SHORT STUDIES j IN THE ^ l^^E OF COMPARATIVE :aBLIGIO.NS :^^.: J. G. H. FOR LONG REESE LIBRARY OK rm-; UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. CLns No. ^^' '^ mi::^m _^^^^ !g==g:"^ 3ff^'===15B ^— >J^^^^ ^a."Sg^ 2A 'Fx ^^^2 i jjl— jfiJL jfeF=^ _:^^ Hi ■S m ^^fi SHORT STUDIES IN THE SCIENCE OF COMPARATIVE RELIGIONS SHORT STUDIES IN THE SCIENCE OF COMPARATIVE RELIGIONS EMBRACING ALL THE IIELIGI0:N^S OE ASIA BY Major-General J. G. R. FORLONG F.R.S.E., F.RA.S., M.A.I., Etc. AUTHOR OF " RIVERS OF LIFE " WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON BERNARD QUARITCH, 15 PICCADILLY 1897 (All rights referred) Y ( REESE r^ Oi>. CONTENTS PREFACE ...... INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER I. JAINISM AND BUDDHISM II. TRANS-INDIAN RELIGIONS III. ZOROASTRIANISM .... IV. HINDUISM, VEDAS AND VEDANTISM . V. LAOTSZE AND TAO-ISM . VI. CONFUCIUS AND HIS FAITH . VII. THE ELOHIM OF THE HEBREWS VIII. THE JEHOVAH OF THE HEBREWS IX. THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE WEST . X. MAHAMAD, ISLAM, AND ANCIENT MAKA XI. SHORT TEXTS OF ALL FAITHS . INDEX ..... PAGES vii 453-55-r 647-662 :; ■±0>y LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Map of India 1. Holy Land of Buddhists 2. The Buddha of Bangal Map of Buddhism Do. Trans-Indian States 3. The Original Boro-Bud-ar . 4. The Tibetan Bud or Hermes 5. The Mongolian Bud or Obo 6. The Fifth Hindu Avatar, Bali and Vishnu 7. An Egyptian Snake Deity . 8. AsYRiAN Worship of Ashr and Ashera 9. Do. before portable altar 10. Do. WITH ALL EMBLEMS 11. Egyptian Worship of Adon Ra and Hands 12. Hebrew altar of JahyJ; Nisi 13. Al Ashr and Ashera cult of Arabia 14. Landscape of Maka and Valley 1 11 28 30 74 104 109 110 249 259 368 369 369 393 398 545 547 PREFACE The following " Short Studies " on very important subjects are published at the urgent request of friends who have read them in a less complete state in an encyclopaedia of religious terms, rites and symbolisms, upon which the author has been engaged for a great many years, and out of which grew his previous volumes. Other subjects might have been selected as more popular, but none could be so vital or fundamental, and as regards religious ideas, so all-embracing. This volume is virtually an epitome of religions, but is rather for the general reader than the specialist, for it shows the former the result of the researches of the latter, and the important scope of these ; and it is hoped makes the general literary position more assured. The public are rarely equipped with the necessary information on which to form a judgment, so that much precious time and literary labour is often wasted in arguing or rehearsing matters, which have long passed beyond the province of controversy. The work of the specialist is rarely attractive to the public, because it is not only technical but destructive and seems to surround one with pitfalls and uncertainty. It is the work of the expositor to search solid ground and the task is often as thankless as it is laborious. He must popularise as far as possible, the knowledge hid away in dusty tomes, and scattered in home and foreign magazines, as well as in scientific journals. Nor will his services receive much appreciation, for he is certain to run athwart many current theories and practices, feelings and Vlll PREFACE. opinious. It is with knowledge as it is with commodities. There is no feeling evoked in technical or abstract pursuits. One may observe facts, study laws, excavate tombs and trans- late texts with impunity, but it is otherwise when as in this case we apply the information thus obtained, to existing institu- tions ; when we undertake the formidable task of comparing one religion with another, in order to show the origin and development of each. The great difficulty is to do this without bias, and within a limited number of pages, for all the sacred scriptures of the world must be studied, their leading doctrines, deities and varied sects set forth, considered and compared, each with each, as well as the adventitious circumstances which have advanced and retarded growths ; and finally we must help the general reader to some definite and useful conclusions on the whole and its parts. But he too has a task. He must brace himself up to bear with equanimity, if not sympathy, the free handling of many sacred subjects. Both the reader and the expositor are face to face with deep-rooted religious prejudices, embracing many political, pecuniary and social interests, which it becomes us all to study calmly and sympathetically, but of course with- out favor. Let us hope that in time reliable evidence and facts will be listened to and finally accepted. Though exceedingly anxious to avoid giving off'ence to the votaries of any faith, the author has, of course, been equally anxious not to slur over the fticts or to suppress the logical deductions therefrom, but to state these clearly, assured that the truth is ultimately in the best interests of all, as some one said : ''It requires no authority . . . wears no mask ; bows to no shrine ; seeks neither place nor applause ; asks only to be heard." The public will also, it is hoped, extend some forbearance PREFACE. IX towards, if it cannot appreciate, the very mild spelling reform which the author has advocated for some twenty years and which he also introduced into Rivers of Life (1881), for reasons urged in his preface, p. xxxvi. et seq. The subject is one of far wider importance, as Prof. Mahaffy lately showed {Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1896), than the home public imagine. It is in fact as useful and necessary as the introduction of a decimal system of money, weights and measures ; and those two reforms would result in an immense saving of time and energy in our schools — a saving that might be expressed by millions sterling per annum. A corrected spelling means however, much trouble to authors and printers, for it is not easy even when as in this case we print our own writings, to convert the press to our opinions ; printers giving scant respect to our courageous resolve to drop unsounded and double letters. Our spelling is also in the meantime inconsistent; arising from a desire to minimise the difficulties of readers in understanding our subject and its terms, as well as from the necessity of abstaining from a too sudden and confusing reformation. It is necessary here to move slowly and almost unnoticed, but we must not stand still. Fortunately even the philologists are with us, for Prof. Max M tiller told the world twenty years ago, and repeats to-day {Fort. Rev., April 1876 and Feb. '97), that there is no supposed sanctity or etymological value in our present hap-hazard system. We are now content with the orthografy of the first chapter of Genesis, though the writers of a hundred years ago would consider it had one hundred and twenty errors in spelling. Our guiding principle here has been that long ago adopted by the Governments of India and most oriental scholars ; viz., not to change the present spelling or vocalization of world-wide names, X PREFACE. as Calcutta and Cawnpore, wrong and absurd though these may be, but in all other cases to follow, phonetically if possible, the oldest vernaculars, and by such transliteration as is laid down in the S.B. East series of 1879 modified by the later codes of the R. Geog. Soc. and Indian Antiquary series of 1891-3. We have found it necessary to make a few exceptions, as for example where the spelling of a name hides the root to be elucidated ; some names we also spell in different ways, so as to familiarize the reader with these as they appear and are vocalized in different languages and tribes. Sundry ordinary scientifik words are also improved phonetikaly by using ks rather than the varying Latin cs or cks, and the affectation of a century or two ago for ph's instead of fs ; also by omitting some pro- minently useless double letters, gutturals and drawls. Many will doubtless decline to accept even a " milenium " without two Is and two ns, and like Scotchmen insist on two ns for " manners " though continuing to drawl out ma . . . n ers. Prof, Mahaffy says : *' Only pedants support the (ortho- graphical) conservative spirit of the vulgar . . , standing in the van of those ivho frustrate the advance of English through- out the ivorld ... it is the stay-at-home who has written no lan- guage but his own. ... It is not our grammar, which is easy, or our grammatical forms which are very few, but it is our spell- ing which is the great obstacle. ... It has not for a long time represented our pronunciation with any approach to accuracy or consistency. . . . Yet with pedants it has become the main test" of an educated man, and three or four orthographical mistakes suffice to exclude an otherwise well-qualified youth from the public services. " Even the few slight and timid changes introduced by Americans," he continues, " are all accounted vulgarisms by our purists, who fail to see that this PREFACE. XI stupid adherence to an irrational and artijicial ortliograpliy not only isolates Britain, but prevents a ivorld-wide future for the English language, and continues to rivet the chains which condemn our children to waste so mucli precious time in learn- ing to spell contrary to their utterance." Let us all try "to accustom the vulgar English public to a certain indulgence or laxity in spelling, so as to gradually approach a reasonably con- sistent orthography. . . . This will lighten the task of every foreigner . . . and give him some chance of learning English from books, and show him that violation from English usage is no deadly crime." The italics are ours. With these explanations we trust our Studies, the result of no little labour, will meet with the earnest and sympathetik attention of an enlightened publik. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER Having to treat largely of many very aDcient and obscure events and peoples, their meagre and hazy histories, legends, religious doctrines, rites and customs, we have, with the view of keeping close to generally acknowledged facts, embodied the result of much laborious study of a considerable and often rare literature, in three sets of chronological tables, which cannot fail to be of great use to students. The very early prehistorik dates are of course subject to constant revision, being more or less constructive chronology, which though necessary to keep before us, is more than any other liable to be upset by fresh discoveries alike in the laboratory of archeologists and scientists, or by the explorer's spade. Each chronological table confines itself mainly to those subjects treated of in its chapter or section, but to make the details more interesting and so help the memory, there is added some synchronous matters of general history, and a free running commentary drawing attention to what is specially noteworthy. Thus the clironological table at end of Study I. gives in due sequence the rise and progress of the religious sectaries of Central Asia, with India as a center, their developments, and especially the ethikal, political and social movements which resulted therefrom down to the second century when the Chris- tian Gospels first appeared. The second set of tables, at end of Study II., give the leading facts concerning the movements of Indian faiths and mythologies eastward into Trans-India, and show the building up there of important nations and religions by ancient Indian colonizers, kings and leaders. A third body of chronology follows Study III. — Zoroastrianism — where is traced its rise, growth, rule and far-reaching influence, from XIV INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Central Europe to Baktria, Babylonia and eastward even to the vales of Kashmir ; its natural decay and death, hastened as this was by the strong monotheism, and forcible methods of the great Arabian and his successors. The three sets of tables notice also in due sequence all important monumental records, sacred stones or stelse, shrines, inscriptions, early and popular names of deities, their attributes, habitats, rise and fall, and such like matter, which though many assertions and conclusions rest upon them, cannot be always shown in a too brief text. Study II. places before the world, so far as we know for the first time, a consecutive and methodical history of the quasi aboriginal and leading races of the Indian Archipelago, more especially of Java, Siam, Kambodia, and those other old nations now acknowledging French sovereignty, but of whose ancient history she know^s little and Europe still less, especially as to their ancient religions. Much is here established from monu- ments as well as muniments, and by tracing back names, rites and symbolisms to the prehistorik times of Kolarian India. Chronologies of course entail some little study, but he who has no leisure or wish to be a student can skip these, or only dive into them when puzzled by the text ; in which case we trust he will not assume to criticize, for very much depends on detailed chronologies — well called "the eyes of history." "With- out such a guide we must go astray or at best walk with faltering steps, whilst with its light the most cursory reader can pursue his way, and also see how far the author wanders into the regions of hypotheses. Not that this is censurable even on the part of a historian, for such excursions, where proofs may not yet be possible, are of the very essence of scientifik treatment. As Humboldt somewhere says : " Surmize, hypo- thesis, sagacity and divination are the parents of science," though props to be used sparingly and with judgment. The selection of these Short Studies has enabled us to virtually embrace and epitomize all the faiths and religious ideas INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XV of the world, as well as to lay bare the deep-seated tap root from which they sprang, viz., the crude Yati-ism, Jati or asceticism of thoughtful Jatis or Jinas, who in man's earliest ages have in all lands separated themselves from the world and dwelt from pious motives in lone forests and mountain caves. The Jati was essentially a "matted haired hermit" — latterly known as one re-born or re-incarnated; and Jdtihas, usually styled "fables," are " the traditions of the fathers " in present-day 'parlance. From these anchorite practices and teachings seem to have developed the ascetical Bodhism of Jainas, the ancient Brah- manism and Buddhism of Gotama and pre-Gotama times, the earlier Magianism of Kaspiana, the Shamanism of Mongolia, and the Taoism of China. The process of course would be very gradual, and depend upon the circumstances, talent, wisdom and unwisdom, piety, self-interest, and idiosyncrasies of the leaders — quasi founders — the prophets, rishis, saints, Bodhas or " wise ones," like Zoroaster, Moses, Maha-Vira, Gotama, Laotsze, Con- fucius and a host of less known teachers. We do not here attempt to face the impossible genesis or beginning of all religion, but only to step a little back and find a base from which such grand old structures as the Gathas of the Vedas and the Avastas arose ; the philosophical teachings of the schools of Kapila-Vastu, of Jainas, of Brahmans and Brahmanas — the origin or history of the saintly phalanx of twenty-four Tirthankars or Jaina Bodhists corresponding to the ten Avataras of Hindus. The ninth of these, Gotama-Buddha, was we now know for certain born in the Lumbini garden of N. E. Oudh during the preaching of the great 24th Jaina Bodha, Mahavira of Vaisali. (598-526 B.C.) To avoid confusion, we in this volume term all pre-Gotama, Jaina saints or Tirthankars, Bodhas, and reserve the name Buddhas for the followers of Gotama (the only true Buddhas) ; just as Christian-like saints before Christ might be called Chrestians but not Christians. It has led to much confu- Xvi INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. siou calling Kfisyapa, who preceded Gotama, a Buddha. He was an arch-heretik to Buddhism, as is seen when " Deva-datta, the Lord's cousin," forsook Gotama to join the Kasyapas or Jina Bodhists, whose headquarters was then (about 517 B.C.) at Sravasti, where was the tomb of Kasyapa, around which, and down to our middle ages, there ever thronged the Digambara or naked sect of Jaiuas as related in pp. 8, 9, 62. The twenty-four Avataras or saintly Jainas may reasonably be taken as appearing at intervals of one or more centuries. The 24th, Maha-Vira — now an historical character — preceded the 23rd, Parsva (also all but historical), by about 200 to 250 years, and Parsva has therefore been thougiit by some to be a title of Kasyapa Bodha, who is bracketed with Gotama Buddha and '' Konah 'MunV on the Bharahut skulptures, of which more anon. Before him came Kraku-chanda, whom Ceylonese and trans-Indian Buddhists say appeared about the time of Abraham, but who they are far from considering as equally historical. If we have a tree of the one at Hebron, we have more substantial evidence of the other in Asoka's Lat of 250 B.C. at Kapilavastu, his acknowledged birth-place. Gotama constantly spoke with reverence of these three preceding Bodhas, and the questions to be solved are not only their dates, but those of the first twenty ; the first of which, Rishabha, is the best known among them. He is to Jains exactly what Abram is to Hebrews and Mahamadans, and there seems as much revered and inspired scripture in the one case as in the other. General Cunningham shows Kasyapa as skulptured at Bharahut, in his PL xv. (Lon. 1879, p. 113-4), but conventionally calls this Jaina and his predecessor " Buddhas." Elephants, as symbols of the wise, are there seen worshiping on their knees before a banian, Kasyapa's sacred tree, at the foot of which is an inscribed altar or hodhi manda ; and other old and young elephants are bringing ofi'erings &c., to Kasyapa's symbols. In PI. xxiv. 4, the Archeologist shows also the worship of INTEODUCTORY CHAPTER. XVll ^^ Kanak Muni^'' as he thus transliterated the Bharahut char- acters ; but in Ceylon and trans-India the name is " Ko-ndga- mani ; " see Forbes and Spence Hardy in Man : Bud. p. 89. The Jina Bodha's tree appears as the Ficus glomerata, at the foot of which is also a casket-like altar where many are kneeling and kissing. Others are adorning its branches with garlands, said to be the trumpet-like flower Patali, after which it was fancied the Magadha capital was named, though we believe the Emperor Chandragupta called Patali-pothra after his natal city Patali the old capital of the Indus delta. Just as this was going to press full confirmation was received of the very important discovery of the garden of Lumbini and consequently of the ruins of Kapila-Vastu at the extreme north-east of Oudh, to which we allude in Art. I., p. 9. When so writing about a year ago the discovery seemed only to be that of the tomb of the Bodha Konakamana or perhaps of Kakuchanda — long surmized to be in this locality. But in excavating the Lat of Asoka, now known as that of Padeiria, it was at once established, as Prof. G. Blihler says in AtJien, 5th March '97, that it stood in " the garden of Lum- mini^' (Pali, Lumhini), where Gotama was born; and, if so, the vast stretch of ruins eight miles N.W. are those of the great Canterbury and Oxford of ancient India, from which we may now hope to extract much invaluable historical, religious and literary matter. The Emperor here states on his Lat (a great stone 25 ft. long) that he himself came to this " Garden of Lumbini, in the twentieth year of his anointing" (b.c. 239 ?) ; here worshiped, erected several stupas and also this Lat " on the very spot where Lord Buddha was born in order to commemorate this great event." Ruins of stupas, monasteries and palaces buried in dense janjals, seem, say Indian correspondents, to abound in the neighbourhood. They stretch in a straight line for some five miles from the village of Amouli to Tilaura Kot on the XVlll INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Ban-ganga river, and extend in all over some seven miles, so that all archeologists have here been misled, apparently by the itineraries of foreign pilgrims, as to the sites given in sketch map, fig. I., p. 11. Even natives have forgotten the site for above a thousand years. The new site shows that the more we study the more it appears we have to look northwards for the cradle lands of Indian races, faiths and civilization, and this seriously disturbs the supposed Aryan origin of these. Amidst Himalayan forests, under the snowy heights of Napal was clearly no place in pre- Buddhistik times, for Aryan residence or culture, yet here was the first Indian home of all Sakyas, Malas and other early non- Aryan settlers, thus confirming much we have said and left unsaid, as for example at pages 10-12 of this volume. It is evident that Northern India like Western Asia and Southern Europe received its first colonizers from Central Asia, as from a Baktrian centre, and from the sacred gathering ground — "the Hindu Holy Land" — in the vale and plains of the Mana Saravar lakes. From here issue as streamlets, the Indus, Satlej or Sarayu, and that other Sarayu of Kosala or Northern Oudh, which, with its afiluent the Mala-indu ("river of Malas"), here bursts through the Sravasti gorge. From Mana Sara war also springs the great Brahma-putra or child of India's Creating father — features clearly seen in the map of Ancient India. The colonizers seem to have followed the tracks of these rivers till they debouched on the fertile plains of India, and they would naturally be termed Malas, Madras, &c., as coming from the Hima-alyas or " Snow Mountains," or as children (Madras) of Rudra or Siva, wending their way down the Satlej under the shadow of his celestial dwelling place, holy Kailasa. It would take agfes before their Bonzas, Shamans or " Medicine Men " turned into pious Sramans, Bodhas, wise Buddhas, and the Rishis and philosophers of Kapila-Yastu. But a word here at the risk of anticipating our text, regarding the twenty-four Jaina Saints. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XIX Of these there are considerable if not reliable details, and Gotama was satisfied, not only as to the particulars of the lives but of the teachings of the three who preceded him, as Parsva of the 9th century B.C. was of his predecessors. Gotama frequently calls himself " the fourth," and some said he was the fifth Buddha or teacher of the ascetikal practices of his early anchorite life which partook of the essence of Jinism and the refined Sanyasism of Brahmanism. It is clear also that the Gotama of early Tibetans, Mongols and Chinese, must have been a Jaina, for the latter say he lived in the tenth and eleventh centuries B.C. Tibetans say he was born in 916, became a Buddha in 881, preached from his thirty -fifth year and died in 831 B.C., dates which closely correspond with those of the saintly Parsva. But the Chinese date of the tenth and eleventh centuries points rather to Bodha Kasyapa, whom they might hear of in Baktria or at the sources of the Indus in " the Indu Holy Land," and who is the probable source of Taoism. Some suggest that there were two Kasyapas but this does not help us, and is most unlikely, seeing the name, circum- stances and similarity of the early Buddhism to that even of Asokan times, and seeing it evolved as we show this in "Short Texts," Study XL, from the Buddhism of Gotama's "second stage." Distance was nothing to these itinerant monks, and we therefore believe that the dweller in the Himalayan highlands of Sravasti readily found his way to the Bodhistically inclined peoples of ancient Balk. We may look upon the twenty to twenty-four Jaina saints as occupying that "heroik period," common in all histories, especially those of Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Hebrews. There are seen ten to twelve Avatars or semi-divine kings or patriarchs as Hebrews called them, and to whom, like Hindus and others, they ascribe unnaturally long lives and strange legends. Hindus show that eight such appeared before Gotama, whose advent ushered in the rise of Indian literature, not necessarily XX INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Aryan, tliougli it has descended to us in an Aryan garb. Kapila-Vastu was an Oxford of learned Dravidian Pandits several centuries before Aryans settled in mid Gangetik states. Before the days of Rishi KajDila, about 700-600 B.C., some history and much tradition shows that there existed very ancient Jaina scriptures called Purvas, i.e., Puixinas or " old " sacred hymns (we can scarcely say writings) long prior to 800-900 B.C. — the times of Parsva. But the reader must bear in mind that it is only the poverty of language which here obliges us, lucus a non lucendo, to so speak. It is like accusine: Moses of writing the Pentateuch thirteen centuries B.C., when so far as we can see no Hebrews knew any scripture, though some Amarna pandits could write in kuniform, all of which Mr Oust disposes of in R. As. J. of Jan. 1897, as we do, briefly at the close of article ix., p. 450. It cannot as yet be proved that any writings existed in India in pre-Gotama times, thouoh Dr Biihler thinks Indian traders used the so-called Brdhml o scrip., 800 B.C., and that by 500 B.C. it contained an alfabet of forty-six letters. Prof. Halevy cannot place this earlier than 330 B.C., so the reader must remember that when we speak of the earliest " scriptv^res," these, till about 600 B.C., were, so far as we may yet assert, oral, mere words borne in pious and well trained memories. Hindus of Brahmanikal tendencies evidently adopted the Jaina Parsva as their fourth Avatar, Parasu-Rama, just as ages later they naturally adopted Gotama as their ninth ; seeing that, in early life, he embraced all the best teachings and pious austerities of Jainas, and of some Brahmans, impelled appar- ently thereto, by the atheistikal philosophies of Kapila-Vastu and the coarse animism current around him. He evidently chose as ensamples the three or four previous Bodhas, and no doubt the much revered Maha-Vira — his possible instructor and senior by forty-one years. Not till 500 B.C., did he make his great stride forward, INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXI removing religion into a higher and purer ethikal and altruistik atmosphere than any faith had yet accomplished. He then quitted the Yati's or Jina's cell, and to a great extent the ascetik's role, and taught that true religion is Work and Duty, no mere selfish desire for rest, peace, or enjoyment, nor a seeking after one's own salvation, here or hereafter, but a life devoted to the service of others. It took a century for this •excellent religion to make much progress, for we find kings, nobles, and even the learned, holding more or less Jaina or Brahmanikal views, down to the beginning of the 3rd century B.C., when Asoka, the rising young viceroy of Malwa (the " Mala kingdom" of Jains, capital Uj-Jaini), began to realise the inutility to man, or at all events to the statesman, of Jaina Bodhism, in com- parison to true Buddhism. Yet only about the middle of the 3rd century, when firmly seated as Emperor of Magadha (virtually of all Northern Hindostan) did he announce himself a Buddhist. It is necessary to remember and in chronological order, the leading mental developments of the Emperor Asoka as gathered from his actual inscriptions — edicts on rocks and lats. We give therefore below free translations of passages of five of these from Thomas Early Asoka, 41-45 ; Senart's Inscrips. 11. and Jour. Asiatique, May 1887, observing the chronology S.B.E.X. Intro. by Prof. Max Miiller. The great turning-point in the emperor's career w^as his " Conversion by Nigr6dha " — no doubt from a complacent Hinduism, to the all-prevailing ethikal Jainism then fast tendinof to Buddhism. Year. Leading Matters of some Edicts. REGNAL. B.C. 263 Asoka ruling as Viceroy of Uj-jaini. 259 Anointed Emperor of Magadha at Piitali-putra. 3 256 Is "converted by Nigrodha" to a life of Dharma, "piety," duty and good works, especially of mercy and tenderness to all having life. XXll INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Yeah. REGNAL. B.C. 253 6 9 250 10 249 12 247 Leading Matters ok some Edicts. 18 20 27 241 239 232 Begins to build and endow monasteries, stupas and sundry charities, and urges reverence to Brahmaus and Sramans. Inscribes the important Edict XII., stating his "conversion"' — to Jainism 1 Proclaims a religion of goodness, and appoints ministers of morals to watch over the morals of persons of all religions. Inscribes an edict again urging tender mercy to all that lives ;. says he desires to make all happj^ and enable them to- reach heaven or " Svartja." Urges the conversion of all in the Empire so that " following the paths of righteous- ness they may give glory to God " (according to one trans- lator) — a doctrine which may be Jainism but not Buddhism. He therefore calls this teaching " sinful " in his twenty- seventh year edict. Probable date of Bhabra stone and first mention of " Buddha Dharma and Church " — Faith and Assembly. XJrge.s^ obedience to Yinaya and other scriptures, saying : " I have (here) uttered my desire," which was understood as an imperial command and looks like a statement that the religion of the Empire was henceforth to be Buddhism ; and so argued with us all the local Pandits at Bairath (Bhabra) in Rajputana. Being now a declared Buddhist, he in this eighteenth regnal year, drops the old Jaina title of '■' Di'va-wnn-jAija" "Beloved by the Gods" (Buddha knowing of no gods or spirits), and simply styles himself '■'■ Priyd-dasin," "The gracious or humane one." Asoka goes to far JST.E, Oudh and erects the Padirea lat in the garden of Lumbini and makes a voydl procession ta Sravasti. This long pious inscription is dated "the 27th of my anoint- ment," and opens with " a confession of jjast faults." He says of his edict of the twelfth regnal year : " having destroyed that ; and regarding my former religion as sin, I proclaim the fact for the benefit of the world . . . for Dhama (religion) is the chief excellence and consists of good works, mercy, charity, purity, c^'c, &c. