136 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



milked out, as it were, from the three Vedas, the letter A, the letter 

 U, and the letter M ; which form by coalition the tri-lateral mono- 

 syllable" Awn,* pronounced Om, which is "the symbol of God, the 

 Lord of created beings." Each of the three compound letters of 

 this word has its mysterious signification. The first denotes Brahma, 

 the second Vishnu, and the third Siva. This syllable is never pro- 

 nounced by the Hindoos, except inaudibly, or as it were, inwardly, 

 and never without many vigils and solemn preparations. " If he 

 have sitten on cushions of cusa, with their points towards the east, and 

 be purified by rubbing that holy grass in both his hands, and be 

 further prepared by three suppressions of the breath, he may then 

 fitly pronounce Om." f This term appears to have originated the 

 Egyptian Om, the sun, and Omphi, an oracle, or presage of futurity. 

 Plutarch J says oix(piQ was the name of an Egyptian deity. The true 

 rendering, according to Bryant §, is Omphi or Amphi, from Ham, 

 who was worshippe(f as the Sun or Osiris. The mountains where 

 these oracles were delivered, were called Har-al-Ompi, from which 

 the Greeks obtained Olympus, or from its oracular prerogatives, 

 opOQ OXvjLiTrov. Among the Armenians the same was called On, 

 Eon, or Aon ; hence it was that Ham, who was worshipped as the 

 sun, got the title of Amon, and Ammon, and was styled Baal-Hamon. 

 It is said of Saul that he had a vineyard at Baal-Hamon," || a name pro- 

 bably given to the place by his Egyptian wife, the daughter of Pharoah. 

 Another grass, called Durva, ^ is also held as sacred, and in the 

 mysteries of the temple, regarded as the symbol of fecundity. Its 

 flowers, when in their perfect state, are amongst the most lovely 

 objects in the vegetable world. Viewed through a microscope, they 

 appear like clusters of minute rubies and emeralds in constant motion, 

 and with innumerable changes of light and colour. It is the sweetest 

 and most nutritious pasture for cattle, and so readily propagated by 

 its creeping roots, that lands sown with pieces of them become com- 

 pletely swarded in a single season. Its extraordinary powers of in- 

 crease render it an emblem of the reproductive powers of nature. In 

 the worship of the divine Chrishna, or Heri, as he is termed by the 



* Menu., chap, ii, 76. t Ibid, ii, 75. 



1 Isis and Osiris, § Analysis i, 235. 



II Cantic'!es viii. 



^ Agrostis linearis of Linnajus, 



