infinite dwelt Aum, whose name must precede all prayers, all invocations. Manu says that the monosyllable means "earth," "sky," and "heaven." 2

3

J. Talboys Wheeler says: "As regards the three letters A, U, M, little can be gathered excepting that, when brought together in the word Aum they are said by Manu to form a symbol of the Lord of created beings, Brahma." Colebrooke says: "According, however, to the Nirukta, which is an ancient glossary of the Vedas, the syllable Aum refers to every deity. The Brahmins may reserve for their initiates an esoteric meaning more ample than that given by Manu." But by means of the Maya language we learn its full significance.

A-U-M:

A-for Ah, masculine article: the fecundating power; the father.

U-feminine pronoun: the basin; the generative power; the

mother.

M-Mehen: the engendered; the son; or, Ma, yes and no; the androgynus.

Any way we combine the three letters of the sacred monosyllable in the Maya language-they give us the names and attributes of each person of the Trimourti.

For instance: Au-M-thy maker.

A-U-M-thy mother's son.

U-A-M-I am the male creator.

M-U-A-the maker of these waters.

We read in the first chapter of the ordinances of Manu,1 that the Supreme Being produced first the waters, and in them

1 Manava-Dharma-Sastra, book ii., Sloka 74.

deposited a germ, an egg, in which He himself was born again under the shape of Brahma, the great ancestor of all beings. This egg, this golden uterus, is called Hiramyagarbha.1 This word is composed of the following four Maya vocables, hilaan, yam, kalba, ha, expressing the idea of something floating in the water: hilaan, "to be dragged;" yam, "midst; " kalba, "enclosed; "ha, "water."

In it was born Brahma, the Creator, the origin of all beings, "he who was submerged in the waters." So reads his name, according to the Maya-Be-lam-ha: Be, "the way;" "lam, "submerged;" ha, "water."

2

The waters were called Nara, says Manu, because they were the production of Nara the divine spirit, "the mother of truth: " Naa, "mother;" La, "eternal truth," that contained the hidden voice of the mantras. The verb Vach, Uach (Maya), "a thing free from fetters," the divine male; the first embodied spirit Viradj, Uilal (Maya), "that which is necessary," whose union with Maya produced all things.

Again we may ask, Is the use of Maya words in this instance without significance? Does the similarity of the ancient Indian architecture to that of the Mayas-which so puzzled the learned English architect, the late James Fergusson or the use of the Maya triangular arch, and no other, in all sacred buildings in India, prove nothing? And the practice of stamping the hand, dipped in red pigment, on the walls of temples and palaces, as a way of invoking the benison of the gods, or of asserting ownership to the building, as with a seal, being common both in Mayach and India; or the custom of carrying children astride on the hip, which was never

'H. T. Colebrooke, Notice on the Vedas, lib. ii., § vi.

2 Manava-Dharma-Sastra, book i., Sloka 10.

done by the Mayas without first performing a very interesting ceremony called Heɔmek; or the prevalence of the tree and serpent worship, or that of the cross and the elephant, among the Mayas as among the Hindoos-is all this without meaning?

In another work? I have shown how the worship of the tree originated in Mayach, and why it was always allied to that of the serpent and of the monarch. But no antiquary has ever been able to trace the origin of these cults either to Egypt, Chaldea, or India, although it is well known they existed in those countries from remote ages.

The object of these pages is not to give here all the proofs that can be adduced of the presence of the Mayas in India, and of the influence of their civilization on its inhabitants; but to follow their tracks along the shores of the Indian Ocean, into the interior of Asia, across Asia Minor where they established colonies, on to Africa, until finally they reached the valley of the Nile, and laid the foundation of the renowned Egyptian kingdom, some six thousand years before the reign of Menes, the first terrestrial Egyptian king.3

1 Alice D. Le Plongeon, Harper's Magazine, vol. xx., p. 385.

2 Augustus Le Plongeon, Sacred Mysteries, p. 109, et passim.

3

Bunsen, Egypt's Place in Universal History, vol. iii., p. 15.