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CONCISE ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE AVATAR OP 



CREESHNA. 



The two introductory chapters to the Life of Creeshna have 

 sufficiently shewn it to be a compound of some traditional predic- 

 tion, alluding to a great spiritual, but obscure, character, about 

 to arise from the womb of time, the preserver of the world from crimes 

 and punishments, and the history of some ancient hero ; in all pro- 

 bability of that very Rama who forms so conspicuous a portion of 

 the Avatar. Through the whole of it, however, there runs such 

 frequent reference to the power and operations of the SOLAR DEITY; 

 he combats both in youth and age with monsters so much resem- 

 bling those of the sphere, with bulls, dragons, serpents, wolves, 

 crows, and others, enrolled among the forty-eight oldest constella- 

 tions; he maintains such dreadful contests with enemies in the form 

 of tempests, whirlwinds, hurricanes, and other aerial prodigies, 

 that for a while envelope and obscure him ; and, what is not the 

 least remarkable circumstance in his history, he is so constantly 

 represented as absorbing into himself, or, as the fable expresses it, 

 receiving into his mouth, the noxious fires and devouring conflagra- 

 tions which hostilely assail his comrades ; that the astronomical 

 relation of his character to that planet cannot be passed over un- 

 observed, or its existence denied, though it is impossible -to draw 

 any exact parallel. That Osiris, too, the black divinity of Egypt, 

 and Creeshna, the sable shepherd-god of Mathura, have the striking- 

 similitude of character, intimated by Mr. Wilford, cannot be dis- 

 puted, any more than that Creeshna, from his rites, continuing so 

 universally to flourish over India from such remote periods down 

 to the present day, was the prototype, and Osiris the mythological 

 copy. Both are renowned legislators and conquerors, contending 



