The name of “Krishna” is by Sir William Jones, and by many others written “Crishna,” and I have seen it spelt “Cristna.”  The resemblance it bears, when thus written, to “Christ” is apparent only, there is no etymological similarity.  Krishna is derived from the Sanscrit “Krish,” to scrape, to draw, to colour.  Krishna means black, or violet-coloured; Christ comes from the Greek [Greek:  christos] the anointed.  Colonel Vallancy, Sir W. Jones tells us, informed him that “Crishna” in Irish means the Sun ("As.  Res.,” p. 262; ed. 1801); and there is no doubt that the Hindu Krishna is a Sun-god; the “violet-coloured” might well be a reference to the deep blue of the summer sky.

If Moses be a type of Christ, must not Bacchus be admitted to the same honour?  In the ancient Orphic verses it was said that he was born in Arabia; picked up in a box that floated on the water; was known by the name of Mises, as “drawn from the water;” had a rod which he could change into a serpent, and by means of which he performed miracles; leading his army, he passed the Red Sea dryshod; he divided the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes with his rod; he drew water from a rock; where he passed the land flowed with wine, milk, and honey (see “Diegesis,” pp. 178, 179).

The name Christ Jesus is simply the anointed Saviour, or else Chrestos Jesus, the good Saviour; a title not peculiar to Jesus of Nazareth.  We find Hesus, Jesous, Yes or Ies.  This last name, [Greek:  Iaes], was one of the titles of Bacchus, and the simple termination “us” makes it “Jesus;” from this comes the sacred monogram I.H.S., really the Greek [Greek:  UAeS]—­IES; the Greek letter [Greek:  Ae], which is the capital E, has by ignorance been mistaken for the Latin H, and the ancient name of Bacchus has been thus transformed into the Latin monogram of Jesus.  In both cases the letters are surrounded with a halo, the sun-rays, symbolical of the sun-deity to whom they refer.  This halo surrounds the heads of gods who typify the sun, and is continually met with in Indian sculptures and paintings.

Hercules, with his twelve labours, is another source of Christian fable.  “It is well known that by Hercules, in the physical mythology of the heathens, was meant the Sun, or solar light, and his twelve famous labours have been referred to the sun’s passing through the twelve zodiacal signs; and this, perhaps, not without some foundation.  But the labours of Hercules seem to have had a still higher view, and to have been originally designed as emblematic memorials of what the real Son of God and Saviour of the world was to do and suffer for our sakes—­[Greek:  Noson Theletaeria panta komixon]—­’Bringing a cure for all our ills,’ as the Orphic hymn speaks of Hercules” (Parkhurst’s “Hebrew Lexicon,” page 520; ed. 1813).  As the story of Hercules came first in time, it must be either a prophecy of Christ, an inadmissible supposition, or else of the sources whence the story of Christ has been drawn.