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succeeding ages of idolatry, when the Sabian superstition became 

 genera], canonized in the beneficent Mithra. 



If, therefore, doctrines at all tending towards materialism have 

 been ingrafted on those originally promulged by Buddha, they are 

 evidently a base forgery, because utterly inconsistent with the 

 main principle of genuine Buddhism, viz. an ardent desire in its 

 professors, by means of abstraction from matter, by a subjuga- 

 tion of the senses, and a course of the most dreadful austerities un- 

 dauntedly persevered in, to become worthy of being re-united to the 

 supreme Spirit from which the soul of man, however gradually in 

 the progress of ages depraved, originally emaned. For the particular 

 detail of those austerities, and for the more complete developement 

 of the sentiments that impel to them the deluded Samanaean, I beg 

 to refer the reader to the chapter on Hindoo penitents, in the fifth 

 volume of Indian Antiquities, where the struggles of the emerging 

 soul (the basis of the ancient mysteries) are faithfully represented 

 through the various stages of the Cn AR ASHERUM ; through scenes 

 of suffering which make humanity shudder ; through torrent floods, 

 through raging fire, and the profoundest horrors of subterranean 

 darkness. 



In considering this Avatar of Buddha, it is impossible to pass un- 

 noticed the reiterated and outrageous attacks, which, founded upon 

 the doctrines attributed to the disciples of Buddha, have been 

 recently made by Mr. Volney on Christianity and the four sacred 

 books, in which its doctrines are principally contained. After having, 

 with so much ingenuity and truth, as we have seen above, deduced 

 the name Christ-os from the Indian Chris-en and Christ-na, and after 

 having discovered, as he conceives, the radix of Jesus (a Hebrew 

 proper name co-incident with Joshua) to YES, the ancient caba- 

 listical name of young Bacchus, the clandestine son of the virgin 

 Minerva ; after having informed us, that the Indian preserving 



