y scholars like Sir William Jones
and Lieutenant Wilford, who can no longer defend themselves, it would be
mere cowardice to shrink from performing the same unpleasant duty in the
case of a living writer, who has shown that he knows how to wield the
weapons both of defence and attack.

It is perfectly true that the mother of Buddha was called Maya, but it is
equally true that the Sanskrit Maya cannot be the Greek Maia. It is quite
true, also, that the fourth day of the week is called _dies Mercurii_ in
Latin, and Wednesday in English; nay, that in Sanskrit the same day is
called _Budha-dina_ or _Budha-vara_. But the origin of all these names
falls within perfectly historical times, and can throw no light whatever
on the early growth of mythology and religion.

First of all, we have to distinguish between _Budha_ and _Buddha_. The two
names, though so like each other, and therefore constantly mistaken one
for the other, have nothing in common but their root. _Buddha_ with two
d's, is the participle of _budh_, and means awakened, enlightened.(53) It
is the name given to those who have reached the highest stage of human
wisdom, and it is known most generally as the title of Gotama,
_S_akya-muni, the founder of Buddhism, whose traditional era dates from
543 B. C. _Budha_, on the contrary, with one d, means simply knowing, and
it became in later times, when the Hindus received from the Greeks a
knowledge of the planets, the name of the planet Mercury.

It is well known that the names of the seven days of the week are derived
from the names of the planets,(54) and it is equally well known that in
Europe the system of weeks and week-days is comparatively of very modern
origin. It was not a Greek, nor a Roman, nor a Hindu, but a Jewish or
Babylonian invention. The Sabbath (Sabbata) was known and kept at Rome in
the first century B. C. with many superstitious practices. It is mentioned
by Horace, Ovid, Tibullus (_dies Saturni_), Persius, Juvenal. Ovid calls
it a day "_rebus minus apta gerendis_." Augustus (Suet. "Aug." c. 76)
evidently imagined that the Jews fasted on their Sabbath, for he said,
"Not even a Jew keeps the fast of the Sabbath so strictly as I have kept
this day." In fact, Josephus ("Contra Apion." ii. 39) was able to say that
there was no town, Greek or not Greek, where the custom observing the
seventh day had not spread.(55) It is curious that we find the seventh
day, the Sabbath, even under its new Pagan name,