the Prabat of the Siamese, and the Paduka of the Hindoos. Their names in Burman is Kye do Bura, the royal foot. In this instance, it would almost seem as if the vessel had been confounded with the person whom it contained, and that Bura was the name of both. For so in Ceylon the same sort of temples are indifferently denominated Bouddestaneh, and Siddeestaneh2; they are alike the monuments of Bouddh, and of Siddee; for in Hindostan Sidha expresses those who after death have become gods. In Irish too, Sidh signifies a good genius, and in the collection of Tirechan, Sidi is the word used by the king's daughters for the gods of the earth, in their address to Patrick and his companions. 3 5 These Celts long retained the Boudhist peculiarity of regarding with veneration the mark of a foot. "When they elected their captain," we are told, they placed him upon a stone commonly upon a hill, and on some such stones was engraved the measure of their first captain's foot." The coincidence of meaning between the Irish Sidh and the 1 Paduka, says Francklyn, is the holy feet of Jeyne, or Boodh, p. 80. where it may be observed, that Boodh is the same as Jeyne and Janus. 2 Captain Mahony, in As. Res. vii. 39. Sidhi, together with Buddhi, was the wife of Ganesa, the son and champion of Parvati, the mountainborn. 3 Buchanan's Journey in the Mysore. They were eight in number. 4 Vallancey on Ancient Irish; and Sad, in Celtic, is a forefather. 5 Betham's Antiq. Res. in Miss Beaufort's Essay on Ireland. 6 King's Munimenta antiqua, i. 148. Indian Sidha is the more curious, because Sida being a name of the pomegranate in the Boeotian language, which doubtless passed from Asia with the Phenicians into Greece, it is expressed both in Irish and in Hebrew by the same word, and that too a word of mythic stamp, Rimmon.' It was the name of a Syrian idol; and when Naaman had been cured of his leprosy by the God of Israel, and vowed never to sacrifice to another, and yet feared to forfeit his master's favour, he entreated indulgence for his dissimulation in bowing down in the house of Rimmon.2 And since the Benjamites retreated to the rock of Rimmon, as an asylum, we may conclude, that there was the Ararat over which he was thought to preside. It is probable, therefore, that something more than the grace or beauty of the fruit, for which indeed it is not remarkable, recommended the pomegranate to the attention of Solomon, when he adorned with them the tops of his brazen pillars before the porch of the temple; especially when it is considered, that these pillars themselves, with their mysterious names, had nothing else to bear, and were of no use, and that one of the other vessels framed by him was called a molten sea, and notwithstanding its vast capacity was elevated on the backs of twelve oxen; a sufficient proof, that something more than mere utility was kept in view, 1 Vallancey on Ancient Irish. 3 Judges, xx. 47. 2 2 Kings, v. 18. 4 1 Kings, vii. 18. 23. 25. 5 Jachin he shall establish, and Boaz in it is strength. since, for any ordinary purposes, the height of the sides was already too inconvenient; for the depth was five cubits. He had married an Egyptian princess, and on the borders of that country an idol stood, to which the name of Jupiter Cassius was given, holding in his hand a pomegranate, in which, according to the observation of Tatius, a mystery was couched.' But the mystery may be guessed by attending to the site of the temple: it was built on "Mount Casius old," near the Serbonian lake, where the remains of Typhon, the persecutor of Osiris (Arabice, Al Tufan, the deluge), were said to be buried. Apollonius' account is, that there is a Typhonian rock in Caucasus, where Tuphaon was struck by the thunderbolt of Jupiter, and plunged into the waters of the lake. At first there seems to be no obvious connection between this Serbonian lake and Caucasus; no good reason, why, if the lightening scathed the giant in Cappadocia3, he should walk so far as Egypt to cool his burning head. The connection however is neither historical, nor geographical, but mythological. Cau-casus is in fact the same in meaning as Mons Casius, the Patriarch's Mount. For Casis in Hebrew is an old man: both are on the con 1 Προβέβληται δὲ τὴν χεῖρα, καὶ ἔχει ροίαν ἐπ' αὐτῇ; τῆς δε ροιᾶς ὁ λόγος μυστικός. - Achilles Tatius, 1. iii. 2 Apollonii Argon. 1. ii. 1213. 3 Θερμὸν ἀπὸ κρατὸς στάξαι φόνον. He came to the πεδίον Νυσήϊον. But Nyssa was in Cappadocia, and has evidently the same origin as Dio-Nusos, or Deo Naush in Hindostan. 4 .Senex כשש fines of lakes, remnants and types of the deluge, and in both the mystic pomegranate has retained its place. For the Caphtorim, or Cappadocians', were so denominated from the Hebrew Caphtor, a Pomegranate; and they had a city named Side 2, and a people called Sidenes. They were in the immediate neighbourhood of the Colchi, a people so nearly resembling the Egyptians in their language and manners, that they have been considered an Egyptian colony. But it is more likely that the family of Mizraim, the son of Ham, descending from Caucasus through Colchis and Cappadocia into Egypt, retained their other characteristics longest, where they retained their original sacred mysteries. Colchis, it will be remembered, was the scene of the labours imposed upon the Argo's crew, and Sybaris was their metropolis, which Bochart derives from Baris." That there was nothing idolatrous or offensive to God in the mystery of the pomegranate, is plainly to be inferred, not only from its introduction into the adornments of the temple by Solomon, but still more from its having been selected for one of the ornaments of 1 Mons Taurus, on the borders of Cappadocia, was sometimes called Caucasus by the ancients, the reason of which will be readily understood from what has been said on this subject; and therefore Salmasius is right in his observation, that there was also an Indian Caucasus, sufficient traces of which are still retained in Chaisa Ghur. Aristotle mentions a lake under Caucasus which the natives call the sea.-Meteor, 1. i. c. 13. 2 Strabo, 1. xii. 548. Plinius, vi. c. 4. 3 Ἡ ζώη πᾶσα καὶ ἡ γλῶσσα ἐμφερής ἐστὶ ἀλλήλοισι. — Herod. 1. ii. 4 Diodor. Sic. 1. iv. 251. 5 Nomen videtur compositum ex ignoto Ev et ẞapis. - Geog. Sac. 1. iv. c. 31. 3 the high priest's ephod by the inspired legislator of the Jews. In succeeding times, when it was converted into Sidus, or a star, then indeed it became an object of idolatry, and provoked the jealousy of the Holy One of Israel, and drew forth indignant expostulations from his prophets, and threats of severe punishment. Enough has been said to show that Side, the wife of Orion, was a mythic character coeval with the flood, and therefore as much may be concluded of her husband; but there is another circumstance in his history yet remaining, which is quite decisive, and that is the fable of his enormous stature. It is said, that when he walked through the greatest depths of the ocean, his head was still above the water. What is this, but a pointed allusion to that miraculously preserved family, who alone of all mankind could look over the unbounded expanse of ocean, in which the rest of the world found their destruction? Upon the astronomical theory, this part of the fable is quite inexplicable: for as the constellation belongs to the southern hemisphere, no part of it is always above the horizon in those latitudes to which his history belongs. On the contrary, it sets in the month of November, the month in which Osiris 1 Exod. xxviii. 33. 2 Ahijah, 1 Kings, xi. 33. Amos, v. 3 Cum pedes incedit medii per maxima Nerei He is also feigned to have obtained from his father, Neptune, the power of walking upon the surface of the sea. |
