'A Journey from Bengal to England, through the Northern part of India, Kashmire, Afghanistan, and Persia, and into Russia, by the Caspian-Sea. By George Forster. In the Civil Service of the Honourable the East-India Company in Two Volumes. Vol. I.' [‎46] (71/342)

4 ®
FORSTER’S TRAVELS.
With out putting etymology to the torture, or moulding to
the fhape of his fyftem the deceitful aids of chronology, the care
ful obferver might be enabled to trace fome parts of the religious
worth ip of the Hindoos into Egypt. He would difcover the facred
Bull or Cow of Sheva, placed high in the holy legends of the Coptis;
and he would fee the fnake, one of the myflerious afTociates of Sree
Mun Narrain, devoutly revered by that nation, as the hieroglyphic
of wifdom and longevity. It would appear that the onion, men
tioned by hiftorians to be held in fuch profound veneration amongft
the Egyptians, is no lefs marked with reverence in Hindoftan ;
where, though the ufe of a vegetable diet is ftrongly inculcated,
and vvith not a very large deviation, ufually adopted, the onion is
forbidden to many of the fe&s ; and in the upper part of India,
when an oath, on which a matter of importance depends, is ad-
miniftered, the Bramin frequently introduces the onion, to render
the ceremony more facred.
In comparing the religious worfhip of the Hindoos with that
of the ancients, the functions of fome of the Deities appear con-
fpicuouily uniform ; and were it poffible to procure a defcription
of the occupations and various powers of the Hindoo fubaltern
gods, it might be found, that the group of the weftern pantheon
had been, feledted from the divine affembly of Brimha. The
Egyptians and the Greeks, in their commerce with India, through
the channel of the Red Sea, have left, I have been fometimes in
duced to believe, tokens behind them of their connexion with the
Hindoos.