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXlll The theme of our First Study thus embraces of necessity- many difficult, fundamental and most interesting points of ancient Indian history ; especially the rise of races, and their original seats and colonies. India has indeed been the birthplace of great nations as well as religions, mythologies, and all manner of superstitions, many of which are here explained and verified. Those who have by residence and study been long acquainted with its different races, but have got wedded to the Aryan idea of Indian civilization, will, we think, find reason to recast their views, more especially if they have lived in friendly intercourse with the great Dravidian makers of her history, with Madras, Tamils, Telingas, Bangas, Malwas, Marwars, Rrditors, Mah- Rathas, Konkanis, &c. Our researches also point to the probable origin of many world-wide legends down to the days when Chris- tian Europe canonized the sage of Bodha-Gaya, the worthiest and best amono; her saints. Study II. embraces the earliest known colonizing develop- ments of Eastern Trans-India, and the consequent spread thither of all the faiths and symbolisms of Trilingana and Tamulian India, their Bud or Hermaik nature, and serpent cults, elemental and sexual, as well as the corrupt Mala Jainism, as of Mah- Malapur, and the Bali and animism of the Ceylonese. Follow- ing these, and much mixed up therewith, came Buddhism, which, owing to the labors of Buddha-gosha, developed very purely among Burmans in our fifth century, and much later among the Shams or Siams. Lastly came Purilnik Hinduism, which endured until forcibly effaced by Islam in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A searching- in vesti oration as to all these movements has led to many important geografikal and ethnografikal facts concern- ing the colonizers, showing their tracks, customs and ideas as they settled variously from East Africa to the Indian Archipelago, in and about Australasia, and ou through Polynesia even to Peru XXIV INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. and British Columbia, though the Mala or Malay influence there is too large a subject to be dealt with in a Short Study. Study III. is necessarily a brief sketch of a great faith, that of the Iranians, developed by another pious and learned Buddha — the first of Aryan teachers, known to Greeks as Zoroaster. It arose amid the volcanik wilds of S.E. Kaspiana, where fire w^as naturally worshiped by its Magi ("great ones"), magi- cians, sorcerers, or shamans. It dominated Western Asia more or less completely from the Oxus to the Persian Gulf from about 1200 B.C. to 650 A.C., and therefore requu^es the most serious, attention from all students of ancient and modern religions. From Mazda-ism sprang most of the kosmik and religious ideas of Western Asia and Europe, Syrian, Hebrew, and Chris- tian ; and whosoever would rightly comprehend and appreciate western scriptures, rites, laws, and symbolisms, should here search for a basement. We can but lightly touch on what is mildlv termed " the coincidences " and analofi-ous leo-ends, parables, deities, angels and fiends, heavens, hells and other dogmas concerning man's present and future, wide fields of thought, which the West largely gathered from the religion of Ahura Mazdali. The important subjects of the age of the original Gatlias and Avasta-Zand, raised by Mr Darmesteter in 1892-3, and eagerly discussed by European and Parsi scholars (see especially R. As. Jour. Bom. LII., 1896) are here carefully considered, and may be taken as finally disposed of as far as all known records go, but still we are only in a position to give approximate dates beyond Achaimeniau times. Studies IV., V. and YI. These embrace Hinduism, chiefly as found in Vedas and Yedantism, and the histories and teachinos of Laotsze and INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXV Confucius. All well authenticated facts, theories, rites, and doctrines are carefully investigated, as well as the characters and influence of the founders, and the worship and scriptures which developed therefrom ; and due comparisons are drawn to show how these stand in the lio-ht of other relifjions. The radical meaning of the "Tao" of Laotsze is here set forth, it is believed, for the first time, and was in MS. a dozen years ago. Tao is in fact analogous to Rahh, a common term for God and Lord in the Koran, where it is considered more divine than the Malah or " Lord " of Arabs, Syrians, Hebrews and Lidians. Tao is often indeed Brahma but oftener Brahm or Bruhma, the great Neuter and Absolute Power, fully described in Study IV., " Vedas and Vedanta." No doubt General Alexander is justified in translating Tao by " God " in his little book on Laotsze published last year, though it is usually better to use the native terms, for that of " God " varies in meaning according to age and culture. Thus Tao is often Tl and Tiamat, the Aji^su or " Great Abyss," as " origin of all things," and " He or It who unravels." He is " The Way, The Greatness, and a Greatness ever moving on " ; tlie Hidden One (a name of Aman and Siva), also " the Nameless," and according to Confucius " the Path or AYay of Virtue." See correspondence in R.As. Js., January 1897. Prof, de Harlez says " Tao has the essential meaning of Greatness." So has Rahh and Rah-mag, ^lyyi in the Koran, and Jer. xxix. 3 ; and so has Mag or Mdgian, the Magu-pati of Hindus, the Magha of Sumirs and Akkads, aud Mageus of the Avasta Zand, which said Darmesteter also means " holiness and godliness " S. B. E., li. 4. Studies VII. and VIII. — Elohim and Jehovah These sum up most of the ablest criticism regarding tlie rise and character of the two Hebrew conceptions of a tribal XXVI INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. and universal God in Ale-im (a^n^i^) or Elohim and Yalive or Yaliue (mrr^) — vocalized latterly as Jehovah. Our arguments as to the early arboreal cult, in the thinly disguized worsliip of the Aleim as local spirits of trees, and broadly speaking of vegetation, will not surprise those who have studied Mannhardt, Grimm, C. Botticher, Menant, R. Smith's Semites, Fraser's Golden Bough, De Gubernatis, &c., We seem to have successfully started the fact among English writers, when, in 188l^, we astonished many, by calling the tree, "man's first cult" and placed it at the head of Tlie Chart of Rivers of Life, and made it the one theme of tlie first chapter in that work. The cult continually appears through- out the Old Testament, and must have approved itself to the compilers of Ezra's days. Indeed the very first preliminary towards composing or editing the Bible, was for Ezra to place himself under Ale's eponymous Alun, Ale or Oak, when the Elohim at once appeared to him " in a bush," as he had done to Moses. See 2 Ezdras, xix., and the strange details given in the next Study, Septuagint, 447-8. Nothing is more prominent in tlie early religion of Hebrews than the worship of, or at all events under, the oaks and terebinths, the Als or Aluns of Mamre, Moreh, Shechem, &c. ; and the strange occurences, rites and discoursings which took place beside these and other sacred trees, are much and fondly dwelt on. The palm of Deborah seems to have inspired her song, and a whispering of the mulberry trees proclaimed to David the voice of his God, as the oaks of Dodona did also that of Zeus to Greeks. Nor has the idea yet died down in Europe, as Folk Lore journals every. day show. We know that the virgin Saint Jeanne d'Arc received the first incitement to her mission under a sacred tree, though she swore she did not believe in driads and fays, but only in Biblical Spirits. The cult is still common in the Hebrew " Holy Land," Syria, Arabia and Africa. Witness it before the Mandura tree INTKODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXvii at the Nile-ometer as described at p. 466, and trace its phases in the ancient and modern symbols of asherim, matsbes, pillars, stocks and altar-like stones, noticed in Deut. xi. 30 ; Judges ix. 37; 2 Sam. v. 24 ; Hosea iv. 12, and elsewhere, in addition to the remarks of modern scholars, as at page 179 of the Rev. Robertson Smith's Semites, Notice also how close Jacob's idea of the Ale- god he selected (Gen. xxxviii. 20), is to that of our present Gilgit or Kash-miri peasant, as related in TJie Golden Bough, i. 70. AVhen the vernal spirit of vegetation (the Aleim of Hebrews) has stii'red nature, the Gilgiti sets out from his house to seek in his well known abode the Himalayan Oak, and bringing to his wife a budding branch, exclaims, there is what will bestow children, flocks and plenty, "the food and raiment" for which Jacob bartered with Jehovah. Study ix. The Septuagint. This is a brief history of the Hebrew Scriptures, more especially as found in that oldest record, the Greek Septuagint, embracing the Thora, n^lID, of Ezraitik scribes from about 420 to 380 B.C., with later additions. It details the vicissitudes the various scriptures underwent, especially the loss of the "Original Temple Standard" copy of the Hebrew Bible at the siege of Jerusalem in 71 a.c, and the burning of the original Septuagint in the Bruchium library in 47 B.C. Study x. Mahamad and Islam. This is a brief history of "the great Arabian," his faith — Islam; his Bible "The Koran," and a description of Maka wath its faiths, ancient and modern. Study xi. Short Texts from all Faiths. We give here a brief epitome of the views expressed in different bibles and creeds, faiths and philosophies, chronologic- ally arranged, so as to show the gradual growth of ideas and XXVlll INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. tlius enable readers to scientifically compare the religions for themselves. It is largely based on the previous ten Studies, but is complete in itself and is likely to interest a large class of readers who may have neither time nor inclination for the heavier details of the previous Studies. It has not been thought necessary to here treat of Christianity which has been taught in Europe for some seventeen centuries ; enough that we point to religion as coeval with the intelligence of man ; and prove that it manifests like results under like circumstances. IRiver jS^ames Gant^e Tor Cf^P. FurUmffS Shxirt SivtluW ANCIENT INDIA SHORT STUDIES IN THE SCIENCE OF COMPARATIVE RELIGIONS ARTICLE I LiiNisM AXD Buddhism : Prehistoric and Historic The Fatlis and Inflnences of the Faiths O mucli has of late been before the reading pubhc in regard to Buddhism, that we refrain from insertico' a lono- and important "Study" prepared by us on that Faith and its founder ; and will give instead some researches into its origin in connection with its cruder form, Jainism, and show the early centres of both faiths — their paths and influences, especially westwards and uj) to the second century, when the Christian Gospels were first recognised, a subject on which we con- tributed some papers to an American journal, 1886-7. To keep ourselves and readers as straight as possilile in regard to all the actual facts yet known, and the reasonable conclusions which may be drawn therefrom, we append a Chronological Table of the ffiiths, with leading synchronous events, laboriously gathered during much reading and a long residence among Jaiuas and Buddhists, We also add a running commentary showing the due weight and proportion which may be attached to the events noticed, and give a brief summary of the ethical teachings of the sages, so that tliere may be no break in the historical and religious continuity of the A SHORT STUDIES IN THE SCIENCE OF COMPARATIVE RELIGIONS ARTICLE I LiixiSM AND Buddhism : Prehistoric and Historic Tlie Paths and Injluences of the Faiths OO much lias of late been before the reading public in regard to Buddhism, that we refrain from inserting a long and important "Study" prepared by us on that Faith and its founder ; and will give instead some researches into its origin in connection with its cruder form, Jainism, and show the early centres of both faiths — their paths and influences, especially Avestwards and up to the second century, when the Christian Gospels were first recognised, a subject on which we con- tributed some papers to an American journal, 1886-7. To keep ourselves and readers as straight as possible in regard to all the actual facts yet known, and the reasonable conclusions which may be drawn therefrom, we append a Chronological Table of the faiths, with leading synchronous events, laboriously gathered during much reading and a long residence among Jain as and Buddhists. We also add a running commentary showing the due weight and proportion which may be attached to the events noticed, and give a brief summary of the ethical teachings of the sages, so that there may be no break in the historical and religious continuity of the A 2 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : Pr.EHISTOllIC AND HISTORIC. I. faiths and analogous subjects — a necessity in the Comparative Study of Editions, For many years it has been a question which literary and scientific thinkers have felt should be answered : " Through wdiat historical channels did Buddhism influence early Chris- tianity ? " AVe must widen this inquiry by making it embrace Jainism — the undoubtedly prior faith of very many millions, through untold millenniums — though one little known in Europe except to the few Avho read the Sacred Boohs of the East ; other- wise it has only been briefly treated of in connection with Buddhism, and by a few competent Orientalists in obscure and academik writino-s. Those of us who are not trammeled by our surroundings have for the most part felt convinced that there has been a close early connection between Buddhism and Christianity, and that the younger western Faith has borrowed many ideas, legends, and parables from the older eastern one ; whilst the scientific evolutionist, who can neither find a first man, first rose or first anything, has stood apart, silently scouting the idea of a first faith, be it that of Jew or Gentile, Buddhist or Christian. To such an one the prophet or reformer, be he Buddha, Mahamad or Luther, is but the apex or figure-head of a pyramid, the founda- tions of Avhich were laid long- before his birth. The Reformer O — quasi Founder— contributed, indeed, to the beauty and sym- metry of what may have then appeared a formless structure, and made it useful to his fellows ; but even he himself may be called an evolution of the growths around him — a necessity of the times, and a force which would have been produced had he never been born. Circumstances but led up to the production of a suitable nature to work out an inscrutable, mayhap an eternal law. Such a theory of evolution argues for a Buddhism before Buddha and C'hristianity before Christ, and to this the sage of Buddha Gaya agreed in regard to himself, when he said he "was only the fourth Tathagata." Many scholars are now of opinion that from Northern India to trans-Oxiana and Kilspiana, in the lone mountain caves, especially of Afghanistan and Kashmir, and in the passes leading therefrom (like the Bamian and others into Baktria), as well a& I. WESTERN PATHS OF JAINO-BUDDHISM. 3 in Balk and other important cities, the precepts and practices familiar to us, as of the essence of Jainism and Buddhism, were well known to the Asiatic world and to Greeks after the passage of Alexander and his Savans. These were, it is believed, pro- mulgated there by the third Buddha, Kasyapa, and his followers many centuries before the royal heretic of Kapila Vasta arose to combat priestcraft and the Agnostic heresies of the Sankhya philosophic schools, then — about the seventh century B.C. — led by the Rishi, Kapila. Yet the ultra-evolutionist, as well as most students of history and religions, have long felt that it is necessary to point out as clearly as possible the exact and historical channels through which Buddhism, i.e., in its Baktrian and Indian forms, had influenced the West ; and this was in effect asked by Prof Max Muller in 1882, at p. 279 of his India, what can it teach us. Our own researches, extending over many years, had long made it quite clear to us, that the advance of Buddhist thought westward prior to the teaching of Christ and rise of Christian literature — and how much more so before 170 a.c, the earliest date when, according to many learned critics, we have first cognizance of the Gospels — was sufficiently and historically plain ; and having seen this, we put the subject aside, believing that specialists, less busy and more competent than ourselves, would attend to it. Still, however, it seems of pressing import- ance, so we will here try to answer it. Sir William Jones, although no longer the best authority in these days of maturer knowledge, came to the conclusion, after a long course of original research in the sacred writings of India, that " the Sramans or Buddhist monks of India and Egypt must have met together and instructed each other," and this remains still to some extent the conclusion of many ; for truly Monach- ism came from the east, and was eagerly adopted by Christians ; but scientific thought demands historical proofs, or very close and conclusive evidence of the early western march of Buddhistic teaching and ideas, and this it is hoped can be given in this volume. We premise that our readers have somewhat studied the history of Buddhism ; that they know it is about twenty -four 4 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. centuries since the groves of Buddha Gaya and woodland colleges of Nrdanda sent forth a new gospel of work for our fellows ; of doing good without seeking reward here or hereafter ; that India and Trans-India followed and upheld the teacher for over twelve hundred years ; and that still about one-third of the human race profess to do so, and finally revered him as a god, mixing ujd the first high and pure teaching of his faith with all the varied old and new doctrines, rites and follies peculiar to each race and land which adopted it. Every religion has had to suljmit to this ordeal, and the greater its ethical purity and want of forms, rituals, and ceremonies, so much the more have the busy multitude sought to frame and fall back on some tangible symbolism without which they do not feel that they have a veritable religion. The Messiah or Saviour idea was familiar to Jainas and Buddhists some five thousand years ago, and still do millions of Buddhists l^elieve that " their Lord will come again to redeem His people," appearing as Maitri, and with Hindus as their tenth Avatara " Kalki," who as a "Lord of Light," will ride a milk-white steed, wield a golden scimitar, and overthrow all enemies and efface evil and unbelief — views readily adopted by Christians and Islamis. History tells us that Gotama, "the Buddha," the son of a Rilja of Oudh, was born in 557, and died in 477 B.C., at Kusa- Nagara, not iiw from his birthplace, full of years and honours. "All nations," says the Rev. Dr Eitel, of China, "have drank more or less of his sweet poison," and especially men of learning and philosophy, nay, even the Christian missionaries themselves, according to Sir E. Reid ; see his Japan (i. 70 et scq.), where this author details the close similitudes existing between Buddhist and Christian parables, miracles and legends, and the Essenic doctrines of the Jordan. It is largely on account of this parallelism, that students have sought such confirmatory evidence as history affords of the westward approach of early Buddhism, and of the last Buddhist wave which, in 250 B.C., surged from its centre, the capital of the Magadha empire of the Ganges, in the proselytising reign of the good and pious Asoka — the so-called "Buddhist Constantine," "but who," says I. BUDDHA S EARLY JAINO-HINDU HEREDITY. 5 the Eev. Isaac Taylor, " is scandalized by such a comparison." {Aljjhobet, ii. 293.) Asoka's name is revered, as Prof. Khys Davids says, "from the Volga to Japan, from Ceylon and Siam to Mongolia and Siberia," and more hearts respect his memory, and more lips utter his praise than ever were moved to do so for a Csesar or Charlemagne. For some 200 years before Asoka's time, the faith of " Sakya the Muni " (Teacher) had been diligently and kindly pressed upon the peoples of India and all the valleys of Kashmir and Afghanistan by argument, precept and example ; for Gotama the Buddha was a quiet evangelist, desiring to reform the corrupt faiths of his country after having first reformed him- self by study and meditation for many years in the sequestered forests of Eaja-Griha — a practice followed by Pythagoras (another Buthaguru) and other reformers like ApoUonius of Tyana.* The Brahmans merely looked on Buddha as the establisher of a new Monastic order ; and when he told his early disciples that he was goiug to renounce idle meditation and prayer, and go forth into the busy world to preach a gospel of good works, they forsook him and fled. Brahmans eventually considered his life and teaching to be so good that they claimed and still acknowledge him as the ninth Incarnation of their solar god. They did not look upon him as driving all men into a lazy life in monasteries ; but regarded his teaching as others do Christ's — that if we are willing and able, we may " sell all and follow the Lord." Brahmanism chiefly rejected Buddha because he refused to assert what he did not know, especially in regard to their animistic, annihilation and soul-transmigration doctrines. For rejecting these he was held to be as atheistic as the philo- sophic schools which he put aside as beyond the horizon of the busy masses. But Gotama never foreswore Hinduism, far less Jainism. He frequently called upon all to prove themselves good Brah- mans by "enduring hardships, bonds and stripes, and being * Sir Geo. Cox, in his Hisfori/ of Chrece, calls Pythagoras " a mere reflection of Buddha." Neither of them have left us any actual writings— a feature common to Messianic teachers. 6 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AXD HISTORIC. I. reviled, to revile not again," see Dhamma-pada, 399. He only walked apart from Bnllimanism in order to observe liis "Higher Law " ; saying when he gave up the hermit's role : " I go to give Light to those who sit in darkness " ; (Rhys Davids, Bud. 43) not to make a new religion, but to spiritualise or regener- ate his fellows by "the Noble Eightfold Path," which he had then well thought out as the only line of conduct and condition of mind, which could lessen the sorrows and miseries of life. Tliis also was the attitude of Asoka in his Jaina-days as well as after he became a good Buddhist. He was, according to his early Roch inscriptions, a believer in I sdna- Brahma or an " Lieffable Spirit," and we may at this time justly term him, his spiritual ancestors and their j)ious followers, Jaina Stoics. Indian history shows that Asoka as an Emperor was well acquainted with the leading current phases of Western thouglit and some of its best thinkers, for he corresponded on these sub- jects with Zenon and other leaders of Greek philosophy. He was a highly religious man, and very zealous in propagating his faith, using with this object all his manifold opportunities as the head of a great empire, and all the influence which this gave him with foreign powers, ambassadors, and literary foreigners. In one of his early and no doubt Jaina rock inscriptions he says : "Without extreme zeal for religion, happiness in this world and the next is difficult to procure All government must be guided by religion, and law ruled by it. Progress is only possible by religion, and in it must we find security." In another edict of about the same time he defines religion as " consisting in committing the least evil possible, in doing much good, in practicing pity and charity, and in leading a pure life." His religion was still richer and wider when, as a true follower of Gotama in 242 B.C., he presided over the third great Buddhist Council of Patna — the second having met in 377 — the first centenary of " the Master's death." The Padina Pu7xlna affirms that Buddhism (that is Jaina- Bodhism) is older than Veddntism and anterior to the era of Aranyahas and Upanishads, and that the wars described in the Mahabharata were wao-ed between Buddhists and Brahmans, and that this pre-Gotama Bodliism died out about 900 B.C., in the time of Ripunjaya of Magadha, at about which time the I. ASOKA AND PRE-C40TAMA BODHISM. 7 Jaina Bodliist Kasjapa died. (Cf. Dutt's India, and tlie Puriinas he quotes.) Otlier Puranas written about tlie time the Vedas were codified, mention Buddha and the leading doctrines, customs and ideas of Buddhism ; and the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hian says he found in 400 a.c. a Buddhist sect who acknow- ledged only tlie teachings of the Buddhas — or Bodltas, as Jain Saints were called — prior to Sdkya Muni — that is of GOO to 3000 B.C., for there were 24 Jaina-Bodhists or Saints. Nowhere did the Chinese pilgrims find, nor do we to-day, that these pre-Gotama prophets were denied or their teachings rejected. On the contrary, Gotama's teaching is particularly esteemed as confirmatory of, and emphasizing that of the earlier Tathagatas, or, as Jains call them, Tirthankars. All are held to be alike inspired by the first or Adi-Buddha. Oxiaua, Kaspia, and the cities of Balk and Samarkand were early centres of the Faith, and Sir H. Rawlinson, in Procs. R. Geog. Soc. of Sep. 1885, and his Central Asia, p. 246, called attention to the Nau Vihdr or "New Monastery" of Balk, and other monumental remains in bricks, etc., as showing the presence here of Kilsyapa, the Buddha immediately preceding Sakya Muni. About the same time also Prof. Beal told the R. As. Soc. of London, that " there was undouhtedlg a Central Asian Buddhism long ages before the time of Gotama of India." The followers of Kasyapa seem to have existed prior to the cave-dwelling Sacae — those Indo-Skythic propagandists, who before and after the time of Darius I. (521-485), dwelt in every mountain-pass where they could meet and converse freely with travelers, and thus widely propagate their doctrines. Gradually the caves were enlaro-ed, so as to accommodate even five hundred listeners, like some in the Bamian pass ; and these, as well as the " cave towns," are universally acknowledged to be the work of Buddhists. The Kdsyapa-Buddkists, whose remains the Chinese pil- grims found in Balk, had as predecessors Ko-mlga-mana or Ko- ndga-muni, and Ka-Jcu-sandha, apparently zealous missionaries coeval with the Jewish patriarchs, and like them, four out of twenty-four are suggestively solar in idea. There is a consider- able literature regarding these pre-Gotama Buddhas, especially the third and second — "the son of Jaina," and probably a 8 JAIXIS-M AXD BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. Jaina Tirtliankara or Saint, who is said to have preached as far east as the h^wer Gauws in 2100 B.C. The chief source of " the histories of these Buddhas '"' — the Buddha-vansa — is the second jjart of the PitaJ^a or " Bible," where Kasyapa appears as the 24th Buddha, apparently to coincide witli the 24 Jaina Bodhists, and so avoid the Jaina taunt, that Gotama was only a form of their o-reat 24th saint, Mahd-V'u-a, "the Great One," who died in 526 B.C., and who was say many the religious instructor of Gotama. The Pitaha contains some of the actual teachings of Kasyapa, and more occur in the Jdtakas concerning all the 24. Kasyapa, we are told, is so called because he belonged to Kasi or Banaras. He traveled widely, and is held to have died at " Holv Sravasti," Gotama's favourite residence, and where he delivered so many discourses. Fa-hian found here in 410 a.c. a church of the Jaina Dig-ambaras or "naked sect/' worshipping before the tomb of Kasyapa — a Dagol)a within which were his bones. Fa-hian says "they were Deva-dattas or heretical Buddhists, who rejected Gotama and reverenced only the previous Bodhas, especially Kasyapa." They were in fact Jainists or Jina- Bodhists — the sect which Devadatta joined wlien he left Gotama — of which more anon. In Alabaster's Wheel of Law and Spence Hardy's Manned of Buddhism, chap, iv., will be found some details regarding the previous Buddhas, more especially of those of the present kcdpa (age). The author quotes approvingly Forbes's estimate of the times of the three preceding Gotamas, as given in the Asiatic Society's Journal of 1836, thus : — 1. KCikusanda lived about 3101 B.C., wlien the Turano- Akkads were a civilised power in and around Babylonia, and when Arabian Sabeans (or Shemites) were beginning to push them onwards. 2. Ko-ncigei-mana or Ko-nciga-muni lived about 2099 B.C., when Aryans were unknown in Asia, and Shemites ruling Baby- lonia, and exploiting Turano-Egyptians, Kheta, or Hamaths, &c. 3. Kasyapa lived about 1014 B.C., the period accepted by the Chinese for the age of Gotama Siikya Muni. Fa-hian found Baktrian Buddhists worshipping these three as well as Gotama, and " the entire bones of Kasyapa, I. AGE OF PREVIOUS BODHAS AND BUDDHAS. 9 or the relics of liis entire body " — then existing in Ayoclhya (Oudh), which, says Spence Hardy, " agrees with the Singhalese records." At the Sanchi tope, of say 250 B.C., there are niches for all the four Buddhas, and an inscription urging devotees to give offerings to all ; and on the great bell of the Eangoon pagoda, it is stated that in the Dilgoba are " enshrined divine relics of the three Paiyds'' or deities preceding Gotama. He, Gotama, always recognised and revered the three ; and on leaving his forest retreat for Banaras he visited their thrones in a temple there and proclaimed them of his Gotra — clan or sect. It wdll be seen that all Buddhas or Bodhas were Kshatryas of probably Mongolic or Skythian ancestry whose race came to India by Baktria or Oxiana and the passes of the Satlej and Malinde or Sravasti rivers. It is also clear that Kasyapa was a Jaina Bodhist of about 900 to 1000 B.C., and that the early Sutras or Jaina Scriptures were known in the time of the 23rd Bodha Saint, Parsva of say 9th cent. B.C., and the Jaina Purvas or Purdnas still earlier, and that Maha Vira taught from these throughout the 6th cent. B.C., and most probably instructed Gotama Buddha about 530 B.C. — See Trans. R. As. i. 522, Dr Stevenson's Kdnheri Inscrip. 