148 



they explain to mean " divinely holy, meritorious without mea- 

 sure." * 



In India also, where the worship of rocks and stones abounds so 

 greatly, we find the same prevailing idea of their being endued 

 with life, or divine presence. The Namburis or Malayala Brahmins, 

 are considered to have the power, by certain forms of prayer, of 

 influencing the gods to dwell in the idols dedicated to them. And 

 Dr. Buchanan mentions, that having expressed his surprise at an 

 idol, which had been one of much celebrity, being left to lie ne- 

 glected outside the city gate, the people told him that one of the 

 fingers having been broken, the god had deserted it, no mutilated 

 image being a fit habitation for a god.-f- 



Pillar-stones are mentioned along with the high place, the sacred 

 grove, and under the sacred oak, in many parts of the Old Testament ; 

 in Leviticus J the Israelites are forbidden to rear any standing image 

 or pillar ; and still more strongly in Deuteronomy, as a thing which 

 the " Lord God hated,"§ and which they are desired not to set up 

 near an altar, nor to bow down to, nor worship them. Hence it ap- 

 pears, that at that time among the heathens such stones were cus- 

 tomary objects of worship. Once invested witli a divine character, 

 other attributes were superadded in the progress of time, and the 

 tapering or conical pillar-stone was considered as an emblem of the 

 vivifying spirit of nature ; and in this sense it is now worshipped 

 throughout India. The conic or pyramidal stone bore also a second 

 character, representative of a ray or beam of the sun,f which was 



* Klaproth's Travels in tlie Caucasus, p. 103. 



t Buchanan's Journey in the Mysore, II. pp. 59 — 424. 



% Ch. xxvi. 1. ■ 



§ Ibid. xvi. 22. 



f Maurice Ind, Antiq. iii. p. 87 — ^vi. pp. 101 — 107. Brace's Travels; i. p. 137. The sun of 



