more excellent drawings of the planispneres both of the northern and southern constellations. And, though these were sent to be engraved at Amsterdam by a masterly hand, yet the originals far exceeded the engravings in point of beauty and elegance: these were published by Mr. Flamsteed, and both copies may be seen at Horton. The mathematician, says Dr. Hutton, meets with something extraordinary in Sharp's elaborate treatise of Geometry Improved (in 4to. 1717, signed A. S. Philomath.): 1st, by a large and accurate table of segments of circles, its construction and various uses in the solution of several difficult problems, with compendious tables for finding a true proportional part; and their use in these or any other tables exemplified in making logarithms, or their natural numbers, to sixty places of figures; there being a table of them for all primes to 1100, true to sixty-one figures. 2dly, His concise treatise of Polyedra, or Solid Bodies of many Bases, both the regular ones and others: to which are added twelve new ones, with various methods of forming them and their exact dimensions in surds, or species, and in numbers; illustrated with a variety of copper-plates, neatly engraved by his own hands. Also the models of these polyedra he cut out in box-wood with amazing neatness and accuracy. Indeed few or none of the mathematical instrument makers could exceed him, in exactly graduating or neatly engraving any mathematical or astronomical instrument, as may be seen in the equatorial instrument above-mentioned, or in his sextants, quadrants, and dials of various sorts; also in a curious armillary sphere, which, beside the common properties, has moveable circles, &c., for exhibiting and resolving all spherical triangles; also his double sector, and many other instruments, all contrived, graduated, and finished, in a most elegant manner, by himself. In short, he possessed at once a remarkably clear head for contriving, and an extraordinary hand for executing, any thing, not only in mechanics, but likewise in drawing, writing, and making the most exact and beautiful schemes or figures in all his calculations and geometrical constructions. The quadrature of the circle was undertaken by him for his own private amusement in 1699, deduced from two different series, by which the truth of it was proved to seventy-two places of figures; as may be seen in the introduction to Sherwin's Tables of Logarithms. In the same book may also be seen his ingenious improvements on the making of logarithms, and the constructing of the natural sires, tangents, and He also calculated the natural and logarithmic sines, tangents, and secants, to every second in the first minute of the quadrant; the laborious investigation of which may be seen in the archives of the Royal Society, exhibiting his very neat and accurate manner of writing and arranging his figures, not to be equalled by the best penman now living. Mr. Sharp kept up a correspondence by letters with most of the eminent mathematicians and astronomers of his time, as Mr. Flamsteed, Sir Iac Newton, Dr. Halley, Dr. Wallis, Mr. Hodgson, Mr. Sherwin, &c., the answers to which letters are all written upon the backs, or empty spaces, of the letters

secants.

he received, in a short hand of his own contrivance. From a great variety of letters (of which a large chestful remain with his friends) from these and many other celebrated mathematicians, it is evident that Mr. Sharp spared neither pains nor time to promote real science. Indeed, being one of the most accurate and indefatigable computers that ever existed, he was for many years the common resource for Mr. Flamsteed, Sir Jonas Moore, Dr. Halley, and others, in all sorts of troublesome and delicate calculations. Mr. Sharp continued all his life a bachelor, and spent his time as recluse as a hermit. He was of a middle stature, but very thin, being of a weakly constitution. He was remarkably feeble the last three or four years of his life. He died on the 18th of July 1742, aged ninety-one. In his retirement, at Little Horton, he employed four or five rooms or apartments in his house for different purposes, into which none of his family could enter at any time without his permission. He duly attended the dissenting chapel at Bradford, of which he was member, every Sunday; when he took care to be provided with plenty of halfpence, which he very charitably suffered to be taken singly out of his hand, held behind him during his walk to the chapel, by a number of poor people who followed him, without his ever looking back, or asking a question. Mr. Sharp was very irregular as to his meals, and remarkably sparing in his diet; so very much so, indeed, that the breakfast, dinner, and supper, have often remained untouched by him, when the servant has gone to remove what was left-so deeply engaged had he been in calculations.

