You dare not
mock at the Sphinx!"
Not less stupendously placid than the Sphinx, and even grimmer in his
remoteness from the places that have heard Messiah's name, is the
Boodh, throned in trance, and multitudinously worshipped. Shall I tell
you how I first beheld him in his glory?
We were approaching some sacred caves in Burmah. Lighting our torches,
and each man taking one, we mounted the steep, tortuous, and slippery
foot-path of damp, green stones, through the thorny shrubs that beset
it, to the low entrance to the outer cavern. Stooping uncomfortably, we
passed into a small, vacant antechamber, having a low, dripping roof,
perpendicular walls, clammy and green, and a rocky floor, sloping
inward through a narrow arch to a long, double, transverse gallery,
divided in the direction of its length, partly by a face of rock,
partly by a row of pillars. Here were innumerable images of Guadma, the
counterfeit presentment of the Fourth Boodh, whose successor is to see
the end of all things,--innumerable, and of every stature, from
Hop-o'-my-thumbs to Hurlo-thrombos, but all of the identical orthodox
pattern,--with pendulous ears, one hand planted squarely on the knee,
the other sleeping in the lap, an eternity of front face, and a smooth
stagnancy of expression, typical of an unfathomable calm,--the Guadma
of a span as grim as he of ten cubits, and he of ten cubits as vacant
as the Guadma of a span,--of stone, of lead, of wood, of clay, of
earthenware and alabaster,--on their bottoms, on their heads, on their
backs, on their sides, on their faces,--black, white, red, yellow,--an
eye gone, a nose gone, an ear gone, a head gone,--an arm off at the
shoulder, a leg at the knee,--a back split, a bosom burst,--Guadma,
imperturbable, eternal, calm,--in the midst of time, timeless! It is
not annihilation which the Boodh has promised, as the blessed crown of
a myriad of progressive transmigrations; it is not Death; it is not
Sleep,--it is this.
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