ORIGIN OF BUDDHISM.

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LETTER 3RD.

ΤΟ SIR WILLIAM COLEBROOKE,

Gilbert's, Antigua, May 30th, 1839.

MY DEAR SIR,-I send you another of my "horæ Babylonica," for I know not what else to call them, which perhaps may suggest something which, under your fostering care, may be of service to Mr. Tarnour, or some other of your oriental friends.

The few observations I have to make are on the cognate (i. e. to us) subjects of Budhism, and the origin of language, and have been suggested by the books with which you have so liberally supplied me, and a part of which I take this opportunity to return.

There is a singular passage in Mr. Turnour's introduction, which he says is a Pali verse from the oldest grammar referred to in the Pali literature. It is as follows. "Sá Mágadhi; mula bhásá, naráyéyádi kappiká, Brahmanóchasuttálápá, Sambuddháchápi bhásaré.” "There is a language, which is the root of all languages; men and Brahmans, at the commencement of the creation, who never before uttered or heard an human accent, and even the supreme Buddhos, spoke it: it is the Majadhi." We have in these few words almost every thing that I have predicated of the Hebrew. It is stated to be the first and the root of all languages, and to have been given by inspiration. Nor is this all; for even the more doubtful fact of this language having been the Hebrew is pretty distinctly implied. "It is the Majadhi," i. e. Magian. Nor am I singular in this interpretation of the word, which I believe I mentioned to you when at Done's Hill, for I find the following assertion of the same opinion in the number of the foreign Quarterly for April 1837, in the article on Tamil manuscripts : we must notice that the word Mejadhya the first syllable of which is the Persian magi the Hebrew mega, (the root of the word mege, before mentioned) the Chaldee mega, the Greek magoi, and the Indian maya, magic, or delusion, is the Arabic epithet magh."

Here we have the word traced in several languages, and a plain assertion that it is the same as the Hebrew, and we see further that it is almost identical with the Chaldee, as noted above, and that this latter also differs very little from the Hebrew. In fact, having traced this word up to Chaldea, or to Babel, we need be under no apprehension that we are very far distant from the real source of all languages.

I have however lately been struck with a passage in St. Matthew (5—18.) which is to me perfectly conclusive on this subject. Our Saviour there says, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." The jot is the Hebrew..., the Greek iota, and the English i: the tittle is punctum super literam-the three dots oreg

the letter. These being the most minute parts of letters in the Hebrew language, even as it is at present written, I cannot understand how the pas. sage can have any force if applied to any other language; and I know of no other language in which the letter I is called jot or yod, or which is furnished with similar apices. The deduction is I think unavoidable, that the law was originally written with these peculiar and distinctive characters, and consequently in Hebrew.

1 believe I mentioned to you my conviction that the word I am is no. thing but a corruption of the same name of Jehovah, which in our version is tranlated Jah. It is the original also of the Greek E I, which was sometimes written backwards I like the Hebrew. This is evidently in al. lusion to the name of God, communicated to Moses, I AM. There is a most beautiful allusion to these names in a verse of David Smart, the mad poet, in his song of David"

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"I AM the great Jehovah said

To Moses, while earth heard with dread,,

And smitten to the heart,

Above, beneath, within, around,

All nature without voice or sound,

Replied, O LORD! THOU ART!"

I wish to add a similar observation on the word Pali, which appears to be frequently written Bali-thus mahabalipur; (a word that reminds us of Baalpeor) "the city of the great Bali;" still retains the more ancient spelling; and what is this word Bali but Baal or Bel, or Belus, the God of Chaldea? In like manner, I cannot help thinking that the name of the Persian palace Shushan which means a lily, may have some connection with the lotus or water lily of the oriental mythology; and that even in the present title of the kings of Persia Shah, there may be a remote allusion to the name of the Patriarch Shem.

I now proceed to the principal object which I have in view, in troubling you with this epistle, which is to hint the possibility, I dare not, nor have I data to do more, of the prophet Daniel being the great Gótamo Buddho. These Buddhists appear to have been men, who by divine contemplation, and by their piety, had attained to a degree of iutercourse with the spiritual world far exceeding that of any other mortals. It appears that there have been five of these Buddhos; and that the " age in which we now live is the buddhot-pádo of Gótamo. His religion is destined to endure 5000 years, of which 2379 have now passed away (A. D. 1836) since his death." (Turnour p. L.)

The absence of Hebrew type precludes our exhibiting the letter with three dots.-ED. C. M.

I will only hint that the four preceding Buddho may have been Adami Noah, Abraham and Moses; but from the foregoing quotation, it is plain that Gótamo died in 548 before Christ; and this is precisely the medium of the dates of the delivery of the two prophecies of 1260 and 2300 years, which being astronomical numbers, are the most likely to have engaged the attention of Daniel's Magian disciples.

If indeed the Magians and the Buddhists are admitted to le the same→ there can be very little doubt that Daniel and Gótoma Buddho were the same also; for Daniel Was "master of the Magi," and what is this but virtually the title of G6tama? We are also told of Daniel, that he had "light and understanding, and wisdom like the wisdom of the Gods," aud that "the spirit of the Gods was in him,"-all attributes of Ģótamo.

Further the request which Daniel and his companions, Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego, made to the prince of the Eunuchs, that they might not "defile themselves with the portion of the King's meat," but might be per, mitted to live on vegetable instead of animal food, will afford a very satisfac, tory account of the origin of this remarkable particular of the Buddhist creed.