SHARP (James), archbishop of St. Andrews, was born of a good family in Banffshire in 1618. He devoted himself very early to the church, and was educated for that purpose in the University of Aberdeen. When the solemn league and covenant was framed, in 1638, the learned men in that seminary, and young Sharp in particular, declared themselves decidedly against it. To avoid the insults and indignities to which he was subjected, in consequence of this conduct, he retired to England, where he contracted an acquaintance with some of the most celebrated divines in that country. At the commencement of the civil wars he returned to Scotland. During his journey thither, he accidently met with Lord Oxenford, who, pleased with his conversation, invited him to his house. While he resided there, he became known to the earl of Rothes, who procured him a professorship at St. Andrew's. By the interest of the earl of Crawford he was soon after appointed minister of Crail. Sharp had always inclined to the cause of royalty, and had for some time kept up a correspondence with his exiled prince. After the death of the protector he began to declare himself more openly, and seems to have enjoyed a great share of the confidence of Monk, who was at that time planning the Restoration of Charles II. When that general marched to London, the presbyterians sent Sharp to attend him to support their interests. At the request of general Monk and the chief presbyterians in Scotland, Mr. Sharp was sent over to the king at Breda to procure from him, if possible, the establishment of

Presbyterianism. On his return, he assured his friends that he had found the king very affectionate to Scotland, and resolved not to wrong the settled government of the church; but he apprehended they were mistaken who went about to establish the Presbyterian government.' Charles was soon after restored without any terms. All the laws passed in Scotland since 1633 were repealed; the king and his ministers resolved at all hazards to restore prelacy. Mr. Sharp, who had been commissioned by the Scottish Presbyterians to manage their interests with the king, was prevailed upon to abandon the party; and, as a reward for his compliance, he was made archbishop of St. Andrew's. This conduct rendered him very odious in Scotland; he was accused of treachery and perfidy, and reproached by his old friends as a traitor and a renegado. The cruelties which were afterwards committed, which have been denominated absurd and wanton by one party, while by another they were considered as the necessary punishment of absolute rebellion, were in a great measure imputed to the archbishop, and rendered him still more detested. It may be well doubted whether these accusations were to their full intent well founded, though they will continue to be believed as long as any portion of the party and spirit of that age remains. They are the more easily credited, in that, having been formerly of the Presbyterian party, he might thence be induced, after forsaking them, to treat them with severity. He is accused of having, after the route at Pentland Hill, received an order from the king to stop the executions, and of having kept it for some time before he produced it to the council. There was one Mitchell, a preacher, who had formed the design of taking vengeance for these cruelties by assassinating the archbishop. He fired a pistol at him as he was sitting in his coach; but the bishop of Orkney, lifting up his hand at the moment, intercepted the ball. Though this happened in the midst of Edinburgh, the primate was so much detested, that nobody stopped the assassin; who, having walked leisurely home, and thrown off his disguise, returned, and mixed unsuspected with the crowd. Some years after, the archbishop observing a man eyeing him with keenness, suspected that he was the assassin, and ordered him to be brought before him. It was Mitchell. Two loaded pistols were found in his pocket. The primate offered him a pardon if he would confess the crime: the man complied; but Sharp, regardless of his promise, conducted him to the council. The council also gave him a solemn promise of pardon, if he would confess his guilt and discover his accomplices. They were much disappointed to hear that only one man was privy to his purpose, who was since dead. Mitchell was then brought before a court of justice, and ordered to make a third confession, which he refused. He was imprisoned for several years, and then tried. His own confession was urged against him. It was in vain for him to plead the illegality of that evidence, and to appeal to the promise of pardon previously given. The council took an oath that they had given no such promise; and Mitchell was condemned. Lauderdale, who at that time governed Scotland, would have pardoned him, but the pri

mate insisted on his execution. Michell was accordingly executed. Sharp had a servant, one Carmichael, who by his cruelty had rendered himself particularly odious to the zealots. Nine men formed the resolution of waylaying him in Magus muir, about three miles from St. Andrew's. While they were waiting for this man, the primate himself appeared with very few attendants. This they looked upon as a declaration of heaven in their favor; and calling out the Lord has delivered him into hands, they ran up to the carriage. They fired at him without effect; a circumstance which was afterwards imputed to magic. They then despatched him with their swords, regardless of the tears and intreaties of his daughter, who accompanied him. Thus fell archbishop Sharp, whose memory is even yet detested by the people of Scotland. His abilities were certainly good, and in the early part of his life he appears with honor and dignity; but his conduct afterwards was censured as cruel and insincere. His treatment of Mitchell was infamous, unjust, and vindictive. That he contributed greatly to the measures adopted against the Presbyterians is certain. That they were cruel and impolitic may be proved; nor did their effects cease with the measures themselves. The unheard-of cruelties exercised by the ministers of Charles II., against the adherents of the covenant, raised such a flame of enthusiasm and bigotry, as remained long unextinguished. It must be granted, at the same time, that the very essence of faction and insolent rebellion was combined with the religious prejudices of the covenanters, such as no government could tolerate; though it might have been opposed by happier means, and with better temper.

