s perpetually clothed
in the golden rays of the Sun, and whose lofty summit reaches
into heaven, no sinful man can exist. _It is guarded by a
dreadful dragon._ It is adorned with many celestial plants and
trees, and is watered by _four rivers_, which thence separate
and flow to the four chief directions."[12:5]

The Hindoos, like the philosophers of the Ionic school (Thales, for
instance), held _water_ to be the first existing and all-pervading
principle, at the same time allowing the co-operation and influence of
an _immaterial_ intelligence in the work of creation.[12:6] A Vedic
poet, meditating on the Creation, uses the following expressions:

"Nothing that is was then, even what is not, did not exist
then." "There was no space, no life, and lastly there was no
time, no difference between day and night, no solar torch by
which morning might have been told from evening." "Darkness
there was, and all at first was veiled in gloom profound, as
ocean without light."[12:7]

The Hindoo legend approaches very nearly to that preserved in the Hebrew
Scriptures. Thus, it is said that Siva, as the Supreme Being, desired to
tempt Brahma (who had taken human form, and was called Swayambhura--son
of the self-existent), and for this object he dropped from heaven a
blossom of the sacred _fig_ tree.

Swayambhura, instigated by his wife, Satarupa, endeavors to obtain this
blossom, thinking its possession will render him immortal and divine;
but when he has succeeded in doing so, he is cursed by Siva, and doomed
to misery and degradation.[13:1] The sacred Indian _fig_ is endowed by
the Brahmins and the Buddhists with mysterious significance, as the
"Tree of Knowledge" or "Intelligence."[13:2]

There is no Hindoo legend of the _Creation_ similar to the Persian and
Hebrew accounts, and Ceylon was never believed to have been the Paradise
or home of our first parents, although such stories are in
circulation.[13:3] The Hindoo religion states--as we have already
seen--Mount Meru to be the Paradise, out of which went _four rivers_.

We have noticed that the "Gardens of Paradise" are said to have been
guarded by _Dragons_, and that, according to the Genesis account, it was
Cherubim that protected Eden. This apparent difference in the legends is
owing to the fact that we have come in our modern times to speak of
Cherub as though it were an other name for an Angel. But the Cherub of
t