchis was one; for its inhabitants are said to have been of Indo-Scythic origin. Hence there was a mount Caucasus or Coh-Chasa near Colchis, as well as one in northern India and another to the south of the Caspian or Chasic sea. We find him also penetrating to the western ocean, to the utmost extremities of Africa and Spain: and here it was, according to some, 3 6 3 I Paus. Messen. p. 284. Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 836. 2 Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 836. 4 Lycoph. Cassan. ver. 1175, 1176. Tzetz. in loc. Schol. in Apoll. Argon. lib. iii. ver. 199. Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 248, • Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 174, that he destroyed the Gorgons and cut off Medusa's head.' In fact, the CHAP. v. theology of the Atlantians and that of the Scythians were the same: hence Perseus is indifferently said to have slain the Gorgons upon the western ocean and among the Hyperboreans, just as Atlas himself and the garden of the Hesperides are sometimes placed in Mauritania and sometimes in Scythia. 2. Since Perseus then was the same as Buddha or Mercury, we shall readily perceive why the Greeks represented him precisely in the same manner as their Hermes. Mercury was depicted with a winged helmet on his head, with winged sandals on his feet, with a bag and a crooked sword suspended to his side, and with a rod in his hand terminating in a winged globe and encircled by two serpents. Such also was the equipment of Perseus. When he set out on his expedition against the Gorgons, the nymphs furnished him with winged sandals; Mercury lent him his adamantine sabre; the helmet of Pluto guarded his head; and a wallet, which Tzetzes calls an ark, depended. at his side. To these he afterwards added the Gorgon's head surrounded with serpents, which I suspect to be nearly allied to the head of Osiris and the hieroglyphic of the globe serpent and wings. The helmet of Plutounequivocally intimates the infernal character of Perseus, and points him out to be, like Mercury, the fabled conductor of the dead. It was thought to possess the power of rendering its wearer invisible by diffusing around him the black shades of night. This, if I mistake not, alludes to the cele brated aphanism or disappearance of the great father, which formed the subject of the mournful part of the Mysteries. Sometimes the ancients ascribed the same virtue to a ring, as in the romantic story of Gyges; a 3 Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 838. Ovid. Metam. lib. iv. ver. 615-661, 770-784. 2 Albric. Philos. de deor. imag. c. 6. 3. Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 838. What Tzetzes calls xißwros and ßiois, Hesiod calls xißvois.. See his spirited description of Perseus in the usual attitude of feathered Mercury. Scut. Herc.. ver: 216-237. It is observable that he gives his hero two serpents in his belt. See also Apol lod. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 4. According to Heraclitus, the winged sandals of Perseus were the gift of Mercury. Herac. de Incred. c. 9. 4. e. 12. Apoll. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 4. § 3. Hesiod. Scut. Herc. ver. 227. Hyg. Poet: Astron. lib. ii.. BOOK IV. fiction, which has been duly transferred into various modern fairy-tales.' The reason was, because a ring was a symbol of the Ark, within the inclosure of which the great father lay for a season invisible. Hence the ring or circle was sacred to Buddha: and hence his navicular consort Ila or Argha was esteemed the Ila-vratta or mundane circle of the Ark on the summit of mount Meru. 2 3. We are told, that Perseus was the Sun. He was the Sun however only in the same manner that Buddha, Iswara, Osiris, Bacchus, and all the other chief gods of the Gentiles were: that is to say, he was the Sun in his astronomical, and the great father in his human, character. This is evident from the fable of his exposure in the ark, which has been faithfully preserved by the Greeks. They inform us, that his grandfather Acrisius king of Argos, enraged at the dishonour brought upon his family by Danaè, placed her and her infant son in an ark, which he set afloat on the sea: but it drifted to the island Seriphus, and was safely brought to land by a person named Dictys.' I need scarcely observe, that this is the many times repeated story of Osiris or Bacchus; and that Danaè is but the feminine form of Danaus the reputed builder and navigator of the Argo, which communicated its name to the city where Perseus was feigned to have been born. 4. It is probable, that wings were attributed to Mercury and Perseus in Gyges, according to Plato, found a brazen horse in a cavern. Within the horse was the body of a man of gigantic stature, having a brazen ring on his finger. This ring Gyges took, and found that it rendered the wearer invisible. The cavern, the ring, and the giant, shew pretty evidently, whence this fable originated. The mare was a form of Ceres or Hippa, the mystic nurse of the ark-exposed Bacchus; it was also a form of the ship-goddess Ceridwen, who bore Hu in safety through the waters of the deluge: the mare therefore symbolized the Ark. The dead giant is the gigantic Buddha during the period of his deathlike slumber. The inclosure of him within the mare amounts to the same thing as the inclosure of the dead Osiris within the ark or wooden cow. And the cavern was one of those sacred grottos, within which the rites of the great father were perpetually celebrated, and from which both he and his initiated votaries were feigned to be born again. Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 17. 3 Strab. Geog. lib. x. p. 487. Nonni Dionys. lib. xxv. p. 425. Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 838. Apollod. Bibl. lih. ii. c. 4. allusion to the sails of ships, and consequently that they mark those deities CHAP. V. to have been navigators. Albricus seems to insinuate some such idea, when he compares the winged Perseus to a ship running before the wind and describes him as a powerful king of Asia who sailed to many different regions and conquered Africa. The fable of his turning men into stones, by displaying before their eyes the formidable head of Medusa, is nearly allied to that of the production of men from stones by Pyrrha and Deucalion after the flood, and to that of Saturn swallowing the stone Baitylus: in each of them the rock-worship of Buddha, Mercury, or Mithras, seems to be alluded to. In a similar manner, the story of his liberating Andromeda from the cetus is built upon the symbolical worship of the fish within whose belly Buddha once lay concealed, with a reference perhaps to those bloody human sacrifices which so generally disgraced the pagan world. The story itself is a complete repetition of the Iliensian tale, in which a parallel deliverance of Hesionè from a sea-monster is ascribed to Hercules. It may not be improper to observe, that the crooked sword, given alike to Mercury and Perseus, is called Harpè; and that Harpe is also said to denote a scythe or sickle." From this circumstance I am led to suspect, that the faulchion in question was no other than the scythe of Cronus: and the conjecture is strengthened by the common identity of Cronus, Mercury, Perseus, and Buddha. 5. From the size of the sandal of Perseus, according to the Egyptian priests of Chemmis, the hero must have been some six yards high. I have considered the ascription of such a stature to him as one of the proofs of his being the same as Buddha, who is usually represented either under the form of a massy stone or as a person of gigantic altitude. We find evident traces of both these modes of representation, wherever the worship of Buddha prevailed. Thus, from such a style of exhibiting the god, originated the popular notion, that the vast columns of Stonehenge were the work of giants and thus we may trace to the same source the stupendous Rhodian Colossus and the no less stupendous image of Nebuchadnezzar. The very name indeed of Colossus points out the deity, who was so represented from Albric. Philos. de deor. imag. c. 21. 2 Schol. in Iliad. lib. xix. ver. 350. Hesych. Lex. Hyginus expressly calls his sword falx. Poet. Astron. lib. iii. c. 11. Pag. Idol. VOL. II. 3 K BOOK IV. Hindostan in the east to Britain in the west. One of Buddha's titles is Coll or Cala, and another is Esa: from Col-Esa, the compound of these two, was probably derived the word Colossus. These remarks will serve as a clue to the real history of the Cyclopes. XXVIII. The Cyclopes are usually described as being of a gigantic stature, and as each having a single eye in the centre of the forehead. They were shepherds and musicians: yet they are said to have been monsters of cruelty, devouring without remorse every stranger upon whom they could lay their hands. They were also most skilful mechanics: and, as giants are thought to have framed Stonehenge, so to them were ascribed many remarkable works by the superstition of the ancients. They were the builders of the vast walls of Tiryns. They were likewise the architects of Argos, Mycenae, and Hermione. They forged the thunder of Jupiter, the miraculous helmet of Pluto, and the trident of Neptune.' They were evidently the same as the Telchines, Idèi Dactyli, or Corybantes: both because they are similarly represented as very skilful workmen, and because there is a manifest correspondence in the names which they bear. Two of the Corybantes are called by Nonnus Acmon and Damneus or Damnameneus: the author of the Phoronis calls the three Idèi or Telchines Acmon, Damnameneus, and Celmis: Eusebius denominates them Telmis, Damnameneus, and Delas; and says, that they were the first workers in brass and iron and Virgil calls one of the three Cyclopes Pyracmon.* The poets commonly place them in Sicily in the region of mount Etna, where they partly follow their occupation of shepherds, and partly carry on their business of artizans. Nor was it without reason, that this country is assigned to them: for Sicily appears to have very early received a colony of Scythian Shepherds, who brought with them a tradition of the deluge, and who by a common local appropriation asserted in after ages that their countryman Deucalion escaped to the summit of Etna.3 Yet the preceding remarks, Apollod. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 2. § 1. Eurip. 'Ovid. Metam. lib. xiii. Homer. Odyss. lib. ix. Troad. ver. 1087. Senec. Thyest. act. ii. ver. 406. Dionys. lib. xli. p. 1068. Strab. Geog. lib. viii. p. 372, 373. Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 2. § 1. 2 Nonni Dion. lib. xiii. p. 233. Phoron. apud Schol. in Apoll. Argon. lib. i. ver. 1129. Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. x. c. 6. Virg. Æneid. lib. viii. ver. 424. Hyg. Fab. 153. Lucian expressly calls Deucalion a Scythian. Luc. de dea Syr. |