* See Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes, vol. 1.
The second, bearing a kite with a scarlet body and a white head, is that of Vichenou, who, though preserver of the world, has passed part of his life in wicked actions. You sometimes see him under the hideous form of a boar or a lion, tearing human entrails, or under that of a horse,* shortly to come armed with a sword to destroy the human race, blot out the stars, annihilate the planets, shake the earth, and force the great serpent to vomit a fire which shall consume the spheres.
* These are the incarnations of Vichenou, or metamorphoses
of the sun. He is to come at the end of the world, that is,
at the expiration of the great period, in the form of a
horse, like the four horses of the Apocalypse.
The third is that of Chiven, God of destruction and desolation, who has, however, for his emblem the symbol of generation. He is the most wicked of the three, and he has the most followers. These men, proud of his character, express in their devotions to him their contempt for the other gods,* his equals and brothers; and, in imitation of his inconsistencies, while they profess great modesty and chastity, they publicly crown with flowers, and sprinkle with milk and honey, the obscene image of the Lingam.
* When a sectary of Chiven hears the name of Vichenou
pronounced, he stops his ears, runs, and purifies himself.
In the rear of these, approach the smaller standards of a multitude of gods—male, female, and hermaphrodite. These are friends and relations of the principal gods, who have passed their lives in wars among themselves, and their followers imitate them. These gods have need of nothing, and they are constantly receiving presents; they are omnipotent and omnipresent, and a priest, by muttering a few words, shuts them up in an idol or a pitcher, to sell their favors for his own benefit.
Beyond these, that cloud of standards, which, on a yellow ground, common to them all, bear various emblems, are those of the same god, who reins under different names in the nations of the East. The Chinese adores him in Fot,* the Japanese in Budso, the Ceylonese in Bedhou, the people of Laos in Chekia, of Pegu in Phta, of Siam in Sommona-Kodom, of Thibet in Budd and in La. Agreeing in some points of his history, they all celebrate his life of penitence, his mortifications, his fastings, his functions of mediator and expiator, the enmity between him and another god, his adversary, their battles, and his ascendency. But as they disagree on the means of pleasing him, they dispute about rites and ceremonies, and about the dogmas of interior doctrine and of public doctrine. That Japanese Bonze, with a yellow robe and naked head, preaches the eternity of souls, and their successive transmigrations into various bodies; near him, the Sintoist denies that souls can exist separate from the senses,** and maintains that they are only the effect of the organs to which they belong, and with which they must perish, as the sound of the flute perishes with the flute. Near him, the Siamese, with his eyebrows shaved, and a talipat screen*** in his hand, recommends alms, offerings, and expiations, at the same time that he preaches blind necessity and inexorable fate. The Chinese vo-chung sacrifices to the souls of his ancestors; and next him, the follower of Confucius interrogates his destiny in the cast of dice and the movement of the stars.**** That child, surrounded by a swarm of priests in yellow robes and hats, is the Grand Lama, in whom the god of Thibet has just become incarnate.*5 But a rival has arisen who partakes this benefit with him; and the Kalmouc on the banks of the Baikal, has a God similar to the inhabitant of Lasa. And they agree, also, in one important point—that god can inhabit only a human body. They both laugh at the stupidity of the Indian who pays homage to cow-dung, though they themselves consecrate the excrements of their high-priest.*6
* The original name of this god is Baits, which in Hebrew
signifies an egg. The Arabs pronounce it Baidh, giving to
the dh an emphatic sound which makes it approach to dz.
Kempfer, an acurate traveler, writes it Budso, which must be
pronounced Boudso, whence is derived the name of Budsoist
and of Bonze, applied to the priests. Clement of
Alexandria, in his Stromata, writes it Bedou, as it is
pronounced also by the Chingulais; and Saint Jerome, Boudda
and Boutta. At Thibet they call it Budd; and hence the name
of the country called Boud-tan and Ti-budd: it was in this
province that this system of religion was first inculcated
in Upper Asia; La is a corruption of Allah, the name of God
in the Syriac language, from which many of the eastern
dialects appear to be derived. The Chinese having neither b
nor d, have supplied their place by f and t, and have
therefore said Fout.
** See in Kempfer the doctrine of the Sintoists, which is a
mixture of that of Epicurus and of the Stoics.
*** It is a leaf of the Latanier species of the palm-tree.
Hence the bonzes of Siam take the appellation of Talapoin.
The use of this screen is an exclusive privilege.
**** The sectaries of Confucius are no less addicted to
astrology than the bonzes. It is indeed the malady of every
eastern nation.
*5 The Delai-La-Ma, or immense high priest of La, is the
same person whom we find mentioned in our old books of
travels, by the name of Prester John, from a corruption of
the Persian word Djehan, which signifies the world, to which
has been prefixed the French word prestre or pretre, priest.
Thus the priest world, and the god world are in the Persian
idiom the same.
*6 In a recent expedition the English have found certain
idols of the Lamas filled in the inside with sacred pastils
from the close stool of the high priest. Mr. Hastings, and
Colonel Pollier, who is now at Lausanne, are living
witnesses of this fact, and undoubtedly worthy of credit.
It will be very extraordinary to observe, that this
disgusting ceremony is connected with a profound
philosophical system, to wit, that of the metempsychosis,
admitted by the Lamas. When the Tartars swallow, the sacred
relics, which they are accustomed to do, they imitate the
laws of the universe, the parts of which are incessantly
absorbed and pass into the substance of each other. It is
upon the model of the serpent who devours his tail, and this
serpent is Budd and the world.
After these, a crowd of other banners, which no man could number, came forward into sight; and the genius exclaimed:
I should never finish the detail of all the systems of faith which divide these nations. Here the hordes of Tartars adore, in the forms of beasts, birds, and insects, the good and evil Genii; who, under a principal, but indolent god, govern the universe. In their idolatry they call to mind the ancient paganism of the West. You observe the fantastical dress of the Chamans; who, under a robe of leather, hung round with bells and rattles, idols of iron, claws of birds, skins of snakes and heads of owls, invoke, with frantic cries and factitious convulsions, the dead to deceive the living. There, the black tribes of Africa exhibit the same opinions in the worship of their fetiches. See the inhabitant of Juida worship god in a great snake, which, unluckily, the swine delight to eat.* The Teleutean attires his god in a coat of several colors, like a Russian soldier.** The Kamchadale, observing that everything goes wrong in his frozen country, considers god as an old ill-natured man, smoking his pipe and hunting foxes and martins in his sledge.***