L ^3 ] 



I 



lated Heliopolis. Neither was this cuftom, which probably arofe 

 from their extreme deUcacy of ear, and from a well-founded, 

 though fometimes perhaps faucy prediledlion for their own 

 melodious idiom, confined to the Egyptian tongue. All other 



Eaflern 



" The Vi(hnu, Siva and Brahma are exprefled by the letters A.U.M, which coakfce and 

 " form the myftical word OM. Whether the Egyptian ON, which is commonly fuppofed 

 " to mean the fun, be the fanfcrit monofyllable, I leave others to determine." And again, 

 page 262, " I am inclined to believe that not only Criflina or Vifhnu, but even Brahma and 

 " Siva, when united, and exprelFed by the myftical word OM, were deligned by the firft 

 " idolaters to reprefent the folar fire." And afterwards, page 272, " The three powers, 

 " creative, prefervative and deftruftive, which the Hindus exprefs by the triliteral word 

 " O'M, were grofsly afcribed by the firft idolaters to the heat, light and flame of their 

 " miftaken divinity, the Sun ; and their wifer fucceflbrs in the Eaft, who perceived that the 

 " Sun was only a created thing, applied thofe powers to its Creator." 



Diofpolis, Hermopolis, Heracleopolis, /iphrodilopoKs, and all the many other Greek names 

 of Egyptian cities fo formed, were probably tranflations from the Egyptian. The firft of thefe, 

 Diofpolis, is evidently tranflated from the Egyptian and Hebrew name of this metropolis, 

 AMON NO, or NO AMON, the city of Jupiter, which was indeed its only Eaftern name, 

 the appellation ThAes, ancient as it is, having been given to it by the Greeks, as we are 

 'informed by Diodorus Siculas, Lib. i. page 54, who, fpeaking of its foundation by Bufiris, 



has thefe explicit words — Kwai I7i> !mo fti> A'tyvtfiiuii xa.\VfA,itr,v Afcj w»>.i» T»» fi.iyaM,t, imt 

 ii TO» E3\>.-<p«» 0.i^a5. Neither can I avoid taking notice of the fingularity of this circumftance, 

 from which it appears that even at a period fo early as previous to the lime of Homer, who 

 mentions the Egyptian metropolis by the name Thebes, it was cuftomary with the Greeks to 

 give names of their own to foreign cities, and even to entire countries, fince Herodotus 

 informs us, Lib. ii. that anciently all Egypt was called Thebat— 7r«^al ii ©»;3ai Aiynla; 

 cKa.f'.i%. In the time of the Ptolomies, when, from the widefpread conquefts of Alexander 

 the Greek language was become univerfal, when that faftidious people had every reafon to 

 look down upon all mankind as thei^ inferiors, and when the fovereigns of Afia, and parti- 

 cubtly of Egypt, were Greeks, fuch tranflations as we have already mentioned, from languages 

 by them accounted barbarous, might naturally have been expefted ; but that at a period fo early 

 as -l-at of the Trojan war, when Greece was yet in her infancy, and when the Greeks were 

 far iefs polilbed than the nations of the Eaft, they ftiould have taken this impertinent liberty, 

 appears to me furprizing, and even unaccountable ; a liberty which has undoubtedly been 

 mifchievous to pofterity, by fuperadding confufion to the natural and inevitable obfcurity of 

 remote hiftory. 



