matical accents, without which all human tongues would appear monofyllabick: thus Amita, with an accent on the first fyllable, means, in the Sanfcrit language, immeafu rable; and the natives of Bengal pronounce it Omito; but, when the religion of Buddha, the fon of Miya, was carried hence into China, the people of that country, unable to pronounce the name of their new God, call him Foe, the fon of Mo-ye, and divided his epithet Amita into three fyllables O-mi-to, annexing to them certain ideas of their own, and expreffing them in writing by three diftinct fymbols. We may judge from this inftance, whether a comparison of their fpoken tongue with the dialects of other nations can lead to any certain con clufion as to their origin; yet the inftance, which I have given, fupplies me with an argument from analogy, which I produce as conjectural only, but which appears more and more plausible, the oftener I confider it. The Buddha of the Hindus is unquestionably the Foe of China; but the great progenitor of the Chinese is alfo named by them Fo. hi, where the fecond monofyllable fignifies, it feems, a victim: now the ancestor of that military tribe, whom the Hindus call the Chandravanfa, or children of the Moon, was, according to their Puránas or legends, Buddha, or the genius of the planet Mercury, from whom, in the fifth degree, defcended a prince named Druhya; whom his father Yay ti fent in exile to the east of Hindustán, with this imprecation, may the progeny be ignorant of "the Veda." The name of the banished prince could not be pronounced by the modern Chinese; and, though I dare not conjecture, that the last fyllable of it has been changed into Yao, I may neverthe. 86 lefs obferve that Yao was the fifth in defcent from Fo-hi, or at least the fifth mortal in the first imperial dynafty; that all Chinese hintory before him is confidered by the Chinese themselves as poetical or fabulous; that his father Ti-co, like the Indian king Yayáti, was the firft prince who married several women; and that Fo-hi, the head of their race, appeared, fay the Chinese, in a province of the weft, and held his court in the territory of Chin, where the rovers, mentioned by the Indian legiflator, are fuppofed to have fettled. Another circumstance in the parallel is very remarkable : according to father De Premare, in his tract on Chinese mythology, the mother of Fo-hi was the Daughter of Heaven, furnamed Flower-loving; and as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river with a fimilar name, fhe found herfelf on a fudden encircled by a rain-bowi foon after which he became pregnant, and at the end of twelve years was delivered of a fon radiant as herfelf, who among other titles, had that of Súi, or Star of the Year. Now in the mythological fyftem of the Hindus, the nymph Rohini, who prefides over the fourth lunar manfion, was the favourite mistress of Sóma, or the moon, among whose numerous epithets we find Cumudanayaca, or delighting in a species of water-flower, that bloffoms at night; and their offspring was Budha, regent of a planet, and called alfo, from the names of his parents, Rauhinéya or Saumya: it is true, that the learned miffionary explains the word Súi by Jupiter; but an exact refemblance between two such fables could not have been expected; and it is fufficient for my purpofe," that they seem to have a family likenefs. The God Budha, fay the Indians, married Ilá, whofe father was lated by Couplet: they profeffed a firm belief in the fupreme God, and gave a demonftration of his being and of his providence from the ex quifite beauty and perfection of the celeftial bodies, and the wonderfal order of nature in the whole fabrick of the visible world. From this be lief they deduced a fyftem of ethicks, which the philofopher fums up in a few words at the clofe of the Làn yù: "he," fays Confucius, who ftall be fully perfuaded, that the "lord of heaven governs the uni verfe, who fall in all things chile moderation, who fhall perfectly "know his own fpecies, and fo act among them, that his life and man"ners may conform to his know"ledge of God and man, may be truly faid to discharge all the du "ties of a fage, and to be far ex"alted above the common herd of "the human race." But fuch a re preferved in a miraculous ark from an univerfal deluge: now, although I cannot infift with confidence, that the rain-bow in the Chinese fable alludes to the Mofaick narrative of the flood, nor build any folid argus ment on the divine perfonage Niu va, of whofe character, and even of whofe fex, the hiftorians of China Ipeak very doubtfully, I may, nevertheless, affure you, after full in quiry and confideration, that the Chinese, like the Hindus, believe this earth to have been wholly co vered with water, which, in works of undifputed authenticity, they defcribe as flowing abundantly, then fubfiding and separating the higher from the lower age of mankind; that the divifion of time, from which their poetical hiftory begins, Juft preceded the appearance Fo-Hi on the mountains of Chin, but that the great inundation in the reign of Yao was either confined to the low-ligion and fuch morality could never lands of his kingdom, if the whole have been general; and we find, account of it be not a fable, or, if it that the people of China had an artcontain any allufion to the flood of cient