When Captain Pyke landed in the island of Elephanta, near Bombay, he found in the midst of a Gentoo temple a low altar, on which was placed a large polished stone, of a cylindrical form, standing on its base, the top rounded, or convex: they called it Mahody,—that the name of the inconceivable God was placed under it aloof from profanation.
Launder, in his Voyage to India, p. 81, saw one erected in a tank of water. Herodian tells us he saw a similar stone, round at the bottom, diminishing towards the top in a conical form, at Emessa, in Phœnicia, and that the name they gave it was Heliogabalus (Vallancey).
[240] I.e. the Good-Baal-Peor.
[241] Wilford, in like manner, after a more mature acquaintance with the system, says, “I beg leave here to retract what I said in a former essay on Egypt, concerning the followers of Buddha.”
[242] Observations on Drakontia, London, 1833.
[243] The Mexican hierogram is formed by the intersecting of two great serpents, which describe the circle with their bodies, and have each a human head in its mouth.
[244] Ovid.
[245] Gen. xi. 31.
[246] See [pages 503-506] for the explication of the serpent and the rest of the allegory.
[247] The Betula, or Birch tree.