Another reason, of which however I have only an individual perception, for supposing Daniel to be Gótamo, is the similarity of their names, not indeed in sound but in sense. Mr. Turnour says, "almost all Pali proper names, whether geographical, or of persons, have some specific signification. In the translation of their names into vernacular dialects, their meaning, and not the. sound, has been generally preserved." This will account for the name of Buddhist being substituted for Magian, and Gótamo for Daniel. We have already had occasion to point out, how both of the former words came to signify wisdom and wise men, for such is the meaning of Buddhist in Pali, and our translators have so rendered Magi in the New Testament.

But are Daniel and Gótamo synonymes? Here I am at a loss, and eye; there seems to be a glimmering of light. The meaning of the name of Daniel is "the judgment of God;" and I perceive that in Clough's Pali Grammar the word Dhammam is said to signify righteousness, a word so nearly allied to judgment that in our old translations of the Bible the word justice is almost always used where we now read righteousness. Now I have seen the name Gótamo written in a great variety of ways, and among others (I think in the Missionary Register) GUADAMA. Here we have "dama," a word very like "dhammam;" but what is most remarkable of all is that there is good reason to believe that this word "dhamimam" in the Pali language is actually derived from the very word which forms part of the name of Daniel in the Hebrew. This word is Dad; and from this root Parkhurst derives the old English word to deme i. e. judge, and thence doom, and also doomster, a judge. He then suggests that the latin damno and the English dumn have the same origin; and

thus may the word “dhamman” be not only a translation but actually a derivative for the Hebrew Dan. This interchange of the N, and M, was quite common between the Jews and Chaldeans, and hence the words Cherubim and Cherubin. So far then our way is tolerably clear, but how is the word "GOD" to be obtained from the name of Gotama? if we were to seek English deriva tions, there would be no difficulty here for Got and God are sufficient alike to answer such a purpose; but as deo and deus,-devi and deva. Boddh and Woden &c. &c. &c. are so easily traced from the Pali, may not our word God have a similar origin? This must be determined by those who are competent to the task, and should the result be as I anticipate, I think it will have been demonstrated that Gótama and Daniel are the same.

I shall detain you with only one other observation on this subject, which will enable us to correct an anomaly (for it can scarcely be called any thing else) is the chronology of the life of Daniel; and this gives us a hint of the great benefits which may be ultimately derived from these studies, if they should be placed on a firm basis. Calmet supposes Daniel to have been twelve years of age, when brought to Babylon, and as it was only three years after this event, that he interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream, he could at that period have been only in his 15th year. At p. XCIV of his intro. duction, Mr. Turnour states that Gótama was born B. C. 622; and he says that this "date is too authentically fixed to admit of its being varied." This would add four years to Daniel's age, and consequently, at the time of interpreting the dream, he might be near twenty years of age; a circumstance surely more probable than that he should have delivered this prophecy while yet a boy; and also far better agreeing with the words of scripture, which assure us that in consequence of this event, the king made Daniel a great "man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole "province of Babylon, and chief of the Governors over all the wise men of "Babylon"—i. e. supreme Buddho !!—

Passing by the last two words, I cannot but observe that we have here most surprising, I was going to say, corroboration, but it is rather an eclaircissement, or a bringing forth to the light of the truth of the Holy Scriptures. What they do actually contain, how precisely, and minutely they are true, even to the jot and tittle, and how completely all history and science, all human purposes and achievements, social, political and religious, only cir cle round and reflect their light, may possibly never be fully understood in this world; but we must remember that every fresh discovery in these matters is an acquisition in divine knowledge, and make us, as St. Luke expressed it to his disciple Theophilus, to “know the certainty of those things wherein we have been instructed."

Neither will the benefit end here, for religion will confer benefits, and great ones too, on human science. We need not go far out of our way to

ascertain the truth of this position. I have already hinted at the abstinence of Daniel and his three friends from animal food being the probable origin of the same practice among the Budhists, and this idea is corroborated by the fact that almost immediately after the death of Daniel, Pythagoras, returning from the East, introduced the same custom into Greece. In the East he also became acquainted with astronomy, and taught that the plaLets moved in oblique circles round the sun. He also learnt in the same regions, the doctrine of the metempsychosis, and the practice of medicine; and the five years silence that he imposed on his disciples, was evidently another item borrowed from the Buddhist creed. Whence then these coincidences, unless they have a common origin? and what origin so likely, as that they should have been adopted in imitation of this great and good man who during the period of his own lifetime had obtained so high a degree of sanctity that the Almighty himself alludes to it in the prophecy of Ezekiel, and says, 66 Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in it they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness." We have thus afforded us a very simple solution of what I have understood to be one of the great difficulties in Hindoo literature, the origin of the abstinence of these nations from animal food; and this view is confirmed by the tablets of Peyadasi, the date of which is about 200 years posterior to Daniel. Thus we may say of these studies in reference to divine and human knowledge,

I am afraid you will say of my manuscript that in studying brevity, I have attained obscurity; and indeed I consider that I shall be obliged to write the whole over again, if it were only to embody the new ideas which are continually suggesting themselves. I will add two or three which have occurred since I sent it to you.

The following is a curious illustration of the sealing of books, and shews that among the Eastern nations it is practised even at the present day. It is an extract from a decree of the Emperor of China for the suppression of Mr. Gutzlaff's Chinese Magazine.

"I the Emperor have carefully turned it over, and looked at it. The title page bears the date. Taonkwang Keawoo (the name of the thirty first year (1834) of the Chinese cycle:) it is dated in the summer months, and sealed with a private seal &c."

I have next to observe that the Greek names of Bacchus, Dyonysius, and Jacchus are both derived from the name of Noah. Jacchus is evidently the latter part of Noah's name as written in Latin Noachus, and in our own adjective Noachic. The exclamation of Jo and Erohe are corruptions of Jah and Jehovah; and "Jo" and "Evohe Jacchi," are simply Lord or Baal Noah,