fyftem of ceremonies and fuperNoah, has been ignorantly mifplaced ftitions, which the government and by the Chinese annalifts. the philofophers appear to have en"The importation of a new re-couraged, and which has an appaligion into China, in the first century of our era, muft lead us to fuppofe, that the former fyftem, whatever it was, had been found inadequate to the purpose of reftraining the great body of the people from thofe of fences against confcience and virtue, which the civil power could not reach; and it is hardly poffible that, without such restrictions, any government could long have fubfifted with felicity for no government can long fubfift without equal juftice, and justice cannot be adminiftred without the fanctions of religion. Of the religious opinions, entertained by Confucius and his followers, we may glean a general notion from the fragments of their works tranf rent affinity with fome parts of the oldest Indian worship: they believed in the agency of genii or tutelary fpirits, prefiding over the ftars and the clouds, over lakes and rivers, mountains, valleys, and woods, over certain regions and towns, over all the elements (of which, like the Hindus, they reckoned five) and particularly over fire, the most bril, liant of them: to those deities they offered victims on high places; and the following paffage from the Shicin, or Book of Odes, is very much in the ftyle of the Brahmans: " even they, who perform a facri"fice with due reverence, cannot "perfectly affure themfelves, that "the divine fpirits accept their obłaK 2 tions; tions; and far lefs can they, who adore the Gods with languor and ofcitancy, clearly perc ive their facred illapfes." Thefe are imperfect traces indeed, but they are traces, of an affinity between the religion of Menu and that of the Chinas, whom he names an.ong the apoftates from it: M. le Gentil obferv. ed, he fays, a strong refemblance between the funeral rites of the Chinefe and the Sraddha of the Hindus; and M. Bailly, after a learned investigation, concludes, that " even the puerile and abfurd ftories of "the Chinese fabulifts contain a rem"nant of ancient Indian hiftory, with a faint fketch of the firft Hindu ages." As the Bauddhas, indeed, were Hindus, it may naturally be imagined, that they carried into China many ceremonies practifed in their own country; but the Bauddhas positively forbad the immolation of cattle yet we know, that various animals, even bulls and men, were anciently facrificed by the Chinefe; befides which we difcover many fingular marks of relation be tween them and the old Hindus: as in the remarkable period of four hundred and thirty-two thoufand, and the cycle of fixty, years; in the predilection for the myftical number nine: in many fimilar fatts and great feftivals, efpecially at the folftices and equinoxes; in the just mentioned obfequies confifting of rice and fruits offered to the manes of their anc ftors; in the dread of dying childlefs, left fuch offerings fhould be intermitted; and, perhaps, in their common abhorrence of red objects, which the Indians carried fo far, that Menu himfelf, where he allows a Brahmen to trade, if he cannot otherwife fupport life, abfolutely forbids "his trafficking in "any fort of red cloths, whether "linen or woollen, or made of wo“ven bark.” All the circumftances, which have been mentioned under the two heads of literature and religion, feem collectively to prove (as far as fuch a queftion admits proof) that the Chinese and Hindus were originally the fame people, but having been feparated near four thoufand years, have retained few ftrong features of their ancient confanguinity, efpecially as the Hindus have preferved their old language and ritual, while the Chinefe very foon loft both, and the Hindus have conftantly intermarried among themfelves, while the Chinese, by a mixture of Tartarian blood from the time of their first establishment, have at length formed a race diftinct in appearance both from Indians and Tartars." On the LABYRINTH of CRETE, and its USE. [From the Sixth Volume of the Travels of Anacharfis the Younger in Greece.] "I Have said but a word on the famous labyrinth of Crete; tut the little I have faid it is incumbent on me to juftify. Herodotus has left us a de fcription of that which he had seen in Egypt, near the lake Mæris. It confifted of twelve large contiguous palaces, containing three thoufand chambres, fifteen hundred of which were were underground. Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, and Mela fpak of this monument with the fame admiration as Herodotus: but, not one of them tells us that it was constructed to bewilder thofe who attempted to go over it; though it is manifeft that, without a guide, they would be in danger of lofing their way. "It was this danger, no doubt, which introduced a new term into the Greek language. The word labyrinth, taken in the literal fenfe, fignifies a circumfcribed space, interfected by a number of pallages, fome of which crofs each other in every direction, like thofe in quarries and mines, and others make larger or fmaller circuits round the place from which they depart, like the fpiral lines we fee on certain fhells. In the figurative fenfe, it was applied to obfcure and captious queftions, to indirect and ambiguous anfwers, and to thofe difcuffions which, after