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subjects has been obtained chiefly by turning to the east for interpretation. 
It is by the uncovering of buried records that so much light is now thrown 
upon these matters, it is by means of the long-lost riches that have been dis- 
interred in Egypt and Assyria. Perhaps we may now go a step further east 
with equal, if not greater success, and in so doing we may even find existing 
among living men, the means of interpreting the remotest antiquity. I 
allude to Bactria and its surrounding highlands, especially the unsubdued 
and unknown recesses of Kafiristan. With reference to this word “ am,” I 
would particularly call attention to a well-known sentence that is under- 
stood, or, at all events, is used rather than understood, in the exercise of one 
of the most widely-extended religions of the world — I allude to Buddhism. 
The Buddhist religion has a sentence somewhat equivalent to the famous 
Arabic sentence, which is a part of the ritual of every Mahommedan. The 
Buddhist sentence is “ Om mani padmi hum.” In this sentence the word 
“ Am,” or ^‘Om,” has been referred to the Deity and therefore I should 
be slow to accept the assurance, even on the part of so learned a man as 
the lecturer, that the word is purely and wholly an Egyptian word. 
The Eev. H. G. Tomkins. — I beg pardon ; I never gave such an assurance 
as that at all. I only traced the word “Amwi’ to Egypt, but I did not say 
how it came into Egypt. That is part of a very great question. 
Mr. Trelawney Saunders. — I look for the origin of the word further 
east. I am one of those who believe that the origin of the Egyptian 
language and religion is to be traced much further east than Egypt itself. 
The late Eev. Alex. Hislop, in The Two Babylons, has accumulated evidence 
of the Assyrian origin of the Egyptian rites. The Bible not only takes us 
to Babylon, but still further east. The first inhabitants of Babylonia, or 
Shinar, came from the east of that plain. If we go among the Hindus, and 
ask them whence they came, they do not tell us “ from the east,” but 
they say “ from the north-west.” One of the most interesting facts commu- 
nicated to us in those instructive volumes. The Sacred Writings of the 
Bast, now being edited by Dr. Max Muller, has reference to the origin of 
the Chinese. The Chinese say they came from the west. Now, let us just 
for a moment lay down our bearings from these several points. There is the 
bearing eastward from the land of Shinar ; the bearing north-westward from 
the land of Bramavarta ; and the bearing westward from China. Where do 
these meet? They meet on the Pamir, the Eoof of the World, among 
those mountams that overhang the ancient Ariana, and which I believe to 
be the original home of the Aryans. The ancient books of the Zoroastrians 
say that the people of Ariana Viejo, or old Ariana, were driven away by the 
snow. When the population became too great in the valleys, and could not 
settle higher up because of the winter snow, they were obliged to emigrate. 
* Some authors translate the sentence thus : — “ Oh ! the jewel in the 
lotus. Amen.” But others define the Am, Om, or more accurately Aum, 
as expressing the Trinity of Bramah, Vishnu, and Siva, or Budha, Dharma, 
and Sanga, indeed the Triune God. — Bryan Hodgson’s Essays, p. 88. T. S, 
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