[266] The Durds are the inhabitants of the mountainous country to the west of Kachmir.
[267] We find nothing upon this Rahu in the preceding pages.
[268] The practice of holding the breath, often mentioned in this work, is founded upon the belief, that to each man a certain number of respirations is allotted: the less he breathes the longer he lives.—(Shakespear’s Dictionary, p. 365.)
[269] Sheheristáni derives the name صابيا sábía from the Syriac verb sábá, “to love, to desire.” It has also been deduced from saba, “a host,” (meaning the stars); commonly it means “an apostate from another religion;” so was called Muhammed for having abandoned this very Sábéan religion, before him dominant in Arabia, to which religion, however, he granted protection in his Koran, associating it there with Judaism and Christianism. According to Maimonides (who died A. D. 1208), this religion was very ancient, and once pervaded nearly the whole world. It is said to have been founded by Seth, Adam’s son (who is also called the Egyptian Agathodémon, master of Hermes), whose son was Sábí. It was propagated by Enoch (also Hermes). The most ancient books of this creed are reported to be written in the language which Adam and his sons spoke: the Arabians still show a book of Seth. The original religion of the Sabaians consisted in the veneration of the stars and of angels, and coincided in its principal notions with the ancient system of the Persians, as described in vol. I. Pursuant to Sheheristáni, the Sabaians were worshippers of chapels and of images. The bodies of the seven planets they called chapels; these they held to be inhabited by intelligences, by which they were animated in the same manner as our bodies are by souls. They observed the rising, setting, and motion of the stars, for the division of time, and, mixing superstitious notions and rites with their observations, made seals and talismans, and used incantations and particular prayers; they not only built chapels of different figures, but also formed images of different metals appropriated to each of the planets; by the mediation of the images they had access to the chapels; by means of the chapels to the intelligences or lords; and by aid of these to the supreme God, the Lord of lords. In this manner they held the planets to be inferior deities, mediators between man and the supreme God. According to the before-mentioned Maimonides, they acknowledged no deities except the stars, among which the sun was the greatest. Abul faraj says that they firmly believed the unity of God.
Among the sects of this religion is that of the Harbanists, or Harnanites: these believe one God manifesting himself in different bodies, heavenly and terrestrial, his creatures; he committed the government of the inferior world to the first: these are the fathers, the elements the mothers, and the compound beings the children of both. After the period of 36,425 years, the universe perishes; nature is then renewed by a couple of each species of beings; thus centuries succeed each other, and there is not any other resurrection.
Sabaism must be distinguished as ancient and modern. The first, especially if so remote as it is said to be, can but have imparted, and the other owe, more than one notion, dogma, and rite to Judaism, Christianism, and Muhammedism, all which may be considered as divisions of one and the same Asiatic religion. Thus, in all the four religions, the same patriarchs and the same books, such as the Psalter, are venerated; the Sabaians have a sort of baptism, as the Christians; they believe that angels and intelligences, these movers of the universe, perform the same office which the Muhammedans ascribe to the patriarchs and prophets, they venerate with the latter the temple of Mecca; they perform, however, their principal pilgrimage to a place near Harran (the ancient Carræ) in Mesopotamia; they honor also the pyramids of Egypt, and say, that Sábí, son of Seth or Enoch, is buried in the third. They turn their face in praying towards the arctic pole.
Several Oriental authors have treated of this religion. To those mentioned in this note, I shall only add Abulfeda and Mohib eddin Abu ’l Valid Muhammed, ben Kemal eddin, al Hanefi, mostly known under the surname of Ben Shonah, who collected most particular information about this religion.—(See Pococke, Spec. Hist. Arab., p. 138 et seq., 1st edit., and Herbelot).
[270] The Muhammedans do not believe that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ did really take place, but that God transported his soul and body to heaven, whilst an unfortunate man exactly like the Messiah in appearance was, instead of him, crucified by the Jews.