440 Continuation of Remarks on the [Sept. 



At the epoch now established as the date of the tope, the ancient 

 religion of Persia, the worship of the sun, or Mithras, had not only 

 been restored to its former splendour among the Persians themselves, 

 but it is acknowledged to have exercised a powerful influence on all 

 other religions prevailing at the same time : even the Christian religion 

 was tinctured with many of the mysteries of the Mithriac worship*, 

 and an attempt had been made by Scythien, TerebinthusI, and 

 lastly by Manes, in the latter part of the third century, and in the 

 very court of the Persian monarch, to incorporate the doctrines of 

 Christ with the mysteries of Zoroaster, in a system of his own, 

 known to the Alexandrine Church as the Manichean heresy. 



It is not surprising therefore that on the Indian side of the Persian 

 monarch's dominions, in a part probably under his influence if not 

 directly under his sway, we should find the fire-altar, or the image of 

 the sun, replaced by Krishna among the Hindus, or Buddha among 

 the Bauddhists ; both of them personating the sun in their respective 

 mythologies. 



Whatever forms of the Hindu religion were prevalent at the time, 

 the adoption of the sun as the ostensible representation of divine power, 

 either in accordance with the commands of the ruling prince, or from a 

 natural tendency towards an union of the Brahmanical and Magian 

 faith, could not present many difficulties. " We must not be surprised," 

 says Sir William Jones, " at finding that the characters of all the pagan 

 deities, male and female, melt into each other, and at last into one or 

 two ; for it seems a well-founded opinion, that the whole crowd of gods 

 and goddesses, in ancient Rome and modern Varanes (Benares), mean 

 only the powers of nature, and principally those of the sun, expressed 

 in a variety of ways, and by a multitude of fanciful names J." 



* " La fete nomm£e ' Celle de la naissance du soleil invincible' (natalis solis 

 invicti) tombait au VHIe des calendes de Janvier, ou au 25 D^cembre. Environ 

 a la meme epoque, quelques jours apres le solstice d'hiver, se ce^brait la grande 

 fete des Perses appetee Mirrhagan (Mihira, soleil ; gahan fete) mot qui exprime 

 une id£e analogue. L'une et 1' autre de ces deux solennit^s avaient egalement 

 rapport a Mithras. Les chefs de l'eglise d'occident fixerent au meme jour la 

 celebration de la naissance du Christ, dont 1' epoque £tait demeure'e inconnue 

 jusques la." Religions de VantiquiU, traduit de Vallemand du D. F. Creuzer, 

 par J. D. Guigniaut. 



f The assumed name of Terebinthus, (Buddas,) has given rise to conjectures 

 of his connection with the Hindu sacred personages of the same name, and the anci- 

 ent fathers actually ascribed many of the traditions of the Buddhists to this heretic. 

 Hyde, however, shews the origin of their mistake. Buddas in Chaldaic has the same 

 signification as Terebinthus in Greek, and this was the cause of his changing 

 his name. See Wilford's speculations on the subject, As. Res. ix. 215. 



X As. Res. vol. i. page 267. 



