A comparative view of antient monuments of India, particularly those in the island of Salset near Bombay / as described by different writers. [Anon].

  • Richard Gough
Date:
1785
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A comparative view of antient monuments of India, particularly those in the island of Salset near Bombay / as described by different writers. [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/132 page 9
    [ iO ' and Libera [k]: as the cow as well as the bull was an ohje&: of Indian worihip [/]. It was the favourite vehicle of the me- tampfycholis [/»]. The Greeks, who did not adopt this doc- trine, ftill gave to Bacchus by different names power over the foul after its reparation from the body, and introduced his fym- bols and orgies on their tombs: fometimes too with appen- dages too obfcene to be here enlarged on, adopting the worfhip of the Indian nations in this inftance alfo [«]. The great refemblance obferved between the figure and at- tributes of Bacchus, who was very antiently worfhiped in India, and the figures and attributes in the famous pagoda of Elephants neai Bombay, fhews plainly that we muft fearch into the mod antient monuments of the religion of thefe people, and that we ihall there find the form of the figures by which they repre- fented the ideas of their antient Theology. We there fee an obfcene figure with fix arms (plate IX.) adorned with a firing of death’s heads, Intimating the connexion between the God of / life and the God of death. The bafon in one of his hands h given to the Bacchus of the Greeks, and Megafthenes in Strabo (xv. 713.) makes the bell a part of his proceffion. It is alfo in- troduced in the worfhip of Priapus in the paintings of Hercules. Bacchus has alfo the epithet of mitre-bearer; The veil which this monftrous figure holds in two of his hands is that of the might, when the fun or Bacchus conceals himfelf. The ferpent in another hand is the emblem of life, while the fword and child reprefent death [0]. Thofe whofe curiofity leads them to purfue the comparifon farther may be amply gratified in the following pages of this writer, who has fupported a lively imagination by a great fund [/] lb. 79. P] ife. 34.850 [£J D’Ancarville, lb. 75..76. [m] lb. 80. ,[«] lb. 82. 84. b of
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3