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SAN 
has been a generally received opinion, that about forty years 
before the destruction of Jerusalem, their nation had been 
deprived of the power of life and death. And most authors 
assert that this privilege was taken from them ever since Judea 
was made a province of the Roman empire, that is, after the 
banishment of Archelaus. Others, however, maintain that 
the Jews had still the power of life and death; but that this 
privilege was restricted to crimes committed against their 
law, and depended upon the governor’s will and pleasure. 
In the time of Moses, this council was held at the door of 
the tabernacle of the testimony. As soon as the people were 
in possession of the land of promise, the sanhedrim followed 
the tabernacle, and it continued at Jerusalem, whither it was 
removed, till the captivity. During the captivity it was kept 
at Babylon. After the return from Babylon, it remained at 
Jerusalem, as it is said, to the time of the Sicarii, or Assas¬ 
sins ; afterwards it was removed to Jamnia, thence to Jericho, 
to Uzzah, to Sepharvaim, to Bethsamia, to Sephoris, and last 
of dll to Tiberias, where it continued till their utter extinction. 
Such is the account which the Jews give of their sanhedrim. 
But many learned persons are of a different opinion. Petau 
(De Doctrin. Temp. lib. ii. c. 26.) fixes the beginning of 
the sanhedrim to the period when Gabinius was govenor of 
Judea, by whom were erected tribunals in the five cities of 
Judea, viz.: Jerusalem, Godara, Amathus, Jericho, and 
Sephoris. Grotius agrees in the date of its commencement 
with the rabbins, but he fixes its termination at the beginning 
of Herod’s reign. Basnage places it under Judas Macca- 
baeus and his brother Jonathan. Upon the whole, it may be 
observed, that the origin of the sanhedrim has not been satis¬ 
factorily ascertained ; and that the council of seventy elders, 
established by Moses, was not what the Hebrews understood 
by the name of sanhedrim. It has been also alleged, that 
this establishment cannot be perceived under Joshua, the 
Judges, or the Kings, nor after the captivity, till the time of 
Jonathan Maccabseus: to which purpose it has been sug¬ 
gested, that the tribunals erected by Gabinius were very dif¬ 
ferent from the sanhedrim. It was in being, however, as we 
have already mentioned, in and after the time of our Saviour; 
but the Jews themselves inform us, that it had not then the 
power of life and death. John xviii. 31. 
■ Before the death of our Saviour, two very famous rabbins 
had been presidents of the sanhedrim, viz.: Hillel and 
Schammai,who entertained very different opinions on several 
subjects, and particularly upon that of divorce. This gavfe 
occasion to the question which the Pharisees put to Jesus 
Christ upon that head. (Matt. xix. 3.) Before Schammai, 
Hillel had Menahem for his associate in the presidency of the 
sanhedrim. But the latter afterwards deserted that honour¬ 
able post, and joined himself, with a great number of his 
disciples, to the party of Herod Antipas, who promoted the 
levying of taxes for the use of the Roman emperors with all 
his might. These were probably the Herodians mentioned 
in the Gospel, Matt. xxii. 16. To Hillel succeeded Simeon 
his son, who is supposed to have been the person who took 
Jesus Christ in his.arms' (Luke ii. 28), and publicly acknow¬ 
ledged him to be the Messiah. If this be the case, the Jewish 
sanhedrim had for president a person, that was entirely dis¬ 
posed to embrace Christianity. Gamiel, the son and suc¬ 
cessor of Simeon, seems to have been also of the same dis¬ 
position and character. 
There were several inferior sanhedrims in Palestine, all 
depending on the great sanhedrim at Jerusalem. The inferior 
sanhedrim consisted each of twenty-three persons; and there 
was one in each city and town. Some say, that to have a 
right to hold a sanhedrim, it was requisite there were one 
hundred and twenty inhabitants in the place. Where the in¬ 
habitants came short of the number of one hundred and 
twenty, they only established three judges. 
In the great as well as the inferior sanhedrim were two 
scribes; the one to write down the suffrages of those who 
were for condemnation ; the other to take down the suffrages 
of those who were for absolution. 
