from the Ancient Books of the Hindus. 363 



the female parent, whofe powers are only excited and put into action by the 

 male aura ; but the Lingdncitas maintain an oppofite doctrine, and the known 

 fuperiority of mules begotten, by horfes over thofe, which are brought forth 

 by mares, appears to confirm their opinion, which might alfo be fupported 

 by many other examples from the animal and vegetable worlds. There is a 

 feci: of Hindus, by far the mofl numerous of any, who, attempting to reconcile 

 the two fyflems, tell us, in their allegorical ftyle, that Pa'kvati' and Ma- 

 had e'v a found their concurrence effential to the perfection of their offspring, 

 and that Vishnu, at the requeft of the goddefs, effected a reconciliation be- 

 tween them : hence the navel of Vishnu, by which they mean the os tinea?, 

 is worfhipped as one and the fame with the facred ydni. This emblem too 

 was Egyptian -, and the myftery feems to have been folemnly typified, in the 

 temple of Jupiter Ammon, by the vail umbilicus made of Hone, and car- 

 ried, by eighty men, in a boat, which reprefented the fojfa navicularis: fuch 

 I believe, was the myftical boat of Isis, which, according to Lactantius, 

 was adored in Egypt (a) ; we are affured by Tacitus, that the Suevi, one 

 of the oldeft and moil powerful of the German nations, worfhipped Is is in 

 the form of a fhip ; and the Chaldeans infifted, that the Earthy which, in the 

 Hindu fyftem, reprefents Pa'rvati', was fhaped and hollowed like an im- 

 menfe boat. From Egypt the type was imported into Greece ; and an umbili- 

 cus of white marble was kept at Delphi in the fanctuary of the temple, where 

 -it was carefully wrapt up in cloth, (b) The myftical boat is called alfo by 

 Greek Mythologifts the cup of the Sun, in which Hercules, they fay, tra- 

 verfed the Ocean i and this Hercules, according to them, was the fon of 

 Jupiter j but the Greek's , by whom the notion of an avatar a, or decent of 

 a God in a human form, had not been generally adopted, confidered thofe as 



(a) La&ant. Divin. Inftit. L. i. C. 2. (b) Strab. B. 9. 420. 



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