use of animal food, an aliment not necessary in a hot climate, and often attended with pernicious consequences. This restriction may

also have contributed to infuse into the minds an abhorrence of sanguinary acts, and inculcate the virtues of humanity and general philanthropy.

THE Hindoos compute their grand evolutions of time by epochs, called in their language Jogues, of which there are four, corresponding, in the ascribed qualities, with the golden, silver, brazen, and iron ages of the ancients. The present, they say, is the Khullee, or the fourth Jogue; and that at the expiration of every age, the Supreme Being has destroyed the world, and that a continued succession of Jogues will revolve ad infinitum. The records of this ancient people teem so profusely with fable, and abound throughout in such extravagant relations of their demigods, similar in their feats to the Bacchus, Hercules, and Theseus of the Greeks, that no rational or satisfactory conclusion can be drawn, for any adjustment of chronology. A pundit will introduce into his

* This tenet is not, at this day, strictly adhered to; for the Hindoos of the second and fourth cast occasionally use flesh meat, and the Bramins of Bengal invariably eat fish.

The Christian ara, 1787, corresponds with 4888, of the Khullee Taque.

legend a lack of years, with as much facility, and perhaps conviction to himself, as our commentators of theological history would reduce to their standard, half a century.

THE principles of the Hindoo religion, with its most essential tenets; were composed, it is asserted, by Brimha, and comprised in four books, intitled the Bairds or Vaids; a word in the Sanscrit language signifying mystery. In that part of the peninsula of India bordering on the Coromandel side, these sacred writings are named the Vaidums. The Talinghahs and Malabars make little distinction between the letters B, and V, and invariably terminate with an M, all Sanscrit words. The Shastre is a voluminous commentary on the Bairds, and has been written by various pundits, for the purpose of illustrating the Hindoo Mythology. From the Shastre proceed those preposterous ceremonies, which have been dragged into the Hindoo system of worship, all tending to shackle the vulgar mind, and produce in it a slavish reverence for the tribe of Bramins. The privilege of reading the Bairds, and expounding its texts, is only allowed to them; and prohibited to the other casts, under severe penalties. By the sole investment of this important authority, the priest is left at liberty to explain the original

doctrine in the manner that may most forcibly consolidate the power and promote the interest of his order. In the transmigration of the soul into different bodies, consists the various gradations of reward and punishment amongst the Hindoos. Conformably to their actions, they are transposed into such bodies, whether of the human or brute species, as their conduct, whilst they occupied their former tenements, may have merited. They do not admit of eter. nal punishments, and shudder at the idea of a belief so disconsonant to the opinion which they have formed of the Supreme Being.

EVIL dispositions, they say, are chastised by a confinement in the bodies of those animals, whom they most resemble in their nature; and are constrained to occupy them, till their vices. are either eradicated, or sufficiently qualified to deserve the possession of superior forms. The good actions of man, the Hindoo law-giver has written, will be rewarded by his admission into those bodies which enjoy the utmost human happiness; as that which the magistrate feels on the just and merciful execution of the trust which has been committed to him; or that high sense of pleasure which the man of humanity participates, when he has alleviated the distresses of the unfortunate, or otherwise promoted the welfare of mankind. --After a certain series of

transmigration, rendered acceptable to the Deity by a pursuit of virtue, and when his soul shall be completely purified from the taints of evil, the Hindoo is admitted to a participation of the radiant and never-ceasing glory of his first Cause. The soul's receiving this act of bliss, is described by comparing it to a ray of light, attracted by the grand powers of the sun, to which it shoots with an immense velocity, and is there absorbed in the blaze of splendour.

YUM Durm Rajah officiates in the same capacity amongst the Hindoos, as Minos did in the infernal regions of the ancients. All souls liberated from the body, are supposed to appear at the tribunal of Yum Durm, where their former actions are proclaimed aloud, and examined by this judge, who passes an immediate sentence. Should the disposition of a man have been so flagitiously depraved, as to be judged unworthy, even of an introduction into the body of the vilest animal, such corporal punishment is imposed on him, as may be thought adequate to his crimes; and the soul is afterwards placed in some suitable station on earth. According to the religious tradition of the Hindoos, Sree

* The union of the human soul with the divine etherial substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato; but it seems to exclude any personal or conscious immortality. See Gibbon's History, volume 4th, p. 202, in a note.

Mun Narrain, since the creation of the world, has at nine different periods assumed incarnated forms, either for the purpose of eradicating some terrestrial evil, or chastising the sins of mankind*. The Hindoos worship a secondary species of deity, which they wildly multiply to the number of thirty-three crores t, who, in their different functions, are designed to represent the numberless attributes of the Supreme Deity.

FROM the crowd of images which the Bramin has placed in the temples of the Hindoos, they have been branded with the appellation of idola

ters.

When this mode of offering supplications or thanksgiving to the Supreme Being is dispassionately examined, it will be seen, that a personification of the attributes of the Deity is not unfitly adapted to the general comprehension. Those (and they compose a great portion of the people) who are not endowed with the ability of reading the praise of God, can with facility conceive a certain idea of his greatness, in contemplating a figure, sculptured with many heads and with many hands, adorned with every symbol of human power, and beheld by all classes of men with unfeigned reverence. The origin of emblematical figures has long preceded the

According to the Hindoo tradition, a tenth incarnation of the Deity is yet expected.

A crore is a hundred lacks.