SACRED ISLES IN THE WEST, &C. Q59 



for Shahar ; and it is not far from Bam'iyan. Tiiere 

 Gariida used to devour all the Shabaras who passed 

 by ; and, in the Puran'as, all savage tribes are thus 

 called. Amongst others were some servants of 

 Maha'-deva whom he devoured ; this drew upon 

 him the resentment of that irascible deity, whose 

 servants are called Pramafhas: hence, probably, 

 the ground-work of the fable of Prometheus and 

 the Eagle. All the rest is an improvement, from 

 what the Pandit srathered out of our conversations 

 on the subject of ancient mythology. His account of 

 Bdmiyan, from the Budd^ha-dharma-charitra must 

 be rejected till its genuineness be ascertained. There 

 is such a book at Benares, but all my endeavours to 

 procure it have been fruitless. In this legend he 

 has certainly adopted admirably the manner, style, 

 and notions of the followers of Budd'ha, and the 

 idiom of the language of their books. I have seen 

 the original legend from which he framed his own, 

 about the islands of Lipari, but it has not the least 

 relation to these islands, and belongs to some place 

 in the mountains to the north of India. 



In like manner, many of the legends cited in 

 my essay on Egypt, though they have a striking af- 

 finity with those of that country, are not expressly 

 said to belong either to that or to any particular 

 country, being related in general terms. In these 

 cases, my Pandit inserted the name of Egypt, and 

 if the name of any other country was mentioned, he 

 erased it, and put that of Egypt in its place. Yet 

 the similarity between tiiese legends, and many 

 more which are quoted in the course of this work, 

 and the authenticity of which may be depended 

 upon, with those of the Egyptians and other my- 

 thologists, is so striking, as to evince their original 

 identity : for so near a coincidence, in my humble 

 opinion, could not hive been merely accidental. 



S 2 



