﻿on t the tep.sia^s. 63 



bank, like wax separated from its delicious honey, the 

 soul of man bewails its disunion with melancholy m . - 

 sic, and sheds burning tears, like the lighted taper 

 waiting passionately for the moment ot its extinction, 

 as a disengagement from earthly trammels, and the 

 means ot returning to its only beloved. Such in p 

 (for I omit the minuter and more subtil metaphysics 

 of the Sufis, which are mentioned in the Dabista?i) 

 is the wild and enthusiastic religion of the modem 

 Persia?! poets, especially of the sweet Hafiz a 

 great Maulavi. Such is the system of the Vedanti 

 philosophers and best lyric poecs of India ; and as it 

 was a system of the highest antiquity in both natic: 

 it may be added to the many other proofs of an im- 

 memorial affinity between them. 



III. On the ancient monuments of Persian sculpture 

 and architecture we have already made such obser- 

 vations as were sufficient for our purpose ; nor will 

 you be surprized at the diversity between the figures 

 at Elephant a, which are manifestly Hindu, and those 

 at Persepolis, which are merely Sabian, if you concur 

 with me in believing; that the Takhti Jemshid was 

 erected after the time of Cayumers, when the Br ah- 

 ?nans had migrated from Iran, and when their in 

 cate mythology had been superseded by the simpler 

 adoration of the planets and of fire. 



IV. As to the sciences or arts of the old Pers 

 I have little to say ; and no complete evidence 

 them seems to exist. Mohsan speaks more t 

 once of ancient verses in the Pahlavi language ; 

 and Bahman assured me, that some scan 



of them had been preserved: their musi 

 painting, which Nizarm celebrated, have irrecoi . 

 ably perished; and in regard to Ma 

 and impostor, whose book of dr 



