Trimurti, or trinity, is composed of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, with an infinite
ramification of minor deities. Budhism, which is a persecuted schism of the
Brahminical creed, has still some followers in India, among whom are the Jains
of western India, Benares and Ceylon.* What is much more remarkable is the
fact, that on the Malahar coast is a colony of Christians, whose traditions extend
back to the time of St. Thomas. Another, and still more unsophisticated body
of them occupies the interior of Travancore. They inhabited their present
localities centuries before the modem discovery of the passage to India by the
Cape of Good Hope.
Hindostan was among the countries which were overrun and conquered by
Jenghis Khan and Timur. But in the year 1525, Sultan Baber, king of Persia,
seized upon India, subduing the native inhabitants, and driving out the Mongol-
Tartars of the then existing dynasty. He established his court at Delhi, and
India from that epoch was called the Mogul Empire, the sovereign himself
assuming the title of the Great Mogul; hut this once powerful dominion sunk into
comparative insignificance during the early part of the past century. The
northern Hindoos having mingled for centuries with the Mongol-Tartars, received
in common with those people the conventional name of Moguls, which embraces
Persians, Greeks of Bactriana, and Arabs, who are called Moors; hut the latter
appellation is more strictly applied to the Mahomedans only.
The people of India have only been called Hindoos since the Tartar conquest:
previous to that event all the inhabitants who professed the Brahminical faith
were called Gentoos.
We may add that the gipseys of Europe, whose origin has been so long a
paradox to the learned, are now ascertained to he of Hindoo extraction.
The original country of the Hindoos has been a question among historians.
Their reverence for the north, added to the traditions of the Brahmins, and various
collateral circumstances, have led Bory de St. Vincent and Malte-Brun to suppose
the cradle of these people to have been the lofty table-land about the sources of
the Indus, and the elevated valleys of Serinagur; while Heeren and others are of
the opinion that “ the Brahmins, and perhaps the Kishatriya and Vaisya castes
* Hebeb, Narr. I, p. 154.—II, p. 19, 7 4 ,290. Am . ed.—Budhism, though q f much more recent
date than the primitive Brahminical religion, is supposed to have arisen in India a thousand years
before Christ, and to have had many followers: but in the sixth century of our era a persecutionarose,
which expelled nearly all the Budhists from Hindostan, whence they took refuge in the central
and eastern provinces o f Asia.
were originally a race of northern conquerors of fair complexion; while the
Sudras and other inferior tribes were an aboriginal and darker race.”*
• N ote.__On the Resemblances between the Hindoos and Egyptians.—History and the arts
discover many remarkable analogies between the Hindoos and Egyptians, whence they have been
supposed by some able writers to be affiliated nations. That there was extensive and long-continued
intercourse between them is sufficiently obvious,” and history speaks vaguely of conquest and migration.
Which was the dominant power? The Egyptians very naturally decided.this point in their own
favor ; for they assert that Osiris crossed Arabia to the utmost inhabited parts of India, and that he
built many cities there. « He left likewise,” says Diodorus, « many other marks of his being m these
parts, which have induced the inhabitants to believe and affirm that this god (Osiris) was born in
India.” t Thus it appears that in the age of Diodorus, the Hindoos not only worshipped, but claimed
as original to themselves, the principal divinity of the Egyptians.
These resemblances maybe traced throughout the mythology and usages of the two nations.
Apis, the Egyptian Bull, was the symbol of Osiris ; and the White Bull is the animal on which Siva
is. represented on the Indian pagodas. Worship was bestowed alike on the Ganges and the Nile.
Both‘nations worshipped thé sun and the serpent; and even at the present time the objects held in
the . greatest veneration by the Hindoos of the Vishnu sect, are the ape, the monkey, the bird called
Garuda, and the serpent CapeUa4 Among the symbols of superstition jn each are seen the sphinx,
the lotus, the lingam and the cross. “ The crux ansata which is constantly observed in the hands of
the Nilotic statues, is nothing but the yoni-lingam of the Hindoos; and it is a curious fact that in the
terra cotta images of Isis, dug up near her temple at Pæstum, she holds in her right hand an exact
representation of the Hindpo lingam and yoni combined.” §
Their affinity is also recognised in .their almost exclusive vegetable diet, their use of a sacerdotal
language, their numerous ablutions, and by the institution of castes, which the Egyptians enforced
with as much rigidness as the Hindoos do now. Among them no mechanic or artificer could exercise
any other vocation than that which his parents had followed before him;|| and this system gave rise to
the same exclusiveness in their domestic arrangements which is so remarkable among the modem
Hindoos, who will not permit their viands or their vessels to be touched by a stranger; for Herodotus-
obsqrvès'that the Egyptians would not use a knife belonging to a Greek, “ nor will they even eat of
the 'flesh of such beasts as by their law are pure, if it has been cut with a Grecian knife.” 1T
Similar analogies are discernible in the architecture of the two nations, whether it relates to their
monolithic temples, or their subterranean sanctuaries, or the statuary and minor decorations of their
-Stupendous edifices. Even the obëlisk is seen in the excavated temple of Kylas, in India; and the
antique pagodas of Tanjore and Chalambroom, are but slight modifications of the Egyptian pyramid.**
Dr. Russell mentions the interesting fact, that “ the Sepoys who joined the British army in Egypt
* Lib. of Entertaining Knowl. Art. Hindoos, p. 103.
f Booth’s Diodorus, B. I, chap. 2. £ Dubois. On the People of India, p. 54.
§ Library of Entertaining Knowl. Art. Hindoos, I, p. 167. || Booth’s Diodorus, B. I, chap. 6.
IT E uterpe, cap, XLI.—This fact is also recorded in Genesis, wherein it is stated that “ the Egyptians might not eat
bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians.” • Chap, xliii, v. 32.
** Maurice, Indian Antiq. vols. 2 and 3, passim.—Sir William Jones derives the name of the river of Egypt from the
Sanscrit word nila, blue; and the Indus is called Ntlab in the early part of its course from the blue color of its waters, -t
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