213 
tury. A learned writer*, who has made some 
curious comparisons between the mythological 
ideas of different nations, has hazarded the hypo- 
thesis, that the two religious sects of India, the 
worshippers of Vishnoo, and those of Siva, had 
spread themselves into America ; and that the 
Peruvian worship was that of Vishnoo, when he 
appeared under the figure of Crishna, or the 
Sun ; while the sanguinary worship of the Mexi- 
cans is analogous to that of Siva, when he takes 
the character of the Stygian Jupiter. The wife 
of Siva, the black goddess Cali, or Bhavanif , the 
symbol of death and destruction, wears, in the 
Indian statues and paintings, a necklace of hu- 
man skulls : and to her the Vedas enjoin the 
offering of human sacrifices. The apcient wor- 
ship of Cali, the horrible cruelty of which was 
mitigated by the reform of Bouddha, forms no 
doubt a great resemblance with the worship of 
Mictlancihuatl, the goddess of Hell, and with 
that of several other Mexican divinities : but in 
studying the history of the people of Anahuac, 
we are tempted to consider these resemblances 
as merely accidental. We have no right to pre- 
sume communications, wherever we find, among 
® Frederic Leopold, Count Stolberg, Geschichte der Fe- 
ligion Jesa Christi, B, 1, p. 426. 
f Asiatic Researches^ vol. 1, p. 203 et 293. 
