Hannah Adams

“ The destruction of the existing world by fire is another tenet of the bramins.
The temples, or pagodas, for divine worship in India, are magnificent; and their religious rites are pompous and splendid. Since the Hindoos admit that the Deity occasionally assumes an elementary form, without defiling his holiness, they make various idols to assist their imaginations, when they offer up their prayers to the invisible Deity. ”

“ The doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, is universally believed in India, from which country it is supposed to have originated many centuries before the birth of Plato, and was first promulgated in the geeta of Uyasa, the Plato of India. This doctrine teaches that degenerate spirits, fallen from their original rectitude, migrate through various bobuns, in the bodies of different animals.
The Hindoos suppose that there are fourteen bobuns, or spheres; seven below, and seven above the earth. The spheres above the earth are gradually ascending. ”

“ By the time the earth was sufficiently dry for so long a journey, either Noah himself, or some descendant of Shem, gradually led on the first journey £o the western frontiers of India; that this increasing colony flourished for a long succession of ages in primitive happiness and innocence; practised the purest rites of the patriarchal religion, without images and temples, till at length the descendants of Ham invaded and conquered India, and corrupted their ancient religion.
According to the Hindoo theology, Brahme, [3] the great being, is the supreme, eternal, uncreated God. ”

“ This animal is venerated in a religious sense, as holding in the rotation of the metempsychosis the rank immediately preceding the human form; and in a political sense as being the most useful and necessary of the whole animal creation, to a people forbidden to feed on any thing which has breathed the breath of life. ”

“ This doctrine, so universally prevalent in Asia, that man is a fallen creature, gave birth to the persuasion, that by severe sufferings, and a long series of probationary discipline, the soul might be restored to its primitive purity. ”

“ If, through loss of blood, or weakness of body, he was necessitated to halt, he was obliged to wait for healing and strength. He undertook his journey; and while he halted under a large shady tree, where the gospel was sometimes preached, one of the missionaries came and preached in his hearing from these words: "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." ”

“ It is there asserted, that so far as vital souls, addicted to sensuality, indulge themselves in forbidden pleasures, even to the same degree shall the acuteness of their senses be raised in their future bodies, that they may suffer analogous pain.↑ The necessity of some atonement for sin, is one of the prevailing ideas among the Hindoos. ”

“ When they consider him as the preserver of created things, they give him the name of Vishnu; for since the power of preserving creation by a superintending providence belongs eminently to the godhead, they hold that power to exist transcendently in the preserving member of the triad, whom they suppose to be every where always ”

“ According to this extract, "the diversities of belief among mankind, are a manifest demonstration of the power of the supreme Being. For it is evident that a painter, by sketching a multiplicity of figures, and by arranging a variety of colours, procures reputation among men ”

“ Blaquiere; but adds, that the greatest part of the books, received by the learned Hindus, will assuredly be found genuine.↑ According to Sir W. Jones, the supreme God Brahme, in his triple form, is the only self-existent, divinity acknowledged by the philosophical Hindoo. When they consider the divine power, as exerted in creating or giving existence to that which existed not before, they call the Deity Brahme. When they view him in the light of destroyer, or rather changer of forms, he is called Mahadeo, Siva, and various other names. ”