lord’s discovery oe the banians and persees.

542

than another, but that all our habits are gained by induftry ; which whilft Plato wouldexcufe, faying, that the wandering fouls did receive from the devil, a draught of thecup of oblivion, and fo were forgetful of that which is paft ; Irenaeus thus tauntethhim : If Plato had trial that his foul was obtufed with fuch a draught, I wonder thathe could remember that his foul had loft her remembrance.

Laftly, if this were true, it would follow, that the fouls of beads fhould be immortal,which would be abfurd to think in thefe better-knowing times. Having, therefore,proved this opinion of pafiage of fouls out of one body into another to be a fancy, andnothing real, this may be no juft caufe to detain them from eating the flefh of creaturesthat have had life in them; neither would they, if there were great reafon to the con-trary, permit it as they do in the cafts of Cuttery and Wyfe, whom if they pleafed, theymight reftrain by the like injunction. All which thus evidenced, this already deliveredmay be fufficient to publifli concerning the firft trad in the book delivered to Bremawtouching the moral laws.

Chap. IX. — Of the fecond Traci of the Book delivered to Bremaw, containing the Cere-monial Law, in the Wafmigs, Anointings , Offerings under green Trees, Prayers, Pil-grimages, Invocations, Adorations ; together with the Forms of their Baptizings, Marriages,and Burials, cuftomary amongjl them.

THE fecond trad of the book delivered to Bremaw, comprifed certain ceremonialinjunctions by them to be obferved in the particulars following; the knowledge of whichbeing fomething material to fet forth the religion of this people, fhall be the fubject ofthis prefent chapter.

Eirft, then, they are enjoined to frequent walhings of their bodies in rivers; theoriginal of which cuftom, they fay, began with this fecond age of the world, and wasmade a part of their worfhip, to keep in memory the deftruftion that was broughtupon the world for their defilement and fin. The ceremony obferved in their walhingsis this; firft to befmear their bodies in the mud of the river, the emblem of man’sfilthinefs and corruption by nature; then walking into the river and turning theirfaces towards the fun, the Bramane utters this prayer : cc Oh Lord, this man is fouland polluted as the clay or mud of this river, but the water hereof can purge off thedefilement; do thou in like manner cleanfe away his fin fo diving and plunginghimfeif three times in the river, whilft the Bramane iterateth the name of the riverwherein he wafheth, called Tappee, with the names of other rivers in India , celebratedfor thefe cuftomary walhings, as Gonga and Nerboda, with other like rivers, the partylhaking in his hand certain grains of rice, as his offering on the water, receiving abfo-lution for fins paft, is there difiniffed.

Secondly, they ufe a certain unCtion in the forehead, of red painting, that, havingcertain grains ftuck in the glutinous matter, is as their teftimony that God hath markedthem for his people: this is no other then to keep in mind the memory of their baptifm,which accordingly as the mark vanilheth, is daily by them renewed, according to theirwalhings, with the utterance of certain words accompanying the abtion, to put themin mind to be fuch as becometh God ’s mark.

T. hirdly they are enjoined to tender certain offerings and prayers under green trees:the original ol which cuftom they derive from Wyfe, to whom, they fay, God appearedby vifion under a tree, as is formerly mentioned, with injunftion of worlhip in thofeplaces ; fo that the Bramanes, under fuch green tree, erefl: temples to pagods, mwhich they give attendance to perform religious rites and ceremonies, to fuch as repair

j thither*