Notes on Hindu deities, between 1792 and 1795
- Call Number:
- MSS 26
- Holdings:
- [Request]
- Title(s):
- Notes on Hindu deities
- Date:
- between 1792 and 1795
- Classification:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Series:
- Series II: Cave descriptions and other notes
- Part of Collection:
- Box 1, folder 22
- Provenance:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Conditions Governing Access:
- The collection is open without restriction.
- Conditions Governing Use:
- Copyright UndeterminedThe collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Archives Department.
- Scope and Content:
- The document—not, it seems, in Wales’s hand—is, at first, a key to Hindu deities. It describes the duties of several deities, spending a considerable amount of time on “Yam Rajah,” most likely Yama, god of death and the underworld. The text compares Yama to Minos, the figure from Greek mythology who judges the dead when they arrive in Hades. It also describes “two genii [who] attend as spies on every one of the human race,” and deliver their accounts to Yama, so that he may pass judgement. Eternal punishment, however, is taken by Hindus as “wholly incompatible with the justice and goodness of God.” The next lengthy passage in the text consists of a quotation from William Jones, the British Orientalist, on “Kama-deva” (Kaamadeva), along with an extract from Jones’s translation of a “hymn” to the god. The author highlights the numerous epithets for the deity that appear throughout the poem, and closes the consideration of the god with a comparison to the Greek Eros. The remainder of the text concerns “lingam, similar to the Priapus or Phallus of the ancients” and “always to be found in the temple of Sheevah.” The author then offers a “fable” that explains the origin of the worship of the lingam. It is presented as an extended quotation, from an unspecified source, and describes the appearance of a female deity among a crowd of worshippers among whom “the purity of the heart was wanting” and the appearance of Siva among a crowd of female villagers. The text ends mid-sentence—presumably continued on other pages which are not included with this manuscript.
- Physical Description:
- 1 folded sheet (4 pages) ; 35 x 24 cm
- Genre:
- Diaries and Notebooks
- Subject Terms:
- BritishCave templesCavesDescription and travelEllora Caves (India)India
- Associated Places:
- IndiaMumbai (India)Pune (India)
- Associated People/Groups:
- Daniell, Thomas, 1749-1840Gaṅgārāma, active 18th centuryMabon, RobertMalet, Charles Warre, 1752-1815Wales, James, 1746 or 1747-1795
- Finding Aid Title:
- James Wales archive
- Collection PDF:
- https://ead-pdfs.library.yale.edu/11766.pdf
- Archival Object:
- https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/3410862
- Metadata Cloud URL:
- https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/archival_objects/3410862?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1