﻿AND THE TNDIAN SPHINX. 335 



He is now the principal Fan/Jar, and is much of the 

 gentleman : a man of learning, and very intelligent. 

 From him I learned that the Sphinx, here called Singh, 

 is to appear at the end of the world, and, as soon as 

 he is born, will prey on an elephant. He is, therefore, 

 figured seizing an elephant in his claws ; and the ele- 

 phant is made small, to show that the Singh, even a 

 moment after his birth, will be very large in propor- 

 tion to it. 



When I told Murari that the Egyptians worshipped 

 the bull, and chose the God by a black mark on his 

 tongue, and that they adored birds and trees, he imme- 

 diately exclaimed, " their religion then was the same 

 " with ours ; for we also chuse our sacred bulls by the 

 (l same marks ; we reverence the hansa, the garura, and 

 " other birds; we respect the pippal and the i<ata 

 " among trees, and the tulast among shrubs; but as 

 " for onions (which 1 had mentioned) they are eaten 

 " by low men, and are fitter to be eaten than wor- 

 " shipped." 



REMARK BY THE PRESIDENT. 



Without presuming to question the authority of 

 Murari Pandit, I can only say, that several Brahmans 

 now in Bengal, have seen the figure at Jagannafh, 

 where one of the gates is called Sinhadzvar ; and they 

 assure me, that they always considered it as a mere re- 

 presentation of a Lion seizing a young elephan: ; nor 

 do they know, they say, any sense for the word Sinha 

 but a Lion, such as Mr. Hastings kept near his gar- 

 den. The Huli, called Holaca in the Vedas, and 

 P'halgutsai-a in common Sanscrit books, is the festi- 

 val of the vernal season, or JSauruz of the Persians. 