16, and Kalpa Sutra, Pref. 13-14, and S.B.E. xxii. and Ixv. Devadatta was the Lord's Ritualistic cousin who left him and started the first schism, because Gotama refused to tighten the rules of the churches (Sanghas) as to food, dress, men- dicancy, &c. Gotama replied to the same effect as Matthew makes Christ do in chapter xxiii., but much shorter, and with- out any of the angry and abusive terms which here occur in the Gospels. Konakamana Bodha has a monumental history according to Dr Fiihrer, Archaeological Surveyor to the Government of India, and others. Dr Fiihrer describes " his magnificent domed tomb at the village of Nijliva in the sub-Himalayan borders of Nepal, . . . surrounded with vast brick ruins of monasteries half a mile in extent ... in the centre of which stands an Asoka Pillar, on the part of Avhich, still erect, is an inscription commemorated to the Bodha," believed on all hands to be " that of Konaka- mana . . . the twenty-third predecessor of Gotama Buddha." But this would make him Parsva of the ninth century B.C., and 10 JAI^^ISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. all aofree that Konakamana lived about 2100 as aforesaid. But very few Orientalists have yet, as will further be shown, appre- ciated Jainism and its twenty-four Tirthankars, and we have no doubt further research will show that this tomb and pillar belouos to Parsva. O The facts, so far as seen, regarding Jainism and Buddhism assure us that Gotama started a great ethikal Eeforma- tion — a Gospel of culture, genuine piety, anti-Pharisaism, and common sense, which enunciated, 600 years before our Gospels appeared, that : " It is not the eating of unclean food which defiles, but evil deeds and habits . . . that platted hair and fine o-arments are but the cleanino- of the outside, whilst within may be all low yearnings," cf. Rhys Davids' Bud., pp. 155, 187. This, the Deva-dattas around the tomb of Kasyapa at Sravasti still claim to be their Bodlias' teaching some 1000 years B.C., and it was more or less that of later Bodhas or Tarthankaras. We must not conclude that Gotama's name Sfd'i/a denotes a Scythian or Sacae origin, nor that he was an Aryan. There were no doubt Sakyas along all the Indus border, as there were also Malas and Ydvana or " foreign " Malas, and from these sprang the Emperor Chandra Gupta who ruled over all Maglis, Mugs, and Malas in the Magadha Empire, 315 to 291 B.C. Gotama was from the same stock, and all were evidently Jaino- Dravida Malas who entered India by the Makran coast, that by which Alexander and his General Nearchus left India. There is much to confirm this, as in the history of Chandra Gupta's tutor and prime minister — Chcuiahya tJie Damila (Dravid or Dramila), of Jurashtra, who is described in the Malia Vanso as a AlCda-hdri. His name appears in two inscriptions of the fourtli century B.C., in the Kanheri Caves, to which he retired in old age, and a beautiful temple is here dedicated to him. Gotama did not travel much beyond the Magadha Empire, though there are many legends to the contrary. He confined himself to the mid Gangetic valley and water sheds, principally in and around Oudh, where was his birthplace in the Lublne garden, near to the groves where he studied the philosophies of the Kapila Schools, and from which he probably fled, but vainly, for peace of mind. His last resting-place was amidst the Mrda DRAVIDIANS, MALAS, MAGS, SAKYAS. 11 shrines of Kusa-Nagar — all of which will be seen in this sketch map, which, with a map of " Ancient India," will familiarize the reader with the many Indian names we here must necessarily inflict upon him. The term SCikija might well attach itself to an Ayod- hian ; for Oudh, its capital, was known as Salrt, and there was another Saketa close to Sravasti, which was itself called Sahet, Savet, and Sa-ive. But it is more pro- bable, as stated in the Lalita Vistara, that Sakya was a term applied to " the White Elephant," the euphemistik fio;ure throu2:h which Gotama's mother conceived, and wdiich was known as "the Bringer of happiness to the w^orld " ; for Gotama was called " the Soter or Saviour of mankind" and " the seed of the Ele- phant " ; which animal was the emblem of Wisdom and of the second Jaina Saint Ajita- Satru, and also the name of the kino; of Magadha who summoned the First Bud- dhist Council, and who was the kindly patron of Gotama during his later years — see Thomas' Asoha. Aryans only appear to have reached the mid Gan- 12 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. getic States in the 7tli cent, or perhaps 800 B.C., and according to Prof. Rhys Davids ^^ they only settled there at the end of the 6th cent. B.C. [Bud. cap. ii.), or about the birth of Gotama — a fact which opens up, if it does not upset, numerous important questions having a wide bearing on all sub-Vedik writings." For from the cradle land of Gotama, about Kapila Vastu — the early literary centre of India — came most of the Scriptures of Indo-Aryans which, if prior to Sakya Muni, must, like the philosophik schools founded by the sage Kapila, have had their orioin in the brains of Dravidian or Dramilian Pandits like the learned " Damila Chanakya," to whom was dedicated, 350 years after his death, the l)eautiful sacred cave temple of Kanheri. As we wrote 17 years ago {Rivers of Life, ii. 228, 460, 478), " Turanians have ever been the inventors of religions which Shemites and Aryans have adopted and adapted to their own idiosyncrasies " ; and this is as true on the Ganges as on the Euphrates and Nile, as ]\lr James Fergusson also shows in his later works on Architecture. In 2100 B.C. — the alleged time of the 2nd Bodha, Konaga Muni — the Sabas or Sabeans of Arabia were disputing with Turano-Kasis the rich plains of Babylonia and moving sea- wards to India and even to Ceylon. According to tradition, about 1800 B.C. a counter move took place w^estwards, which seems to have eventually led to the colonization of Abyssinia, and, according to Drs Glasar and Sayce, to the very name Ethiopia, from Atyuh, "myrrh and frankincense," the chief product of Ahdsat in the Eastern Hadhramaut. In the 12th century B.C., Ayodhia — then called Kosala and Saket — was the important capital of Mala-land — our king- dom of Oudh. Hindus were then maturins; their astronomical theories and calculations, while the Chinese taught the obliquity of the ecliptic and were stretching out their hands to Baktria ; and in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. were absorbing the Buddhist-like teaching of the Tdo or " Way of Life and Peace." This was inculcated by the sage Laotsze, who seems to have caught up a sort of Hinduized Jaino-Bodhist philosophy, which he adapted in his Taotist Bible to Chinese modes of thought. He was followed by the philosophical schools of I. PRE-GOTAMA JAINA SAINT PERIOD. 13 Confucius, wliicL rejected liis animistic theories, and placed reliance rather on an Agnostic and practical piety. It is as impossible to find a Beginning for Jainism and Buddhism as for a world or a creation out of nothing. What we do know of man, however, enables us to say that, at the dawn of his age, there must have been those who took a thoughtful and naturally a highly pessimistic view of life, seeing how hard, brutal, and cruel the race was, and how miser- able and precarious were the lives of all from greed, lust, and every savage passion. The weakly found no joy or hope here or hereafter, while the vigorous and thoughtful despaired of any im^Drovement unless by softening and instructing the strong and barbarous. At last, here and there, arose a brave and wise spirit — that is a Bodha or Buddha — determined to do or die. Around the good and brave one would naturally cling the feeble, poor and miserable, and all these would then stand apart, as we see in the case of every Buddha or Messiah and his Sangka or gathering. He and they would teach that none must injure another, but do as they would be done by : restrain their passions, and if they would be good, their senses and desires, as these led to all evil ambitions, and to most of the turmoil, miseries, and anxieties of life. Of such great teachers said Jainas and most Buddhists, there were twenty-four well known ; the last Jaina Saint being the famous Maha-Vira, and the last Buddha, Gotama Sakya Muni — his Alte'}' ego in some respects. The long list stretches back to perhaps 4000 to 5000 B.C., with about as much traditional detail as in the case of the great gods of Egypt prior to Osiris ; the " Heroic period " of Babylon, G 20 0-4 200, or that of Hebrew Patriarchs. These Buddhas or "Saints" are also as firmly believed in as in the case of the Hebrew Fathers ; and so also was the Coming Messiah, Maitreya, " Lord of Light and Loving Kindness " — the Ajita or " Unconquerable." But, alas, there never was in India an enduring tablet literature, nor any Ezra to gather up the fragments of legendary history. We must be content with what can be gleaned from Pitakas, Jfitakas, the Mahavanso, its commentators, etc., and casual passages in various good works and magazines, and in many native writings 14 JAIXISM AND BUDDHISM : PRP:HLST0RIC AND HISTORIC. of more or less doubtful authority, couched in more or less extravao'aut lauguage. To help the reader we will here give a list of the twenty- four o-reat Jaina Tirthankars — the immortal Saints or Bodhas universally acknowledged as coming to Eartli in divers ages to aid and bless mankind. Jaina Tirthankars, their Emblems and Parentage. Name. Emblem. Colour. Father's Name, &c. 1. Risbablia, The Bull, . Yellow, Of race of Ikshvaku. 2. Ajita, Elephant, )j Jita Satru. 3. Sambliara, Horse, ?) Jitari. 4. Abhinandana, Ape, . )5 Sambara. 5. Sumati, Curlew, )> Megha. 6. Padma-prabha, Red Lotus, . Red, Sridhara. 7. Su-parsva, The Svasfilia, Yellow, Pratishtha. 8. Cbandra-prabha, Moon, White, Maha-Sena. 9. Pushpa-danta or Alligator, j> Supriya. Suvidhi, 10. Sitala, . The Sriiatsa, Q -r Yellow, Dridharatha. 11. Sreyan-sa, Rhinoceros, . J) Vishnu. 12. Vasu-pujya, . Buffalo, Red, Vasu-pujya. 13. Viniala, Boar, Yellow, Krita - Vannan, a Dravidian. royal 14. Ananta, Falcon, )) Sinha-sena. 15. Dhanna, Thunderbolt or spike-headed club, )) Bhanu. 16. Santi, . Antelope, )) Visva-sena. 17. Kunthu, Goat, . '> Sura. 18. Ara, Nandiijdrarta, ) ) Su-darsana. 19. Malli, . A Jar, . Blue, Khuniba. 20. Suvrata a Muni, Tortoise, Black, Su-iuitra. 21. Nam or Ximi, Blue Lotus, . Yellow, Vijaya. 22. Nemi or Arishta- Conch, Black, Samudra-jaya and Queen | Nemi, Siva. 23. Parsva, . Hooded Serpent, Blue, Asva-Sena. Parsva 828 B.C. Dr S.'s Sutra, p. 98. died Kal. 24. A'ardha-mana, Lion, . Yellow, Siddhartha. The Vira or Maha- Vira or great Sra- mana. Few persons have ventured to attix dates to these Saviours of the race beyond Nemi the 22nd, where Dr Stevenson I. PARSYA AND VASTLY ANCIEXT JAIXA PURANAS. 15 says clirouology "runs wild" {Kal. Sutra, p. 98), yet the last three and the first may be considered from much detail known about them, to be real personalities, and the last two — Parsva and Maha Vira — as genuinely historical. We incline to say the same of the vastly Ancient " Rishabha, the Btdl " — a sort of Osiris ; head of the Royal Indus race of Ikshvakus, from whom came the Emperor Chandra-gupta of Magadha. After Rishabha, the Founder of Jainism, came twenty very hazy sort of individualities, but not so Arishta-Nemi, the 22nd, and whose consort is called Siva, and whose emblem was the Shank shell or Concha Veneris, so specially sacred alike to Saivas as to Vishnuvas. Evidently the old Faith was getting defiled by the still older Nature cults which lie at the base of all relioions. In Parsva, the 23rd Bodha, we see a Reformer of 900 B.C. (Dr S. says he died 828, aged 72, Kal. Sutra), whom Hindu writings describe as like Gotama, often shielded from rain and evils, especially when in meditation by hooded Nagas — his emblems. Kis consort Parsva is the prototype of Parvati or rather BavCinl, her more ancient Turanian name, and she is connected with Kasi (Banaras). He is styled Pdrsva-ndth, and is adopted by Hindus as their 6th Avatara Parsu-Rdma, whose hio;h and ever sacred Zion is the loftv cone of the Nao'a Malas or Mundhas — the Mans Maleus of Greeks and Romans and Paris-ndth of modern Hindus. It is still a Zion of Saivas, and situated, as Nature worshipers love, at the bifurcation of the sacred Da-Munda ("river of munds") and Burrakur rivers, where these enter on the hio-hlauds of Hazriri-l)aoh. In Parsva and Maha Vira we have two distinctly active and able men, who recognized unwritten Scriptures called Purvas " Ancient " or Puranik, wise and sacred teachings to which they no doubt maiidy contributed, and which must have been prior to all Sutras, Sastras, Upanishads, and probably Vedas. These Purvas, says Mr Jacobi in S.B.E. 45, ii. xliv. (with which cf. vol. 22), " were gradually lost " ; for memories and teachers fail in times of war and turmoil. We here learn, however, that "they were incorporated in the Xlltli Anga, the Drishti-vdde which was lost before 360 B.C. . . . but a detailed table of its contents has survived in the 4th Anga." We have probably 16 JAINISM AND buddhism: PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. the substance of all the Parvas in the various Sutras of the faith ; for great ideas, rites, and worship do not die like words. Now from these Purvas, Maha Vira as well as Gotama would have before him an organized Holy Scripture which had satisfied the wants and aspirations of untold generations, and which was ample to guide the founder of a philosophik Buddhism. Jainism thus appears as the earliest faith of India, and its coloured stream should be advanced in our Chart of the Rivers of Life. It is the only part of tliis which, after the lapse of nearly twenty years, has not stood the flood of new light which has since dawned. We expressed doubts in our vols, some seventeen years ago as to the true position of Jainism, but did not then feel justified in departing from the then almost universal opinion that it was the child of, or a reform of Buddhism. Gotama Buddha evidently recognized three of the ancient Jaina Saints, but under their Pfdi or Sanskrit names of Kaku- Sanda, Konaga-Muni, and Kasyapa (the most loved of Jaina names), when he (Gotama) said: "These preceded me, and I teach similarly to them." Naturally he would not count his contemporary and possible preceptor, Maha- Vira, whose severe, naked ascetism he condemned ; for he had passed beyond this barbaric religious stage on leaving Bodh-Gaya, see our Short Texts, which divides his life into "Two Stages." In the study of Buddhism and Jainism, indeed of all Faiths, we must guard against attaching undue importance to transcen- dental mythical growths — a Gnostih period which comes to all. This appeared in Buddhism in the Hiiia- and Maha Ydna or " Lesser and Great Vehicles " ; which taught that there were an infinite number of Jhdna or Dhydna Buddhas or Angels in Brfdima-loka (heaven) ; five of which are specially prominent as " evolved from the five meditations of Adi-Buddha — the First or Primordial One." These five Dhydnas also had meditations from which came " Beings " called Bodhi-Satvas ; and in like manner from them or their immaterial essence came the Kosmos or Material World represented by Five Mdnushi or "Human beings," called the five Bodhas or Buddhas, viz. the three I. LENTEN RITES PRIORITY OF JAINLSM. ' 17 above-named, besides Gotama and Maitreya, still expected. But tliis monkish Gnosticism arose only in our fourth and fifth centuries, and was systematized or rendered complex and mysterious by the clever mystik Asanga, a monk of our sixth century, who lived in the Peshawar hills, and was intent on eclipsing the then prevali\nt ///»a-F(7;^a or " Lesser Vehicle," which acknowledged personal Buddhas, Bodh-Satvas, Elect and Future Buddhas. It is contrary to the immutable laws of evolution that a religion so philosophical, searching, full of goodness, piety, high feeling and resolves as that of Gotama Buddha's, could spring like a Minerva fully armed from the Jovine head of even the sage of Bodha Gaya. As is well known to Oriental scholars, there have been many who saw in Jcdna Bodldsts the fore- runners of Gotama Sakya Muni. We were partially brought to this view during four years' residence (1868-72) beside the celebrated Jaina shrines on Mount Abu — the high and holy Ara-budha on the Aravela Mountains of AVesteru India. To this Zion, Jinas flock for their Lenten Serviees of the Autumnal Equinox, embracing all the rainy season, when three to four months of every year are given up to religious meditation, readings, fasting, and Tirthas or pilgrimages to the shrines of their saints or Tirthankaras. We had thus great opportunities, which were not neglected, for free intercourse with temple ofScials and many pious visitors, often learned, and sometimes freethinkers. Only lack of time for vernacular and historical studies probably delayed our arriving at the same conclusions as did the Rev. Dr J. Stevenson, the learned mis- sionary who was then gathering together so much literature reo-ardino; Jainas to the south of Mount Abu. He had then fully accepted the Jaina belief that Maha-A"ira, their 24tli, last and greatest saint, was the prece23tor of Gotama, who was said to be " his most loved scholar," though not, according to Jains, his successor ; for they give this honour to Su-dliarma, calling Gotama usually Indra-Bhuti — perhaps a j^et name. See As. Res. ix. 265. There has been little conflict reo-ardino; the time of Malia- Vira, European scholars agreeing with the great Svetambara B 18 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. K sect of Western India that lie died in 52G, aged 72, and. was. therefore horn in 598. Gotama was thus 31 years his junior^ having been born 557, Both have l)een called "the 24th Buddha," though Gotama is sometimes said to be 25th, but this w^ould virtually make him jNTaha-Vira's successor, and this disagrees with a statement made by Ananda, "the beloved disciple " of Gotama, who on one occasion addresses his Lord as the " 24th Buddha" : see Hardy's Manual, 88-96, S.B.E. xxii. ', Stevenson in his Kalpa Sutra ; and Thomas' Early Asoka* Gotama was by himself and others called " the 4th Buddha of this Bhadna " or age ; and Jainas never speak of him as Maha-Vira's successor, and rarely mention him, for they disliked his faith, eclipsing Jainism as it did. Rarely also do Buddhists allude to Maha-Vira as preceding and instructing Gotama, for this would detract from Gotama's supposed intuitional or heaven-given power — the Forerunner or Baptist must not eclipse the Kuvios. Seldom indeed do Buddhists speak of 24 previous Buddhas, though they are thorougldy recognized in the Maha- Vanso (i. 1) and elsewhere. The likeness between Maha-Vira and Gotama is more superficial than real, as Mr Jacobi shows in the Introduction to his vol. S.B.E. xxii. ; yet it is not to be wondered at, that half a century ago, when Jaina literature was all but unknown, Colebrooke and other Orientalists wTote that "the Gautama of Jains and Buddhas seem the same persons." Both sects, as ]\[r Jacoln says {S.B.E.), "give the same titles to their prophets : Jina, Arhat, Mahil-Vira, Tathagata, Buddha, Sambuddha, Sraman," &c. Both w^ere Kshatriyan ascetics, pious monks or Tirthankaras, and necessarily the names of some of their relations are similar ; but Gotama was from early manhood strongly opposed to the rigid and useless asceticism of Maha-Vira. That both were quite historical characters is thoroughly proved [S.B.E. xvii.-xix.), as is also the entire distinctness of their faiths (xxi.), which were pretty equally and universally spread throughout India, as seen in Mr Fergusson's Map, p. 47, East. Arch. * This alters the chronological position of Jainism as seen in our Chart of the Rivers of Life, where it should now be shown as prior even to Yedik Hinduism. I. THE FAITHS GREW WIDELY APART. 19 Gotama is seen with the same yellow or golden colour, and is also sometimes called by Maha-Vira's title Vardhamdna, "the Increaser," and has as his emblem the mystic Trident or horizontal UJ , or Greek UJ, Omega. Greeks would readily obtain this from Buddhists in Baktria, and they placed it over the door of their holy shrine at Delphi as an " Open Sesame " : but under Buddhists it developed into the beautiful Tri-sids of the East as seen in Rivers of Life ; D'Alviella's Symbols, 236, &c. ; and Thomas' Asoha, 8-11, 15. Gotama, like Maha- Vira and other heroes, was also called Simha the Lion, and Sid-dharta ; and as a babe he is shown in the Tibetan text of the Lallita Vistara with the signs in his hair of the 7th, 10th, 18th, and 24th Jina-Bodhists : viz., the Srivatsa or double inter-locked 8,(X) — a sort of four-leafed Shamrock ; a Svastika, the Nandya-varta and quasi Vardha-mana. The Bodlias or saints of both faiths are often represented also by their favourite trees, and always by their emblems, which is usually the only way of distinguishing one Jaina saint from another. Thus a bull, horse, serpent, &c., will always be found near the base of Jina statues. In the Bharahiit skulptures of third century B.C. Gotama appears as the 5th of five separate Bodhi trees. Great importance is attached to all the great leaders and their prominent followers being descendants of Kasyapa — a solar title, and one given to Rishahlia the first Osirian saint, as "we may designate one whose emblem was the Bull or Solar Apis. (S.B.E. 45 ii. 138.) So in the case of Maha-Vira, his ancestor who is said in the Kalpci Sutra to have followed "21 Tirthankaras of the royal tribe of Ikshvaku and family of Kasyapa, and two of the family of Gotama." Accordino- to a sacred leoend, Maha-Vira descended from heaven, and accepted as his mother a humble Brahmani, but Sakra or Sakho, " Indra the Almighty " (A^. Sutra, p. 35), transferred him to the womb of the Kshatriyan Queen of the famous family of Vasishta, wife of Sid-dharta of the family of Kasyapa, both of pure Kshatriyan descent — showing that Brahmans were then thought inferior to this governing warrior class. Evidently the Brahman of those days was merely what 20 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PEEHISTOEIC AND HISTORIC. I. his name originally implied, a man of prayer — the skilled per- former of the village rites, and the Puruhit or family priest. Brahman asceticism seems to have grown out of the more primitive Jainism, and only in Aryan times developed the Yogi and Sanyasian raonachism which got codified in the Bhan- dhdyana, Apastamha Suti-as, &c., which Mr Jacobi places as arising with Parsva and Maha-Vira between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C., cf. S.B.E. xxii., xxx., &c. Brahmans them- selves admit, as in the Padma Purdna, that Jainism was con- temporaneous with their Gods ; and it is evident that the Aryan Indra developed from the Turano-Jaina Sakva or Sukra, as did others from a like Dravidian source, see Thomas' E. Anoka, p. 22, and Dutt's Indict. In those days caste had not assumed the hard and fast lines of the later times of the Manava Sdstra. Nor even in Buddha's early days was the Brrdiman the proud, powerful and tyrannical priest of the Aryan ascendancy. He was apparently only a pious man who mixed with the poor, the sick and sad. Brahmanism as a Faith had not emerged, says Mr Thomas, " from its Hermaik stage or Saivism, as is proved by the combined testimony of the grammarian and numismatist " (E. Asoha, p. 58). Even in the days of Nasik and Kanheri Cave inscriptions (100 B.C. to 100 A.C.), "in the eyes of Brahmans those who joined the Buddhists were not viewed as heretics, but merely as sectarians " like Gosains or Bairagis. (Dr Stevenson in E,. As. Bom. of July 1853.) Therefore said the pious Gotama [Dliammapada, 389-99) : "No one is known as a Brfdiman by family or platted hair, but by his truthfulness and righteousness. . . . He only is a Brahman who, committing no evil or oftence, endures reproach, bonds and stripes." Only on these grounds were Gotama and earlier Bodhas or Buddhas called Brahmans, for by birth they were Kshatriyas, and in their faith, more or less Jainas, and so also must have been the ancestors of Asoka and the Eoyal Tkshvrdvus of the Indus. So slight seemed to Asoka the difference between Jains and Buddhists, that he did not think it necessary to make a public profession of Buddhism till about his 12th regnal year (247 I. HERMAIK BRAHMANISxM MAHA-VIRA's HISTORY. 21 B.C.) ; so that nearly if not all his Rock inscriptions are really those of a Jaiua Sovereign. Both religions he considered to be Jati or Yati ("self-denying"), as they are still styled on the monolithik temples and sacred caves of Western India, in Stevenson's KCinheri Inscrips., p. 20. The leaders of both systems claimed and were accorded the names and rank of Arhats, Bodhas or Buddhas, and their lofty teaching, as we read it in the Sacred Bool's of the East, shows they were well entitled thereto. Maha-Vira was born in the suburbs of Vaisali, a capital of the confederated Mala Princes, and a city, said Buddhists, of " many seminaries of heresies and dissent." He was by birth, like Buddha and Krishna, a member of a feudal aristocracy. His reputed father was KetaJca, the ruler of Vaisali, and his mother Vaidehi or Sri-bhadra, whose sister was the queen of Bimbisara, King of Magadha, residing at Eajagriha. He was the friend and patron of both the Buddhas, but his son Kellana only favoured Buddhists during the last eight years of Gotama's life, for he was engaged in breaking up the Videha or Vijian Mala Confederacy and in consolidating a Turanian Mag or Milgadhian Empire, for Aryans were then of no account. At the birth of both Buddhas (Maha-Vira and Gotama), the heavenly hosts sang and rejoiced. Many wonders were seen in the heavens and the earth. " The Almighty " bestowed on Maha-Vira a divine robe, perhaps " seamless" like that which it is said Sakra himself wore (/t. Sutra, p. 33-5), and both teachers went forth on their mission on attainino- full manhood, after fulfilling their duties as householders, and after seven to twelve years of meditation or study, Maha-Vira at about thirty — the same age as Christ. The Gods then addressed Maha-Vira : " Lord, Euler of peoples, promote the world's happiness ; become the sanctuary of religion, and in the whole world, to every living creature, become the author of prosperity, felicity and future bliss." P. 85, ibid. He then cast from him all worldly things and affections ; divested himself even of garments, and for twelve to thirteen years devoted himself to subduing his whole carnal nature by a severe ascetic life and religious meditation. In his 43rd year 22 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. he is said to have attained to " the Perfect Man," or Kcvala — that is, reached Buddhahood or ArhatsJiip — when he went forth to teach and preach, mostly over the same field as Gotama, viz., in the kino-doms of Kasi and Kosala or Banilras and Oiidh. He died, aged 72, at Pava, amidst a Llaze of miracles, when on a visit to King Shasti-pfda, mourned throughout Northern and Western India, and especially " by Gotama ludra Bhuti, the chief of his perfectly initiated ganadhara " (disciples), whom we strongly suspect was Sakya Muni. Jaiuas suspiciously say that Maha-Vira had only eleven disciples (S.B.E. xxi. 1), which is too uncommon and unlucky a number to be true. They were evidently afraid of mentioning Gotama, the rising Messiah — for if a disciple, then the honoured Successor. Maha-Vira left millions of converts and thousands of apparently well organised schools, institutions and monasteries, superintended by regularly inducted Sthavircis — leaders charged with the induction of Sramans and general supervision of the churches. S.B.E. xxii. 287. The favourite leading doctrines of this great Jaina revival and reoro-anization were, that all who followed Maha-Vira " must live pure in heart and conduct ; suppress their passions and desires, and neither destroy nor hurt the life of animal, insect, bird, fish or plants." They were not to resist evil or abuse, but turn their cheek to the smiter, and so try to overcome evil by sul)mission and goodness. ]\taha-Vira himself fasted long and often, observing entire silence, with eyes fixed on his nose till he got into an hypnotic state, when Indra or other gods relieved him. Yet he sanctioned no bodily tortures, though he voluntarily submitted to these from others. He called this w^orld "an ocean of misery, impurity and ignorance," and told his disciples to try and lessen this " by being assiduous in every virtue : they Avere to cherish all rather than themselves, live apart from the world, be continent and, if possible, unencum- bered with wives, families or worldly afiiiirs." Buddha and Buddhists have always resisted or repudi- ated Jaina Yogism, hypnotic states, and everything occult and supernatural ; but Hindus so much admired the teaching of ofoodness attributed to " Rishabha, the Founder of Jainism," L maha-vira's views and laws, from which jainism. 23 as tliey called him, that they admitted he was a diviue Avatar ; see the Bliagavat Rlshahha, which they acknowledge ^s a Scripture, setting forth the religion of all good men. Neither Hindus nor Buddhists object to the Maha-Vira Charita singing the praises and virtues of this great teacher of Buddhism, whose life is quasi-historical. As Mr Thomas justly says in his Jainism, or the Early Faith of Asoka, p. 5. : "The more simple ftiith per se must be primarily accepted as the predecessor of the more complicated : " and what more simple than Jainism, be it in worship, ritual or morals ? The devotee can dispense with acts of worship at his pleasure, and the layman need only visit the temple at his leisure— daily if possible, walking round the statues of the saints muttering prayers for forgiveness of sins, of thought, word and deed, listening to such readings as may be going on, and distributino- a few flowers and trifles. Not so, however, the Buddhist. He has adopted a highly 23hilosophical and rigid monastic asceticism — far reaching, mentally and bodily — a much higher phase of religion. As many have urged, Buddhism is too pure, good and exacting for the masses, who early corrupted, and often broke away from it, as did most Indian peoples by our eighth century, whereas Jainism still holds its own especially in Western India. Not that it is a poor or shallow faith ; nay, it must be classed with the philosophic religions of Confucius and Gotama, who imparted alike to Jainism and Buddhism a pious spirituality, if we may say this of a faith without spirits as popularly understood. Jainism has forestalled Christianity in its solemn Panjush- ana or Lenten periods of humiliation, prayer and religious read- ings ; in its past and future Messianic stages and hopes ; and in its Padikaman or doctrines of Confession and priestly absolution or Alavan. But it rejects the relik worship of Christianity and Buddhism, and sees only in its grand, elaborate, and marvellously constructed Chaityas, temples of the Holy Spirits of its great and pious dead. In these it claims to have held useful and earnest religious services, very many centuries before Buddhism or Brahmanism had been heard of, and gives substan- tial proofs thereof, which the learned missionary Dr Stevenson 24 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. fully admits in his Kaljya Sutra, xxiv.