If questioned more closely, they will tell you that the Brahmin is but reminded by the image of the inscrutable Original, whose pavilion is clouds and darkness; to him he offers the secret prayer of the heart; and if he neglects from inadvertence the external services required, it is because his mind is so fully occupied with the contemplation of uncreated excellence, that he overlooks the grosser object by which his impressions were communicated. Then with respect to their subterranean temples or Mithratic caves, of which we have so many specimens throughout this island, they affirm that the mysterious temple of the caverns is dedicated to services which soar as much above the worship of the plain and uninstructed Hindoo, as Brahma the invisible Creator is above the good and evil genii who inhabit the region of the sky. The world, whose ideas are base and grovelling as the dust upon which they tread, must be led by objects perceptible to the senses to perform the ceremonial of their worship; the chosen offspring of Brahma are destined to nobler and sublimer hopes; their views are bounded alone by the ages of eternity.
These specimens, though brief, will prove that the spirit of the religion of ancient India and Egypt was not that farrago of mental prostration which some have imagined. No, the stars, as the abode, or immediate signal of the Deity, were their primary study; and even to this day, depressed and humiliated as the Indians are, and aliens in their own country, they are not without some attention to their favourite pursuit, or something like an observatory to perpetuate its cultivation. In May, 1777, a letter from Sir Robert Baker to the President of the Royal Society of London was read before that body, which details a complete astronomical apparatus found at Benares, belonging to the Brahmins.
Such is the remnant of that once enlightened nation, the favourite retreat of civilisation and the arts, which sent forth its professors into the most distant quarters of the world, and disseminated knowledge wherever they had arrived. “With the first accounts we have of Hindostan,” says Crawford, “a mighty empire opens to our view, which in extent, riches, and the number of its inhabitants, has not yet been equalled by any one nation on the globe. We find salutary laws, and an ingenious and refined system of religion established; sciences and arts known and practised; and all of these evidently brought to perfection by the accumulated experience of many preceding ages. We see a country abounding in fair and opulent cities; magnificent temples and palaces; useful and ingenious artists employing the precious stones and metals in curious workmanship; manufacturers fabricating cloths, which in the fineness of their texture, and the beauty and duration of some of their dyes, have even yet been but barely imitated by other nations.
“The traveller was enabled to journey through this immense country with ease and safety; the public roads were shaded with trees to defend him from its scorching sun; at convenient distances buildings were erected for him to repose in, a friendly Brahmin attended to supply his wants; and hospitality and the laws held out assistance and protection to all alike, without prejudice or partiality.... We afterwards see the empire overrun by a fierce race of men, who in the beginning of their furious conquests endeavoured, with their country, to subdue the minds of the Hindoos. They massacred the people, tortured the priests, threw down many of the temples, and, what was still more afflicting, converted some of them into places of worship for their prophet, till at length, tired with the exertion of cruelties which they found to be without effect, and guided by their interest, which led them to wish for tranquillity, they were constrained to let a religion and customs subsist which they found it impossible to destroy. But during these scenes of devastation and bloodshed, the sciences, being in the sole possession of the priests, who had more pressing cares to attend to, were neglected, and are now almost forgotten.”
I have dwelt thus long upon the article of India, from my persuasion of the intimate connection that existed at one time as to religion, language, customs, and mode of life between some of its inhabitants and those of this western island. I have had an additional motive, and that was to show that the same cause which effected the mystification that overhangs our antiquities, has operated similarly with respect to theirs, and this brings me back to the subject of the Round Towers, in the history, or rather the mystery, of which, in both countries, this result is most exemplified.
As to their appropriation, then, to the sacred fire, though I do not deny that some of them may have been connected with it, yet unquestionably too much importance has been attached to the vitrified appearance of Drumboe tower as if necessarily enforcing our acquiescence in the universality of that doctrine. “At some former time,” says the surveyor, “very strong fires have been burned within this building, and the inside surface towards the bottom has the appearance of vitrification.”
I do not at all dispute the accident, but while the vitrified aspect which this tower exhibits is proof irresistible that no fire ever entered those in which no such vitrification appears, I cannot but here too express more than a surmise that it was not the “sacred fire,” which, when religiously preserved, was not allowed to break forth in those volcanoes insinuated; but in a lambent, gentle flame, emblematic of that emanation of the spirit of the Divinity infused, as light from light, into the soul of man.
“Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born!
Or of th’ Eternal co-eternal beam!
May I express thee unblamed? Since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear’st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.”[87]
But to prove that they were not appropriated to the ritual of fire-worship, nay, that their history and occupation had been altogether forgotten when that ritual now prevailed, I turn to the glossary of Cormac, first bishop of Cashel, who, after his conversion to Christianity, in the fifth century, by St. Patrick, thus declares his faith:—
“Adhram do righ na duile
Do dagh bhar din ar n’ daone
Lies gach dream, leis gach dine
Leis gach ceall, leis gach caoimhe.”