2^.2 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 



on the authority of Cornutus, a confummate matter of 

 mythological learning. We are advifed by Plato 

 jhimfelf, to fearch for the roots of Greek words in foine 

 barbarous, that is, foreign foil; but, fince I look upon 

 etymological conjettures as a weak bafis for hiftorical 

 inquiries, I hardly dare fuggefl:, that Zev, Siv, and 

 Jov, are the fame fyllable differently pronounced. It 

 muft, however, be admitted, that the Greeks having 

 no palatial Jigma, like that of the Indians, might have 

 expreffed it by their zeta, and that the initial letters of 

 zugon and jugum are (as the inftance proves) eafily in- 

 terchangeable. 



Let us now defcend, from thefe general and intro- 

 ductory remarks, to fome particular obfervations on the 

 refemblance of Zeus, or Jupiter, to the triple divinity- 

 Vijhnu, Siva, Brahma ; for that is the order in which 

 thev are expreffed by the letters A, U, and M, which 

 coalefce, and form the myftical word O'M ; a word 

 which never cfcapes the lips of a pious Hindu, who me- 

 ditates on it in filence. Whether the Egytian ON, 

 which is commonly fuppofed to mean the Sun, be the 

 Sanjcrit monofy liable, I leave others to determine. It 

 murl always be remembered, that the learned Indians, 

 as they are inftruBed by their own books, in truth, 

 acknowledge only One Supreme Being, whom they call 

 Brahme, or the Great One, in the neuter gender : they 

 believe his effence to be infinitely removed from the 

 comprehenfion of any mind but his own ; and they fup- 

 pofe him to manifeft his power by the operation of his 

 divine fpirit, whom they name Viflmu, the Pervader, 

 and Ndrdyan, or Moving on the Waters, both in the 

 mafculine gender, whence he is often denominated the 

 Fir/i Male ; and by this power they believe that the 

 whole order of nature is preferved and fupported : but 

 the Veddntis, unable to form a diilincl idea of brute 

 matter independent of mind, or to conceive that the 



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