Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c10.14

c10.14

It would appear from this explanation that the figure of an ox was a symbol with the Persians to represent the moon; perhaps it may also be the same in India, where we know both the moon and the cows are objects of superstitious veneration. There likewise seems to be a familiarity between the East Indians and the Jews; for the Jews worshipped a calf; baked cakes to the queen of heaven and blew the trumpet in the new moon, and there is one of their idolatrous customs mentioned in the 7th chapter of Acts and the 5th chapter of Amos, that has a very evident reference to the Hindoo custom of dragging their wooden...* about; and the Jews are threatened to be carried away 'beyond Babylon' for using it; that is, I suppose the place they got it from; for they could not be carried far beyond Babylon without approaching very near the East Indies: However an examination into the Hindoo monuments might give some light into obscure passages of scripture, and as such infinite pains have been spent upon it as a matter of faith, it might not be amiss to take a little more with it, on the footing of a history.