[401] It is still practised in the East.—“For the purpose of regeneration it is directed to make an image of pure gold of the female power of nature, in the shape either of a woman or of a cow. In this statue the person to be regenerated is inclosed, and dragged out through the usual channel. As a statue of pure gold, and of proper dimensions, would be too expensive, it is sufficient to make an image of the sacred Yoni, through which the person to be regenerated is to pass” (Wilford).
[402] See pp. 3-78 and 162.
[403] Be it remembered, that it was in consequence of his ignorance of the principle of regeneration that our Saviour addressed Nicodemus in these cutting words, viz. “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?” thereby recognising the existence of the doctrine before His own manifestation to that people.
[404] “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat, because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. vii. 13, 14).
[405] “The dome [of this, what he calls a cemetery] springs at various unequal heights, from eight to nine and ten feet on different sides, forming at first a coving of eight sides. At the height of fifteen or sixteen feet, the north and south sides of this coving run to a point like a gore, and the coving continues its spring with six sides; the east side coming to a point next, it is reduced to five sides, the west next; and the dome ends and closes with four sides; not tied with a key-stone, but capped with a flag-stone of three feet ten inches, by three feet five. The construction of this dome is not formed by key-stones, whose sides are the radii of a circle, or of an ellipsis converging to a centre. It is combined with great long flat stones, each of the upper stones projecting a little beyond the end of that immediately beneath it; the part projecting, and weight supported by it, bearing so small a proportion to the weight which presses down the part supported; the greater the general weight is which is laid upon such a cove, the firmer it is compacted in all its parts” (Pownall).
[406] “The eight sides of this polygon are thus formed: the aperture which forms the entrance, and the three niches, or tabernacles, make four sides, and the four imposts the other four” (Pownall).
[407] This word I have already derived, after the example of other writers, from peutgeda, or house of idols, so misnamed by Europeans. I must state, however, that another explication is also assigned thereto, and that is, a perversion of the term bhaga-vati, or holy house. But with great respect to the gentlemen who incline to the latter opinion, I have to observe that bhaga-vati, properly signifies the sacred Yoni; and, therefore, that however applicable to a subterraneous temple, or cave, it could by no means represent an erect building.
[408] “The entrance into this temple, which is entirely hewn out of a stone resembling porphyry, is by a spacious front supported by two massy pillars and two pilasters forming three openings, under a thick and steep rock, overhung by brushwood and wild shrubs. The long ranges of columns that appear closing in perspective on every side; the flat roof of solid rock that seems to be prevented from falling only by the massy pillars, whose capitals are pressed down and flattened as if by the superincumbent weight; the darkness that obscures the interior of the temple, which is dimly lighted only by the entrances; and the gloomy appearance of the gigantic stone figures ranged along the wall, and hewn, like the whole temple, out of the living rock,—joined to the strange uncertainty that hangs over the history of this place,—carry the mind back to distant periods, and impress it with that kind of uncertain and religious awe with which the grander works of ages of darkness are generally contemplated” (Erskine).
[409] “This appellation, Caucasus, at least in its present state, is not Sanscrit; and as it is not of Grecian origin, it is probable that the Greeks received it through their intercourse with the Persians” (Wilford).
[410] Darwin.