-xxvii. It opens its services, rituals and all sacred writings by invoking " OM and EM," the most ancient Supreme dual in uno — "the Male and Female Principle of all life " ; that is the great Creator in his Androgynous and Elohistic character. Avoiding as much as possible "the Unknown," Jainism teaches, says Dr Stevenson, that " the world — consisting of mind or intellect and matter, has existed from all eternity, undergoing an infinite number of revolutions produced by the inherent physical and intellectual powers of nature, without the intervention of any eternal Deity — no such Being distinct from the world having any existence, though certain of the world's elements when properly developed obtain deification." Jainas believe in saints rising from manhood to deity by virtue of purity, meditation and mental powers ; that there are heavens and hells for temporary rewards and punishment ; that pure and regenerated persons may attain to God-hood, and that when by great efforts we have freed ourselves from all worldly desires and passions, we may enter into a state of Nirvana — that is " perfect bliss, perfect knowledge and freedom from all pain and mutation," a state not necessarily dependent on death. In Jainism there are two classes, clergy and laity, embrac- ing male and female celebates. The former are called Sddliiis or Sages, and Sadhurins, that is Nuns, being women of mature years. These live apart in Monasteries and Nunneries. The laity are called Srduakas and SrdvaJcls or "Hearers." All are required to strictly attend to the following Duties and avoid Five great Sins. The Duties — Laws or Dharmas, are called Eternal — Mahd-Vrates or Great Duties, and require the intui- tive feelinoj embraced in the maxim : lahorare est orare. Thev are : 1st, Mercy on and towards all that is animate ; 2nd, Alms- giving; 3rd, Veneration of living Sages and their temple images ; 4th, Confession of sins and faults ; and 5th, Observance of religious rites, fasts, and customs. The Five Sixs or A-dharmas to be avoided are — Killinor, Lying, Stealing, Adultery, and AYorldly Mindedness. The first Adharma entails upon the Jaina, abstention from outdoor works for nearly three months of every year when insect life abounds I. JAIXA DOCTRINES ; SINS; DUTIES; AGNOSTICISM. 25 — often, as we have personally experienced, a great vexation to the engineer, for our best contractors then stop all work, even the firing of brick and lime kilns in the face of the approaching rainy season, not only foregoing their profits but incurring the loss of past labour as well as heavy cash penalties rather than light a fire. Jainas then usually use respirators, drink water only through muslin, and wave fans before sitting or walking, lest they injure worm or insect. The 5th Dliarma is equally prejudicial to work, for the true Jaina must observe his Puryushana or four autumnal months in every twelve of Lenten humiliation, religious read- ings and meditation, fasting and pilgrimage ; but this, fortunately for the engineer, is in the rainy season. Such was the faith which spread through Northern India, Baktria, and Kaspiana under Kfisyapa of say 900-1020 B.C. and his predecessors. It was continued and extended by Maha-Vira and Gotama Buddha in the sixth and fifth cents. B.C., and by their successors in India down to our middle ages. HweiL_Tsa_ng of our seventh century found the faith flourishing throuorhout Baktria and Oxiana. He describes the Nau Vihar or " New Monastery " of Balk, which he calls " the mother of cities," as vastly ancient, and one of its "oldest Royal buildings constructed by its first King." He saysjhe Yihar contains "a gigantic water pot of Buddha," which may mean of the Bodha Kiisyapa, and also a Tooth one inch long and 9-lOths inch broad ! — evidently an older than Buddha and belonging to the more ancient lingam or phallic cult of all peoples ; for he men- tions the worship of another and larger " Tooth'' at Kanoj — the great capital of King Siladitya — "H inch long, of yellowish white colour, and emitting a sparkling light" ; and another "on the top of the stupa of Simhilla, the glittering rays from which can be seen at a great distance . . . like the shining of a star in space "—three ''Teeth'' in all. BeaVs Life, 50, 134, and 181. The Chinese pilgrim expatiates with delight upon the many grand Buddhist structures and establishments of Balk, especially " stupas built," he says, " long ago in the days of Kasyapa Bodha." The very city, he adds, is still "called RCijagriha because of the many sacred traces therein " of the Faith. 2G JAINISxM AND BUDDBISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. Baktria was long known to China by the divine name of Fo-ho-Io { = " Buddha-land " ?) for Buddhism reached Balk at an early date . . . and in Buddha's time Baktrian merchants had reojular intercourse with India " (Beal). Sir H. Rawlinson readily identified the N'au Vihdr some 30 years ago, in his QtJy. Rev. art. of 18G6, and his Central Asia, p. 246 (Murray, 1875): and in Prof. Haug's essays of forty years ago he drew attention to the notice of Gotama and his faith as recognised in Baktria in the Zoroastrian Fra Vardin Yasht of 400 to 600 B.C. {Truh., 3rd ed., 208), adding that "the early existence of Buddhism in Balk is well known." Hwen Tsang says he required protection from the Fire wor- shippers or Mazdeans of Balk in 630, and he relates in his Memoires, as quoted by Mr Thomas in his Asuka, p. 17, that in the days of the JVau Vihdr, "the holy Gotama, the eldest pupil of the holy Brdhniana Mahd Vira, honoured him (Maha-Vira) with three circumambulations . . . bowing and awaiting before him with folded hands." This recognizes Gotama as tlie pupil of Maha-Vira, and assures us that the Bodhism of Balk was that taught by the Jaina Kasyapa and his many predecessors of say 900 to 3000 B.C., for neither Maha-Vira nor Gotama traveled beyond the central Gangetic kingdoms. The Chinese recognized Baktrian Buddhism as the work of Kasyapa, and Gotama accord- ing to Fa-Hian of 400 a.c, was, said Taotists, an Incarnation of their Lord Laotsi of 604-517 B.C., who was believed to have traveled from India, and who in some doctrines and in his fond- ness for a hermit's life, showed much of the Jaino-Buddhist type. In Nemi, the 22nd Bodha, we see more than the dawn of history, and in Parsva, tlie 23rd, we have " an admittedly historical person (S.B.E. 45, ii. xxi.) who lived 250 years before Maha-Vira," or about 950 B.C. His follow^ers are noticed in the days of ]\I aha- Vira — a century before whose coming the faith had waned and was in a chaotic state. Parsva's two leadino; disciples, Kesi and Gautama, had laboured hard at Sravasti, about 900 B.C., to establish the churches, and retain the trouble- some philosophical and skeptical members ; but ritualistic divisions here arose as to the use and disuse of clothes (which the 1st great Jina Bodhist Rishabha foreswore), the nature of I. PARSVA IS HISTORICAL TEACHING AND SECTARIES. 27 VOWS, and the vital question of all Religions to the present hour, ivliether ive have souls, and if so, apart from matter or our bodies? This led to four great schools, each heretical to the other. 1st. The Krlyd-vCidins — maintaining that there is a soul or Atman apart from body. 2nd. The A-kriyd-vddins, who deny this. 3rd. Vainayihas, who claim salvation by Bhakti, i.e. Faith or " ReU(jio7i,'' or " Idolatry," according to some. 4th. Agndna-vddins or Agnostics, who give no opinion on the above or similar mattei^ ; claimino; insuffici- ency of knowledge (83), and therefore an inability to assert. When pressed, they said it was enough if we concerned ourselves about matters of which we have experience, and which are necessary for the regulation of our conduct ; and so said Gotama Sakya Muni some four and a half centuries later (xxix.). About 600 B.C. Maha-Vira and his disciple and friend Gosdla did their best to re- establish and oro^anize the Faith, taking advantage of all known systems and views (xxx. 11); but many matters could not be settled, and the friends them- selves separated on that ever burning one among ecclesiastics, rituals and vestments, which Maha-Vira decided by casting from him all garments and joining the Dig-dmharas, or as then called, Akelaka or "Naked Sect," in which he distinguished himself by many rigid and marvellous austerities. The great tenderness of Jainism for all that has life, and the troul)le and inconvenience thereupon, has been the undoing of the faith. It could not advance, for none would fight for it. For some 5000 years it has strictly upheld the Tolstoi idea of Christ's texts : " Eesist not Evil," " Turn thy cheek to the smiter," &c. Thus when Jainas had built a beautiful temple at Avanti or Uj-jain, and assembled in thousands to consecrate it to their saint Parsva, a Brahman Saiva pushing his way through the wor- shipers boldly placed a Lingam in the centre of the holy place, and proclaimed it " the Shrine of Mahadeva, the over- thrower of Jainas," and the meek crowds quietly dispersed ! See Malcolm's Central India, ii. 160. 28 JAINISxM AND BUDDHISM : PEEHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. From tlie Kanhdli Tila or Mound of ]\Iathnra we have, say General Cunningham [Arch. Rep. 71-2, p. 46" ;) and Mr Thomas' {AsoJca, 80), most complete and satisfactory testimony that the Jaina religion was, long; before our era, in as rich and flourishing; a condition as that of Buddha. The number and size of its statues and beauty of its skulptures can scarcely be surpassed in the East. Albiruni wrote in a.c. 1030 : " The Jina statues of Boudhas are clearl}^ defined and easily re- cognized . . . thev are figures of young hand- some nude men, with a calm countenance, arms extended to the knees, and with a Srl-vatsa emblem ; whilst the Gotama Buddhas are always seated with hands resting on knees," as in this Bangal form which is essentially dif- ferent from Jaina ideas. This nudity of their saints points, says Mr Thomas, "to the re- mote antiquity of the creed," to a time when and not ashamed " of the Fig. 2. — the ordinary buddha of bangal. Adam and Eve were " naked unadorned figure of the Creator. In the Kankrdi skulptures are Stupas, showing that Jainas knew and favoured this'_form of religious structure. Dr Bllhler considers it a funeral monument and a symbol once wor- I. MATHUEA STATUES ASOKA S JAINISM. 29 sliipecl by all Indian Sects, see Mr W. Simpson in R. As. J. Ap, 96, p. 363. Its Ungaish form proclaims the old Sisna devaism which Rishis of the Rig Yeda condemned as did Hebrew Nahwi, though these built a model type of Chaitya and Stiipa in their revered " Tomb of Absalom," significantly called the Manus or " Hand " and a Yod. Brahmans had adopted Chaityos and YCipas in the time of the Aryan edition of the Maha-bharata — say 400 B.C., for we read in i. 109. 13, that a country " became lovely with hundreds of Chaityas and Sacri- ficial posts " — evidently the fine pillars and poles which we still see around Buddhist Stupas and temples. Originally then on these posts were tied or crucified the victims off'ered to Siva or the Sisna deva, and to crucify on a pillar, alias lingam, was to honour the Creator through his symbol. Some of the Mathura Images are dated in the first century B.C. ; and one is inscribed : " Gift of a statue to Vardha-Mana . . . the JMaha-Rajati, Shahi-Vasu-deva " or Bazo-Deo — names of Maha-Vira, which are also found on Statues No. 16 and 18 and on coins. On Statue No. 2 is the date 41 a.c, or "Sam. 98 . . . Glory to the Arhat (Bodhi-Sata) Maha-Vira, the Destroyer of Devas," or of all Saivo-Brahmanik gods. From the A'ini-Akbdri of Abul Fazl (Akbar's historian), it is clear that Asoka supported Jainism in Kashmir when Viceroy of Ujain, about 260 B.C., as had his fiither Bindusdra, and grandfather Chandragupta throughout the Magadha Empire, Buddhism was apparently for about a century after Gotama's death thought, by all who did not trouble themselves with details, to be a mere form of Jainism ; and Brfdniianism was but a,n improved phaze of the universal Nature or Hermaik worship which grew out of the Saivism or Sisna-deva-ism, condemned in the Rig Veda. All were the recognised faiths of the wide Magadha Empire, which under Asoka extended from Gandhara (the Shemitik form of Kapur-di-giri) to Napal and Ahom or Asam, down through the Andhra States to those of Pandyas in Central Dravidia or Dramilia. Among and beyond these millions, Asoka laboured assidu- ously to propagate his mild and kindly Jainism, especially concerning the sacredness of all life, as well as peace, charity, 30 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM I PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. and universal brotherhood. He adopted the highest moral standpoint; urging men to have "Festivals of Duty" rather than of superstition, rites and idle festivities ; and personally he set the highest example in the performance of his own duties. He established hospitals or dispensaries along the highways, which he shaded with trees for the weary traveler, the poor and suffering ; giving them free housing, medicines, and attendance. He planted groves, dug wells, and inscribed good advice and educative thoughts on religious as well as philosophical matters, on rocks and LCits or Menhirs, and along the main public thoroughfares ; many of which still stand, survivals of the first attempt of a Government Education Department. Asoka cared little what men called him : " Worlds and Conduct, not Creeds," was his motto : so we cannot tell when he became a Buddhist. In all his Rock inscriptions he designates, himself hy the favourite Jaina title: Deva-nam-piya, "the Beloved of God," which no true follower of Gotama, who spoke not of spirits would have done ; but in his twenty-seventh regnal year (247 B.C.) he engraved upon the Bhabra Lat which stood near Bairath, 30 miles north-east of Jaipur on the Delhi road, that " Buddhism is henceforth to be considered the Relio-ion of this Empire," and he then calls himself merely RCtja Piya-dassi, " the Kindly or Humane one." This was a title of Gotama as well as of his preceptor Maha-Yira, see Malid Vdnso, i. 75. Buddhism caused no outward change in the Emperor's conduct ; it but deepened and widened his religion, making it more prac- tical, as in the case of Gotama wdien he left the hermitage of Rajagriha. Asoka's later LCit inscriptions are on the same lines as the early Roch ones. Thus he engraved on the Delhi pillar: "In Religion and Duty [Dhainma) lie the chief excellence. . . . Relio;ion consists of orood works and avoidance of evil ; in mercy, purity and chastity : these are to me the anointment of consecration." This then was the theory and practice of the great Jaino- Buddhist Religion which flourished in India many centuries before and after the teaching of Gotama Sakya Muni ; but we cannot yet locate its exact birth or cradle land. It was certainly long prior to Parsva and Maha-Yira, and the days of' IkTT-v TrrO ITTT^Orr'TTlUXT T) A rrtr ■'.I 3::^ I. EVOLUTION OF BUDDHISM AND ITS WESTERN PATH. 31 kingdoms like those of Kosala or Oudh, and of Mtlgs or Mrdas on the middle Ganges, or of Madras and Takshas in the upper Panjab. These races apparently brought it with them, or more probably developed it, when, they debouched on the fertile plains of Bhilrata Varsha or Kolarian India by the passes of the Indus, Sutlej, Sarasvati and Mrd-indi or " river of Mrdas," * Whilst India was certainly the fruitful centre of religion from the 7th century B.C., yet Trans-Himalaya, Oxiana, Baktria and Kaspiana seem to have still earlier developed similar religious views and practices ; and Indian Jains and Buddhists claim, and almost historically show, that above a score of their saintly leaders perambulated the Eastern World long prior to the 7th century B.C. We may reasonably believe that Jaino-Buddhism was very anciently preached by them from China to the Kaspian — around the head of which we very early find a Buddhist colony or centre, as shown by Prof. Rhys Davids in his Buddhism, see this map which the Society for P. C. Know- ledge has kindly supplied to us. The actual birth-place of the faith as a Jaina or ascetical Bodhism, is however, puzzling, though we incline to think it existed in Oxiana and north of the Himalayas 2000 years before Mahji-Vira. The western trend of Jaino-Buddhism is not at all obscure. Between the Kaspian and Euxine — Northern Kak- iisia — in the great triangle stretching down to the deltas of the Rhea and Tanais (Don and Volga), lived the Dags, Daks or Ddcce, in a state known to Irjlns or Arians as Dagli-istdn. From here went many colonies, such as were known to Greeks as Getee, Dacse, &c., to the rich plains of the Istar (Danube), until all the northern basin was known, in historic times, as Dacia with a frino-e of Getse alonor the west coast of the Euxine. From these, thought Strabo, sprang Msesse and Thrakians, and all three were absorbed or driven southwards as the Dac8& increased and expanded — a process Rome did her best to stop during the 1st century B.C. With great difficulty a Roman army penetrated to the Danube in 75 B.C. ; but it had to retire, though announcino; the annexation of Msesia, which the Dacians *See our annexed map of "Ancient India" and the sources of these rivers near the sacred Mana Sarvar lakes. T I. EVOLUTION OF BUDDHISM AND ITS WESTERN PATH. 31 kingdoms like those of Kosala or Ouclh, and of Mags or Mrdas on the middle Gauges, or of JMadriis and Takshas in the upper Panjab. These races apparently brought it with them, or more probably developed it, when they debouched on tlie fertile plains of Bharata Varsha or E^olarian India by the passes of the Indus, Sutlej, Sarasvati and Mrd-iudi or " river of Malas." * Whilst India was certainly the fruitful centre of religion from the 7th century B.C., yet Trans-Himalaya, Oxiana, Baktria and Kaspiana seem to have still earlier developed similar religious views and practices ; and Indian Jains and Buddhists claim, and almost historically show, that above a score of their saintly leaders perambulated the Eastern World long prior to the 7th century B.C. We may reasonably believe that Jaino-Buddhism was very anciently preached by them from China to the Kaspian — around the head of which we very early find a Buddhist colony or centre, as shown by Prof. Ehys Davids in his Buddhism, see this map which the Society for P. C. Know- ledge has kindly supplied to us. The actual birth-place of the faith as a Jaina or ascetical Bodhism, is however, puzzling, though w^e incline to think it existed in Oxiana and north of the Himalayas 2000 years before Maha-Vira. The western trend of Jaino-Buddhism is not at all obscure. Between the Kaspian and Euxine — Northern Kak- asia — in the great triangle stretchino; down to the deltas of o o o the Rhea and Tanais (Don and Volga), lived the Dags, Daks or Ddcce, in a state known to Irans or Arians as Ddgh-istdn. From here w^ent many colonies, such as w^ere known to Greeks as Getae, Dacae, &c., to the rich plains of the Istar (Danube), until all the northern basin was known, in historic times, as Dacia with a frino-e of Getse alonoj the west coast of the Euxine. From these, thought Strabo, sprang Maesae and Thrakians, and all three were absorbed or driven southwards as the Dacse increased and expanded — a process Eome did her best to stop during the 1st century B.C. With great difficulty a Roman army penetrated to the Danube in 75 B.C. ; but it had to retire, thouo;h announcinof the annexation of Msesia, which the Dacians *See our annexed map of "Ancient India" and the sources of these rivers near the sacred Mana Sarvar lakes. 32 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PKEHISTORIC AND HISTOEIC. I. forth with devastated, and in 81 a.c. dictated a peace with tribute which the Emperor Titus was ghid to accept. Again in 103 A.c. the lesions tried to establish a frontier on the Danube, but peace was impossible. Even the Emperor M. Aurelius, in 175-180, was glad to accept from the valiant Daghs, what he called Dacia Aurcliana in Dardania — the hilly tracts east of the j)resent Sophia. In these moves we see how Baktrian faiths passed West, and how, in the 7th and Gth centuries B.C. or earlier, Xalmoxis aud Pythagoras were preaching and teaching like the Butlia- Gurus of Jains and Buddhists ; and why Josephus said the priests of Getae " resembled those Dacoe who are called Polistai," the Ktistai or Ctistoe of Strabo, Ed. Bo. i. 453-4, Ants, xviii. i. 5. Scaliger, in his note on this passage, calls the POAISTAI, Futliagoric Dacce, that is, they were Pudists or Budists (this A is clearly A as Col. Conder suggests), and apparently so even in the 8tli or 9th centuries B.C., and how much earlier we know not. According to Scaliger " these DaccB lived alone like Monks, in tents and caves," and Strabo says " they were a Thrakian sect who lived without wives. . . . Their brethren, the Msesi, religiously abstained from eating anything that had life . . . living in a quiet way on fruit and vegetables, honey, milk and cheese . . . wherefore considered a religious people, and named Kapnohate " — meek or lowly ones 1 Homer, of the 7th century B.C. or earlier, called them " most just men . . . livers on milk . . . devoid of desire for riches and perigrinators of the country," i.e., peripatetic philosophers or preachers like all Buddhas. They were in fact, as Josephus show^s, like to his Essenik brethren on the Jordan, wdiom he and numerous pious Pharisis joined during their early novitiate, just as Burmese gentlemen commonly enter for a time upon the yellow robe discipline of the Monasteries. John the Baptist, Jesus and their disci23les are common examples of Essenik life in Asia. Josephus says the Essenik brethren, " like the ancient Dacse," neither married, drank wine, nor kept servants, living apart and ministering to the wants of each other with all things in common. " They ofter," he continues, " no sacrifices, and I. THRAKIAN JAINA-BODHISM AND ESSENISM. S3 teach the immortalitj of the soul," as do Jains but not Buddhists. " They sought only the rewards of righteousness, and performed divers lustrations for purity. . . . They exceeded all men in virtue, engaged only in husbandry, and entered upon their novitiate with the symbolic gifts of an axe, a white robe and apron. Full membership was not obtained for at least two years " — a practice also of Jaino-Buddhists. The neophyte joined in the lustral rites, though not in the meals of the full brothers, and after two years could, if he pleased, take the vows of the brotherhood. These required him "to observe piety, justice, obedience, purity and secrecy, especially in regard to their sacred books and the names of the angels" — rules which still obtain among Druses, Syrian sects, and many other peoples. In the 1st and 2nd centuries B.C., Essenes are classed as the third great Jewish sect — viz., Sadukis, Pharisi (a form of Parsis), and Essenes, and Josephus mentions them as prominent B.C. 166, 110 and 106; A7its. xiii. v. 8, xi. 5, and Wars, i. iii. 5, ii. 8. 4. They were known as Hasidim, Q'^l'^Dn, " the Pure or Saintly ones " — perhaps from h^Db^ " to heal," for they correspond with the Christian Therapeutai into which many, it is thought, merged. They laid no stress on any particular faith or doctiine, but on an ideal calm purity of life — a true Jaino- Buddhism, that is, says Josephus, on " the ascetic virtues of Putha-goreans and Stoics, with a spiritual knov/ledge of Sacred Law." Greeks indeed called Essenes, Putha-gorians, and Herod, who died 4 B.C., " held them in high honour and let them oiF the oath of allegiance," Ayits. xv. 10. 4. The historian mentions one "Judas, a leading Essene of 110 B.C., who lived in ordinary society," and another Menaheme or Man^en, a well- known colleague of the wise Hillel and a friend of Herod, and Vice-President of the Sanhedrim. The importance of the sect is also seen in their name being given to one of the gates of Jerusalem, and Josephus says that in his Essenik days there were 4000 Essene celibates living among the desolate jjlaces around the Dead Sea — all men who honoured their divine^ Ideal by living in holes like foxes, and " knowing not where to lay their c 34 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. heads." Not without reason did De Quincy say : " They were the first Christians." Dr Hausrath, in his vols, on New Testament Times, calls Essenes " first cousins to Orpheans," who were poetical pietists springing from the same eastern wave which, a century later, gave birth to the more severe but logical teaching of another Western Buddha — Protaooras or Pruta-o-uru. About 450 B.C. he preached almost in the words of Gotama, and about the same year : " Eespecting the Gods, I am unable to say whether or not .they exist. . . . Man must be to us the real measure of all things," see his views in art. Short Texts. From the earliest times Christian writers down to Bishop Lightfoot have agreed in attributing Essenism to " Eastern Eeligions " passing through a wide tract of Zoroastrianism, especially in days when Parthians were ruling millions of Buddhists on the Indus and Narbada, as well as in Western Asia. Dean Mansel in his Gnostic Heresies wrote : " Essenism is due to Buddhist missionaries who visited Egypt within two generations of the time of Alexander the Great " ; that is about 260 B.C., when, says Bishop Lightfoot (CoJIos), Hermippus of Smyrna gave to all Greel'-sj^eaking peoples the most detailed account of Zoroastrianism. ... Its tenets had moulded the speculations of the various Gnostic Sects. . . . The Magian system (Mazdeism) then took root in Asia Minor, . . . and then, if not earlier, its demonology stamped itself deeply on the Apocryphal (nay all) literature of Jews. Palestine was surrounded (and permeated) by Persian influences, . . . and Mazdeism sujDplied just those elements which dis- tinguish the tenets and practices of Essenes from the normal type of Judaism — as Dualism, Sun adoration, invocation of spirits and angels, magical rites, and intense striving after purity." We may not, however, acquit Jews of any of these practices but this last high moral phase, which is the peculiar aspiration of Jaino-Buddhists. It was durinof or after the time of Putha2:oras that we first hear of Thrakia, and then too " the Dacse or Dage " are called " an Asiatik Skuthian people who were driving the Getse south from the mouths of the Danube." Strabo rightly thinks (i. 468) T. PUTHAGOEAS AND ZALMOXIS OF THRAKIA. 35 they were an early Dacian colony ; and the Maesians were probahly a still earlier. The historian says the Dac?e were the Asiatik Shuthian Daces (p. 467) ; on which, notes JNIr Gassellin, *' they were the Dags of Daghistdn'^ in north-east Kakasia. Notice also that Herodotos calls the people on the Don and Volga *' Budini tcho are Skuthi " ; that is Skuthian Buddhists, Bodhists or Jainas of the Kfisyapa type. Of course these Asiatik colonies had been for ao-es in full rapport with all Baktrian and Eastern Faiths, as well as those of Kapadokia and Mesopatamia, and we are not surprised to find in the scant history we necessarily have from the black forests of the Danube, that they had Buddhas or " Divine Hermit priests" like Geheleizis and Zahnoxis, whom they deified as *' Messengers from Heaven " — sort of Gabriels, Saviours, and " teachers sent from God," as others describe their prophets. Greeks thought Zalmoxis had been a slave or pupil of their Putha-guru, and if so, living in the sixth century B.C., before Gotama Buddha could be here heard of. More likely Puthagoras learned much of his Buddhism from Zalmoxis, whose life and doctrines would have a great attraction for the Greek philo- sopher, after his travels in Egypt and the East. Report saith they traveled in Egypt and the East together, and then settled down to teach throughout Thrakia. We may be sure that the Greek was thoroughly imbued with the Mystikos Logos of the schools of his great-grandfather Hippasos, and for which he suffered banishment about 600 B.C. Zalmoxis, on his return to Thrakia, lived for three years like a Buddha in a cave or forest retreat, and then went about teaching — honoured as "a high priest and king." " Of his death no man knoweth " or believes, and all Thrakians thousfht he would come again in glory for the salvation of his people. Thrakians said he appeared to them four j^ears after he dis- appeared ; which Herodotos suggests w^as merely into a sub- terranean cavern ; adding, " but I neither believe nor entirely disbelieve " in this, or whether " he was a man or a god " (iv. 93-4), for all Danubian peoples believed he was a sort of Gabriel or " Messenger from Heaven." He taught more than the Jaina doctrine of the immortality o6 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTOIIIC AND HISTOllIC. L of the soul, LelieviDg like Christ, that our bodies would also be resurrected, and this got such a thorough hold on Thrakians that they believed they never really died, but merely passed on to a more blessed land. They communicated their wishes quinquennially to Zalmoxis by throwing or waving about a man towards the heavens till he was dead. Marvellous leo^ends are told concerning: Zalmoxis and Puthagoras, just as in the case of Buddha and Clu'ist. The good and clever Greek was " the Son of the Highest " (Apollo), and his face often shone like that of Moses ; he could pass through walls, and be in two places at once. He taught the Indian doctrines of metempsychosis and transmigration ; believed in many "Mysteries" of Orpheans, in a divine Logos or Word, and considered no animal should be injured — ^-all having souls like men. He was, says Grote, " a tlioroughly good man, and revealer of a o;ood life well calculated to raise mankind to a higher level " — yet he was by no means the first Buddha even in the West. Nor was Christianity first taught by Christ, unless we mean by it the vicarious sacrifice of a God. The Eev. Dr Ginsburg places this beyond doubt in the following passage from his booklet on the Essenes :• — " Essenism urged on its disciples to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness: so Christ (Matt. vi. 33; Luke xii. 31). The Essenes forbade the laying up of treasures upon earth : so Christ (Matt. vi. 19-21). The Essenes demanded of those who wished to join them to sell all their possessions and to divide it among the poor brethren: so Christ (Matt. xix. 21 ; Luke xii. 33). The Essenes had all things in common, and appointed one of the brethren as steward to- manage the common bag : so the primitive Christians (Acts ii. 44, 45 ; iv. 32-34 ; John xii. 6 ; xiii. 29). Essenism put all its members on the same level, forbidding the exercise of authority of one over the other, and enjoining mutual service : so Christ (Matt. xx. 25-28 ; Mark ix. 35-37 ; x. 42-45). Essenism commanded its disciples to call no man master upon the earth: so Christ (Matt, xxiii. 8-10). Essenism laid the greatest stress on being meek and lowly in spirit : so Christ (Matt. v. 5 ; xi. 29). Christ commended the poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers : so the Essenes. Christ combined the healing of the hody with that of the soul : so the Essenes. Like th& Essenes Christ declared that the power to cast out evil spirits, to per- T. ESSENISM AND JAINA-BODHISM CONTRASTED. 