[ 99 ] 



fore alluded to in this work and the Indian Antiquities, that the 

 fourth day of the week, (our Wednesday, a corruption of Woden's 

 day,) which is assigned to Buddha in India, called Bhood-War, 

 is the Dies Mercurii of the West. There is also some reason to 

 suppdse, from the following passage of Sir William Jones, that 

 the rites of his religion were not wholly unknown among the Ara- 

 bians, whose principal divinity was represented under the form of 

 a cubical black stone. He observes, that, " the powers of God 

 represented as female deities, the adoration of stones, and the name 

 of the idol WUDD, induce us strongly to suspect that some of the 

 Hindoo superstitions had found their way into Arabia; and, though 

 we have no trace in Arabian history of such a conqueror or legis- 

 lator as the great SESAC, who is said to have raised pillars in Ye- 

 men as well as at the mouth of the Ganges, yet, since we know that 

 SACYA is a title of BUDDHA, whom I suppose to be WODEN, and 

 since the age of Sesac perfectly agrees with that of Sacya, we may 

 form a plausible conjecture that they were in fact the same person 

 who travelled eastward from Ethiopia, either as a warrior or as a 

 lawgiver, about a thousand years before Christ, and whose rites we 

 now see extend as far as the country of Nifon, or, as the Chinese 

 call it, Japuen, both words signifying the vising sun."* 



Buddha is not entirely unknown even to classical writers : Arrian 

 denominates him, as we have seen before in the chapter concern- 

 ing Hercules, Budeeiis rf~ and Clemens, of Alexandria, terms him 

 Bouta.$. Buddha opposed the sanguinary sacrifices of the Brah- 

 mins, and, consequently, in a degree, the holy Vedas themselves 

 which enjoined them : in India, therefore there has always been a 

 sect who are violently hostile to the followers of Buddha, denomi- 

 nating them atheists and denying the genuineness of his Avatar. 



* See bis Essay on the Arabians. f Arrian in Indicis, p. 421. J Stroinata, lib. i. p. 35. 



N 2 