Selden has a learned work on the subject of the Jewish 
SAN 
sanhedrim, “ de Synedriis,” printed at London, in 1635, in 
3 vols. 4to. 
SANI, in Mythology, the Hindoo regent, or the personifi¬ 
cation of the planet Saturn. He is represented in the Indian 
zodiac of a blue colour, mounted on a raven; sometimes on 
an elephant, in a yellow dress, and holding a bow and arrow. 
Sometimes he has four arms, at others only two. He is the 
fabled offspring of Surya, or the sun ; and, as in our arrange¬ 
ment, Saturday is the day of the week over which he astrolo- 
gically presides. 
Explanatory of the mythological character and attributes 
of Sani, and comprising some other points, we give the 
following extract from the Hindoo Pantheon of Major 
Moore:— 
“ Sani is described in some passages of the Puranas, as 
‘ clad in a black mantle, with a dark turban loosely wrapped 
round his head; his aspect hideous, and his brows knit with 
anger; a trident in one of his four hands, a scimitar in a 
second, and in the other two a bow and shafts.’ The ele¬ 
phant has been thought an appropriate vehicle for the slug¬ 
gish, ‘ slow-moving son of Surya,’ as referring to the immense 
scope of Saturn’s orbit, and the apparent slowness of his 
motion. And Sani being, among the astrologers of India, 
as well as with their sapient brethren in Europe, a planet of 
malignant aspects, the ill-omened raven may also be deemed 
a fit vahan, or vehicle, for such a dreadful being. But 
this is not, 1 think, a sufficient reason for the introduction 
of the raven into the mythological machinery of the Hindoo 
system, so accurate, so connected, and so complete in all 
its parts; although the investigations that it hath hitherto 
undergone have not fully developed or reached such points 
of perfection. Now let me ask the reason, why, both in 
England and in India, the raven is so rare a bird? It breeds 
every year like the crow, and is much longer lived: and 
while the latter bird abounds every where to a degree bor¬ 
dering on nuisance, a pair of ravens, for they are seldom seen 
single or in trios, are not found duplicated in any place. 
Perhaps take England or India over, two pair of ravens will 
not be found on an average extent of 500 or 1000 acres. I 
know not, for I write where I have no access to books, if 
our naturalists have sought the theory of this; or whether it 
may have first occurred to me, which it did while contem¬ 
plating the character and attributes of Sani, that the raven 
destroys its own young. If this notion be well-founded, and 
on no other can I account for the rareness of the annual¬ 
breeding long-lived raven, we shall at once see the propriety 
of symbolizing it with Saturn, orKronos, or Time, devouring 
or destroying his own offspring.” 
The following astrological allegory, connected with Sani, 
exhibits a specimen of the mythological veil, through which 
even scientific facts must be viewed in the relations of Hindoo 
writers. 
In the reign of Dasaratha, the mortal father of Rama- 
chandra, in whose person Vishnu became incarnate, it hap¬ 
pened that Sani, in his celestial journey, threatened a most 
inauspicious conjunction; and it was foretold the king, by 
the sage Vasishtha, that unless he attacked the regent of the 
planet, neither Indra, nor Brama himself, could divert the 
continuance of a distressing drought, consequent to such 
aspects, for twelve years. Dasaratha attacked, and after a 
violent conflict subdued Sani, extorting from him a promise, 
that he would not again, by a similar transit or passage (en¬ 
tering the Hyades, the Rohini of the Hindoos, from the 
Nakshatra, or lunar mansion Kritika, their Pleiades; this 
passage of Sani being called Sakatabeda, or the section of 
the wain), threaten so unhappy a conjunction: a promise 
that he would keep till about our year 1796, which the 
Hindoo astrologers had long predicted would be pecu¬ 
liarly inauspicious, as the noxious planet would then ap¬ 
proach the wain of Rohini. And in this age we cannot, 
they say, look for a hero like Dasaratha, in a miraculous 
car of pure gold, to place himself at the entrance of the wain, 
blazing like his progenitor the sun, and drawing his bow, 
armed with the tremendous arrow Sanharastra, which attracts 
all 
