^80 AS ESSAY ON THE 



of Shem, we are told in scripture, dwelt in the 

 country extending yrom Mesha as thou goest unto 

 Sephar^ a mount of the East. This seems to be 

 meant as an explanation of the word SepJiar, and 

 at all events implies, that this mountain was a great 

 way to the Eastward. In Europe they called the 

 West Hesperus, and the country toward the West 

 Hesperia. That country is considered by the Pau- 

 rariics, as the abode of the Gods, or Suralayam, an 

 appellation well known to the learned, and applied 

 by them, in conformity with the Puratias, to the 

 Westernmost part of Europe, or the British Isles. 

 Another denomination for Suralayatn, and which 

 might be Sanscrit^ is I'sa-pura, or I's-pura, though 

 probably never used. This was pronounced by the 

 Gothic tribes As-burh, As-byrig, As-purgium: they 

 said also As-gard, which implies the same thing. 

 There Is'a, or Is'wara Vishnu, resides with all 

 the Gods. 



The word Is'a was pronounced Asos, Asioi, by 

 the Greeks, As by the Goths; and for puri, or pura, 

 the Goths said burh, byrig, or burgh ; the Greeks 

 pyrgos. The words As-puri, As-burh, Aspurgium, 

 Hesperus, are pronounced by the Persians, As- 

 burj ; where burj or burujs, is synonymous with 

 puri, purh, S^c. In their romances, we see Cai- 

 caus going to the mountain of Az-burj, or As-burj, 

 at the foot of which the sun sets, to fight the Div- 

 sejid, or white devil, the Tara-daitya of the P^a- 

 nas, and whose abode was on the seventh stage of 

 the world, answering to the seventh zone of the 

 Baudd'hists, and the sixth of the Purdn'ics; or, in 

 other words, to tiie White Island. The Goths, it 

 is true, placed As-burh, or As-gard, in the East; 

 for when they had conquered the Western abode 

 of the Gods, they found none there ; and rather 

 than give up this idle notion, they supposed that 



