SACRED'-'ISLES IN THE WEST. 117 



lets, like the straits of Hercules, of the Caspian and Red Seas, says our 

 author, are called the long gaps, pkeralfy the Dirgh a Dirgkic a or long 

 passage leading into hell of the Pur an as , and through which the soijIs 

 must pass -^ one looking toward heaven, and the other toward the earth, 

 being for the ingress and egress of the souls. The moon is the recej)ta- 

 cle of the sensitive souls (animce,) which she composes or decomposes : 

 the sun then supplying the rational souls, a new being is formed, and the 

 earth supplies the body. For the earth gives nothing after death ; but 

 receives back, what she gave, for the purpose of generation. The sun 

 receives nothing, except the rational soul, which he gave. But the moon 

 receives and gives, compounds, decompounds and divides. Atropos (or 

 Raudri,) who is placed about the sun, is the beginning of generation ; 

 exactly like the destru^ive power, or 'Siva among the Hindus y and 

 who is called the cause and the authoi^of generation : Clotho, about the 

 celestial moon, unites and mixes: the last, or Lachesis, is contiguous to 

 the earth : but is. greatly under the influence of chance. For whatever 

 being is destitute of a sensitive «oul, does not exist of its own right; but 

 must submit to the affe^lions of another principle : for the rational soul 

 is of its own right impassible, and is not obnoxious to affection's from 

 another quarter. The sensitive soul is a mediate, and mixt being, like 

 the moon, which is a compound of what is above, and of what is below ; 

 and is to the sun in the same relation as the earth is to the moon. Well 

 Puny might say, with great truth, that the refinements of the Druids 

 were such, that one would be tempted to believe, that those in the east 

 had largely borrowed from them. This certainly surpasses every thing^ 

 of the k'md, I have ever read, or heard in hidia. 



These three goddesses are obviously the Parcce, or fates of tlie wes* 



F f 



