from the Ancient Books of the Hindus. 425 



Labyrinth : if the three names of that prince have any allufion to the build- 

 ing, we may apply Said, or man lion, to the whole of it ; Panjara, or cage, 

 to the lower ftory, and Pet* hi, or cheft, to the various apartments under 

 ground, where the chefts, ox coffins, of the facred crocodiles, called Sukbus 

 or Sukhis in old Egyptian, (a) and Soukh to this day in Copiich, were care- 

 fully depofited. Hesychius, indeed, fays, that Buti figniiied a cheft, 

 or coffin, in Egyptian -, but that, perhaps, muft be underftood of the vul- 

 gar dialed: : the modern Copts call a cheft be~ut, or, with their article, 

 tahut' y a word, which the Arabs have borrowed. When Pliny informs 

 us, that Petesuccus was named alfo Tithoes, we muft either read Pi- 

 thoes from Pe't'hi, or impute the change of the initial letter to the de- 

 fective articulation of the Ethiopians, who frequently invaded Egypt. 

 From the account, given by Herodotus, we may conjecture, that the 

 coffins of the facred crocodiles, as they were called, contained in fact the bo- 

 dies of thofe princes, whom both Egyptians and Hindus named Sucas, 

 thoughy^c means a parrot in Sanjcrit, and a crocodile in the Coptick dia- 

 lect : the Sanfcrit words for a crocodile are Cumbhira arid Nacra, to 

 which fome expofitors of the Amarcojh add Avagraba and Grdha ; but, 

 if the royal name was fymbolical and implied a peculiar ability to 

 feizeznd. hold, the fymbol might be taken from a bird of prey as well as 

 fro m the lizard-kind; efpecially as a feci: of Egyptians abhorred the croco- 

 dile, and would not have applied it as an emblem of any legal and refpect- 

 able power, which they would rather have expreffed by a hawk, or, fome 

 diftinguifhed bird of that order: others, indeed, worshipped crocodiles, 

 and I am told, that the very legend before vis, framed according to their 

 notions, may be found in fome of the Pur anas, 

 m ■ »■ 1 . . «. i i. m 1 . 1 - i 1 I '.t ij ii . .. I, 1 



(a) Strabo B. 17. p. fin. Damascius, Life oflsiDORVS. {b) B, 2. C. 148. 



F f f 