long digreffions, bring us back to the point from which we Let out. "Of what nature was the labyrinth of Crete? "Diodorous Siculus relates as a conjecture, and Pliny as a certain fact, that Daedalus conftructed this labyrinth on the model of that of Egypt, though on a lefs fcale. They add, that it was formed by the command of Minos, who kept the Minotaur fhut up in it; and that in their time it no longer exifted, having been either deftroyed by time or purpofely demolished. Diodorus Siculus and Pliny, therefore, confidered this labyrinth as a large edifice; while other writers reprefent it fimply as a cavern hollowed in the rock, and full of winding paffages. The two former authors, and the writers last mentioned, have tranfinitted to us two different traditions; it remains for us to choose that which is moft probable. "If the labyrinth of Crete had been conftructed by Dædalus under Minos, whence is it that we find no mention of it, neither in Homer, who more than once fpeaks of that prince and of Crete; nor in Hero dotus, who defcribes that of Egypt, after having faid that the monuments of the Egyptians are much fuperior to thofe of the Greeks; nor in the more ancient geographers; nor in any of the writers of the ages when Greece flourished ? "This work was attributed to Dædalus, whofe name is alone fuf ficient to defcredit a tradition. In fact, his name, like that of Hercules, had become the refource of ignorance, whenever it turned its eyes on the early ages. All great labours, all works, which required more ftrength than ingenuity, were attributed to Hercules; and all thofe which had a relation to the arts, and required a certain degree of intelligence in the execution, were afcribed to Dædalus. "The opinion of Diodorus and Pliny fuppofes that, in their time, no traces of the labyrinth exifted in Crete, and that even the date of its deftruction had been forgotten. Yet it is faid to have been vifited by the difciples of Apollonius of Tyana, who was contemporary with those two authors. The Cretans, therefore, then believed they poffeffed the labyrinth. I would request the reader to attend to the following paffage in Strabo. "At Nauplia, near the ancient Argos," fays that judicious writer, "are ftill to be feen vaft caverns, in which are conftructed labyrinths that are believed to be the work of the Cyclops: the meaning of which is, that the labours of men had opened in the rock paffes which K 3 crofled croffed and returned upon them felves, as is done in quarries. Such, if I am not mistaken, is the idea we ought to form of the labyrinth of Crete, Were there feveral labyrinths in that ifland? Ancient authors fpeak only of one, which the greater part place at Cnoffus; and fome, though the number is but small, at Gortyna. Belon and Tournefort have given us the defcription of a cavern fituated at the foot of Mount Ida, on the fouth side of the mountain, at a fmall distance from Gortyna. This was only a quarry, according to the former, and the ancient labyrinth according to the latter; whofe opinion I have followed, and abridged the account he has given in my text. Those who have added critical notes to his work, befides this labyrinth, admit a fecond at Cnoffus, and adduce, as the principal fupport of this opinion, the coins of that city, which reprefent the plan of it, according as the artifts conceived it. For on fome of these it appears of a square form; on others round: on fome it is only sketched out; on others it has, in the middle of it, the head of the Minotaur. In the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres, I have given an engraving of one which appears to me to be of about the fifth century before Chrift; and on which we fee, on one fide, the figure of the Minotaur, and on the other a rude plan of the labyrinth. It is therefore certain that, at that ime, the Croffians believed they were in poffeffion of that celebrated cavern; and it alfo appears that the Gortynians did not pretend to con teft their claim, fince they have never given the figure of it on their money, "The place where I fuppofe the labyrinth of Crete to have been fituated, according to Tournefort, is but one league diftant from Gortyna; and, according to Strabo, it was diftant from Cnoffus fix or feven leagues. All we can conclude from this is, that the territory of the latter city extended to very near the former. "What was the use of the caverns to which the name of labyrinth was given? I imagine that they were firft excavated in part by nature; that in fome places ftones were extracted from them for building'cities; and that, in more ancient times, they ferved for a habitation or afy lum to the inhabitants of a district expofed to frequent incurfions. In the journey of Anacharfis through Phocis, I have spoken of two great caverns of Parnaffus in which the neighbouring people took refuge; in the one at the time of the deluge of Deucalion, and in the other at the invafion of Xerxes. I here add that, according to Diodorus Siculus, the most ancient Cretans dwelt in the caves of Mount Ida. The people, when enquiries were made on the fpot, faid that their labyrinth was originally only a prifon. It may have been put to this ufe; but it is difficult to believe that, to prevent the efcape of a few unhappy wretches, fuch immenfe labours would have been undertaken." |