"Grijaha was astonished at the sight of large crosses, evidently
objects of worship."--Prescott's _Mexico_, vol. i. p. 203.
Mr. Stephens, in his _Central America_, vol. ii., gives a representation of
one of these crosses. The cross on the Temple of Serapis, mentioned in
Socrates' _Ecc. Hist._, was undoubtedly the well-known _Crux ansata_, the
symbol of life. It was as the latter that the heathens appealed to it, and
the Christians explained it to them as fulfilled in the Death of Christ.
MR. PEACOCK asks for other instances: I subjoin some.
In _India_.--The great pagoda at Benares is built in the form of a cross.
(Maurice's _Ind. Ant._, vol. iii. p. 31., City, Tavernier.)
On a Buddhist temple of cyclopean structure at Mundore (Tod's _Rajasthan_,
vol. i. p. 727.), the cross appears as a sacred figure, together with the
double triangle, another emblem of very wide distribution, occurring on
ancient British coins (Camden's _Britannica_), Central American buildings
(Norman's _Travels in Yucatan_), among the Jews as the Shield of David
(Brucker's _History of Philosophy_), and a well-known masonic symbol
frequently introduced into Gothic ecclesiastical edifices.