37 form miraculous cures, etc., should be possessed by his disciples as ■signs of their belief (Mark xvi. 17 ; comp. also Matt. x. 8 ; Luke ix. 1, 2 ; X. 9). Like the Essenes, Christ commanded his disciples not to swear at all, but to say yea, yea, and nay, nay. The manner iu ■which Christ directed his disciples to go on their journey (Matt. x. 9, 10) is the same which the Essenes adopted when they started on a mission of mercy. The Essenes, though repudiating offensive Avar, yet took weapons with them when they went on a perilous journey : Christ enjoined his disciples to do the same thing (Luke xxii. 36). Christ commended that elevated spiritual life which enables a man to abstain from marriage for the kingdom of heaven's sake, and which cannot be attained b}- all men save those to whom it is given (Matt. xix. 10-12 ; ■comp. also 1 Cor. viii.) ; so the Essenes, who, as a body, in waiting for the kingdom of heaven, abstained from connubial intercourse. The Essenes did not offer animal sacrifices, but strove to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which they regarded as a reasonable service ; the Apostle Paul exhorts the Eomans to do the same (Rom. xii. 1 ). It was the great aim of the Essenes to live such a life of purity and holiness, as to be the temples of the Holy Spirit, and to be able to prophesy ; the Apostle Paul urges the Corinthians to covet to j^rophesy (1 Cor. xiv. 1, 39). When Christ pronounced John to he Elias (Matt. xi. 14), he declared that the Baptist had already attained to that spirit and power which the Essenes strove to obtain in their highest stage of purity." Philo thought the Essenes were established by Moses, and Josephus says, "ever since the ancient time of the fathers" {Ants, xviii. 1, 2, 5), whilst Pliny sees them "through thousands of ages" {Nat. Hist., v. xvii.). Much of Philo comes to us through "the history maker" Eusebius, who himself grants that much of " the ancient writings of the early Christian Therapeutae are in the Gospels and Epistles " ; and that 1)efore our era pious men used " to meet together on the Sabbath (not Sunday) and pray and read from ancient hooks. Philo shows that Essenes had less sympathy with Greek than with Oriental ideas and philosophy. He says, like our evangelicals . . . ^'they rejected logic as unnecessary to the acquisition of virtue ; iind speculation on Nature as too lofty for the human intellect." Mr Kirkup in his paper in the Unc. Brit, says : "In many respects Essenes reached the highest moral elevation attained by the ancient world (of the West). They were just, humane, 88 JAIXISM AND BUDDHISM: PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. benevolcDt aud spiritually minded. The sick and aged were objects of special and affectionate regard" ; they believed in the brotherhood of man, and would hurt no one voluntarily or even by command. They hated injustice, actively assisted all those who were wrono-ed, and taught obedience to rulers aud their seniors — all ^^ure Jaino-Buddhism. But they believed in the traditions of their fathers, and "^punished blasphemy against their lawgiver with death " ! Even allowing for this last hereditary sin, Mr Kirkup says, Essenes could not have arrived at these abnormal and peculiar views of virtue and conduct in perfect isolation from antecedent and. contemporary speculation. He might have added, nor could Christians, for all is growth and evolution. Even in studying the sacred books of Tibet, the learned Orientalist, Mr H. Princep, wrote in 1850-2 : " Seeing what these sacred books of Buddhists tauo-ht several centuries B.C., and what its missionaries have ever since preached, the rapid sjDread of Christianity in our first and second centuries is not surprising," p. 172. Vainly do we try, as the good Hebrew said, to hide "the rock from whence we are hewn," and proclaim that we are a chosen or " peculiar " people, and all others common and unclean or " Barbarians," as said Greeks and Chinese. Patriotic and especially pious ancient peo^^les, usually main- tained a contemptuous silence regarding the good and great men and faiths around them, fearing lest the contrary showed a dis- trust in their own Beliefs ; and the first public mention of Buddha by a Christian Father seems to be about 190 a.c, when Clement of Alexandria told his followers that " One Terebin- thus has come from India and set up for a Boutta." This shows, however, that all knew Buddha, and required no explanation as to the ofiices and duties of a Buddha. Especially should Clement have known, for he and his friend Pantainos, whom some call his preceptor, were in hiding in Palestine during the persecution of Severus, cir. 202 a.c ; while Pantainos had been in India, or at least far easterly, and had found there, says Jerome, a Hebrew copy of the Gosj^el of Matthew, which history disowns. None of the Gospels are quoted, or, so far as history shows. I. ADVANCES OF BUDDHISM, 4tH C. B.C. TO 2ND C. A.C. 39 were known till 170-175 a.c.;* so that there was ample time between 500 B.C. and 170 a.c. for Buddhism to influence Christianity — all that we contend for. The moral teachings of both faiths are vastlv older and common to all religions, and probably sprang up independently in the minds of wise and pious thinkers. We only contend that the widespread Eastern faith had ample time and opportunity to imprint its practices, texts, legends, and doctrines on all historic Asia, and un- doubtedly did so, just as Jaina Bodhism had started and in- fluenced alike Brahmanism and Buddhism. Vainly, however, do we search for an historical basis for Jaina Bodhism. It and twenty or twenty-one of its saints are lost in the mazes of antiquity, springing probably only from the human heart and the miseries of life — the usual source of asceticism. How many waves of Buddhism surged backwards and for- wards between Oxiana and Central Asia toward India on the south-east, and to Khorasan and South Kaspiana States, we can only guess; but one great wave clearly commenced some 1000 years B.C., and though ever and again receding, or absorbed for a time in strange currents, it maintained itself among the fastnesses of the Koh-i-stan, North Kaspiana, Hindu-Kush and Himalayas. It everywhere left its mark, and finally rested, during, if not before the fifth century B.C., over all the mountains and valleys from lower Kashmir into Western Persia and Baktria. From Taranatha's Ilistori/ of Buddhism and Spiegel's Five Gcithas, we gather that Buddhist or Bodhist missions existed in Persia, 450 B.C., during the reign of Artaxerxes Longamanus, and some were there and then specially located and favoured by him. Jews were located throughout these countries (Hue's Christ. i. 1), and were striving to re-establish themselves and a sacred literature in Judea, while Greeks were listening to Sophokles. Sokrates, and Anaxagoras — then ventilating not a little Buddhistic or Jaina-Bodhist teaching. The Jews on the Her-i-rud (Herat) and in Baktria, claim to have been established there during the tumults bewailed by Jeremiah about 630 B.C., for Herat was the Hara of the Old Testament and well known to their " Saviour Cyrus." To it * This is elaborately proved in the three vols, of Sup. Religion. 40 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. the King of Assyria drove two and a lialf Hebrew tribes previous to tlie destruction of their first temple. There are records of fights between Jews and Mazdeans in Herat regarding putting out lights, showing the early domination of the latter, who had there no rival save that of the meek but earnest adherents of Jaino-Bodhism. Aristoxenos, of the Alexandrian era, says : " An Indian Mao-US, sorcerer or ' Great One ' visited Sokrates, and manv philosophers were then preaching abstinence from all wine and animal food, as well as promulgating strange theories of metempsycliosis." And we have seen that an Indian monk, Kalanus (evidently Kcdindth or inhabitant of Kalian, near Bombay), had about this time sealed his doctrine and sincerity by immolating himself at Persepolis. All such matters would be well known and scattered further a-field by Alexander and his savans, when in the beginning of the next century they were traversing the whole Persian empire, and gleaning all they could cf India — her histories, religions, and rites. Baktria had then fully embraced the Xeo-Buddhism of Gotama, and long before our era this had permeated nearly all Asia and become virtually the State religion of vast empires in China and India. It was in the mouth, if not in the heart of all monarchs, princelets, priests, and the learned from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. We are apt to forget that intercourse throughout Asia was as free and complete 1000 years B.C. as it is to-day, except in the case of British India, with its great metalled highways, rail- roads and telegraphs. Elsewhere, throughout the East, caravan- saries and tracks, called roads, existed then as now ; but the roughness of the latter impeded not the interchange of thought, which passed then even more easily than now from tribe to tribe ; for bounds were less defined and wild hordes moved more freely then ; while a belief in the divinity or holiness of the pious pilgrim-teacher or hermit was more universal ; hence he was less molested and more respected, and his opinions more freely disseminated than in these sceptical days. The Savons of Alexander found Jaino-Buddhism strongly in the ascendant throughout Baktria, Oxiana, and all the Passes I. JAINO-BUDDHISTS PREACHING IN THE PASSES INTO INDIA. 41 to and from Afghanistan and India. Restless Sramans — monks and peripatetic Bikslius, and mendicants had then been wandering for ages over half of Asia, and appear to have had regular proselytizing agencies in all lone mountain passes and river gorges where travelers and armies had to pass. This seemed to these diligent and earnest ascetics the fittest places wherein "to compass their proselytes," and so to most widely disseminate their faith among the most cruel, hard, and wildest classes of the nations. Fearlessly did the Sramans urge on kings and peasants, robbers and murderers, that the world was but a passing show in which they should labour to assuage the miseries of their fellows ; that those who professed Faiths should ponder less upon their Gods and more upon a Gospel of Duty, unselfishness and sympathy for their fellows ; and though most listeners smiled and passed on, yet this Gospel would seem to have often commended itself to the sensible and good, lightened the burdens of the weary, and even welled up in quiet moments in the breasts of the arrogant, cruel, and wicked. Anyhow it was the only weapon of the Buddhist. In those days no important phase of thought, especially in regard to religion, its inspired leaders and their miracles, was long hidden. Even fables and folk-lore, as well as sandal-wood, " apes, ivory and peacocks," were as well known in Jerusalem as India. " That a channel of communication was open between India, Syria, and Palestine in the time of Solomon, is established^" says Prof. Max Muller, " beyond doubt by certain Sanskrit words which occur in the Bible as names of articles of export from Ophir, which taken together could not have been ex]Dorted from any country but India. " * The Professor says there is no reason to suppose, even at the time when the Book of Kings is believed to have been written, that the commercial intercourse between India, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean was ever * Dr Eurnell claims a Tamil source for Solomon's tuM, or peacocks, the Tamil for which is iugai, and it is most probable that the Arabian Sabean traders got these birds, apes and sandal-wood from the Indian Travankor traders, Avhere these are indigenous. Indeed sandal-wood grew only there, and coasting tribes would transport it to the Abirs at the mouths of the Indus, Avhich might lead Hebrews to say it came from Ophir or Abirea. 42 JAINLSM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. completely iuterrupted. He sees truces of tlie far East in the treasures dug up from the depths of ancient Troy, just as we have found gold coins, etc., of Thrakian, Persian, Parthian, Greek and Skytliian, at Banaras — part of that great " drain of 550 millions of sesterces," which Pliny tells us Indians took ayinucdly from the West (vi. 26). We now know that the literature of Buddhism has been the source of much of our oldest folk-lore, legends and parables — a Sanskrit fable appearing, says Max Midler, in one of the come- dies of Strattis of about 400 B.C., and "the judgment of Solo- mon " (in regard to dividing a living child in two) appearing in a much more human form in the Tibetan Buddhist Trlpitaha. If fables and legends even from Tibet so traveled, how much more would the great sayings and doings of a mighty prophet — one who swayed and guided the most earnest thoughts of many millions — be wafted into lands eagerly listening to every breath or sound on these subjects'? And that they were earnest in their search, we see from divers ancient sources. Until lately direct evidence of the path of Buddhism west- ward has been scanty, but continually increasing ; and European scholars, though hitherto reticent, have more and more recog- nised the faith in many distinctive features of the Putha-gorian. Essenik, and Alexandrian schools, which especially rose in favor when the knowledge of Eastern thought brought back by the savans and armies of Alexander the Great began to permeate the West. All these were growths. Out of a wide-spread heterogeneous archaic Buddhism arose an ethical wave of neo- Buddhisni which impelled Gotama Buddha to resist the tyranny of the old faiths as well as the cold Agnostic philosophies of the Sankya schools of Kapila Vastu. In the West Buddhism would fnid many a fitting nidus, and it undoubtedly enormously facili- tated the advance of all the ethical teaching ignorantly or too hastily ascribed to the "Great Galilean." The Western world was, some three centuries B.C., tiring of the dry Vedanta-like metaphysics such as Buddha had contended against, and some Kabala-like doctrines which Putha-goras and his successors had labored to instil. These continued to grow, evolving later into the ethical and Theistic theories of the Stoics, I. WESTERNS STIRRED TOWARDS EASTERN FAITHS. 43 But the learning and pliilosopbies, however religious, from Putha-goras and Xenophanes of 530, through the times of Protagoras, the " first Sophist," and Anaxagoras, to Pyrrho and Zenon of 250 B.C., seemed a forced culture too high and advanced for the masses. They could but gaze in bewilderment at the teaching in Stoas and Groves, and wonder what it all meant and what they were expected to do, for this is the first and a crucial question with the busy work-a-day world. The people were still in the spiritualistic stage by nature and inclination. They required miracles and demanded these as the sign and seal of the divine right of all who taught religion. Mere laborers for " the meat which perishes," they firmly believed in spirits or gods in and around them, could see no religion apart from divine inspiration — that greatest of all miracles — or that Divine intuition, Sam-hod hi, which Buddha had to confront even in the colleges which he had established at Nalanda. Easterns and their faiths were not without effect on the Greeks of Alexander's expeditions. Pyrrho, a thoughtful artist, w^as one of the band of Savans of 330 to 320 B.C. who diligently studied Magian, Zoroastrian, and Indian religions, and seems to have embraced Jaino-Buddhism, admiring more especially its contented, imperturbable equanimity and humble Agnostic attitude in regard to the unknown and unprovable. On his return he became a teacher on the lines of Gorgias the Sicilian (evidently a follower of Puthagoras and Protagoras), who wrote precisely as Gotama had taught, that " man neither knows, nor has faculties or means of knowing the true and ultimate nature of things; and must put aside his a priori premises "-- the ontoloo'ical and teleological causes of beins^. Out of such teach- ing arose in time the schools of Eleatiks, Sophists and Skeptiks who in this respect aroused the sleepy West. Only cultured Stoics could appreciate the higher Buddhism, and these, says Bishop Lightfoot, " essentially followed Buddha, first, as to a common belief in the supreme good derived by the practice of virtue ; secondly, in self-reliance and the assertion of conscience ; and thirdly, in the reality of the intuitional appre- hension of truth." Stoicism, he continues, " was, in fact, the earliest offspring of the union between the religious conscious- 44 JALNLSM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. iiess of tlie East and the intellectual culture of the West . . . (for) Zt'RO, the Phenician, was a child of the East, and only when his stoicism had Eastern affinities did it differ seriously from the schools of Greek philosophy. To these affinities may be attributed the intense moral earnestness which was its char- acteristic" {Epist. Pliil., xi. 273). What truer Buddhism could there be than such as this, which then echoed and re-echoed from Grove to Stoa ? — " Submit, my l)rothers, without grumbling to the unavoidal)lc necessity by which all things are governed. Free thyself from all passions and be unmoved in joy as in sorrow." Compare also our canonical Ecclesiastes which was written about 200 B.C., and is full of Buddhistical stoicism. In and before 500 B.C., China received from Babylon much of its mythology and legendary history, and about 425 B.C., as General Cunningham's archaeological researches show, India had cognizance of most European styles of architecture, and most of the arts and learning of the Greeks, Ezra and Nehemiah had come up from the temples of Babylon about 400 B.C. well acquainted with all that was going on in the East, and had, according to Hebrew tradition, begun editing the Old Testament. Sokrates had, a generation back, consorted with an Eastern monk and many Magi. In 377 the second great Buddhist Council had been held at Vaisali, urging missionary efforts ; and the Buddhistic " Jaina Sutras " and Indian epics were probably well known. From 400 downwards we have much Buddhistic teaching in Plato, Epikuros, Pyrrho, Aristotle, and others, and we hear the latter speak of the Buddhistic " Kalani " in connection with supposed Jews ; and when, in 330, Alexander the Great and his 3000 savans were on their way through Baktria to India, Jaina- Bodhism was more or less professed from the Oxus and Heri- rud to farthest India. By 315 B.C. the energetic Chandra Gupta, Emperor of Northern India, and virtually a Jaina, had married a daughter of Seleukos ; and by 300, Greeks no longer had any states in India but had spread widely east and west. Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador, and his staff were still wdth the Emperor on the Ganges, compiling histories of India, its kings, peoples, religions, rites and customs ; and another Indian I. FAITH OF U-JATNiS, MALAS, AND LOWER SCIND. 45 Sraman or, more probably, Hindu Sauyiisi, tlie Kalanos before mentioned, had shown the West how indifferent the pious should be to this world, its joys or pains, by mounting a burn- ing pyre, in sight of the multitudes of Persepolis. We have evidence, says Professor Beal, that about this time Greek plays passed into India direct from Alexandria to Baroch or Baroda, and northwards to Ujain, the viceroyalty of the Jaina Asoka,* though they might more easily have passed from Baktria, then an independent Graeko-Bodhist kingdom. Jews had, about 330, compiled their Chronicles, and Berosos his histories of nations, their genesis and faiths, and Greeks were then translating the Avasta Zand from the Pahlvi, and Greek Jews were arranging their Pentateuch. The age was alive everywhere with busy thinkers and writers, wdiom the Greeks and savans of the scattered armies of Alexander had stirred into life and formed into literary centres from the Ganges to the Oxus and Nile, and throughout Mesopotamia even into the desert capital of Zenobia, then a link between East and West. Darmestetter says that " the plays of ^schylos and Sophokles were read at the Parthian Court, and the relationship between Parthia and Western Asia was very close," — how much closer with Buddhistic Baktria and India, where Parthia acquired a vast kingdom, extending from the Indus to the Narmiinda ? Its rulers — Kshatriyas or Satrapes — have left us their- names on the rocks of the beautiful monolithik caves of Nasik and Kanheri. See Stevenson's papers and our Chroru Tables. Buddhism indirectly attracted the attention of Jews through the Eastern Parthians, for Josephus states f that the Parthian prince, Pacorus (well acquainted with Buddhism), ruled over Syria from Jerusalem as a cajntal, and he quotes * Uj-Jain or Ji)ia-Ur = Jain toAvn, was a capital of Mal-wa or Mala-land, and Malas, says Cunningham (Anc. Geog., 490), were the great Bodhists of Kosala, i.e. the Kasyapa Jains. ■[Con. Ajnon, i. 22; and cf. Hardy's Man. of Bud., 135-3 — quoting Csama de Korasi's paper in "Bengal Asiatic" of Aug. 1883; And. SAi. Lit. 408 ; Life of Bud. 403 ; and Bud. in China, by Professor Beal, 65, 260. Most of the facts are compressed into our Chronological Tables. 46 JATNISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. Aristotle as saying (about 330 B.C. ?) that " the Jews of Ca3le- Sjria were Indian philosophers, called in the East Calami " (Kalani ?) and Ikshvaku or " sugar-cane people," and only Jews l)ecause they lived in Judea, These " Jews " (evidently Essenes) said Aristotle, derived from Indian philosophers ivonderf id fortitude in life, diet and continence. They were, in fact, Jaina Bodhists, whom the great Greek confounded with Syrians.* Now the " sugar-cane people " of India were the Ikshvakas (in Pali Okkakis) — a name of Buddha's family, who had an ancient settlement near the mouth of the Indus at Kola minct, the black-land (?) — Aristotle's Calami and our Patala or Haidarfibad — a place holy in Christian tradition as being the city where St Thomas probably died, and where therefore he and his would readily obtain all the Buddhist doctrines then long current among Syrian and Judean Essenes. Such foundations, and on widespread growths, would necessarily influence the rising Christian literature ; and there was ample time for them to do so, even if our Gospels were fixed and recognised in the first half of the 2nd century ; how much more so, if, as the learned author of Supernatural Religion shows, they ivere not known to the Churches or leaders till about 175 A. c. Kalamina was well known as the early pre-Indian home of the Ikshvaku line of kings, and from hence they moved upwards to Uj-jain and Oudh, where they rose to become the royal line of Ayodhya,f and this accounts for the many non- Aryan peculiarities in the forms and dress of Buddha, as seen in his images — a fact which has long made scholars suspect his Turanian origin. Well may a reverend Professor say : We * This is not strange, for Jews appeared to try and identify themselves with many stocks, and Josephus quotes occasions Avhen they are called Parthians and Lacedemonians. They were then as now great traders, travelers, and captives or slaves even to Greeks. — Joel ix. 6 ; A7^fs. xii. 4, 10. t Asoka claimed to spring from the first Okkaka king — Hardy, p. ]33. His grandfather Chandra — the Gupta of the South Indus dynasty — here first raised the rebel banner, which he bore to the walls of his new capital — Pdtali-puthra = '^ the, young Patali " — the Greek Palibothra and our Patna, where he established his Mauryan dynasty. All were Sakyas like Gotama Sakya Muni. 1. ST THOMAS MISSION BUDDHISM NOW STRONG. 47 have thus ou tlie Indus, in 350 B.C., " a covert reference to Buddha's family, and perhaps to Buddhists." Beal. History shows us that Babylon was considered by many as the headquarters of Jewish faith for some 300 years, from the second century B.C. to the first century a.c, and that the learned and pious of Jerusalem ever looked to it as their city of light and learning. According to the Mishna, they flashed the moment of the appearance of the new moon in Jerusalem from Mount Olivet, as did Malachi's " Sun of Righteousness " flash his first rising ray each morning over the sacred Mount into the carefully oriented sanctuary of the Harani. From the 3rd century B.C., Jews were to be found all over Babylonia, Baktria and the furthest East ; and the highest recommendation a member of the holy city could then advance was, that he had been in the Sanhedrim of Babylon, as in the case of the wise High Priest Hillel, who was educated in the Babylonian schools and died in Jerusalem about 10 a.c. Eusebius, St Augustine,* and several orthodox fathers, point to the rites and customs of Christianity existing before ■Christ, as in Sabbath services of prayer and jDraise, like those which arose in our second century ; in fact all Western Asia, from the third century B.C., was excited on these subjects ; and probably on this account St Thomas and other Christians pressed eastward in search of the eastern focus of faiths. The threads of thouohts from which Faiths orow are difficult to trace, but a distinguished and learned author of works on Palestine and Biblical Archaeology writes in full agreement as to the influence of Buddhism over that " Gnosticism which was the early form of our Christianity." He adds : " I am inclined to think that there was no orthodoxy in Syria : i.e. no teaching of the Latin Church ; and therefore Gnosticism = Christianity = Buddhism + Judaism, at all events in Syria down to 326 a.c." — a far-reaching fact. The old " Aurea Legenda " states that St Thomas, instructed by God, went as a mason to build the palace of King Gondo- phares (40-60 a.c.) in Meilau or Black Mina (Kcda-Mina'f), the *Cf. City of God, and the Eev. Dr Is. Taylor's Ancient Christ., Avhere lie shows that Christian Monasticism came from India. 48 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. cradle of the Jaina Bodhist Ikshvakus on the Indus at Patala, then ruled by the Emperor Kanishka, see Chron. Tables. Here St Thomas was believed to have been martyred in 60 a.c, and Professor Beal, in noticing this in General Cunningham's ArchcBoIogical Survey of India, vol. ii., of 1862-65, adds (p. 138) : " It is remarkable that about this time (50 A.c), Asvaghosha, the famous Buddhist missionary, was taken by Chanda or Gandha, apparently an immediate successor of Gondo- phares, to Northern India as his secretary or personal adviser ; and we know that Asvaghosha's teaching and writings were thoroughly Buddhistic, and exactly such as the auti-kosmic Essenes and their Christian conquerors would be likely to adopt, and which in fact they did teach." The Professor adds, as showing the wide area early traversed by Buddhism, that " the Chinese writer Falin, in his Po-tsi-lun, brings a mass of evidence to show that Buddhist books w^ere known in China before the time of the Emperor She-hwang-ti, of 221 B.C." ; and we know that these always came by Baktria and Oxiana. Durino- his reio-n an Indian monk, Li-fano; and seventeen com- panions, introduced Buddhist sacred writings into China, regarding which Falin and others " give full particulars, resting on the best foundations, as to the persecutions and imprison- ment " of the sect, and many supposed miraculous deliverances, none of which could have been invented, says Professor Beal. He adds, of course " it is an historical fact " that Buddhism had waxed strong under the Emperor Wu-ti of 140-86 B.C. ; had become a State religion of China under Ming-ti, 58-76 a.c, and that Asvaghosha's great poem appeared in China about this time."^ AVe know from Eusebius, Epiphanius and others that Demetrius, the librarian of Alexandria, urged his royal master, the Graeko-Egyptian Ptolemy Philadelphus, " conqueror of Baktria," to try and secure the sacred books of India for his great library in Alexandria ; and we may be very sure this * Cf. Beal, at pp. 53, 90, &c., and Father Hue's China and Tarfary, where, quoting The Syrian Chron. and Boman Breriari/, the too credulous priest accepts as a fact that "Thomas fell pierced with arrows at Calamina." This is, indeed, much more probable than that he went to St Thome of Madras. I. LITERARY COLLECTIONS, 3RD CENT. B.C. — ASOKA — ESSENES. 49 literary king did so as far as he could, and pretty well succeeded, for he reigned from 283 to 247 B.C. — that is, during almost the whole life of the proselytising Emperor Asoka, then inscribing Jaino-Buddhistic tenets on rocks and pillars throughout northern India and Afghanistan, and stretching out his hands to Greeks, Baktrians, and Chinese. But, alas, Ptolemy's library was burnt down in 47 B.C., and we have thus lost his Oriental collection as well as the Septuagint Bible. It was not with closed eyes and ears that Ptolemy and his caverns would pass over all the intermediate states towards Babylon, Baktria and India, countries where Ezraitic Jews were still compiling their sacred writings, aided by the Babylonian Sanhedrim, the schools of Berosos, and the Greek centres which had sprung up on the scattering abroad of the hosts of Alexander. The loss to the world has therefore been very great. Ptolemy Philadelphus was succeeded by Ptolemy Euergetes, who was coeval with Antiochus Theos, " the Antiyako Yona Maja " mentioned by Asoka, and to whom he sent Buddhist agents or missionaries. These would of course preach to amazed Western armies the brotherhood of all men, and the immorality of war, save that against our ow^n evil inclinations {"the world and the devil," in later Western parlance), and the beauty of contentment even in poverty and rags. They would, like their lord, urge that it was more glorious to subdue one's ■self than to rule multitudes ; to be a saviour of men rather than a conqueror ; to strive to assuage the untold miseries of the world, rather than, by indulging vanity and passion, to add to the normal weight of sorrow. From such teaching would natur- ally arise the Theraj^euts, Essenes, &c. ; and we know of the former in 200 B.C. and the latter about 150 B.C. Thus we need not wonder at Eusebius and others pointing to a kind of "Christianity before Christ," for Eclectics and others had organised churches, with deacons, presbyters, or similar office- bearers, and these used to meet on the Sahhatu or " Day of Rest," .sacred to Saturn, for prayer, praise and other religious exercises.* We have seen that Asoka began his proselytizing career .about B.C. 260 as a Jainist ; embraced Buddhism not later than * Cf. Rev. Dr Cunningham's Croal Lectures of 1886. D 50 JAINISM AXD BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. 