[391] Asiatic Researches.
[392] The name of Sulivan in Ireland, than which there is no one more common, is unquestionably but the perpetuation of the above Sulivahana. And I can give a proof of the fact, independently of its derivation, which will scare ridicule into defiance. It is that a particular branch of that family called the O’Sulivans, of Tomies, have been ever looked upon with a feeling of reverence by the natives, almost approaching to veneration. I have in vain striven to ascertain from them the origin of this indefinable sense of sanctity. It was like magic upon their minds: they half-worshipped them, and knew not why. There were but two individuals of this stock remaining when I was a schoolboy, a few years ago, at Killarney.
[393] “That is,” says Keating, “the neighbouring country”!!! as if a country would call itself by such a name! Vallancey ridicules, but bungles himself still more. And while reminded by this circumstance, I had best note, that what this last-mentioned writer elsewhere translates as “the topographical names of Ireland” (Ainim abberteach an n’ Eirean), should have been “the appellative names of Ireland”: they are the titles of the island itself, not descriptions of the several localities within it.
[394] Gen. xlix. 10.
[395] Asiatic Researches.
[396] Asiatic Researches.
[397] Isa. xlii. 2, 3.
[398] Retiring into a still more solitary place, Gautama and his disciples sustained triumphantly an argument with two of their bitterest enemies. But a severer trial exhibited his righteousness in a yet clearer light. Four young and beautiful sisters, burning with unholy love, presented themselves naked before him, and besought him to comply with their desires. “Who, O Gautame!” said they, in the rage of their disappointment, “who is the lying witness who dares attest that the virtues of all the former saints are concentrated in thee?” “Behold my witness,” said the sage, striking the ground with his hand, and at the moment Okintôngu, the tutelar genius of the earth, appeared, proclaiming, with a loud voice, “It is I who am the witness of the truth!” The young women then fell upon their faces and adored Gautama, saying, “O pure and perfect countenance, wisdom more precious than gold! majesty impenetrable! honour and adoration to thee, thou source of the faith of the three epochs of the world!” (Abridged from Klaproth).
[399] Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, October 12, 1833.
[400] This is the exact rendering of the name by which they called it: viz. nua vreith, or the being born anew by the operation of grace.