THE SACRED ISLES IN THE WEST. 1 S^ 



tered all over the face of the earth, hke those of Osi- 

 ris and Jupiter Zagfieus. To collect them was the 

 first duty of his descendants and followers, and then 

 to entomb them. Out of filial piety, the remembrance 

 of this mournful search was yearly kept up by a fic- 

 titious one, with all possible marks of grief and 

 sorrow, till a priest announced, that the sacred relics 

 were at last found. This is practised to this day 

 by several Tartarian tribes of the religion of Bud- 

 d'ha ; and the expression of the bones of the son of 

 the spirit of heaven is peculiar to the Chinese^ and 

 some tribes in Tartarif. 



The Bander hists in this country are so close, re- 

 served, and ignorant, in general, that hardly any 

 information can be obtained on this subject. Besides, 

 they acknowledge that it is so awful a theme, that 

 they really avoid to make it a subject of conversa- 

 tion. They confess that the pyramids, in which the 

 sacred relics are deposited, be their shape what it 

 will, are an imitation of the worldly temple of the 

 supreme being, and which is really the tomb of the 

 first of his embodied forms ; or of his son, in the 

 language of the Chinese, Tartars, and of the Greeks 

 also, who were little acquainted with the system of 

 emanations and incarnations. They also declare, 

 that many of these pyramids do not really contain 

 the bones of the Thacur, or Lord : and though they 

 are to be supposed, and asserted to contain them, 

 the real place where they are deposited, should re- 

 main unknown, in ord.er to prevent profanation ; 

 exactly like the various tombs of Osiris. For this 

 reason, the sacred relics, instead of being deposited 

 in the pyramid, are always placed in a small vault 

 deep under ground, at some distance from it, as at 

 Sarndtluu near Benares. 



K 