250, and assembled his Missionary Council in 242, from which went teachers to all India and Trans-India. He then also uro-ed his views by agents and correspondence "with foreign princes, as the Greek kings of Baktria, Persia, Syria, &c., and entered upon a free correspondence with many literary foreigners. It was about this time — 250-240 — that the plays of Sophokles were read in the camps and courts of eastern Parthian princes, one of whom translated, as before stated, no less than 176 distinct Buddhist works into Chinese. It is, as Professor Beal wrote, " an historical fact " that Antigonus Gonatas, king of Makedonia, who traveled in India about 285, is mentioned in three copies of one of the Edicts of Asoka, of, say, 250 B.C., and Antigonus was the patron if not the disciple of " Zenon the Eastern," and invited Zenon to his court as a teacher of doctrines very similar to Buddhism. AVe are told that " he must have known as much of Asoka as that edict w^riter did of him, Antigonus," and he would naturally wish for Zenon at his court, for he tauo-ht as Asoka taug^ht. Buddhists have no caste like Hindus to keep them apart from foreigners, and Asoka was believed to have Greek blood in his veins, in as much as his grandfather Chandra-Gupta, who died 291 B.C., had married a daughter of Seleukos, which may account for Asoka's evident bent westward. He sent embassies — of course on his favourite religious subjects — to five Greek monarchs, which shows " a close connection between India and the Western world." * When Asoka died in 222 B.C., Buddhism was the acknowledo-ed leadino- faith from the furthest w^estern limits of Parthia up towards the Hari-rud or river of Herat, to Baktria and mid-Asia into China. It was supreme in India and Ceylon, wdiere, and in Upper Burma, sons of Asoka were proselytizing monks. It had reached Siam and the Indian Archipelago, and the great maritime Sabean races of Arabia had become familiar with all its customs, rites, and symbolisms at their every port of call in the furthest Eastern seas, so that the religious peoples of Egypt and the coasts of Africa would learn all about it as well by sea as land. * Cf. pp. 133-170 Beal's Ilwhlhism. PaH works say "Asoka inclined his heart to Buddhism in his 4th regnal year." I. ASOKA S GREEK FRIENDS — COINCIDENCES BY MAX MULLER. ol As this was going to press, we observed the folio wing — much to the point— in a lecture delivered by Professor Max Muller before the R. Soc. Lit., London, June 1896, on " Coinci- dences." After making more than ample allowances for these, as here and there natural, where races and circumstances are alike, he stated that it is unreasonable to attribute the similarities to any other than the ordinary one of teacher and taught as by viva voce or by documents, &c. He is reported to have said — " It was well known that Buddhist influence had been suspected in some of the oldest Greek fables and in parts of the Old and New Testaments. But such coincidences were different from coincidences in language and mythology. After considering all the evidence, it seemed to him that nothing remained but to admit a real historical intercourse between the East and the West. It would have been strange, indeed, if there had been no such exchange of stories and of legends, considering the many opportunities which history recorded. There were great similarities between the fables of -^sop and those occurring in Sanskrit literature, and he could not bring himself to believe that those stories were not brought down from the time of our common Aryan ancestors. The question, after all, was one to be decided by taste and judgment rather than by mere scholarship. He, however, had become more and more convinced that India, was the soil which produced the fables of iEsop, Nevertheless, there still remained troubles and difficulties. There were stories and fables in the Old and New Testaments Avhich had been traced to Buddhist literature, and the question arose at once as to how the coincidences between two religions so diametricall}' opposed were to be accounted for. He must confess that he could not point out the exact channels by which they traveled from East to West. The story of the Judg- ment of Solomon had its coincidence in Tibet, and although the approval of scholars of the present day could not be obtained for looking upon the Biblical story as an importation from Tibet, one thing remained improbable, and that was that such a tale could have been invented twice. There was a startling coincidence in the narra- tion of the pious layman who walked on the water while filled with faith in Buddha, but sank when his faith began to leave him. That certainly seemed a coincidence which could only he accounted for hy some historical communication ; and in connection with it there was to be noted the fact that the date of the Sanskrit chronicle in wJticJi it teas recorded was anterior to that of the New Testament. 52 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. Such coincidences between Sanskrit literature and the Bible could not be allowed to remain as they had remained. It was important, indeed, that they should be pointed out, but it was far more important that the stories should be traced to their real source. If they could be accounted for by our common human nature the fact must be proved by pointing out analogous cases, and if they, were to be ascribed to accidents, similar cases must be advanced from the chapter of accidents. All we could do at present was to face the facts. He had endeavoured to place before the meeting such evidence as he had been able to collect, and he left the meeting to form a verdict upon it. Much of the evidence necessary for decision had been lost, but there were still Buddhist monuments, inscriptions and additional evidence, which went far to sustain the theory he had adv^anced.'"^ (See Prof. Bhys Davids' oiDinion in Xote at end of this article.) Between 220 and 185 B.C. we find Chinese armies on the lower Oxus, then thronged with Buddhists of the old and new schools ; and Falin, the Chinese writer, was rejoiciDg that his country had then a large Buddhist literature. In 190 B.C. China was pressing hard upon Parthia, and both were endeavouring to invade India, where small and great shrines, like those of Sanchi and Amravati, were rising everywhere ; and no efforts were spared by some million of zealous monks in propagating their great Tathagata's teachings. In this busy second century B.C., we also find Buddhistic Sakas, or Sakyas, seizing Seistan and Khorasan, and the Chinese emperor, Wu-ti, sending embassies to Parthian and Indian kings. One of Asoka's sons — Jalaka — w^as king of Kashmir and its outlying districts, stretching into Kabul and towards Baktria ; and another son — Kunala — w^as ruling over all North-west India, and almost as earnest as his great father in propagating his faith. When Asoka's dynasty fell, about 150 B.C., the Baktrian Greeks again pressed across into the heart of Buddhism, and under Menander, established themselves over most of the Panjab, and reigned there from at least 130 to 50 B.C. " It was with this Menander that the so fiimous discussion occurred, known in * This lecture appeared afterwards in Fort. Rev., Aug. 96, and notices the Buddhist legends of feeding five hundred on one cake, walking on the water, &c. I. BUDDHIST MISSIONARY EFFORTS TO FURTHEST WEST. 53 Pali as the MUinda-panho, or dialogues between King Milinda and the Buddhist sao;e Nao;a-Sena. This traversed all the abstrusest doctrines of Buddhism, as well as burning questions of a special creation — the soul, immortality, &c. — then agitating the whole eastern and cultured portions of the Western world, and Jews and Gentiles were then busy propagating these, each on their own lines ; but the light was from the East, Alexander Polyhistor tells us that in his time — 100 to 50 B.C. — Buddhists in Baktria taught and practised all manner of continence and asceticism, and that for a century before his day the city of Alassada, on the upper Oxus, was famed as a missionary centre from which Buddhists propagated the faith. It was, in fact, a vast Society for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, where learned and trusted " fathers of the Church " taught young missionaries how to combat " the non- Buddhistic religions of the world." This propaganda would naturally start such sects as Therapeuts, Essenes, the Baptizers of the Euphrates and the Jordan, the Johannites and Manicheans of Ctesiphon, &c. — this 200 years before the Gospels appeared. In 60 B.C. Buddhists ruled over all Eastern Turkestan, in direct and constant intercourse with Parthia, whose rule then extended into India and furthest Syria ; in 37 a.c. the Roman armies were traversing all Mesopotamia, and in 40 a.c, when Apollonius of Tyana was returning from India, the great massacre of Jews took place in Bal)ylon, dispersing the race to furthest east and west. The year 78 a.c. was called the imperial Era of Buddhism, the Scika of all Sakyas, and the times were ripe for new Mahdis or Messiahs, and had been ripening rapidly from 600 B.C., when Buddha arose and Persians said their new Zoroastrianism had been preached. Greeks and Westerns had listened to every doctrine of Europe and Asia, while Messiah after Messiah had arisen more or less known to all. It wanted but the loosening of Roman rule and faith for any new religion to rise and be successful, provided it was sufficiently mystical and somewhat remote and Eastern in its history, and combining in its morals, rites and symbolisms what had become sacred in the eyes of all. By the first century B.C. Alexandria had dethroned Balk i JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. and Samarkand as " tlie Maka of the west." It was a vast centre of religious pliilosopliies, arts and industries, where the Eo-yptian Chrestos, " the good," had given place to a " Divine Looros " — to the Jewish " wisdom of Solomon," and of " Jesus, son of Sirach," and then to the Jesus of Paul. Here the religions of Zoroaster, of Magi, Thrakian Bodistai, Essenes, Jews, Greeks and Christians, were familiar to every reader, and freely discussed in numerous literary and religious societies, and no doubt also the great philosophies of Vedantists and Buddhists, and of all the schools preceding and following the reformation of the great Guru and of Jaina-Bodhists. We have seen in these Eastern movements that Messiahs, Avatars or Incarnated Gods, Mahdis and Imams are a prominent feature of faiths, and more especially when a people are oppressed and can find no arm of flesh to aid them. Then they turn to heaven and cry for a Saviour, or if the matter be purely one of Faith, " a Buddha " or Saint, and the demand creates the supply. It were well to here dwell for a little on this feature in the West. Jews thought they had found a " Saviour " in Cyrus, and again in Judas, the brave Makabean, to whom, say some learned critics, most of the last sixty Pscdms apply. When Judas failed them, many Messiahs or Mrdidis appeared, especi- ally up to the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion in 71-74 A.c. ; indeed they continued to appear down to Barhohah of 135 A.c, between w^hom and "Judas, the Gaulonite," there actually arose in Palestine some fifty, and quite as many more in Christian Europe, see Buck's Theol. Diet., pp. 590-5, and M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclo., ii. 141-4. Our term Messiah is here very inappropriate, for it was applicable to any " Anointed One " or Pflt^^, Mashue, that is to all Christians or persons admitted to a Faith or sect by the Chrism rite — " oiling " or ^^'XD, Shami, for which we have — perhaps as more cleanly — substituted water. Dr Davidson, in his Revised Old Testament, says n^tl^n, " Mashie, is never applied to a great Deliverer whom the Prophets expected, though sometimes to heathen Kings . . . even in Daniel ix. 25-6 " The Messiah " cannot be intended, for there is no article." I. FALL OF NATIONALITIES — RISE OF MESSIAHS AND NEW FAITHS. 55 Mdh-cll, "a Guide" or "Divine Leader," is the proper term, especially as this is popularly understood as a MdJid Deo or "Great Lord" or God; one inspired, infallible, and in communion with Heaven, like Mahamad, the Khalifa of the Sudan, the Hindu Avatars Rama, Krishna, &c. ; the Babylonian Silik-Mulkhi of 3000 B.C. ; the Sosisch of Iranians of 2500 B.C. ; and our own distinguished Carpenter Messiah of the Panjab, who obliged us twenty-five years ago to place an army of over 10,000 in the field to suppress him and his. He began by working many miracles — some most interesting to our Engineers in the w^ay of making beams extend to whatever length was required ; but he ended in collecting rebellious multitudes wdiich cost many lives, and required sharp and painful measures, resulting in the Carpenter returning to his trade, but within a prison, where he probably still prosecutes his proper profession. The rulers of Jews were not so lenient, and we may here notice a few of their typical "Messiahs" of the first century. According to Jewish history, this Galilean "^""TMrskh™" """'^ '''''' Sadoka, a Pharisi, raised the divine Bc 4 to AC It standard saying, "they would acknowledge no earthly rulers save of the Lord's people." Their rebellion came to an untimely end during the taxing of Cyrenius, Governor of Syria, 13 a.c, in the reign of the Emperor Augustus (19 B.C. — 14 a.c). Discreet Jews like Josephus, Philo, and all who knew the power of Rome, freely called such Messiahs " dangerous fanatics . . . poor deluded souls who only led the multitude to their destruction " ; and the historian even avoids calling attention to them, saying that to such foolish teaching and resistance is attributed the mis- fortunes which befel the city. Yet Judas was a good and pious man : " He lived frugally, despising all delicacies in diet," &c. He upheld the ordinary Essenic doctrines common to Pharisis and had many followers. We hear of James and Simon as his leading disciples ; that all believed in the inspiration of the Bible, the freedom of the Will, and that men have divine and immortal souls, w^hich will be hereafter rewarded or punished according to the deeds done in the body. These doctrines, we 5G JAINISM AND BUDDHISM : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC. I. are assured, " were gladly received by the masses, for the teachers lived pure and exemplary lives, urged prayer, worship and sacrifices, without however attaching as much weight to these as to faith and doctrine." This was another typical Mahdi who The Girizem unfurled the Divine banner on Mount ,,00 Girizem durino; the reim of Tiberias. He li-00 A.C. ^ ® and Aratos gave Herod much trouble, but Pilate the Procurator finally dispersed the fanatics, 30-33 a.c. (Josephus, Ants., xviii. and xxv.) This Messiah arose durins; the Prefect- Theudas. g]^^p q£ Cuspus Fadus in the reign of A Messiah of -r< mi- ^i r^ u xj 4" 46 AT Emperor Claudius, 41-54 a.c. He as- sembled great multitudes in the wilderness, and persuaded them to follow him to the Jordan wdtli all their effects," Ants., xx. v. He said he was " a Messiah and Prophet, at whose command the river would stand still so that they could pass over dry shod, and that the walls of Jerusalem would fall down when he cried to Jehovah from the Mount of Olives." Some accounts make him come out of Egypt ; but the Pro- curator attacked him vigorously, seized him, cut off" his head, and hung it up in Jerusalem. The WTiter of Acts v. 36, 7, mentions this quasi Christ, but errs as to date and name, confusing the letters Th. J and /. During this period of Neros reign, JVEssiAHSot Josephus says (Ants. xx. viii.) there arose many quasi Messiahs, whose custom it was " to raise the divine standard in the wilderness, perform miracles, and by the providence of God produce heavenly signs in proof of their calling . . . but they brought untold misery on the people, to the destruction of the faith." The names of several were Joshua or Jesus, and some said that in fulfilment of prophecy they had come out of Egypt. One led an immense following towards Olivet, saying that the city walls would fall down and believers would enter unscathed ; but Felix attacked them, slew 400 and took 200 prisoners, when the Messiah disappeared and was no more heard of. I. MESSIAHS OF IST CENT. A.C. — THEIR PIETY AND POWERS. 57 This Jesus, aided by two disciples, John Jesus of Tiberias. la- .riji-i i.ii P and feimon, untuned the sacred standard near Tiberias, and followed much the same career as Judas of Galilee, and was an equally good and pious fanatic. Jesus was a common Messianik name. Josephus calls this Messiah " an obscure Jesus, Son of , • i r t\- • . ' _ man . . . sometimes possessed oi a Divme Ananus. 65 A.C. ,, ^ lury. He was scourged yet opened not his mouth, neither shed tears nor supplicated for mercy ( Wai^s, vi. v.). He cried out to the worshipers at Pentecost: "A voice from the east and west, north and south — from the four winds, calls against Jerusalem and the Holy House, Wo, wo, unto thee, Jerusalem ; thy brides and bridegrooms, yea, to thy whole people and myself also," &c. The people thought him inspired and the rulers were lenient, saying he was demented ; but he became a source of danger when the famine and siege excited the citizens, and had to be now and again re- pressed until a stone from the besiegers ended his Messianic career. Thousands believed in him. The history of the Messiahs shows them to have been with rare exceptions earnest, pious souls, ready, nay eager like the early Christians, to die for their views, and if of the Essenic sects, they opened not their mouths in reply to judges or accusers. Josephus says they were the "natural products of days of adversity," and were often helped in their dangerous mission by educated priests who fanned their zeal. One priest declared that " durinor Nisdn a liorht was seen on the Hio;h Altar at midnight, and close by a heifer brought forth a lamb ; that at times a star resemblino; a sword and a comet stood over the doomed city, and the massive stone gate of the inner court opened of its own accord at the 6th hour of the nio;ht . . . that on the 21st of lyar, at sunset, their appeared in the clouds chariots and troops moving in battle array ; and at Pentecost the earth quaked with much thundering," &c., &c. {Wars, vi.). It is clear that during these two centuries, 100 B.C. to 100 A.C., all the Western world was looking for a Messiah or new Faith ; and Buddhism, which was now firmly established to the satisfaction of some 250 millions of people from the Bay of 58 JAINISM AND BUDDHISM: PREHISTOEIC AND HISTORIC. I. Bangrd to Kaspiana, liad stirred to its center every scliool of thought in Asia. Like Christianity it was pessimistic in one of its phases, and more especially addressed to " the weary and heavy laden;" though, as the Founder of Buddhism grew in stature and in wisdom, his religion widened from Jaina-Bodhism into one of Work and Duty towards his fellows, rather than of continual thought and care of self either in this or any future life. His thoughtful preaching days at Bodha Gay a and maturer knowledge of the world, seem to have convinced him that man must adopt a higher ensample than " Billies," that he should both "toil and spin," and not "beg from door to door," or accept gifts from others unless for good service well performed ; and that to live in a hermitage stifling every natural desire and emotion was neither wise, manly, nor of use to any. On seeing this Buddha at once started for the busy world of Banaras, determined to try and play well his part in teaching men and in alleviating as far as he could their miseries. This, his Second Great Stage of Work and Duty, became a new depar- ture in the Eeligions of mankind, and aimed at true goodness in tliouglit, ivord and deed. He now put aside all perplexing philosophies and speculations of the learned as useless if not disturbing to the masses, and laboured only to instil into them the virtues which their distracting occupations made possible to them. See summary of his teaching in Art. Short Texts. Note. — In Prof. Rhys Davids' American Lectures, just published, we notice that he considers— " Buddhism did influence Greek] thought and institu- tions in a few instances " (p. 218), and why not in the greatest] Many, he adds, " show more than analogical connection . . . (and some) in doing so help to throw light on dark corners of the history of that culture out of Avhich our own has arisen." Long ago Schopenhauer confessed to " the pre- eminence of Buddhism as the base of his philosophy as the standard of truth " — although he adds, Buddhism was almost unknown to him when he Avrote. It had influenced all Western thought, though the life and details of the Faith were unknown. Chronology — Pre-historic and Historical — of matters connected with the Kise and Movements of Faiths throughout Asia, especially those of China and Northern India, of Pre-Buddhists or Jaino- Bodhists and like Synchronous Western Ideas. B.C. 3370 Chinese Patriarchal King Fd-hsi or Tae-Haon, see early chaps. Shu-king. S.B.E. iii. xvi. 3101 Hindu Kdli-Tuga (era); the Buddhist Mahd-Badra Kalpa, Aion or Age of the Kosnios, when appeared the 1st Human Buddha Kaku- sanda or Kraku-chcmda, probably in Mongolia or Oxiana : also the 1st Jaina Bodha, Saint or Tirthankar called Rishabha, " The Bull." 2950 Chinese Emperor Fo-m establishes worship in temples and tombs, Irrigation works, Music, Dance and much civilization. 2830 Chinese record Eclipses. 2722 Chinese Astronomical Cycle begins. 2640 Chinese 2nd Cycle and Zodiak fixed. Rise of the first of the "Three Emperors." 2500 Babylon receives gold, timber, &c., in " Ships of Ur." See Rawlinson's Mons. i. 101, vi. 33, and Perrot and Chapiez's Chal. and Asyr. i. 125. 2400 Reign of " Five Great Sovereigns " of China. 2356 Opening up of Chinese history, first chapter of Shu-ki7ig. A monarchical settled government under Emperor Ya-ou, great irrigation works, Astronomical Kalendar, fixed land tenures, criminal and revenue laws and Scientific Musical scale and a copper currency. "Worship of Tortoise. 2300 Yao and Shun, two Chinese philosophers, flourished and perhaps compiled Shu-king, and Kung-fu-tze praised and followed their system. This was China's "Golden Age." 2234 Babylon has regular stellar observations. 2204 Death of great Emperor SHUIST, who is succeeded by YU the first hereditary Emperor of China. This was the Hsia dgn., and famous for its religious rites — some of the sacred vessels have been lately found. CO CHRONOLOGY : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORICAL. I. B.C. 2100 Jaina-Bodhism preached in India and Ikktria 2099— the age of second Bodha Ko-naga niana, of. Bom. Anthro. J. i. 87. 1767-5 Fall of Yu's dyn., " when Yin or Shang dtn. arose, Ching-tang, " Prince of Shang " and ancestor of Confucius, being made Emperor. 1700 Probable time of Zoroaster. Kise of 3rd Kas dyn. of 36 kind's 1600 who ruled over Babylonia, Thothmes of Egypt conquering Palestine, 1500 Syria, &c. THOTH. III. reigned, says Petrie, 14S0-U50; Aman- 1450 hotep. II. to 1423; Araan-hotep. III. UU to 1383; and Aman- 1380 Hotep lY. to 1365, and he was a correspondent of Bcrna-burias, 1350 19th king of 3rd Kas dyn.* Crete has long used a pictorial script. 1320 SETI I., Egypt, 1327-1275 (Petrie). Human sacrifices common 1300 throughout Asia and Europe. China substitutes images. 1270 Ramses II., 1275-1208, when succeeded by son Maran-ptab the quasi Pharoah of the Exodus. "Jezrael" inscribed on a Stela. 1220 Chinese put this as the date of a Fo or Buddha. In India and 1200 Baktria, Jaina Bodhism flourishes. Hermaik Brahma develops. The probable time of the Turanian Krishna. 1150 King Wan and Duke Kau write the present Yi-king. 1130 This seems about the time of the 22nd Jaiita Saint Arishta- Nemi, when the worship of Krishna, 8th Hindu Avatar was popular. His history mostly appears in IS'emi's, who was also a Yadava and connected with Matthura and Dvarka. S.B.E. xxii. xxxi. 1122-3 Fall of Yin or Shang dyn. and rise of Chau which ends 2-43 B.C. 1100 Phenicians trading along Arabian coasts to India. 1050 They mention ports Karteia and Tsor — our present Kuryat and Sur. Cf. R. Geog. J., May '96, p. 536. 1029-7 Chinese date of Gotamo Fo, probably the great Jaina Bodhist Kasyapa of Baktria and India, whose tomb was worshiped in the 6th 1014 cent. B.C., near Sravasti. His Indian date is 1014. 1010 Orpheans teaching by hymns and sacrifices throughout Thrakia. Assyrians seize Babylon and begin to trade with India. 1000 Hebrews becoming a nation ; Phenicians build them a temple, and supply ivory, apes, peacocks, and sandal wood having Indian names. They circumnavigate Afrika, and with Sabeans trade with 950 India. Skuthi or Saca3 from Oxiana or Central Asia invade N.W. 900 India. According to Chinese, Buddha dies in India, aged 78 ; 850 evidently KASYAPA or PARSVA, the 23rd Jaina Tirthankara and the Parsa-rama of Hindus, the 6th Avatara of Solar Vishnu. Asyrians, according to Black Obelisk, trading with India if not in * Petrie's dates are disputed as too late by 50 to 100 years. Egypt at this time ignorant of Greek doctrine of Metempsychoses (Renoufs Hib. Lee, 1879). I. CHRONOLOGY : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORICAL. 6 1 B.C. 850 Solomon's time. (Conder, Pal. Ex. J. Ap. 96.) Aryans begin to settle in lower Panjab. 828 Jaina Saint Parsva dies, aged about 100 years. (See Kalipa Sutra.) 800 Jaiua Eodhism wanes, having flourished, according to Hindu 750 Scripture, prior to Vedantism. (See Puranas, Dutt's Iiidia and 733 S.B.E. 45, ii. 122.) A Messiah now looked for. The followers of PARSVA now divided and weak. South Indian Jains erroneously place the birth of Maha-Vira at 733. Bangalis prefer 707, and Western 707 Indians 597 : the correct birth is that of the Svetdmharas, viz. 598. Orj^heans say " Gods are varied forms of Nature's Forces." 640 China ruled by King Hsiang of Chau dyn., 651-619. 604 LAOTSZE born in Province of Honan, died 517 (?) 598 MAHA-VIRA born Suburbs of Vaisali, died 526. 585 Pythagoras, the Western Putlia-guru, born at Croton Magna Grecia.* Patna building, and like U-Jain preaching Jaina-Bodhism. 586 Jerusalem destroyed and tribes scattered throughout East. 580 Jaina-Bodhism strong in North Ivaspiana and Dcighiddn ; and the DagJils or Daks move into deltas of Volga and Danube, and become known to Western Nations as Getce and Dacians, with 570 Hermit or Saman teachers like XALMOXIS. Here, too, Pythagoras is teaching like a PUTHA-GURU. The doctrines and lives of both are precisely like that of Maha-Vira and other Eastern Gurus ; and the spread of the faith over all Northern Ivaspiana is correctly seen in the annexed small map of Buddhism — adopted also by Prof. Rhys 560 Davids. JOSEPHUS also states that there were Sects throughout Dacia and Thrakia like to his friends the Essenes on the Jordan and Syria, called nOAI2TAI, evidently nOAISTAI or Bodhists. Ants. xviii. i. 5 and Apion. i. 22. .557 GOTAMA THE BUDDHA born near Kapila Vastu, died 477. See Max Muller, S.B.E. x. Confucius, 551-478. 543 Prince A^IJAYA of Ceylon suppresses Ophiolatry and old faiths. 540 Puthaguru and Xalmoxis thought to be traveling together. 538 Cyrus, 538-529. Rise of Irano-Persian Empire — dyn. of 13 kings. Mazdian faith strong from Indus to Oxus and Mediteranean. 529 Cyrus permits building of Jerusalem (Ezra). PANINI, Skt. grammarian (Goldstucker). 526 MAHA-VIRA dies, having fully established Jaina-Bodhism throughout Upper India, according to the teaching of Kasyapa of 10th cent. B.C. * Orphean Thrakians call tlieir Zeus Dio-nusos, ( = Zio of Nysa ?) a Pantheus. 62 CHRONOLOGY : PREHISTORIC AND HISTOEICAL. I. B.C. 525 KAMBYSIS. King Bimbisira meets Buddha, 222-3. 522-1 Darius I., 521-485. Begins extension of Iranian Empire. 517 LAOTSZE dies, but becomes incarnate, say Laotists, in Gotama, who is said to " preach the same faith as Kasyapa and previous Bud- dhas " ; some Buddhists, like Dbyadatta, Gotama's heretical cousin, become now Jaina Digambaras, and worship at Kasyapa's tomb. 515 DAlilUS I. overruns N.W. Panjab, and establishes posts at 510 Mala-tana (Multan) in 510. He rules throughout Baktria. 508 Puthagorean schools of Magna Gr.Tcia break up. 505 Hekataios gives correct names of many Indian cities. Calls Mala-tana or Kasya-pur {" Sun-city ") Kaqyaturos. Persian General Skulos takes 30 months to go from it to Babylon. 486 China, says Dr Edkins, now receives Babylonian religions and Mythologies. 485 XEEXES I, 485-465. Ajatasatru or Kunika becomes king 483 of Magadha. Zeno of Eleas teaches Theism. Herakleitos calls " Religion a mental disease." 477 GOTAMA BUDDHA dies in a Mala grove at Kusanagar, and the three leading disciples, Kasyapa, Ananda and Upali, assemble the First Great Buddhist Council of 500 monks in the cave at Raja-griha. Tlie President is ]\Ioggali-putta. It is patronized by King Ajatasatru. The only then known Buddhist teachings were the Sutta-piiakam or Canon of Analects, embracing the Diglia and Kud- dhaka-iVi/jo/'os, Anguttara and Samjutta. These constituted the First Pitaka of the Buddhist Bible. Jainas had their Purvas. 478 XERXES transports many Greeks to Baktria. His armies are composed of all races and faiths from Sindh and Panjab to Kaspian and jNlediteranean States. Gotama is mentioned in Fravaixline Yasht of about this time (Prof. Hang). Tripitaka and rest of Buddhist Canon now forming for confirmation of 2nd Council. S.B.E. x. xxxiv. 466 Nanda dijn. persecutes Kshatryas. Maha-Vira, known to Bud- dhists as " Xata-putta, head of Niganthas or Jinas." Brahmans have long (500 to 450 B.C.) had similar Ascetics, and a well-known oral code, the Baudha-Yana (Jacobi, S.B.E. xxii. Intro.) Sokrates. PROTAGORAS (Bruta-guru ?) teaches much Buddhism, and is called a Logos and Sopliia or " Messiah and Buddha." APASTAMBA flourished, or his Sutras appear 1 S.B.E. ii. and xxii. Intro. Sophokles' writings passing eastwards. 465 ARTA-XERXES I. Lomjimanus (465-425). He stops all build- ings in Jerusalem (Ezra iv.). Chinese " GeograpJuj of Wo7-Id" published. I. CHRONOLOGY : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORICAL. 63 B.C. 453 UDAYI-BHADRA, King of Magadha (453-437), founder of town on site of Pataliputra. 450 Georgias the Sicilian teaches Materialism and " On that which is not " — the Agnosticism of Buddhists. Probable date of PANINI. 437 Anuruddhaka and Munda, kings at Pataliputra, 437-429. 429 Naga-dasaka, Iving, 429-405. Euripides. 425-4 XERXIS II. and Sogdian reign. Fdrsls, Phcn-sis and Essenes now known throughout Western Asia, 424 DAPJUS II. Notus (424-405). Demokritos of Thrakia teach- 422 ing a Buddhistic " Peace of Mind." Jerusalem buildings allowed to proceed ; see article Sepiuagint and Ezra iv. 24. 420 Sokrates is visited by Sramans. Buddhism spreading widely and 418 its Canonical Scriptures compiling. Jerusalem temple finished {Ezra vi. 15). 405 Sisu-Xaga rules under Magadha at Vaisali, 405-380. The Kalpa Sutra, An'jas and Upangas of the Jaina Siddhdnta or " Bible " now pretty widely known. Plato teaching of a Logos, Eternal life, Trans- migration, Nirvana and like doctrines of Jainas, Buddhists, Mazdians, Egyptians, &c. All are freely discussed in East and West, and teachers like Demokratos of Abdera are preaching about them to Bodistai in Thrakia, and Essenes on the Jordan and Syria. Indian Epics known (?) 404 AETA-XERXIS II., Mnomon (405/4—359). This is " the latest possible date of 2nd Pitaka giving account of Gotama's death " (Davids). 