Punch-inarhed coins of Hindustan, ^c. 
197 
1890.] 
could the accused Ido heard before an unprejudiced tribunal, they would 
probably astonish their accusers by claiming to worship the same God 
as themselves ; the same God as the Psalmist of old, who declared. 
“ The spaciona firmament on high, 
And all the bine ethereal sky, 
The apanglod heavens, a shining frame, 
Thoir great original proclaim.” 
It is true, we no longer pay respect to the symbols of the sun, from 
our reverence for that Being of whom the great luminary is a type, but we 
nevertheless use freely in Ecclesiastical adornment and ritualistic wor- 
ship, symbols which are viewed reverentially, as of Christian import, 
but which in reality arc pagan in their origin, and esoterically 
connected with Nature worship, and the only distinction between the 
old worshippers and ourselves, consists in the somewhat humiliating one, 
that the fonner had a precise conception of what they really reverenced, 
which modern ritualists and hierophants certainly have not. 
Representations of the sun are not common on the sculptured 
stones of Scotland, but do occasionally occur. One of the most curious 
is on the Logie stone, in the Gai’ioch. (S. S. S. Vol. I, PI. Ill, fig. 2.) 
The suu is hero represented as a circle with four opposing groups of 
alternately three and five rays, obliquely set (as in a ‘ triskelis ’) and 
with some four rays on the inner side of the circumference, just as the 
‘ Oghan ’ characters would read if inscribed along a circular line. This 
is hardly accidental, but I cannot pretend to explain the relationship of 
these straight Oghan strokes to the symbol, though their connection 
seems beyond question. Another sample of Oghan writing on these 
stones also occur at Newton in the Garioch (S. S. S. Vol. I, PI. I.) 
The sun, as a round boss surrounded by rays forms a prominent 
ornament on the stone cross of Dupplin Castle, Perthshire (S. S. S. 
Vol. I, PI. LVII,) another remarkable symbol probably solar in its im- 
port is seen on a stone from Bressay, Shetland, (S. S. S. Vol. I, PI. 
XCIV.) This symbol occupies the most conspicuous position at the top 
of the stone and recalls to mind the solid wheel of a cart in Burmah 
(made of three pieces of ‘ iron- wood ’ or some other hard woodcut 
out of the solid), only this wheel (if so regarded) is formed of four in- 
terlocking pieces instead of throe. There can be little doubt it represents 
an ancient wheel, and is here used as a symbol of the sun. The whole 
design is very archaic, and there is a long Oghan or Runic inscription 
down the sides. 
2. Tue crescent Moon. Fig. 127. 
Another simple planetary symbol is the crescent moon, that ‘ siderum 
regina hicornis' whoso image forms so glorious an ornament in the 
A A 