SHARP (John), D. D., archbishop of York. was descended from the Sharps of Little Horton, a family of Bladford Dale in Yorkshire; and was son of an eminent tradesman of Bradford, where he was born in 1644. He was educated at Cambridge, and in 1667 entered into orders, and became chaplain to Sir Heneage Finch, then attorney-general. In 1672 he was appointed archdeacon of Berkshire; in 1675 a prebendary in the cathedral church of Norwich; and 1676, rector of St. Bartholomew, London. In 1681 he was, by the interest of Sir Heneage Finch, then lord chancellor, made dean of Norwich; but in 1686 was suspended for vindicating the doctrine of the church of England in opposition to Popery. In 1688 he was sworn chaplain to king James II., and was also chaplain to king Charles II., and attended at the coronation of king James II. In 1689 he was declared dean of Canterbury; but always refused to fill up any of the vacancies made by the deprived bishops. Upon the death of Dr. Lamplugh he was promoted to the see of York. In 1702 he preached the sermon at the coronation of queen Anne; and was sworn of the privy council, and made lord-almoner to her majesty. He died at Bath in 1713; and was interred in the cathedral of York, where a monument is erected to his memory. His sermons, which were collected after his death, and published in 7 vols. 8vo., are justly admired.

SHARP (Gregory). See SHARPE.

SHARP (Granville), a modern English phi

lanthropist of considerable learning, was the son of archbishop Sharp, and born in 1743. He was educated for the bar, but obtained a place in the ordnance office, which he resigned at the commencement of the American war, the principles of which he did not approve. He now for the rest of his life resided in the temple, and led a life of private study. He became known to the public by his spirited defence of a poor negro named Somerset, who, having been brought to England by his master, was turned into the streets in a fit of sickness. When, by the charity of Mr. Sharp and his friends he had been restored to health, he was claimed again as property. The result was a series of law proceedings, which not only cleared Somerset from his tyrant, but determined that slavery could not exist in Great Britain. Having succeeded in this case, he interested himself in the condition of others, and at his own expense sent a number of wandering negroes to Sierra Leone, and soon after became the institutor of the society for the abolition of the slave trade. He was likewise the warm advocate of parliamentary reform, in support of which he published A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature. This worthy individual, who attained the age of seventy-nine, died July 6th, 1813, active in benevolence to the last. His library was very extensive, and he possessed a curious collection of Bibles, which he presented to the British and Foreign Bible Society. His principal works are, Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Testament, &c., to which is added a plain matter of fact Argument for the Divinity of Christ, 1798, 8vo.; A Short Treatise on the English tongue; Remarks on the prophecies; Treatises on the Slave Trade, on Duelling, on the Law of Nature and Principles of Action in Man; Tracts on the Hebrew Language; Illustrations of the sixty-eighth Psalm, &c. In regard to most of these productions, the impression is likely to be very temporary; but, as connected with a standing controversy, the Remarks on the Definitive Article may probably form a lasting manual in defence of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, against the arguments of the Unitarians.

SHARP (William), a modern engraver of great skill, was the son of a gun-maker in the Minories, where he was born January 29th, 1740. His father, observing his early taste for drawing, apprenticed him to Mr. Longmate, an artist who practised what is technically termed bright engraving. At the expiration of his indentures, Sharp, then very young, married a Frenchwoman, and commenced business on his own account in Bartholomew Lane. Here he soon found himself capable of greater things than the engraving of dog-collars and door-plates, and resolutely applied himself to the higher branches of his art. One of his first essays was a plate of Hector, an old lion then in the Tower, from a drawing by himself. In 1782 he removed to the neighbourhood of Vauxhall; but, increasing in business and reputation, soon after took a larger residence in Charles Street, Middlesex Hospital. He became about this period a convert to the reveries of Mesmer and Emanuel Swedenborg, then to those of Richard Brothers,

