Thus Meru is the worldly temple of the Supreme Being in an embodied state, and of the Tri-Murtti or sacred Triad, which resides on its summit, either in a single or threefold temple, or rather in both: for it is all one, as they are one and three. They are three, only with regard to men who have emerged out of it they are but one: and their threefold temple and mountain, with its three peaks, become one equally. Mythologists in the west called the world, or Meru with his appendages, the temple of God, according to Macrobius. Hence this most sacred temple of the Supreme Being is generally typified by a cone or pyramid, with either a single chapel on its summit, or with three; either with or without steps. This worldly temple is also considered by the followers of Buddha as the tomb of the son of the spirit of heaven. His bones, or limbs, were scattered all over the face of the earth, like those of Osiris and Jupiter Zagreus. To collect them was the first duty of his descendants and followers, and then to entomb them. Out of filial piety, the remembrance of this mournful search was yearly kept up by a fictitious one, with all possible marks of grief and sorrow, till a priest came and announced that the sacred relics were at last found. This is practised to this day by several Tartarian tribes of the religion of Buddha; and the expression of the bones of the son of the spirit of heaven is peculiar to the Chinese, and some tribes in Tartary. Hindu writers represent Narayana moving, as his name implies, on the waters, in the character of the first male, and the principle of all nature, which was wholly surrounded in the beginning by tamas, or darkness, the Chaos and primordial Night of the Greek mythologists, and, perhaps, the Thaumaz or Thamas of the ancient Egyptians; the Chaos is also called Pracriti, or crude Nature, and the male deity has the name of Purusha, from whom proceeded Sacti, or, the power of containing or conceiving; but that power in its first state was rather a tendency or aptitude, and lay dormant and inert until it was excited by the bija, or vivifying principle, of the plastic Iswara. This power, or aptitude, of nature is represented under the symbol of the yoni, or bhaga, while the animating principle is expressed by the linga: both are united by the creative power, Brahma; and the yoni has been called the navel of Vishnu--not identically, but nearly; for, though it is held in the Vedanta that the divine spirit penetrates or pervades all nature, and though the Sacti be considered as an emanation from that spirit, yet the emanation is never wholly detached from its source, and the penetration is never so perfect as to become a total union or identity. In another point of view Brahma corresponds with the Chronos, or Time of the Greek mythologists: for through him generations pass on successively, ages and periods are by him put in motion, terminated and renewed, while he dies and springs to