CHAPTER I.

Concerning the Identity and Lunari-terrene Character of the great Goddesses of the Gentiles.

I Now proceed to consider the character of the great goddesses of the Gentiles, which will be found to bear a close analogical reference to that of their great gods. The female divinities, however apparently multiplied according to the genius of polytheism, ultimately resolve themselves into one, who is accounted the great universal mother both of gods and men: and this single deity is pronounced to be alike the Moon in the firmament and the all-productive Earth.

I. On the present point both the eastern and the western mythologists are remarkably explicit. The Hindoos inform us, that, although each god has his own proper consort; yet, as the gods coalesce first into three and afterwards into one, so the goddesses in like manner blend together, first becoming three who are the wives of their three chief divinities, and afterwards one who is the mystic consort of their self-triplicating great father. Sometimes the order of speaking of this personage is inverted: and then we are told, that Devi or the goddess (as their great mother is styled by way of eminence) multiplies herself into the three forms of Parvati, Lacshmi, and Saraswati, and afterwards assumes as many subordinate

BOOK V. forms or characters as there are female divinities in the mythology of Hindostan. Yet each of these is severally, we are assured, both the Moon and the Earth and each, accordingly, is represented by the common symbols of the cow and the lotos. Such is always the case with the mysterious female, who still remains one, however she may be multiplied. Whether she be Devi, or Iva, or the White Goddess, or Ila, or Anna-Purna, or Sita, or Isi; she is equally Maya or the great mother: and this great mother is pronounced to be at once the Earth and the Moon'.

II. As Isi, she is manifestly, according to the just remark of Sir William Jones, the Isis of the Egyptians. Nor is she proved to be the same by the mere identity of names: the whole of her character minutely agrees with that of Isis; and the Brahmens themselves acknowledge, that the mythology of Egypt is but a transcript of their own. But Isis, like Isi, is declared to be equally the Moon and the Earth: and she is at the same time unanimously determined by the ancient theologists to be one with Ceres, Proserpine, Minerva, Venus, Diana, Juno, Rhea, Cybelè, Jana, Atargatis, Semiramis, Vesta, Pandora, Io, Bellona, Hecatè, Rhamnusia, Latona, the Phenician Astartè, the Lydian and Armenian Anaïs, and the Babylonian Mylitta. These again are said to be mutually the same with each other: and, if we descend to particulars, we still find them indifferently identified with the Earth and the Moon 4.

'Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 21, 22, 33, 119, 136, 70, 81, 116, 125, 119, 138, 30, 157, 158, 101, 405, 136, 111, 134, 447. Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 263, 253. vol. iii. p. 147. vol. vii. p. 263. vol. xi. p. 28, 108, 110. et alibi.

c. 59. lib. i. c. 131. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 10, 11, 13, 21. Heliod.

Plut. de Isid. p. 354, 361. Apul. Varr. de re rust. lib. i. c. 37. Au

♦ Herod. Hist. lib. ii. Æthiop. lib. ix. p. 424. Lactant. Instit. lib. i. c. 21. Metam. lib. ii. Serv. in Virg. Georg. lib. i. ver. 5. gust. de civ. Dei. lib. iv. c. 11. lib., vii. c. 2. Macrob. Saturn. lib. i. c. 10, 15, 21, 17, 12. Simp. in Arist. Ausc. Phys. lib. iv. Plut. in vit. Crassi. p. 553. Chron. Pasch. p. 36. Tzetz. Schol. in Lycoph. ver. 707. Paus. Lacon. p. 192. Strab, Geog. lib. xi. p. 512, 532. lib. xii. p. 559. Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. i. p. 322. Stat. Sylv. lib. iii. Luc. de dea Syra. Luc. Dial. Deor. p. 123. Apul. Metam. lib. xi. Phurnut. de nat. deor. c. 28, 6. Orph. Fragm. p. 395.

Isis was equally worshipped among the Gothic tribes under the appel- CHAP. I lation of Frea and they sometimes bestowed upon her the title of mother Herth, as Tacitus writes the word; a title, which is plainly no other than our English Earth.

The same great goddess was likewise venerated by the old Britons under the names of Ceridwen, Ked, Sidee, Devi, Andrastè, and Esaye or Isi. This deity, as both her general character and her title Ceridwen may serve to testify, and as Artemidorus positively asserts, is the Ceres of the classical writers. She is also, as her other names no less than her character sufficiently intimate, the Sita or Devi or Isi of Hindostan. We are told, that she was astronomically the Moon: and, since she is celebrated as a botanist, and as the goddess of corn, and since her mystic circle is declared to be the circle of the World, we may reasonably infer, that she was also worshipped as the Earth, agreeably to the general analogy of Paganism.

III. Such being the universal intercommunion between the Moon and the Earth, the great mother being alike deemed a personification of each, both those planets bore the common name of Olympias or Olympia: by which was meant the World; for mount Olympus, as we have already seen, was no other than the Indian mount Ilapu or Meru, which is fabled to be crowned with the mundane circle of Ila or Ida'. Accordingly the Moon was deemed a sort of celestial Earth, bearing a close affinity to this our nether World.

'Mallet's North. Ant. vol. i. p. 92. Tacit. de mor. Germ. c. 40.

⚫ Artem. apud Strab. Geog. lib. iv. p. 198. Davies's Mythol. of Brit. Druid. p. 185, 289, 213, 8, 270, 285.

3 Euseb. Chron. p. 45. Plut. in vit. Thes.

✦ Macrob. in somn. Scip. lib. i. c. 11, 19. Schol. in Stat. Thebaid. lib. i. Asiat. Res vol. xi.. p. 35.

CHAPTER II.

Respecting certain remarkable Opinions which the Gentiles entertained of the Moon and the Earth.

MUCH light will be thrown upon the origin and nature of the worship paid to the great mother, if we examine certain remarkable opinions which the Gentiles entertained respecting the Moon and the Earth of which this mysterious goddess was an acknowledged personification. The opinions in question are perfectly analogous to those, which prevailed respecting the Sun'. I have already had occasion to give a partial statement of them: I may now proceed to a more full and general discussion of the subject'.

I. As the ancient Egyptians represented the Sun under the figure of a man sailing in a ship, so they similarly depicted the Moon as a woman floating on the surface of the ocean in a raft or barge'. The same idea may be traced in the mythology of Hindostan. Saraswati is described, as bearing on her front the lunar crescent, and as seated in the calix of the aquatic lotos. Now the lotos is declared to be the type of the ship

1 Vide supra

book iv. c. 2.

Plut. de Isid. p. 364. Porph. de ant. nymph. p. 256.

* Vide supra book ii. c. 4.

4 Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 535.