of whom he engraved two separate plates, lest one should be insufficient to produce the requisite number of impressions which would be called for on the arrival of the predicted Millennium. When Brothers was incarcerated in a mad-house, Mr. Sharp attached himself to Joanna Southcote, of whose pretensions he continued a staunch supporter to the day of his death, although he survived considerably the object of his credulity, whom he persisted in affirming to be only in a trance. From London Mr. Sharp latterly resided at Chiswick, where he died of a dropsy in the chest, July 25th, 1824. He was at one time a member of the Society for Constitutional Information, and narrowly escaped being put on his trial for high treason, with Messrs. Horne Tooke, Holcroft, and Thelwall. He was arrested by order of government, and examined before the privy council, when it is said the naïveté of his answers and behaviour fully convinced ministers that a person of his description was little likely to engage in any conspiracy, and he was liberated after exciting a hearty laugh among the members of the board. Among the best productions of this artist are his St. Cecilia, after Domenichino; Diogenes, from a painting by Salvator Rosa; and Ecce Homo, from Guido; a Madonna and child, from Carlo Dolce; and a Zenobia, from a picture by Michel Angelo in the collection of Sir J. Reynolds. He also engraved several valuable portraits, and a large historical picture by Turnbull, of the Sortie from Gibraltar on the morning of November 27th, 1781.

SHARPE (Gregory), D. D., F. R., et A. S. S., a learned English divine, born in Yorkshire in 1713. Afrer acquiring grammar at Hull, he came to Westminster, and studied under the celebrated Dr. Friend. A piece of juvenile indiscretion made his friends withdraw him from this seminary in 1731, and place him under the care of principal Blackwell in Aberdeen: where he also studied under professor William Duff and John Stewart. On his return to England, he entered into orders, aud, after some inferior promotions, succeeded Dr. Nicolls, as master of the temple, and was appointed one of the king's chaplains. He died unmarried, January 8th, 1771. He published several respectable works, and many sermons and his skill in the oriental languages was extensive.

SHARPS, in flour, the finer part of what are denominated POLLARDS. See that article.

SHARROCK (Robert), LL.D., a learned English divine and civilian; born at Adotock in Bucks, and educated at Oxford, where he graduated. He was afterwards appointed prebendary and archdeacon of Winchester, and rector of Bishop's Waltham in Hants. He wrote A Treatise on the Propagation of Plants; and some other works; and died in 1784.

SHASTAH, SHASTER, SHASTREM, or Bedang, the name of a sacred book, in high estimation among the Hindoos, containing all the dogmas of the religion of the Brahmins, and all the ceremonies of their worship: and serving as a commentary on the Vedam. The term Shaster denotes science or system; and is applied to other works of astronomy and philosophy, which have no relation to the religion of the Indians.

None but the Brahmins and rajahs of India are allowed to read the Vedam; the priests of the Banians, called Shuderers, may read the Shaster; and the people, in general, are allowed to read only the Paran or Pouran, which is a commentary on the Shaster. The Shaster is divided into three parts: the first containing the moral law of the Indians; the second the rites and ceremonies of their religion; and the third the distribution of the people into tribes or classes, with the duties pertaining to each class. The principal precepts of morality contained in the first part of the Shaster are the following:-That no animal be killed, because the Indians attribute souls to brutes as well as to mankind: that they neither hear nor speak evil, nor drink wine, nor eat flesh, nor touch any thing that is unclean; that they observe the feasts, prayers, and washings, which their law prescribes; that they tell no lies, nor be guilty of deceit in trade; that they neither oppress nor offer violence to one another; that they celebrate the solemn feasts and fasts, and appropriate certain hours of ordinary sleep for prayer; and that they do not steal, or defraud one another. The ceremonies contained in the second part of the Shaster are such as these :-that they wash often in the rivers, to wash away their sins; that they mark their forehead with red, in token of their relation to the Deity; that they present offerings and prayers unto certain trees; that they pray in the temples, make oblations to their pagodas, or idols, sing hymns, and make processions, &c.; that they make pilgrimages to distant rivers, especially to the Ganges, to wash themselves and make offerings; that they make vows to particular saints, according to their respective departments; that they render homage to the Deity at the first sight of the sun; that they pay their respect to the sun and moon, which are two eyes of the Deity; and that they treat with particular veneration those animals that are deemed more pure than others; as the cow, buffalo, &c., because the souls of men have transmigrated into these animals. The third part of the Shaster records the distribution of the people into four classes the first being that of the Brahmins or priests, appointed to instruct the people; the second, that of the kutteris or nobles, who are the magistrates; the third that of the shuddries or merchants; and the fourth that of the mechanics. Each person is required to remain in the class in which he was born, and to pursue the occupation assigned to him by the Shaster. According to the Brahmins, the Shaster was imparted by God himself to Brahma, and by him to the Brahmins; who communicated the contents of it to the people. See GENTOOS, and HINDOOS. Modern writers have given us very different accounts of the antiquity and importance of the Shaster. Mr. Holwell, who has made considerable progress in the translation of this book, apprehends that the mythology as well as the cosmogony of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, were borrowed from the doctrines of the Brahmins, contained in it, even to the copying of their exteriors of worship, and the distribution of their idols, though grossly mutilated and adulterated. With respect to the Vedam and Shaster, or scriptures of the Gentoos, Mr. Holwell

