fruit, rice-fields, plants, and cattle; and as sitting on the lotus, suckling a child at her breast, and pouring from a bag the productions of the earth. This description will, I imagine, better apply to Sri, or Lakshmi, the Ceres of the Hindus. Suraswati has been compared to the unarmed Minerva, or goddess of wisdom, of the Greeks and Romans.* * I will take this opportunity of noticing, that, in the Pantheum Mythicum of Pomey (now in my possession), which formerly belonged to the late Sir William Jones, and is referred to by him in his dissertation on the gods of Greece, Italy, and India, he has, in various marginal and other notes, compared the deities of these several mythologies as follow: CHAPTER II. The Sect of Vishnu.-Vishnu.-The first, second, third, fourth, and fifth Avatars. THE SECT OF VISHNU. I HAVE, in a former page, stated, that the Hindus of the Brahminical religion are divided into six great religious sects, viz. the Vishnaivas, Saivas, Saurias, Ganapatyas, Sactis, and the Bhagavatis; and as the deities worshipped by these six sects may be given, with greater clearness as well as conciseness, under the heads of the sects to which they belong, I have adopted that plan, as far as I conveniently could, in preference to describing them according to the rank which they respectively occupy in the Hindu mythology. VISHNU Is the second-named of the Trimerti or Hindu Triad, and the preserving spirit of the supreme deity-Brahm. This god is represented of a black or blue colour, with four arms; in which he holds a club, to shew that he punishes the wicked; the chank, or wreathed shell, blown on days of rejoicing, and at a period of worship; the chukra or discus, the emblem of his universal domination; and the lotus, or water-lily, the type of his creative power. He is variously described: sometimes seated on a throne of the sacred lotus, with his favourite wife, Lakshmi, in his arms; or standing on a lotus pedestal between his two wives, Lakshmi and Satyavama (fig. 1, plate 4); at others reclining on a leaf of that flower, or on the serpent Ananta, or eternity, floating on the surface of the primeval waters (fig. 1, plate 5); or riding on Garuda (his celestial vahan or vehicle), which is represented as a youth with the wings and beak of a bird (fig. 5, plate 4). As each of the deities of the Triad is occasionally seen possessing the attributes of the others, Vishnu is found sometimes as the Creator, and at others, as the god of Destruction, as well as the Preserver. In one of the hypotheses respecting the creation of the world, he appears in his creative attribute, giving birth to Brahma, who is springing from his navel to execute his high behests, in producing the elements, and forming the system of the world (fig. 1, plate 5). In his tenth incarnation, or the kalki avatar (which is yet to come), it is fabled that he will appear at the end of the kali yug as an armed warrior, mounted on a white horse, furnished with wings and adorned with jewels; waving over his head, with one hand, the sword of destruction, and holding in the other a discus, or, as Mr. Maurice has imagined, a ring, or emblem of the perpetually revolving cycles of time. The horse is represented holding up the right fore-leg; and the Brahmans say, that when he stamps on the earth with that, the present period will close, and the dissolution of nature take place.* Mr. Holwell, in his historical events, has described the world as resting on the head of a serpent, which is supported on the back of a tortoise. Another writer has farther explained this, by informing us, that "the sins of the sages increasing, the Kalki will set down his right foot to punish their sins, and therewith press the earth so hard, that the serpent Seesha shall not be able to bear it; and the tortoise, feeling the unusual burthen, shall fall into the deep, and so rid himself of his load; and by that means, all the wicked inhabitants of the world will be destroyed." No sanguinary sacrifices are offered to Vishnu. He is considered as a household god, and is extensively worshipped. His wives are Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune and beauty (fig. 6, plate 4), and Satyavama. The heaven of Vishnu is thus described by Mr. Ward, from the Mahabharata: "This heaven, called Vaikuntha, is entirely of gold, and is eighty thousand miles in circumference. All its edifices are composed of jewels. The pillars of this heaven, and all the ornaments of the buildings, are of * Fig. 3, plate 13, is a representation of this avatar, from a compartment in the temple of Rama, which differs in some points from the description just given. |