400 Aristotle says " Magians are more ancient than Egyptians." 399 Some Indo-Buddhist sculptures quote Tripitaka. 398 EZRA goes to Judea (Ezra vi. 14 and vii. 7.) Plato, 428-347. 395 Jonathon becomes first High Priest of Temple, Jerusalem. 390 Kapur-di-giri character of Baktria current N.W. India. Diogenes 387 Apol. teaches Gotama's explanation of Soul as mere Life-Force in- separable from matter. Ivalasoka, King of Magadha, 387-359. 385 Nehemiah sent by Mnemon to Judea as Governor. 377 Second Council of Buddhists at Vaisali under Yasas and Revata, a disciple of Ananda. 700 Arhats fix the Buddhist Canon, which is finally closed. S.B.E. x. xxix. 373 Xehemiah returns to Babylon. Ktesias (405-359) writes history of peoples in Western India and Oxus. Their faiths well known 360 to all the literati of Greece, Syria and Egypt. Sramans and gymnosophists or naked ascetics are common in West, and Greek " Schools of Skeptics " put all Faiths on one footing. 64 chronology: prehistoric and historical. l B.C. 360 ]\rEXCius teaching Confucianism in China. 359 ARTA-XERXIS III., Okus (359-338). Persepolis is the Mazdean Capital of Western Asia. Ten sons of Kalasoka reign during 22 years, 359-337. Gotama called a Jaina Esa and now probably by Hindus their 9th Avatar of Solar Vishnu. 340 AiusTOTLE teaching philosophy and religion : mentions a Sramar Kalani, an Ikslivdku from Indus, as preaching in Coele Syria — no doubt a Bodhist from Balabhi or Kalian shrines, Bombay coast. 337 Reign of 9 NAXDAS, 337-315. Greeks now understand Buddhism or possibly Bodhism (Dunclcer. iv. p. 500). 334 ALEXANDER Great overthrows Persian Empire at Arbela. 330 Alexander seizes Egypt and goes to Baktria and India to take 327-5 over all states and rights of Persian Empire and add thereto. 324 Kalanos (Kali-nath) a celebrated Sraman in Indo-Greek camps. 323 Alexander sails down Indus and dies in Babylon, 323. 322 Athens has population of 527,000, of which 500,000 are slaves from all nations and of all known faiths. Pyrrho is an artist in Alexander's armies studying religions of Oxiana and India. 320 PTOLEMY SOTER seizes Egypt, to which he carries off 100,000 Jews, whom he settles in Alexandria. 318 Chandragupta enters service of Nanda, King of Magadha, but returns to Kalamina (Patala ?) on lower Indus. 317 ANTIGONUS rules from Panjab and Sindh to Syria. Indian faiths and peoples now much discussed, and Greek plays pass direct from Alexandria to Baroach at mouth of Xar-munda or " river of Munds " or Malas ; they chiefly forced Alexander to give up further conquest of India, and Ptolemy saved his life from a Mala. IMalwa has Buddhist colleges. Tibetans seeking after Buddhism. 315 King of Magadha, DHAXA NANDA, last of 9, killed by Kanakya. CHANDRA-GUPTA the Greek Sandrakotos seizes throne (315-291). 313 He marries daughter of SELEUKOS NIKATOR, ruler Babylonia. 312 Has :MEGASTHENES as his Ambassador at Patalaputra (Patna), probably so called after his capital Patala on Indus. PYRRHO teaching Agnostic-Buddho-Jainism in "Western Asia. 310 KRISHNA worship strong from Mathura to Balabhi. 308 Seleukos I. rules over N.W. Panjab and to Mediteranean, 307 Avasta-Zand now known in Greek ; and Jaina and Buddhist Scriptures pervade Upper India. Chandra - Gupta and court belong apparently to Jaina-Bodhists. Epikuros (342-300) teaches I. CHRONOLOGY : PREHISTORIC AND HISTORICAL. 65 B.C. 307 community of goods and sundry IJuddhist doctrines. Buddhists revere now 25 liuddhas including Gotama. S.Ii.E. 45, ii. xxxv. 306 The Jaina At-tha-Katha (Acts of Apostles) make no mention of anything after this date. Berosos writing his Histories. Ptolemy I. conquers much of Asia Minor ; liberates Greeks. 300 ANTIGOXUS takes Syria, and the Parthi, Persia, from Seleukos I. Alexandria has now 4 great schools of Science. 298 Theodotos becomes King of Baktria where Jainism, Buddhism, and Mazdeism exist. Jews are in Herat and Balk, &c. 293 Seleukos I. gives all kingdoms E. of Syria to his son AXTIOCHUS SOTER. Diodoros compiles details of Eastern Religions from many Greeks, ]\[egasthenes, &c. (Dunckner's Hist.). 291 BIXDUSARA (291-263) succeeds liis father Chandragupta, Emperor of ]Nragadha. Is called by Greeks Amito-Chates from Skt. title Amitra-Ghata, "The Foe-Slayer." He seems to have been a Jaina revering Kilsyapa of 10th century B.C. Ptolemy had an Ambassador, Dionusos, and the Seleukides, one Diamachox, at the Patna Court. Ptolemy I. building Lihrary and Aluseum at Bntchium. '288 He collects all known writings from the Oxus and Greece to Syria and Babylonia, and presses all literary men to settle in Alexandria. .286 Antigonus Gonatus travels in India and apparently meets Asoka. .283 Ptolemy II. Phil, succeeds father. Great Jaina revival with Mathura as center. Probable date of Kankali Temples and Statuary, Cunningham's Rep. iii. 46 ; Thomas' Asoka, 80. •280 AXTIOCHUS I. Soter (280-261). Rules from Indus to Syria. ;277 ]Mencius' Shu-Keng called a Sacred book. Ezraitic Scribes adding 274 to Old. Testament writings. :270 Perr/aimis Lihrary full of all known writings on Religions, Philo- sophies and Art. Ptolemy adding much to his Libraries. 266 "Parian Marbles" history now ends. 263 Asoka, A^ceroy at Ujain — his brothers killed (263-259). ^59 ASOKA becomes Emperor : is a zealous Jaina, and inscribes pious texts on rocks and pillars from Girnar to Kashmir. He calls himself Deva-nam-xAyd, " Beloved of God," which no true Buddhist would, do, but which was common among Jaina-Bodhists. On Girnar Rock he names Ptolemy (Turamaya) : Antigoxa Magna and Allisandbr or Alexander of Epirus. He begins correspondence with all Greek rulers and philosophers he hears of in Baktria, Syria, Greece, Egypt, and Libya — Avrites to ZEXO and mentions "the people of KamLoJa" E 06 CHRONOLOGY : PREHISTOEIC AND HISTORICAL. I.. B.C. 259 (N.W. Panjab) in a Kock Edict of liis lOtli Eegnal year. Writes to Antigonus Gonatus, who died 258, 256 ^VPtSAKES founds Parthian Empire. Baldria declares in- dependence under its Greek King DIDDOTUS. ^Vsoka converted to Buddhism by Kigrodha, 4th Regnal year(?). 249 Asuka's 10//; reuddhism. This once learned Brahman now writes Buddha Charlta, and with XAGA-SEXA, many- rituals, &c. The dates and places of their deaths are unknown. 18 "Western India Cave temples of Jainas and Buddhists now being much added to — one is constructed at Kanheri in honour of 20 "CHAXAKYA THE DAMILA" or "Dravid" (a Mnla), the pre- ceptor and prime minister of Chandra Gupta of .312-291 B.C. Dr Stevenson, J. R. As. Bom., July, 53. 22 On the Kanerhi Eock is the name of a Parthian king, " ^lAHA KSHATRAPA" (Satrape), and a Xasik cave was constructed by his son-in-law, showing Parthian rule still on the Narmunda. 25 Brahmanism now trying to expel Buddhism from India, and 30 Buddhists seeking other lands. 33 CHRIST is crucified after preaching in Judea for three years (?). 40 Parthiax Sdhs or Sus conquer all the delta of Indus and rule from Sehore for 2| centuries by Satrapes. Asvaghosa still chief 50 adviser of Emperor Kanishka or Gandpher (Chandupur 1) perhaps a title like " Pharaoh." Rome accepts Isis cult. €0 Antiochus IV., Epiphanes, wars with Parthi, 50,000 Jews mas- sacred in Babylon. Apollonius of Tyana and other Hfrmti travel in East and return half Buddhists, and teach accordingly. €3 Chinese Emperor Mixg-Ti zealously collects Buddhist literature in Tartary, Baktria and India. Translates Lalita Vistara into Chinese. The faith everywhere widely known. g5 China formally acknowledged Buddhism for first time. 70 Emperor Kanishka assembles a Council of 500 learned Buddhists, Avho draw up 3 commentaries to assist believers. These Avere engraved on copper, placed in a stone box and buried under a Dagoba, and are not yet discovered. 71 Jerusalem destroyed and Jews banished by Romans. Chinese Emperor Ming-Ti declares Buddhism a state religion, and Taoists now organize their religion with monasteries, rituals and images. 78 SAKA Era of Shali Vahana, king of Uj-jain. Some say Kanishka w-as now crowned as a Buddhist Emperor. 90 A Chinese army with Biiddldd banners and ^Missionaries in Kaspiana. Emp)eror sends embassy to Rome. 95 Christian Writings now appearing in Judea and Egypt. 100 Jerusalem temple being rebuilt to Jupiter. Roman Stoics call / 2 CHRONOLOGY : PKEHISTORIC AND HISTOEICAL. I. A.C. 100 all Gods interchangeable forms of the same Energy. Vigorous propaganda by Buddhists and Jainists. 104 ]\lEGnA Vahaxa, king of Kashmir, a zealous Buddhist, begins to regather the fragments of Ivanishka's Empire, and in about 40 years his 110 rule extends down to Orissa and Kal-linga ? — He was perhaps a Chalukyan then moving to East Central India. 116-7 Jews massacre Greeks in Ivurenaika and lower Egypt, and Greeks bitterly retaliate. 131 liebellion of Jews in Judea, led by ])ar-kokheba, 132-4 Hadrian builds for his Roman colony in Jerusalem the ^lia Capitolina, hence called after himself. 145 Large body of Turano-Chalukyans (Dravids) from Gangetik States settling in Tel-lingana. 156 About this time a Chinese Savant of Loyang (the capital of Laotsze and Confucius) has been for 40 years translating Buddhist Scriptures from Fan into Chinese. 160 A Parthian prince translates 176 Buddhist works, one of which is the Dhamapada. The learned Buddhist Xag-Arjuna now preaching in Xorthern India and widely known to Grieko-Indians and Westerns. 170-5 Xew Testament Gospels now begin to be quoted ; are only now really heard of and read, according to the author of *S'?/jx Reliijion and other learned critics. The above chronological data is only meant to help the reader to grasp accurately matters connected with our Arts, treatino; on Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism in Ancient India and their paths East and West. Little notice is taken of the very important factor in the West — the Re- ligion of Zoroaster — as this requires an elaborate section to itself; for from about 1500 B.C. down to Mahamadan times it was almost supreme from Syria to the Indian frontier, and probably on this account Jaino-Bodhism and other Indian Faiths could only gain a footing westward by Oxiana, Dagh-istiin, Dac-ia and Thrakia. Article II TRANS-INDIA Indian Archipelago and Adjacent States Their Historical and Religious Developmeyit THE great Indo-Chinese Peninsula, now best known as French Tougkin, An-nam, Cocliin and Saigon, and the kingdoms of Kamboja and Siam, is one of great import- ance, ethnographically and religiously, for it has been, for above 2000 years, one of the great pathways of Faiths traveling from India to China and Japan, and occasionally vice versa. It is therefore very necessary to trace its history through the ages as minutely as possible, for here it is that the Faiths which the South Island groups received loosely or sporadically from the great Indian Centers, took decided and national forms. The Eastern or French states, including Tongkin (in the latitude of Calcutta), Cochin, and Saigon at the mouths of the Mekong, and up tliat river to the British Burman Shjin States, extend over 970 miles of latitude, and on an average, 120 miles of longitude, or over 116,000 square miles. This is ruled from three centers, viz., Hanoi or Kicho (" the market") the capital of Tongkin ; Hue, an ancient center of Hindo- Tchams, and still a semi-independent state ; and Saigon ( = " conjeries of villages") which virtually dominate all the neighboring riverine and coast lands, though Kambodia is for the time independent, but acknowledging Gallic suzerainty. Anciently these states were ruled by Giocliis and Kachclos, Tongkinis and An-nams towards the north ; and Co-Tchings in center and south ; and probably the Chinese term Ji-ndm 74 TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. 11. or " South-land " applied to the whole peninsula. About the 5th century B.C. there arrived Indian colonists, here known as Tcham-pas, Qyam-pas or Tsam-bas — evidently Shams or Shans, led hy Hindus. They swallowed up or united the Co-Tchings or Cocliiii-is and all minor central warring tribes, and established amicable relations, for the most part, with their congeners — also Indian colonists, ruling in Qyam-bodia. This great Tchampa state lasted to the middle of this century, or for about 2000 years, during which time they often not only held Tongkin, but portions of China, and frequently raided Canton and its coasts, as they did Qyambodia and all the valleys of the Mekong. About our 9th century they began to succumb to the Ans who were then consolidating all their Mongoloid brethren against the Tcham-pas as " foreigners " — for the Indian element then dominated, and especially in the Central and Southern parts of the peninsula. The reader will easier understand the successes and vicissitudes of these various states by referring to our Chronological tables and running commentary and map of Ancient India and Trans-India — here most necessary amid the many strange names we must "perforce use. According to Chinese records of B.C. 2357, the PeninsuLa was occupied in the north by Giao-chi (translated "Big Toe" race — a still marked feature, for the toe is now used like a thumb), and four other barbarous peoples. All owned the Emperor of China as their suzerain, if not direct ruler, from 2285 to 257 B.C. ; and in Chinese records of the 12th century B.C. the states apj)ear as the Chinese province of Fo-nam or Bo-nam. Only in the 3rd century B.C. do we hear of disturbing foreigners to the South of the Giao-chis, Joeuks or Yunan-is ; and by 125 B.C. these are acknowledged as a state ruled by Tellings — possibly the great Indo-Colonizers, the Klings or Tri- lings — for Indian Mrdas or Malays, Yauvas or Javas, Balis, &c., were by this time all over the Peninsula and Archipelago. The Tcham-pa or Tching (Co-chin) state, from Saigon to Hue, w^as then strongly organised and bravely led by Indians, and the Chinese speak of the people as Shan-laps (Shan folk ?) and IL FIRST COLONIES OF TEANS-INDIAN STATES. / 5 meution their 4th monarch (the first we know of) as " King Ta-wang of Sauph " or " the Isles," meaning the Coasts as well as Archipelago. About this time we find the Cliinese and Malays calling the Ans, " the Koti, Kachao, Kutin and Kian-chi." The first Indian colonized center of the Peninsula was apparently Camboja or " Qyam-ba" at the head of the delta of the Mekong and around its great inland swampy sea, the Tale-sap or Bien-hoa, wliere flourished Indian arts and religions, and a considenxble civilization for some 2000 years. The Chinese did not distinguish the Tchampas from the Syam-pas, calling both Shan or Shon laps, but Qyam-bods (no doubt Siam or Shan-bods) were known to other Indians as Kmirs, and were principally ophiolaters from Ceylon and the Tamil and Telagu coasts. Arabian sailors called them Komirs or Kit mars, thought to mean " Cunning craftsmen " or " Artizans," which their elaborate sculptures and architecture showed they were. But Kamirs or Chamirs seems to be a corruption of Tamils, see similar Dravidian etymologies given by Prof. Oppert in his Blidrata-Varsa, here reading as usual r for /. All good authorities agree that the Indian rulers of Tchampas came from upper, not Pfdi- speaking India ; and some think even before Cambodia became a nation. The Tchampa Alfabet connotes the Kambodian, and, like all the Indian lanwuao-es of Trans-India, is one of the Dravidian group, though with Tsiampas, Sanskrit is the sacred scripture as in Northern India. Kambodians and Javanese use Pali — of course in Deva Ndgari characters, there being no Prdi script. All these Indian colonists were great Serpent and Bud, Bod or lingam worshipers, and from the most ancient to present times. In Southern and Central India they are still devoted to Bud-a-Kdls or " Bud-stones." Hence might come their name Chainir-bods or Scmibods ? The old " Bud God " would facilitate the spread of the new " Buddha " cult, as in popular estimation somehow connected with their Bud or Linga Kdl cult, as afore explained, and more fully in our article in the Jour. R. Asiatic Soc. of Jan. '95. 7G TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. Buddhism did not reach Trans-India to any extent till about 100 B.C., and then only in the delta of the Iravadi, Sumatra and perhaps Java ; and from the Koro-mandel or Cliolo-mandel coast. But by the 2nd century a.c. it began to prevail, when Dravidian Cliolas and Chalukyas reached Dravidia proper ; and had spread themselves through the Indian Archipelago, Siam, Caml)odia and Cochin China. Mr Fergusson saw no difficulty in accepting the Cam- bodian tradition mentioned '' by the learned Dr Bastian " {Indo-Chinese Nations) that "early in our 4th century Phra Thom (King-Great), son of the king of N.W. India (Taxila), was banished from India," and after many adventures settled in Camboja, which was then the name of the country round Taxila (p. 665), a very important ftict, and one militating against Qyam being Sham or Shan nnless by a poj)ular delusion. All N.W. India was then nndoul)tedly much troubled, owing to Buddhism overturning the old faiths ; and a Naga prince who then refused to join the propaganda might well be asked to leave the country, which would be the only persecu- tion Buddhism permitted. Nagaists would therefore forsake their old capital Ndgapur or ancient Delhi, wdiere they so long ruled ; and we know that they did so for the deserts of Raj- putiina, the Vindyas and hilly regions of Central India and the Dakan and probably Kashmir, which they had very early in our era crowded with their sln^ines. Notice also that Mr Fergusson says " the Architectural remains of Cambodia bear a con- siderable resemblance to those of Kashmir, The rise of Javan and Cambodian ophite shrines are generally placed about 400-460 a.c, when Ophiolaters per- vaded the whole Cochin China peninsula, Java and its island groups. Ptolemy's maps of 130-140 a.c. show all these- states dotted over with Indian names, betokening an intimate acquaintance with Hindu Mythology and the Great Epiks ; the scenes of which are pourtrayed on the corridors of the beautiful ophite shrine of NCikhon Vat or the " Ntiga Monastry " of Cambodia. Here Ndgaisin was concentrated, whilst to the East the Indian rulers of Tchampa were more devoted to Hara- II. NAGAS DRIVEN INTO THE HILLS AND ISLANDS OF INDIA. 77 Hari or Siva and Yislinu, and in the two Javas (Sumatra and Java) to Buddhism — at least by the 5th century a.c, whilst Shilns and Malays clung principally to their old animistic cults. According to Ptolemy, European traders frequented the Indo-peninsula in our 2nd if not 1st century, and Chinese records speak of Eomans or Tatsins being on the coasts about 400 A.c, when Java, Cocliin and " Tchampa or Lamap" were ruled by kings bearing such Chalukyan names as " Jaya, Indra and Yarman." The mass of tlie population came of course from China's .southern provinces, Canton or Quan-tung, Quan-tu and Yu-nrim, from which last came its enterprizing Tfd or Shan peoples, who had descended by the main streams, the Meuam, Me-kong and Red river. The Cantonese claimed all the Gulf of Tongkin, but ilid not care much about it except to keep its wild idle tribes out of their richer lands, and they could not always do this — the Indian-led Tchams often raiding this Chinese capitcd. The first colonizers were no doubt the Shans as the names of states show. They spread over all the vales and plains of the Mekong, Menam and south. After them came the Cantonese along the northern coasts of Tongkin, and then weak tribes like Giaos on the hills bordering the delta of the Red river, where Yu-ndms congregated ; these eventually about 800 A.c. consolidated the Mongolian nationality of Ans or Ayi-nains. Shans never had much in common with An-nams save in their animistic cult, which Buddhism has failed to dissipate, nay to lessen ; for Hinduism had primarily increased the Bud worship which so dominated among Klings the first Indian Lingam worshipers who penetrated to the interior of Burma and Siam. The true Shans — best seen in the Thais or Shians or Siamese — descended from high Western Yuniim and the extensive Shan states of Burma, where we have spent many days in their camps as they moved to and fro in trade with the coast towns, for they are busy and enterprizing traders, and inveterate JVdt, Let or " Spirit " worshipers. Hence 78 TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. probably their name when, debouching on the plains of the middle Mmcim they first settled in Ld-o-s ; for their first chief cities were on the upper Men am, and not till 1782 did a Shan king venture to build a capital — Bangkok — on the coast. The first capital, Suho-thai (Shan-suko), was built in 638 a.c. on the middle JMenam, and apparently by a Hinduized king, for there was a shrine of Krda (Siva) in front of the Royal Court of Justice, before which strange rites and ordeals by fire and water took place as was then common in India, Pegu and Cambodia ; see Captain Gerini (a Siamese officer) on Trials hy Ordeal, As. Qthj., Ap. 95. These rites he traces back to our 5tli century, and finds frequent reference to them in Siamese records of 1000-1050, and of fire rites down to the 14th century. In 1350, when the Cambodian capital l7ida-2Kitha-j)uri (Indra-prastha or ancient Delhi) was seized and country an- nexed, a new Siamese capital Ayuthia (Oudh, Avadh or Ayodhya) was built lower down the Menam — some 55 miles from the sea, and still by a Hinduized Biid-ized and probably Buddhistically inclined people ; who have left us many noble though thoroughly phallic ruins — as Mr Fergusson calls them, "lofty rounded domical shafts" {l7id. Arch. 633), which he shows are continued on the apex of the more modern Eoyai Wat-ching of Bangkok — a Vat or Monastery modelled after a Saiva temple. Here too says Captain Gerini are the necessary pond and symbols for swearing witnesses on and exacting the Hindu legal ordeals ; so that Kala, his Nandi (bull) and linga- in-Argha to swear on, are or were here as required for very special oaths and vows. Travelers assure us that these objects exist in and about all the present and ancient chief cities of Siam, and in or beside many temples. In the fort of Pachim says Mr Hallet {As. Qtly., Ap. 87), at the dangerous entrance of the Menam, " there is a temple with the usual image of Buddha, and just outside a lingam to which women make off'erings and prayers for ofi'spring. Around it are joss sticks and prayer flags, and within the temple is a model of it which a modern votary had erected." The shrine was no doubt originally one of Bud's, the rHf 1R.\Nt> INDIW STXThS AM) MUTIM'II \(.() TI. THE ARCHITECTUEE AND SYMBOLS OF THE COLONIZEES. 79 old Bud-or, for here all give gifts of fruits, flowers, rice, &c., as to Siva, be they Buddhists, Mrdays, Javans or Mahamadans ! Such also was the Bud to be hereafter described at a similar dangerous passage — the entrance to the Akyab harbour. All fling some ofl'erings to these Buds and murmur a prayer, for they symbolize the God of Destruction as well as Creation. The most ancient as well as present religion of Siam is well illustrated in its ever sacred " Adam's Peak," on which the faithful see the " Divine Foot "-print or Phrd-Bat of the Lord Buddha, but which was earlier that of Vishnu and Siva, and still earlier of Bud or Bod ; for the Foot, Hand, Thumb and Heel are well-known euphemisms. We must therefore dwell a little upon the Phra-Bat, and will here take as our chief guide the description of it as given in his Ulysses by Mr G. Palgrave, who was from 1880 to 1883 the very observant British Consul of Siam, and saw all he describes. This " Adam's Peak " is a high, picturesque, strongly marked conical limestone hill rising abruptly at the edge of a oreat forest which here ends in the rich delta lands of the Menam and its sacred affluent flowing past the old capital of Ayuthia. It is therefore topografically just such a site as Siavas select, viz., the yonish bifurcation of two sacred streams, and has therefore from unknown times l)een a great place of pilgrimage, especially at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The Phra-Bat is a natural depression, 5x2 ft. and 10 inches deep, on a prominent rock, over which is built a hand- some Dop or Dome, and over this rise terraces pinnacled and sjiired to the height of about 100 ft. This is on the highest terrace of the mountain, under tlie immediate overshadowing of the still loftier Lingam-like apex, on which are probably modelled the strange columnal temples of A3^uthia and the high shaft of the Royal temple in Bangkok, well seen in Fergusson's Ind. Arch. The inner dome leaves a clear space of 30 feet square for the holy rock and its Phra-Bat, so that the shrine reminds one forcibly of the Kahet es Sal'hrah on Mount Moriah ; only there we have a protruding Omphe, the Oiiphalos of Mother Earth over her Cave and Ber Aruali or " Well of Spirits," TI. THE ARCHITECTUEE AND SYMBOLS OF THE COLONIZERS. 79 old Bud-07', for liere all give gifts of fruits, flowers, rice, &c., as to Siva, be they Buddhists, Mrdays, Jfivans or Mahamadans ! Such also was the Bud to be hereafter described at a similar dangerous passage — the entrance to the Akyab harbour. All fling some off'erings to these Buds and murmur a prayer, for they symbolize the God of Destruction as well as Creation. The most ancient as well as present religion of Siam is well illustrated in its ever sacred " Adam's Peak," on which the faithful see the " Divine Foot "-print or Phrd-Bat of the Lord Buddha, but which was earlier that of Vishnu and Siva, and still earlier of Bud or Bod ; for the Foot, Hand, Thumb and Heel are Avell-known euphemisms. We must therefore dwell a little upon the Phrfi-Bat, and will here take as our chief guide the description of it as given in his Ulysses by Mr G. Palgrave, who was from 1880 to 1883 the very observant British Consul of Siam, and saw all he describes. This " Adam's Peak " is a high, picturesque, strongly marked conical limestone hill rising abruptly at the edge of a o-reat forest which here ends in the rich delta lands of the Menam and its sacred affluent flowing past the old capital of Ayuthia. It is therefore topografically just such a site as Siavas select, viz., the yonish bifurcation of two sacred streams, and has therefore from unknown times been a great place of pilgrimage, especially at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The Phra-Bat is a natural depression, 5x2 ft. and 10 inches deep, on a prominent rock, over which is built a hand- some Dop or Dome, and over this rise terraces pinnacled and spired to the height of about 100 ft. This is on the highest terrace of the mountain, under the immediate overshadowing of the still loftier Lingam-like apex, on which are probably modelled the strange columnal temples of Ayuthia and the high shaft of the Poyal temple in Bangkok, well seen in Fergusson's Ind. Arch. The inner dome leaves a clear space of 30 feet square for the holy rock and its Phra-Bat, so that the shrine reminds one forcibly of the Kahet es Sahhrah on Mount Moriali ; only there we have a protruding OmjDhe, the Omphalos of Mother Earth over her Cave and Ber Aruali or " Well of Spirits," 80 TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. which the Siamese would recognize as nature's gravid uterus — a true DCi-garhh or Dd-gohah. With Jabusis and Hebrews itlw^as the Shati or "Foundation-stone of all things — their Tsur Aleim or "Eock God," (see fig. 64, Rivers of Life, and in this connection also figs. 234 and 266) the Cone of Adam or Bud's " Foot " of Ceylon, and the Rock markings of the Kaiktyo shrines at the head of the Sitano; delta. Turanian, Shemite and Aryan, Shans, Hebrews, Arabs and Christians, have alike at different periods covered the Divine symbols of these shrines with gold, silver and gems, and the pavements with rare tesselated marbles, cloths and mattings, and always burnt around them everlasting fire. Beside the Phra-bat, says Palgrave, " were ceaselessly burning, dim lamps, candles and pastiles. . . . The raised borders (of the dais) are edged with lotuses covered with gold," and in delicate tracery the natural features of the divine foot are pourtrayed together with Sun, Moon, &c., in the usual conventional forms. Carefully laid out shady ziz-zag paths and stairs led up to the sacred high terrace, which, as the worshiper approached, he fell on his knees and so ascended ; ever and again touchinef the ground with clasped hands on forehead. On reaching the golden lotus edging, each remained for some time prostrate in prayerful aspiration and meditation, and then reverently retired l^ackwards, till reaching the verandas they arose and gaily communed with their fellows on general subjects. This, says Palgrave, is a feature of the race and faith. " All here is bright — ornament and glitter, mirth, music; and laughter ; nothing solemn ; nothing mysterious or awful ; no dim religious light, gloom or fear-inspiring rites, bloody sacrifices or weary- ing decorum. All here announced a joyful religion which looked at the bright side of life. . . . This Buddhism has nothing pessimistic in it . . . but rather a practical 023timism. Their Buddha aimed (they say) at the peavl of great price . . . a boundless living love . . . not the narrowness and limitations ... of self and death. He endeavoured, nor wholy without success, to trace out a path ... by Avhich we might attain to a true life ; teaching that every act has its reward — good or evil ; this without fail or flaw ; that the II. SIAMESE PHRA-BAT ITS CHEERFUL FAITH MALAYS. 81 evil done can only be compensated or cancelled by time, but that good will ultimately thrust out evil . . . and selfishness, &c., ... be no more," pp. 183-7. Such then is the religion professed by the quiet orderly crowds who continually throng the gilded temples and pavilions on this high terrace. Here, beside cool sweet waters, in umbrageous nooks, and neat terraced walks shaded by sacred trees — the Bo or Pipal, and Ficus Indica predominating, do the thoughtful and pious find a quiet retreat for meditation and rest from the turmoil of life ; specially welcome after their toil in town or village homes, and after long weary travel over the adjoining hot and dusty plains. The Phra Bat buildings being nearly all of richly carved teak wood, have been often burned down, and in 1766 the vast accumulated treasures of the shrine led some unbelievers to seize these, slay the monks and anchorites, and burn all to the ground; only in 1787 were the present structures rebuilt by the royal founder of the present dynasty. The beautiful temples, burnt down in 1766, had been erected in 1606, and we know of others going back to about 1300 a.c, but not much is yet known of the populations of the delta of the Menam before this. No doubt there were Thai' or Shan traders, but also Indian Malas or Malays Avho occupied, and often probably ruled, deltas and sea coasts from the beginning of our era ; then only, if so soon, the Malays were gradually driven south, and on the establishment of the monarchy at Bangkok lost most of their Malaka peninsula. It would seem that Malays, with trade and friends in every port, piloted all later Indian arrivals to their permanent habitations, and among these the Hindus of Siam, Cambodia and Cochin, to the rich deltas of the Menam and Mekong. There they developed their Indian faiths and arts, and by our Middle Ages these passed on into China, Fermosa and Japan, as we see from the reports noticing Hindu temples, gods, rites and symbols, written by Dutch Ambassadors of 1641-61, given in Montanus' Jajxinese Hist., translated and published by Mr J. Ogilby in 1770-72, and in Mr Dodd's Fermosa, where he speaks with the authority of a long resident. F 82 TRANS-IXDIA, INDIAN AKCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. 