XXVII. — Description of some Indian Idols in the Museum of the 

 Society. By W. A. Cadell, Esq. F. R. S. Lond. & 

 Edin. 



(Read March 6. 1820. J 



JL HE figures, sculptured in full relief, and here represented 

 by the four drawings in Plate XXIV., are idols brought from 

 India in the year 1800, by Francis Simpson, Esq., which I 

 had the honour of presenting to the Society at his request. 



According to information with which I have been favoured 

 by gentlemen conversant with the literature of India, these 

 idols are Cali, Suria and Buda. 



The first of the figures (Plate XXIV. fig. 1.) is the god- 

 dess Cali, a personification of all-devouring Time, like 

 the Cronos rexvocpuyog of the Greeks ; and of the destroy- 

 ing principle, as Typhon was in the Egyptian mytholo- 

 gy. The Egyptians, considering the continual recurrence 

 of generation, growth and destruction in the universe, as- 

 cribed to the energy of Isis and Osiris all the regular pheno- 

 mena and processes of Nature which are beneficial to man- 

 kind ; Isis was therefore myri-onymos, she had a multitude of 

 names, she was the fertilising water of the Nile, the Sun, the 



Earth, 



