40 ORIGIN AND DECLINE OF THE 



same shape, came, in his way to the plains of Utara- 

 Curu ox Siberia^ to worship at Prabhasa in Gurjardt\ 

 they planned and executed a road for him through 

 the N. W.* quarter of hidia^ which is said still to 

 exist. The Tacshacas, or Tachas, have, as usual, two 

 countenances, that of serpents, and a human one, 

 which they assume at pleasure. 



The chief of them is obviously the same with the 

 serpent Agatho-D^mon, the Demi-ufgos, Opif'eTf 

 and artist of the Egyptians, Greeks, Gnostics, Basilic 

 dians, &c. These sectaries asserted, that the serpent 

 was the father, and author of ail arts and sciences : 

 and this serpent, they said, was the Christ, who was 

 thus the son of a carpenter and artist; and at the 

 same time an incarnation of the great serpent, ex^ 

 actly like 'Sa'liva'hana, the 'Saca, or mighty and 

 glorious King. 'Sa'liva'hana was the son, or rather 

 an inca/nation of the great serpent; and his mother 

 was also of that tribe, and incarnate in the house of 

 a pot-maker. She conceived at the age of one year 

 and a half, the great serpent gently gliding over her, 

 whilst she was asleep in her cradle. 



The heresy of the Ophites spread widely at a very 

 early period : they extolled the serpent, as the author 

 of the science of good and evil. Such was, they 

 said, the majesty and the power of the brass serpent, 

 exposed upon a stake in the desert, that whatever 

 man looked up to him was immediately cured. In 

 the same n^anner that the serpent had been exalted 

 upon a stake in the desert, for the good of the 

 people, so it was necessary that Christ should be 

 exalted also, upon a stake or cross, for the good of 



* Cum^rica-c'banda, p. 145. 



