THE CAVE OF ELEPHANTA. 217 



with a power of motion. By that motion was produced a golden egg, 

 " blazing like a thousand suns," from which was born Brahma, the parent 

 of all rational beings. He is represented with four heads and as many 

 arms. His name signifies knowledge, in allusion to his creative power. 

 He is the god of fate, master of life and death, and, in conjunction with 

 Vishnu and Sheva, armed with almighty power, pursues throughout the 

 whole creation the rebellious Deutahs or malignant spirits, who are led 

 astray by Mahasoor, their chief, hurling upon them the Aguyastra, or fiery 

 bolts of vengeance. Brahma is considered as the author of the Vedas; he 

 is also the great lawgiver and teacher of India. The Hindoo mythology 

 resembles in many respects that of the Scythians, Persians, Egyptians, 

 and Greeks. Vishnu is represented as a black man, with four arms; in 

 one a club, in the other a shell, in the third a chukru, and in the fourth a 

 water-lily. He rides on a Guroorn, an animal half-bird half-man ; the 

 Shasters give an account of ten incarnations in the character of a pre- 

 server, and he is said to have brought up the sacred books from the 

 bottom of the sea : his character is beneficent, and his appearance is 

 gentle and pleasing. He may be said to counteract the evil produced by 

 Maha Deo and his unamiable consort. Sheva, Seva, or Shiva, is represented 

 as a silver-colored man, and many points of resemblance may be traced 

 in his character to the Bacchus of classical mythology. Sheva is called 

 the destroyer, and well does he merit the epithet; the sacrifices offered 

 at his shrine, and to placate his wrath, are beyond every idea sanguinary 

 and bloody : they are the most cruel of all the Hindoo rites. When the 

 poor victim, a sharp hook drawn through his back, is suspended high in 

 mid-air and swung round with a dizzying vehemence, the object is to 

 honour Sheva; when the deluded fanatic, from some towering eminence, 

 throws himself on hundreds of pikes lying concealed beneath heaps of 

 lightly strewed straw, Sheva is supposed to be well pleased and to smile ; 

 when the fakir lies on an iron bed of spikes, or is seated for years upon a 

 monument, exposed to cold, storm, and blast, with his hands and arms 

 elevated, until the course of the blood be changed, and the nails of the 

 fingers protrude into the flesh, Sheva looks down with a complacent and 

 benignant smile, and when the old man dies, he is sure to be received to 

 the crown of paradise. 



The rock-cut temples of India are generally supposed to be of higher 

 antiquity than pagodas or temples built on the surface of the earth. 



