534 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 700-1. 



5. Colours laid on without any vehicle are, 1. Sanguis draconis well cleaned, 

 for a red colour. 2. Gum-gutta for a yellow. 3. Green wax for a green. 4. 

 Sulphur, pitch, and turpentine, for a brown colour ; and you need only give 

 the marble a proper heat, and then rub on your colours, which experience will 

 further teach you ; these colours are discharged with more or less difficulty, as 

 a red colour in 24 hours with oil of tartar per deliquium, without spoiling the 

 polishing; a brown colour in a quarter of an hour with aquafortis, but the 

 polishing is spoiled; for a golden colour, take sal ammoniac, white vitriol and 

 verdigris, and grind them very fine. 



Account of the Religion, Rites, Notions, Customs, Manners of the Indian Priests, 



called Bramins. By Mr. John Marshal. Communicated by the Rev. Mr. 



Abraham De la Pry^ne. N" 268, p. 729. 



Upon what grounds seme travellers have stiled these people polytheists, or 

 atheists, 1 cannot tell ; and if there be any such people in the world, except 

 some of the base common sort in all nations, I much question. It is very ob- 

 servable here, that when their priests or bramins, and holy men, whom they 

 call jagees, have occasion to write any thing, they always put a figure of one in 

 the first place, to show, as they say, that they acknowledge but one God, 

 whom they say is Burme, that is. Immaterial. When they preach to the peo- 

 ple, which is commonly every feast-day, full moon, or the time of an eclipse 

 of either luminary, they tell them much of God, heaven, and hell, but very 

 imperfectly, obscurely, and mystically. They say that when God thought of 

 making the world he made it in a minute. 



They account this world the body of God, and that the highest heavens are 

 his head, the fire his mouth, the air his breath and breast, the water his seed, 

 and the earth and its foundations his legs and feet. Yet they hold that God is 

 immaterial, and assert in general that he is the life of every thing, which yet 

 is neither greater nor less for him. 



They hold that God dwelt in a vacuity before he created the world, and that 

 as he dwelt in that vacuity he created several beings out of himself: the first 

 were angels, the second souls, the third spirits, all differing in degrees of 

 purity, the first being more pure than the second, and the second than the 

 third. The angels, they say, neither act good nor evil, the souls either good 

 or evil, but the spirits, or dewtas, as they call them, act scarcely any thing but 

 evil. They have a good opinion of the angels, and think their state very 

 happy, hoping that when they die, they shall be made partakers of the same 

 bliss and pleasure. 



They believe that every thing that has life has a soul, but especially man ; 



