Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Druidical Belief. 57
not ;
it is purely Pythagorean, and must have for many
centuries preceded Druidism in this strange land of ours."
The revival of Reincarnation, by Madame Blavatsky,and
the Theosophists under the eloquent Mrs. Besant, shows
the persistency of the idea that so entranced the semicivilized
Irish long ago, and seemed so satisfactory a way
to account for the existence of man after death.
Transmigration being found in
Ireland, has led some to
assert their conviction that Buddhist missionaries conveyed
it thither. The Soc. des Antiqiiaires de France had an
article, from the pen of Coquebert-Montbret, advancing
this opinion, relying upon the known ardour and extensive
proselytism of early Buddhist missionaries. He knows the
Irish deity Budd or Budzuas, and asks if that be not
Buddha. In the Hebrides, spirits are called Boduchs, and
the same word is applied to all heads of families, as the
Master. The Druids were, says one, only an order of
Eastern priests, located in Britain, adoring Buddwas.
The St. Germain Museum has, in its Gaulish department,
an altar, on which is represented a god with the legs
crossed after the manner of the Indian Buddha. That
relic is the fourth of the kind found in F' ranee. Anderson
Smith, in his Lewisiana, writes reluctantly— " we must
accept the possibility of a Buddhist race passing north
from Ireland." This means, that Ireland is to be regarded
as the source of so many Buddhist significations which are
discovered on the west of Scotland, and in the Hebrides.
It has been generally accepted that
Druidism was Celtic
in origin and practice, because Caesar found it in Gaul
and Britain. But he records three races in Gaul itself— the
Celtic, the German, and the Aquitani. The Britons were,
to him, Belgae, or of German connection. He knew
nothing of Ireland or Wales, in which two countries he
would have seen the fellows of his Aquitani, a darker