t 101 ] 



who remarked, in the neighbourhood of Verapatnam ; a statue of 

 granite, very hard and beautiful, probably" of many thousand 

 weight, but half sunk in the deep sand, and standing, as it were, 

 abandoned in the midst of that extensive plain. He observed 

 " that it exactly resembled THE SAMANACODOM, or principal stone 

 deity of the Siamese, in,the form of its head, in its features, and 

 in the position of its arms, but that it bore no similitude to the 

 present idols of the Hindoos; and, upon inquiry of the Tamulians, 

 he was constantly informed, that it was the God BOODH, who was 

 now no longer regarded, since the Brahmins had made themselves 



o o 



masters of the people's faith."* 



To explain the obscure and apparently contradictory circum- 

 stances above alluded to in the history of Buddha, I mean his op- 

 pugning the doctrines of the Vedas, and his being considered in 

 India as a favourer of the principles of Materialism, principles so 

 directly contrary to the sublime conceptions of the Brahmins con- 

 cerning the Diety as an active spirit pervading every particle of 

 matter, a conjecture has been started by some Indian mythologists, 

 that, as there were two exalted personages in antiquity of the name 

 of Hermes, so there might have been two Buddhas ; the latter, an 

 usurper of his name and honours, they suppose to be the famous 

 BUDIIA SAKIA, a priest of Memphis, mentioned by Kaempfer to 

 have been driven from Egypt, with others of his persecuted breth- 

 ren, to the shores of India, during the ravages of Cambyses, in the 

 year 525 before Christ, -f- In fact, it is not uncommon in the 

 complex system of Asiatic mythology to find two persons of the 

 same name, and of doctrines presumed similar, living in quite 

 different ages, as in the case of Zoroaster, Orpheus, and Hermes ; 



* Mr. Chambers in the Asiatic Researches, in loco citat. 

 t Kaempfer's Japan, vol. i. p. 38. edit. 1728. 



