Irish Druids and old Irish religions / by James Bonwick.

  • James Bonwick
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Irish Druids and old Irish religions / by James Bonwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not; it is purely Pythagorean, and must have for many centuries preceded Druidism in this strange land of ours.” The revival of Reincarnation, by Madame Blavatsky, and the Theosophists under the eloquent Mrs. Besant, shows the persistency of the idea that so entranced the semi- civilized Irish long ago, and seemed so satisfactory a way to account for the existence of man after death. Transmigration being found in Ireland, has led some to assert their conviction that Buddhist missionaries conveyed it thither. The Soc. des Antiquaires de France had an article, from the pen of Coquebert-Montbret, advancing this opinion, relying upon the known ardour and extensive proselytism of early Buddhist missionaries. He knows the Irish deity Budd or Budwas, and asks if that be not Buddha. In the Hebrides, spirits are called Boduchs, and the same word is applied to all heads of families, as the Master. The Druids were, says one, only an order of Eastern priests, located in Britain, adoring Buddwas. The St. Germain Museum has, in its Gaulish department, an altar, on which is represented a god with the legs cro.ssed after the manner of the Indian Buddha. That lelic is the fourth of the kind found in France. Anderson Smith, in his Lewisiana, writes reluctantly—“ we must accept the possibility of a Buddhist race passing north from Ireland.” This means, that Ireland is to be regarded as the source of so many Buddhist significations which are discovered on the west of Scotland, and in the Hebrides. It has been generally accepted that Druidism was Celtic in origin and practice, because Caesar found it in Gaul and Britain. But he records three races in Gaul itself—the Celtic, the German, and the Aquitani. The Britons were, to him, Belgae, or of German connection. He knew nothing of Ireland or Wales, in which two countries he would have seen the fellows of his Aquitani, a darker
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