3141 Lieut. -Colonel Ton on the Religious Establisliments of Mercar. 



appearance gave him importance even with the sons of Vaiva {Vaivasxvata) 

 the sun. From the poetic seers of the martial races we learn that there 

 are two distinct places of reward : the one essentially spiritual, the other 

 of a material nature. The bard inculcates that the warrior who falls in 

 battle in tlie fulfilment of his duty, " who abandons life through the wave 

 of steel," will know no "second birth," but that the unconfined spark {jote) 

 will reunite to the parent orb. The doctrine of transmigration through a 

 variety of hideous forms, may be considered as a series of purgatories. 



The Greeks and Celts worshipped Apollo under the title of Carneios, 

 which " selon le scholiaste de Theocrite" is derived from Carnos, " qui ne 

 prophetisoit que des malheurs aux Heraclides lors de leur incursion dans 

 le Peloponnese. Un d'eux appele Hippotes, le tua d'un coup de fleche." 

 Now one of the titles of Heki, the Hindu Apollo, is Carana, ' the radiant:' 

 from Carayia, ' a ray ' (of the sun). When Heri-Crishna led the remains of 

 the Pandu Heriailds in company with the Hindu Hercules, Baldeva (the 

 ' god of strength '), and Yudishtra, after the great international war 

 (bfiarat) with the Curus, into the Peloponnesus of Saurashtra, they were 

 attacked by the aboriginal occupants, the Bhills, otie of whom slew the divine 

 CAkana with an arrow. The Bhills claim to be of Hyvansa, or the race of 

 Hya, whose chief seat was at Mahcswar on the Nerbudda : the assassin of 

 Carana would consequently be Hipi'da, or descendant (pitta) of Hi/a.* 



The most celebrated of the monuments commonly termed Druidic, 

 scattered throughout Europe, is at Carnac in Brittany, on which coast the 

 Celtic Apollo had his shrines, and was propitiated under the title of Carneus; 

 and this monument may be considered at once sacred to the manes of the 

 warriors and the sun-god Carneus. Thus the Roman Saturnalia, the car- 

 nival, has a better etymology in the festival to Carneus, as the sun, than 

 in the " adieu to flesh " during the fast. The character of this festival is 

 entirely oriental, and accompanied with the licentiousness which belonged 

 to the celebration of the powers of nature. Even now, although Chris- 

 tianity has banished the grosser forms, it partakes more of a Pagan than a 

 Christian ceremony. 



* Supposing these coincidences in the fabulous history of the ancient nations of Greece and 

 Asia to be merely fortuitous, they must excite interest : but conjoined with various others in 

 the history of the Hericulas of India and the HeracUda: of Greece, I cannot resist the idea that 

 they were connected, and that Ramesa, Heri, Buddha, and Yudishtra, &c. &c. were con- 

 querors or hierarchs deified. 