says that Vedam, in the Malabar language, signi. fies the same as Shaster in the Shanscrit; and that the first book is followed by the Gentoos of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, and also of the island of Ceylon. The Shaster is followed by the Gentoos of the provinces of Bengal, and by all the rest of India, commonly called India Proper, along the course of the Ganges and Jumna to the Indus. Both these books (he says) contain the institutes of their respective religion and worship, as well as the history of their ancient rajahs and princes, often couched under fable. Their antiquity is contended for by the partisans of each; but he thinks that the similitude of their names, idols, and a great part of their worship, leaves little room to doubt, that both these scriptures were originally one. He adds, if we compare the great purity and chaste manners of the Shaster with the great absurdities and impurities of the Vedam, we need not hesitate to pronounce the latter a corruption of the former. With regard to the high original of these scriptures, the account of the Brahmins is as follows:- Brahma, or the Mighty Spirit, about 4866 years ago, assumed the form of man and the government of Hindostan. He translated the divine law (designed for the restoration of mankind, who had offended in a pre-existent state, and who are now in their last scene of probation, to the dignity from which they were degraded) out of the language of angels into the well known Shanscrit language, and called his translation the Chartah Bhade Shastah of Birmah, or the Six Scriptures of Divine Words of the Mighty Spirit. He appointed the Brahmins (so named from him) to preach the word of God; and the doctrines of the Shaster were accordingly preached in their original purity 1000 years. About this time there was published a paraphrase on the Chartah Bhade; and, about 500 years afterwards, a second exposition called the Aughtorrah Bhade Shasta, or Eighteen Books of Divine Words, written in a character compounded of the common Indostan and the Shanscrit. This innovation produced a schism among the Gentoos; on which occasion, it is said, those of Coromandel and Malabar formed a scripture of their own, which they pretended to be founded on the Chartah Bhade of Brahmah, and called it the Vedam of Birmah, or Divine Words of the Mighty Spirit. The original Chartah Bhade was thrown aside, and at length wholly unknown, except to a few families; who can still read and expound it in the Shanscrit character. the establishment of the Aughtorrah Bhade, and Vedam, which, according to the Gentoo account, is 3366 years ago, their polytheism commenced; and the principles of religion became so obscure, and their ceremonies so numerous, that every head of a family was obliged to keep a Brahmin as a guide both in faith and practice. Mr. Holwell is of opinion that the Chartah Bhade, or Original Scriptures, are not copied from any other system of theology promulgated to or obtruded upon mankind. The Gentoos do not attribute them to Zoroaster; and Mr. Holwell supposes that both Zoroaster and Pythagoras visited Indostan, not to instruct, but to be instructed. From the account of Mr. Dow we learn that the books which contain the religion and philosophy of the

