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BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
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personages, imaginary or real, with whom no possible congruity existed; thus it was attempted to show that Buddha was the same as the Toth or Hermes of the Egyptians, the Turm of the Etruscans; that he was Mercury, Zoroaster, Pythagoras; the Woden or Odin of the Scandinavians:- Manes, the author of the Manichæan heresy; and even the divine author of Christianity. These were the dreams of no ordinary men; and, besides Giorgi and Paolino, we find amongst the speculators the names of Huet, Vossius, Fourmont, Leibnitz, and De Guignes.
The influence and example of great names pervaded the inquiry, even after access to more authentic information had been obtained, and shews itself in some of the early volumes of the researches of our venerable parent the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Thus Chambers is divided between Mercury and Woden. Buchanan looks out for an Egyptian or Abyssinian prototype, and even Sir William Jones fluctuates between Woden and Sisac. In the first instance he observes: "nor can we doubt that Wod or Odin was the same with Budh;” but in a subsequent paper he remarks: “we may safely conclude that Sacya or Sisak, about 200 years after Vyasa, either in person, or by a colony from Egypt, imported into this country [India] the mild heresy of the ancient Bauddlias." This spirit of impossible analogies is, even yet, not wholly extinct; and writers are found to identify Buddha with the prophet Daniel, and to ascribe the appearance of Buddhism in India, to the captivity and dispersion of
