If by the essays here collected I should succeed in attracting more general attention towards an independent, yet reverent study of the ancient religions of the world, and in dispelling some of the prejudices with which so many have regarded the yearnings after truth embodied in the sacred writings of the Brahmans, the Zoroastrians, and the Buddhists, in the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, nay, even in the wild traditions and degraded customs of Polynesian savages, I shall consider myself amply rewarded for the labour which they have cost me. That they are not free from errors, in spite of a careful revision to which they have been submitted before I published them in this collection, I am fully aware, and I shall be grateful to any one who will point them out, little concerned whether it is done in a seemly or unseemly manner, as long as some new truth is elicited, or some old error effectually exploded. Though I have thought it right in preparing these essays for publication, to alter what I could no longer defend as true, and also, though rarely, to add some new facts that seemed essential for the purpose of establishing what I wished to prove, yet in the main they have been left as they were originally published. I have added to each the dates when they were written, these dates ranging over the last fifteen years, and I must beg my readers to bear these dates in mind when judging both of the form and the matter of these contributions towards a better knowledge of the creeds and prayers, the legends and customs of the ancient world. M. M. PARKS END, OXFORD: _October_, 1867. CONTENTS OF FIRST VOLUME. I. LECTURE ON THE VEDAS OR THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE BRAHMANS, DELIVERED AT LEEDS, 1865 II. CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS, 1858 III. THE VEDA AND ZEND-AVESTA, 1853 IV. THE AITAREYA-BRÂHMANA, 1864 V. ON THE STUDY OF THE ZEND-AVESTA IN INDIA, 1862 VI. PROGRESS OF ZEND SCHOLARSHIP, 1865 VII. GENESIS AND THE ZEND-AVESTA, 1864 VIII. THE MODERN PARSIS, 1862 IX. BUDDHISM, 1862 X. BUDDHIST PILGRIMS, 1857 XI. THE MEANING OF NIRVÂNA, 1857 XII. CHINESE TRANSLATIONS OF SANSKRIT TEXTS, 1861 XIII. THE WORKS OF CONFUCIUS, 1861 XIV. POPOL VUH, 1862 XV. SEMITIC MONOTHEISM, 1860 * * * * * I. LECTURE ON THE VEDAS OR THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE BRAHMANS,[8] DELIVERED AT THE PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION, LEEDS, MARCH, 1865.