With

Hindoos are distinguished by the name of Bedas; that they are four in number, and said to be penned by the Divinity. Beda, he says, in the Shanscrit language, literally signifies science; and these books treat not only of religion and moral duties, but of every branch of philosophic knowledge. The Brahmins maintain that the Bedas are the divine laws which Brimha, at the creation of the world, delivered for the instruction of mankind; but they affirm that their meaning was perverted in the first age by the ignorance and wickedness of some princes, whom they represent as evil spirits who then haunted the earth. The first credible account we have of the Bedas is, that about the commencement of the Cal Jug, of which era the year 1768 was the 4886th year, they were written, or rather collected, by a great philosopher and reputed prophet, called Beäss Muni, or Beass the Inspired. The Hindoos, says Mr. Dow, are divided into two great religious sects (see HINDOOS): the followers of the doctrine of Bedang, which is the original Shaster, or commentary upon the Bedas; and those who adhere to the principles of the Neadirsen. The original Shaster is called Bedang, and is a commentary upon the Bedas. This book, he says, is erroneously called in Europe the Vedam. It is ascribed to Beäss Muni, and is said to have been revised some years after by one Serrider Swami, since which it has been reckoned sacred, and not subject to any farther alterations. Almost all the Hindoos of the Decan, and those of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts are of this sect. The followers of the Bedang Shaster do not allow that any physical evil exists; they maintain that God created all things perfectly good; but that man, being a free agent, may be guilty of moral evil, which may be injurious to himself, but can be of no detriment, to the general system of nature. God, they say, being perfectly benevolent, never punished the wicked otherwise than by the pain and affliction which are the natural consequences of evil actions; and hell, therefore, is no other than a consciousness of evil. The Neardirsen Shaster is said to have been written by a philosopher called Goutam, nearly 4000 years ago. The Brahmins, from Mr. Dow's account of their sacred books appear to believe invariable in the unity, eternity, omniscience, and omnipotence of God; and their polytheism is no more than a symbolical worship of the divine attributes, which they divide into three classes. Under the name of Brimha they worship the wisdom and creative power of God; under the appellation of Bishen his providential and preserving quality; and under that of Shibah that attribute which tends to destroy. But similar apologies have been made by or for idolaters in all ages. As few of our readers may have an opportunity of perusing the Shaster, we shall, by way of specimen, subjoin a passage from the first chapter of it, which is a dialogue between Brimha, the Wisdom of the Divinity, and Narud, or Reason, the son of

Brimha :

Narud.-O father! thou first of God! thou art said to have created the world, and thy son Narud, astonished at what he beholds, is desirous to be instructed how all these things were made.

Do not

Brimha.-Be not deceived my son. imagine that I was the creator of the world, independent of the Divine Mover, who is the great original essence and creator of all things. Look, therefore, only upon me as the instrument of the great Will, and a part of his being, whom he called forth to execute his eternal designs.

Narud. What shall we think of God? Brimha.-Being immaterial, he is above all conception; being invisible, he can have no form; but, from what we behold in his works, we may conclude that he is eternal, omnipotent, knowing all things, and present every where.

Narud.-How did God create the world? Brimha.-Affection dwelt with God from all eternity. It was of three different kinds; the creative, the preserving, and the destructive. The first is represented by Brimha, the second by Bishen, and the third by Shibah. You, O Narud! are taught to worship all the three in various shapes and likenesses, as the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer. The affection of God then produced power; and power, at a proper conjunction of time and fate, embraced goodness, and produced matter. The three qualities then acting upon matter produced the universe, &c. Order rose over the universe. The seven heavens were formed, and the seven worlds were fixed in their places, there to remain till the great dissolution, when all things shall be absorbed into God.

Narud.-Shall not then the souls of good men receive rewards? nor the souls of the bad meet with punishment?

Brimha. The souls of men are distinguished from those of other animals; for the first are endued with reason, and with a consciousness of right and wrong. If therefore man shall adhere to the first, as far as his powers shall extend, his soul, when disengaged from the body by death, shall be absorbed into the divine essence, and shall never more reanimate flesh; but the souls of those who do evil are not, at death, disengaged from all the elements. They are immediately clothed with a body of fire, air, and akash (a kind of undefined celestial element), in which they are for a time punished in hell. After the season of their grief is over, they reanimate other bodies; but till they shall arrive at a state of purity they can never be absorbed into God.

Narud.-What is the nature of that absorbed state which the souls of good men enjoy after death?

Brimha. It is a participation of the divine nature, where all passions are utterly unknown, and where consciousness is lost in bliss!

Narud.-How long shall this world remain? Brimha.-Until the four lugs shall have revolved. Then Rudder (the same with Shibah, the destroying quality of God), with the ten spirits of dissolution, shall roll a comet under the moon, that shall involve all things in fire, and reduce the world into ashes. God shall then exist alone, for matter will be totally annihilated. Those who desire more information on this subject may consult Dow's History of Indostan, Holwell's Interesting Historical Events, &c.