The name Istar has been traced also in the Phenician word _Astarte_. The goddess was held in high esteem in Phenicia and was regarded also as the patroness of navigation. Coins represent her standing on the prow of a ship, and, strange to say, very frequently she carries a Latin cross in her arms. Beside the cross her emblems are also the moon and the swastika, and the latter is frequently found on her dress, and in one very archaic leaden figurine discovered by Schliemann in the ruins of Troy, the swastika is placed on her body to indicate the mysterious power of procreation. The idol was apparently intended to be carried in the hand, for its lower part ends in a shapeless stick. [Illustration: THE GODDESS OF NAVIGATION. Sidonian coins reproduced from Calmet No. 6.] From the excavations of Cyprus we reproduce [Illustration: SARGENT’S ASTARTE. Reproduction with the permission of Curtis and Cameron. Altered from their copyright photograph.] [Illustration: THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. By Murillo.] the picture of a well-preserved statue of Astarte which must have been the recipient of offerings before an altar in some of the ancient temples (p. 106). A beautiful modern picture of Astarte has been worked out by Sargent in his frescoes on the walls of the Boston Public Library, and we can see on this very picture her similarity to Murillo’s ideal of Mary in his many paintings of the “Immaculate Conception.” * * * * * There is a counterpart of the western _Magna Dea_ in eastern Asia, but we no longer know it in its primitive form and have it only as it is represented in art in the shape of a Buddhist deity, a kind of female Buddha, called in China Kwan-Yon and in Japan, Benten. Here again in some cases we find that the fish is her symbol as it is that of the Syrian goddess, and she frequently presents a remarkable similarity to the Christian Virgin Mary. She is never pictured naked like the Greek Aphrodite but is always dressed in the most scrupulously decent fashion.[30] One picture of Kwan-Yon with the fish bears an inscription which is a poetical expression of wonder at the mystery of incarnation, and following a literal translation we render it into English as follows: [Illustration: KWAN-YON AND THE FISH. In the Pei-lin at Singan-fu. After a Chinese color-print.] “Untidy o’er her temples Falls her disheveled hair. The maid is easy-going-- In sooth she does not care. Not decked in precious jewels Nor dressed in gaudy lace, She carries in her basket A fish to the market place. Who thinks that Buddha were Made human form in her!” [Illustration: A POEM ON KWAN-YON. Paper impression of a carving in stone.]