Page:The Hindu Pantheon.djvu/17

Rh and friendship of a man of such rare talents and virtues, might wear the semblance of a display of vanity and egotism. Among other aids he has been so good as to affix the names in Sanskrit, to many of the subjects of my plates. But it may be necessary to mention that, however I may have availed myself of his intelligence and communications, he bears no share in their application or arrangement; and that although my advantages so derived are numerous) the errors and folies of my work, whatever they be, are exclusively my own.

Although there can, I think, be but little doubt of the mythological legends of the Hindus being the source whence have been derived the fables, and deities of Greece and Italy, and other heathen people of the West, a relationship highly interesting, it is not my purpose, in this publication, to enter into any disquisitions in proof of such origin: I have, indeed, seeing the length it would have carried me, avoided the subject. In the quotations that I have had occasion to make it has been introduced, and I have casually noticed some coincidences; but I leave to learned writers any general comparison of such deities throughout their manifold agreements in origin, name, character,attributes, and other points of presumable identity.

In orthography I have generally followed Mr. 'S System; but strict uniformity has not been observed throughout. I have not always avoided; as I wished, the hard C, initial and medial— is sometimes spelled ;, , or perhaps, according to Sir , ; , , &c. The u for oo, medial and final, as introduced by him, ad& now- generally substituted in Hindu for Hindoo, for, &c., I have uniformly endeavoured to use; and it was my wish, farther, to have attended to- the system of accentuation adopted by the above gentlemen; but, living remotely from the press, I found accuracy on such minute points unattainable, without more frequent