76 Captain James Low on Bupp a and the Phrabit. 
No. 9. 
Pi thakang. The Siamese term is Tiung t,hdng, or the golden bed. 
Every thing holy or magnificent is with them, as with the Burmese, 
** golden.” 
No. 10. 
Banlangko. The Siamese T,hen ban lang ; which they say was the stone- 
couch or seat of Bupp,Ha. I apprehend that it is intended to exhibit the 
stone altar which is sacred to Bupp Ma throughout India. It is found in the 
areas of Siamese temples ; and on it are now offered up flowers and fruits, 
instead of the bloody victims with whose gore it was stained in former ages. 
It is a permanent memorial of the beneficent purpose for which Bupp Ma is 
supposed to have vested himself in an earthly shape: and if he had done 
nothing more than overturn the altars of a gloomy and sanguinary priest- 
hood, he would have been, by that act alone, entitled to be embalmed in 
the grateful recollection of an improved posterity. But the altar is a 
symbol of the highest antiquity: and the Ara of the west may have derived 
its origin from some scanty tradition of the great patriarchal sacrifice, so 
miraculously arrested by the Divine arm. 
The symbol of Mercury, according to Maurice, is composed of three 
“7 “//, corresponding in some measure with the 
travelled in India must have observed three stones thus disposed in many 
places, particularly along the highways. The next stage shows four 
supporters to four stone beams. 
Stone altars were frequent in England in former times; and on them 
the Druids performed their abominable sacrifices. 
The rock of the Sun exists in Ireland; and rocks of a peculiar shape 
have been venerated all over the world. 
In the heaven of Inpra, according to the Bali Milinda, there is the stone 
altar, which is placed below the tree called Parikachata. 
The Chinese have also their altars: and, in fact, they must have been 
necessary appendages to the pomp of all oblationary religions. Altars were 
originally placed on high hills, that they might be nearer to the deity. 
Noau built an altar; and after him AsranaM, when called to prove his 
faith by the sacrifice of his son. 