11. " Qam-bo-jas " calways spoke much about their Indian origin, and Col. Yule says " their name occurs on a repliche of Asoka," and which therefore belongs to about 250 B.C. : but M. Moura, in his Hist, of Camhod, speaks of this " great building " Turanian race, as " Khamerdoms descended from Indians who left Delhi in the 5th century B.C." They would be those from the then disturbed state of Tax-sila or Tak-shah, known also as " Cainhoj," says Fergusson. Tah-slia is an artificer, and Tak, Hak or Hag is a serpent or clever one, over half the world ; but Cholas and Chalukians were then beoinnino- their descent from N.W. India in two bodies, moving East and West, and they were ophiolatrous Lingaites evidently disturbed by the then increasing Buddhism. All N.W. India was aroused in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., by the invasions of Darius I., and his successors who then raided through it and northern Sindh and annexed part of the Panjab, where coins of Darius are found, as at Lahore. This was one of the great Cyclik periods marked in our Chart of Rivers of Life. Laotsze and Kungfutsze were stirring up China, Jews went into Eastern captivity, and Babylon fell to the new and first Aryan or Iranian Empire which established the Zoroas- trian faith at Persepolis. Our own isles were then also being stirred into life not only by Belgi, Danes or like Skandinavians, but by Phenicians ; for Hamilcar reached them from Sidonian Karthaore about 500 B.C., seeking trade and sites for new colonies to relieve the over-population of the Mediteranean states. His brother Hanno, says Avienus of 300 a.c, had, with this view, led 30,000 colonists round the Mauritanian N.W. coast of Africa towards the Fortunatce or Canary islets and adjoining coasts ; and about 400 B.C., Pytheas, a mathe- matician and zealous geographer and traveler, had passed through Britain to Thule and Tanais in Skandinavia, where he found old Phenician settlements. It is only to be expected, therefore, that the teaming populations of India should also, at this time, be throwing ofi" colonies, southerly and easterly. Phenicians had been trading with India lono- before its invasion by Persians, and it was their traders and shi^^ builders, at the mouths of the Indus, that enabled Nearchus to there II. EARLY COLONIES AND FAITH-S IN EUKOPE AND INDIA. 83 embark bis army for BabyloD, 327-4 B.C. They told liis chief historian Onesikritos, that " Ceylon was only 20 clays' sail distant," see Strabo, xv. About 100 years earlier they had inscribed their Phenician characters on the Eejang stone in South Sumatra, in letters which Dr Neubauer says belong to the 4th or 5th centuries B.C., cf. ^Marsrlen, Hist. Sumatra, Arch. Oxon., 92-95, and R. Geo. J., June 96, p. 659. Alexander's Savans described India as immensely rich, populous and civilized : very free from crime and very reli- gious ; having standing armies and considerable navies, also a coinage, and literature on fine smoothed cloth. Her Hindu priests were Bruhmans, and her Jaiua and Buddhist Monks, jSi'dmans, who admitted women to their sanctuaries. The Hindus taught the doctrines of Souls, Transmigration, Immor- tality, Heavens and Hells, and that Widows must immolate themselves or be shut up for ever from all social and religious rites. A priest " Mandanis " and a Jaina or Bodhist Sraman of the naked sect, " KaJanos," nccompanied Alexander even beyond the Indus frontier, where the Sraman mounted his funeral pyre. Onesikritos says he professed doctrines like those of Putha-goras and lived the same self-denying life. The Rev. Dr Stevenson says that Kalanos was evidently a Jaiua, and in his Kalpa Sutra, xii-xiv., and KdnJieri Cave Inscriptions, p. 16, he comes to the conclusion that the double Buddhist chronology of India and Ceylon is due to the attempt to approximate the time of Parsva-nath, the 23rd Jaina Saint, to that of Gotama ; for from Maha Vira of 597-527 there are 250 years, and Parsva is always acknowledged to have lived nearly 100 years, and must therefore have flourished about 900 B.C. We know from the Maha Vanso that Gotama Buddha recognised twenty-four predecessors, and in the present Kalpa (age) four, implying that the twenty-four Jaina saints belonged to a former ao-e. J?. As., vol. i. 522. All the rich Du-db between the Godaveri and Krishna — from sea to Ghats, some 80 x 120 miles, was from 400 to 500 B.C., if ]iot earlier, ruled by Ndga-MCdas from their capital Mdllanga — probably Mal-linga, from whence Tri- or Tel-linga, the capital of ancient Majerika. The city was at our Vengi or 84 TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. IL. El-ur ou the west of the great Koler Lake. To tlie north of this Holy land was Ddnta-pur on the Godiiveri, in the state of Eaja Mandri, i.e. " of ]\rnnds," and southwards on the sacred Krishna or Kistna was Darani Kota, evidently Drona-Kota,. where was Buddha's Drona or "Cup," and other relics which had come from Eama-grama near Kapila Vasta. In 157 B.C., according to the Ceylonese MCiha Vanso, a Mala Princess, Hema-Milla, fled with the DCinta or holy tooth of Danta-pur to Ceylon, but she was wrecked near the mouth of the Kistna, and the Tooth was carried to Ddrani-K.ot^, where it was enshrined, probably in or near the beautiful stupa of Amravati, destined to become the Maka of Buddhism. General Cunnino'ham thinks 157 B.C. is too earlv for a mature Buddhism in these parts; but " Teeth" ivere lijigams, a.nd all this land had from prehistoric ages belonged to the great Sisua-deva-ists, those phalik-worshiping Andhras denounced in the Rig Veda 800 to 1200 B.C. The Nagaists would accept the Tooth as their Bud or MaJiddeva, and we know that Ceylon did not acknowledge it as the tooth of Buddha till 307, almost the exact date when, according to Siam tradition (310 a.c), it arrived in Ceylon, Geog. India. The Pali-Buddhist annals of Ceylon mention the dispatch in 241 B.C. of a propagandist mission to Suvarna Bhuml, the Chruse or Aurea-Refjio, embracing Pegu, Siam, Cambodia and ArchijDclago. But the Buddhists would meet with great opposi- tion, however conciliatory the emissaries of the meek and reasonable Gotama might be ; and therefore little mention of Buddhism appears here till 100 B.C. After this, colonies of Indian Buddhists flocked across the ocean ; and in our 3rd and 4th cents, very large bodies left the Tel-lingilna coasts or "Coromandel" — the Cliolo-Mandel or "Land of Cholas" and Chalukians, who were here ruled by their great Varman dynasty, known to Chinese as N'g-ndms, no doubt meaning Naga or Sivo-Serpent, Tri-linga or Bud worshipers, which they really were far more than Bud-dhists. It was very shortly after this that, in spite of the dense forests and feverish swamps of Cambodia, there began to rise here the great walled towns, temples, and viaducts of Kdga- II. HOLY TOOTH IN 2ND CENT. B.C. KAMBODIAN RUINS. 85 Nagar or JVakhon Thoni, as Siamese call this Ophite capital which Europeans have only lately found buried in a dense forest, and have described as " rivalling Memphis and Nineveh." There are here some forty extensive ruins, including the first and last Hindu capital Brdliinan Nagar or "City of Prohm " — the Siamese Ongeor Thorn. The chief ruins lie near the head of the great Talay (Taldh ■or Ta/on=" lake"), and are pure Nfigo-Hindu shrines like many in India and Ceylon. Of their structure, Mr Fergusson says : " Nothing can exceed the skill and ingenuity with which the roof stones are joggled and fitted into one another, unless it is the skill with which joints are polished (they are often in- visible) and so evenly laid without cement of any kind." The roofs are of hewn stone without wood or concrete, and the joints so fiue that they remain water-tight after some thousand years of neglect in a wet tropical climate. The chariots or carts had wheels of sixteen spokes, and so delicately fine they must Lave been of metal. The builders eschewed mortar except as a plaster, and preferred the horizontal, solidly built-out arch to the radiated vousoir. Our friend Colonel Yule, who was not given to exaggerated descriptions, says : " The buildings are stupendous in scale and rich in design . . . often elaborately •decorated . . . and especially the long galleries of double-storied bas-reliefs. There are artificial lakes enclosed by walls of cut stone ; stone bridges of extraordinary design and excellent exe- •cution . . . elaborate embanked highways across alluvial flats." Ency. Brit. The Nakhonvat or " Naga monastery " was five miles south of ''Nagar Thorn " on the " Great Naga" or serpent city; for Naga and Ncigdr (now " a town ") are here virtually synony- mous, arising from the fact that in the centre of every town was its chief deity or symbol. So ur or i^ur, " fire," w^as the •centre around which Ignikolists grouped their houses ; hence jnir is now a " town " just as Ihi is in Babylonian, though 11 or El or Al is a " god." As language developed and the base was forgotten, the Delhi Nilgaists or Nahushas called Delhi Ndga- pur, and when Aryan Hinduism arose, Indra-prastha or ludra's : from Saio;on to Tongkin durino- all our Middle Ages. Not so in Cambodia, which only conjoined the corrupt Buddhism of Siam and Hinduism of Tchampas with its intense Nagaism about 800 A.C., and remained content therewith till about 1250, when the ruling monarch "forsook the serpent worship of his ancestors," and built the new capital — Paten ta Plirolima or "City of Brahma," — and allowed Ndga Thorn, the glorious Canterbury of a faith, then probably 1500 years old, to fall into neglect. Its prestige had greatly waned about 11. SIVAITE OR BUD CULT OF ALL TRANS-INDIA, 9TH CENT. A.C. 91 1000 A.C, when its ecclesiastics made a great effort, and wonder- fully embellished the Nagon Vat — a pseiido resuscitation which often presages the fall of a faith. The lono; continued descent of Chinese tribes over the whole Indo-Chinese peninsula had about 800 a.c. thoroughly checked the Indian-led Tchams and Co-T'chins. The various w^ars had taught the Mongoloids how to fight, and combine if they would conquer, and in anotlier century or two, they learned how to g-overn. About 1000 A.C. we find them consolidated or rather confederated as a Tongkino-Annamese Power, to resist Indo-led Tchampas, and this soon led to the acceptance of an An-nam dynasty under Chinese suzerainty, guided by Man- darines, as Political Agents. The Tchampas again pressed at this time their old claim that Tongkin belonged to them ; but China again scornfully rejected this, and actively aided the An-nams, in whom, however, they had little confidence. Indeed all Cantonese as well as Tongkin is looked down on Ans as a poor, puny, arrogant and ignorant race. Locally and perhaps disparagingly they were called Kekaans, reminding us of their rude northern congeners the Khyens or Kakyens who have long given us so much trouble on the northern Burmo-Yunan frontier. There too we have found them arrogant but stubbornly patient and apt scholars in war, though not in government, for they own no chiefs powerful enough to treat with — each petty tribe pleasing itself and often refusing to accept agreements made with any others or even their local head men. Brahmanism never really commended itself to the Mongolik peoples of the mainland, though Indo-Tchampa rulers resolutely maintained and propagated it for nearly 2000 years. The native masses knew it only as a complicated modification of their own simple nature and spirit cult, in which Siva and Vishnu or Kesava, were personified Buds, or Lin gams and Yon is like to the Yang and Yin of China. The attendants of the deities were said to be forms of Nats universally recognised as haunting trees, hills and waters ; nay, all earthly and celestial nature and phenomena. The only cult which here acted as a disintegrating force was Buddhism, but not for centuries did ( V" Or THc'"''??^ UN!Vi ■ ••,iTY 92 TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. these races in the mass really comprehend it, ever confusing it with their ohi Bud cult. Qdia-hods only began to grasp it after it had dominated Siam for several centuries, but about 1250 a Hinduized kiiis; of Cambodia — converted no douljt by the neighbouring strong Tcham]3a Court — determined to stem the Buddhist faith. He adopted the same measures as the Javan king had done some two hundred years before — forsook the old capital of the faith at NCiga Nagar, and built a new city of Brahma. Here, how- ever, the effect was not lasting, for Buddhism finally took hold of all continental lands, though corrupted by tlieir animistic faiths in proportion to the ignorance of the races. By the 17th century Hinduism was finally effaced from Tchamj)a owing to the fidl of its Indian rulers and the consolida- tion of the native Annam nation. It never had a strono- hold on o Qam-bods, and perhaps rather strengthened their Bud-ism or Dravidian Sivaism and Na^aism. Enouo-h for the masses, as a rule, was the name of Bud or Bod and such serpent worship as they found in Hinduism and the universal Nature and Nrit cults. Here as in Java the masses knew little or nothing; of the sage Buddha till about this century. They had never been asked to adore him, and only saw, says Crawfurd, in " his images and sculptured attendants, Hindu and Bud deities with which they were as well acquainted as their instructors the Tchamps and Klings or Indians." Hist. Arcltipclago. Java and Archipelago. Java or Yauva extends over 620 x 80 miles, and with its islands covers 52,000 square miles. In 1894 we estimate its population at 191 millions: viz. 19 millions "Natives;" 210,000 Chinese; 10,000 Arabs; and 30,000 Europeans and half castes. The earliest colonists — the Sundans — like the earliest Europeans, landed on, and have ever clung to the extreme west ; but the main body of Indian colonizers, from the Kling and south Dravidian coasts, settled all over central Java, rearing there the great shrines of Boro-Bud-or and long after, the first Brahman capital. TL BUD AND BUDDHISM JAVA, JAPAN, FORMOSA. 9o From this they very gradually worked eastward to the rich plains of Jang-gdla or Mdja-pdliit on the fine bay of Madura, so called doubtless after the last colony from that long over- populated South Indian capital. Mdja-pdhit is evidently some local confused rendering of some of the divers names of " Holy Sravasti," which about the beginning of our era fell away from Buddhism and was known as Sdvet, Sd-wat-tlii, and in South India and Ceylon She-icei and Sdhet-Mapit. The site must have been ever very sacred to Malas as their first Indian capital when they emerged from the Hima-Mdlas on Uttara Kosala as N.W. Oudh was called. It was founded, says General Cunningham {Geo. Ind. 401-14), "in the fabulous ages of Indian history," long before king Eama, who according to the Eamayana assigned it to his son Lava. The founders w^ere called Yavana Malas, and it was the Emperor Chandra Gupta of this race ruling at Piltala over Lower Sindh who made Sravasti the northern boundary of his Magadha, Magh or Mala empire, as will appear more fully hereafter. Maja-pahit rose to great magnificence in the 14th century, but its sun set for ever when captured at the close of the next century by Arabian Mahamadans. They ruthlessly and indeed laboriously desolated its fine temples and every graven image, in accordance with supposed divine commands ; and decreed that no faith but theirs was to be tolerated in Java or its isles, not even in the case of foreign residents, though these abounded ; one province in the Bay of Madura was then known as Japan, showing an early and intimate acquaintance therewith. It was from here and probably in the 14th century that Formosa received Javans and Hinduism, as noticed by Mr Dodd, see Scot. Geog. Mag. of Nov. '95. They would of course be in free and friendly intercourse with the Hindus of the Tchampa peninsula — always strong Malayan propagandists. Mr Dodds, who has been 20 years in Fermosa, says : "There is no doubt the aborigines of Fermosa are of Malayo-Polynesian origin . . . mingled, however, with an earlier race of Indian extrac- tion " who could be none other but Klings or Talains, and Malas possibly bred and born in Cambodia, Ko-Tchen, Java, and neighboring islands. 94 TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. The Dutch Ambassadors to Japan of 1640-60 found Hinduism there prominent. They were the first Europeans who in 1705 settled in Java at Bantam, and near to this the English established a factory in J 808 which they early gave up, but on the effacement of Holland by Napoleon in 1811 they seized all Java and ruled it till 1818, restoring it to the Dutch on their readmission to the fraternity of European nations. During 1825-30 Holland finally captured and has since held the whole island, and claims the suzerainty of the Archipelago. The outside w^orld calls all " the natives" of Java " Malays and Arabs," and their religion Moliamadanism and Nat or spirit worship. In Western Arabia, Javan pilgrims to Maka are well known ; indeed there is a resident population there of some 2000 always studying Arabic and Islam, whom Arabs call " Malay-Javas from Bildad el Jawa," or " Land of Javi," and it is true that most are Malas or Malays. The three s:reat Javan races ;ire the Sunddns = 4:h millions, the Javans=ll| millions, and the Madu7xcs = l^ millions — all of Indian extraction. The oldest and more purely of Mala or Malay type, are the Sundans. They are shorter and fairer than the others, who are undoubtedly from the Madras and Ceylon coasts, whilst Sundans are in close touch, alike ethno- graphically as topographically, with the adjoining Malaka peninsula. They even still resemble the Mdlu-as, Mali-yalas and M^da-cZ^v27as or islanders, oft' the south Mala-bar coast, which their ancestors rounded on their way to the " straits of the Sundas." They have always clung to this north-west corner of Java, as did the Central and Eastern Javans keep pretty steadily to their first central settlements. The Javans as a ruling body are no doubt principally Chalukians and Cholas, or Telagus and Tamils, in which Klings predominate, and on the coasts Millas or Mrdays with some Ceylonese. Javans having many strict caste notions are easily distinguishable from Sundas or even Maduras and Balis. They wear long lank coarse hair, but none on face or body, and have peculiar black eyes. Maduras were probably a Palava colony from the rich and populous state of Madura, who in 700-850 a.c. fled when 11. JAVANS, MALAYS : THEIR NUMBERS AND CULTS. 95 tlieir capital was seized first by Cliolas and Cheras and then by Chalukias. The very name Palava marks their strong, tall, stout physique. They had to avoid central Java, and naturally settled beyond their congeners on the island and beautiful Bay of Madura, where the last capitals of Hinduism arose. Here, and on Biili and adjoining islets, also settled the Ceylonese Balis, and those from Maha Bali-pur or Vali-pur, an ancient great centre of Baal, Bel or Sun and Planet worship, fully illustrated by Upham and in Rivers of Life, ii. 481. Vrdipur is now known to us as "The Seven Pagodas" — partly en- gulfed in the ocean, but it is famous in Indo- Aryan traditions as the capital of the powerful Dravidian monarch Bali — " the Daityan Pailer of the three worlds" wdiom Vishnu circum- vented in his fifth Avatar many centuries B.C. The language of Java consists of three dialects : the Krdma or court ; the Madja or middle, and the i^opular Ngoko or Thouing with many intrusive Malay and Arab words and phrases. The Krama accepts Sanskrit, Dutch, and foreign words. The alfabet of all is based on Deva-Ndgari, and if written with Arabic characters is called Pegon. The language of the inscriptions is the sacred Kaici or Kau — evidently the Kaiun of Kambodia, and the earlier Koan or Koya already noticed, of the Varman Chalukyas. The Javanese Kawi litera- ture in Deva-Nagari characters is considerable, and embraces the Indian Epiks — the earliest existing copy of which was written in 1050 A.c. There is no reason why Java should not have re- ceived the Epiks with the emigrants of the 2nd century B.C., and they could certainly obtain them from Kambodia in our early centuries. According to Javan traditional history the island received its first Indian colony about 300 B.C., when a semi-divine Brah- man Prince Tri-tresta arrived from the Kling coast wdth 800 Kling families. He allied himself with the Poyal house of Kambodia, marrying the Princess Bramari Kali, and by Kam- bodian aid he established himself as the Javan Paja of Giling Wesi. This tradition and these names show that Brahmanism of the old pre-Buddhist-Hermaik type — i.e.. Bod or Saivism — existed some centuries B.C. in Java, and still earlier in Kam- 96 TKAXS-IXDIA, IXDIAX ARCHIPELAGO AXD AD.TACEXT STATES. II. bodia. Tritresta's invasion must have also upset the Vishnuva (Yoni or " Left Hand") cult, which, according to the Java Niti Sdstra, had existed in Java from unknown times. The Sdstrciy in a long narrative, shows that this reformation was caused by Yishnuvas offending the all-powerful Brahma-Saiva, Guru Sang Yang, \mi Javans had a religion before all Sastras. Raja Tri-tresta long ruled at Giling Wesi, and had two sons Manu Manasa and ]\Ianu Ma-deva therefore Kling or Linga worshipers ; but latterly another Indian invasion took place, led by a Prince Watu Guning of Dcsa-Sangdia or " Country of Sakrda," which was a Mala capital in the Panjab ; and Tri- tresta was slain, and the Guning dynasty ruled at Giling for 140 years, to Saka 240 = a. c. 318, see details in chronological tables. According to this last date, Tritresta could only have arrived in the first century A.C., and Prince Guning was there- fore an Andhra Rajn, who was disturbed in the 2nd century A.c. by the Eastern Chalukyas then descending on the Kling coast from the Gangetic valley. We know from the Pig Yeda that Andhras were persistent worshipers of the Sisna Deva or Liugam — more usually called Mahd-deva. In "the Malay Annals" (Sejara MaJayv) of Java, partly given l)y Sir S. Paffles in his Hist. Japan (ii. 108-112, written Higira 1021 or early in our 17th century before the fall of the Javan monarchy and loss of records), is the history of another o-reat influx from the Klino- coast. It is related that some three centuries B.C. Sekandar Raja Darub of Rum (Greece) was a powerful monarch whose empire extended over half Hindostan ; that he married the daughter of the great Indian king whom he had con(j[uered, Rdja Kid eh Hindi, and had by her a son Aj-istan Shah, who founded an Indian dynasty which existed for 580 to 600 years ; this would be about 280 a.c. The then Raja, Suren, went forth east "to subdue China"; evidently pointing to the Chalukya-Dravidian descent about the 3rd cen- tury, on the Ganges and their rule in Napal, where, as else- where seen, have been found Chalukyan coins. Finally, the main body are said to have turned south " to the land of the Klang Kins " — Klings or Tridings — and settled in Bis-nagar, " the city of Bis-Isvar," the Dra vidian Siva, and no doubt that II. EARLY JAVAN COLONISTS MALAS AND MALAYS. 97 known to us now as Vijia-Nagar. The colony would l)e in close fellowship with their congeners the Nar-Munds and Millas settled in the Highlands of the Krishna, where also was one of the holy Tri-lingas of this Tel-lingana coast. According to the Javan traditions, Eaja Suren's eldest son was dissatisfied w4th his share of empire, and on his father's death fitted out a lieet of twenty vessels and determined to carve out a kingdom for himself in Trans-India. A storm scattered his fleet, and he only arrived with a small following at Polembang, where he found an Indian prince and people glad to do him honor. He married the king's daughter, succeeded as king, and ruled as a " descendant of the great Sultan Sakan- dar," but this would be perhaps about 340 a.c. Java is called by Ptolemy (130-140 a.c.) Jdha-dln or J-dvipa, and by Fa-hien of our 4th century, Jefo-thi, the Ze-he-ji of Arabs; but in our 13th century all the Sun da groups were known as Java, from it was thought, Java-wat or maise, its chief produce. To this was added inisi, "island," or tana, " land " ; hence Java proper was Nusa Hara-Hari, "Island of Siva and Vishnu," and Nusa Kendang. Sumatra was then " Inferior Java," as inhabited by inferior, wild, fierce tribes. What we have said, and will further detail of the faiths of Java, applies generally to all the groups, and the whole Miila or Malayan peoples, though not of course to Papuans. All the other islanders were closely related in trade, languages, blood, and religions. We cannot here distinguish between the Malas of "Malaka" and those of the "Moluccas," as so erroneously spelt and pronounced. All are the " abodes of Malas," as is also the enormous island of Celebes, with its area of 70,000 square miles. Very little is however yet really known of this island, except in the extreme N.E. and S. W., around the Dutch capital of Makdsar and Boni, in the middle of its eponymous Bay — Asea, some 220 by 60 miles in extent. Sir S. Eaflles said that, judging by its ruins, this S.W. peninsula (here of chief interest and about 220 miles long and 100 wide) was, till Mahamadan times, almost as advanced in faiths and civilization as Java. The remains, which were disappearing in his day o 98 TllANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. 11. (181li), showed similar temples, sculptures, images and other symbols, but all were then being carried away for building pur- poses and some for Joss houses and like foreign shrines. Celebesians of the South and AVest — the ancient centre — are grouped as Mcdkasars and Bugis or Bonis with a few so called "Malas proper"; people from the adjacent islands, as Dyaks from Borneo ; and in the central mountains, as about Toradja, some wild " Aborigines." The Makdsars, whose long coast bounds the tortuous Straits of this name, are said to have been the first to arrive from India, and all things considered, this seems to have been in our 4th century ; so that they were doubtless those Taxila Malas who left the Gujerat coast in .S22 A.c. or earlier. After them came the Bonis, led probably by the Gujerat Prince of 603 (see our Chronological Table). All authorities agree that both peoples are of Malayan, i.e. Mala stock. The greater portion speak Malayan Javanese, and the Buginese language is closely allied to the Makasar, and written in that character. It is thought by the Dutch and writers not acquainted with Indian dialects, to be in " some respects peculiar," and to adopt many loan words from Indian and other tongues of the Archipelago. Bugis, even more than Makasars, have Ijeen distinguished as good seamen and energetic traders. They had long traversed all the Indian seas, and had a Malayan colony in all ports from those of East Africa and Madao;askar or Malaoasa, Maldives and Malabar, to their own capital " Macassar," wdiich we cannot but connect with the Malagiisa of the ruling Hovas, evidently the Yovas or Ydvan-as or " Foi^eign " rulers, which Malas gave to the wild races of Madagaskar. This will be more apparent when we hereafter treat of ]\Ialas and Malays. The great island of Borneo has not, so far as yet known, shown any faith developments beyond that of Nature and Nat or spirit worship. It seems, like New Guinea and adjoining- islands and parts of Australia to Torres Straits, to be one of the last retreats of aboriginal wild races likened to Lemurs, who once peopled as anthropologists suggest, a great submerged " Lemurian Continent." II. MALA-GASiS, MALA-BARS, YOVAS OR HOVAS. 99 Even Java is held to have a remnant of this race in the unduly despised Kd-langs and " Hill men " of the central Teng-ger mountains in the Pasuram and Probo-lingo districts, famed for its rude ]\Ien-hirs and sacred stones. But the Kalangs are now in the Fire- worshiping stage, though still devoted to Nats, totems, charms and snakes. They have " Medicine men " — perhaps we should say Priests, who at stated times assemble around a central tribal fire like early Greeks, and pray, chant and read " very ancient sacred books, invariably beginning with Om," which had not in ancient times, and especially where Buds or Bods prevailed, the spiritual meaning of later Vedantists. The Naga or Serpent has always held a high, if not the highest place in the faiths alike of the Archipelago and the whole Indo-Chinese peninsula ; for Mfdas, Tamils, Ceylonese and Chalukyans or "Kliugs"were persistent Ophiolaters, and Javan history and traditions assert, that their faith and civiliza- tion culminated in 790, when the " Kling " hero Aji-Scika rtded them. Even among Aryans or Irans we know that the Ahi or Azi (Serpent) was the old deity of Kashmir and Taxsila, and flourished 2Jari pasu with Buddhism, and though with nothing really in common, for it was the symbol of the Turanian Bud and Aryan Malid-deva ; yet the masses ignorantly accepted and worshij^ed both, and placed over the new Buddha canopies of their 3, 5 and 7 hooded Naga. The j)rincipal treasures of the Javan Regalia or Upachdra, which always accompanied the monarch and were prominent with special staff and guards, were a golden Serpent, the nandgan or N'Ndga ; a golden Bidl, the Jajdwen Santing ; a golden Elephant, the Hasti or Gdja ; a Deer and Coch, and the Monkey Flag of Arjuna (Raffle's Hist. i. 310). These are an •evident importation from Northern India, for Delhi was first Naga-pur and then Hastinapur, as connected with Tndra's '•Vehicle" the elephant, and the early Indra was a Turanian God, as, no doubt, was Krishna and many another claimed by Aryans. All this mythology could reach Trans-India by Dravidian Cholas and Chalukyans, and evidently did so j.»rimarily through Malas or Malays. 100 TRANS-INDIA, INDIAX ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. IL A corrupt Buddhism, it is seen, only began to seriously affect tlie religion of Bora-Bud-or(" Ancient Bud") about 400, probably with the Kling dynasty of Virata ; and this Buddhism, or as Javans always called it, " Buclism," began to decline as in India 700 to 800, when in Java it seems to have caused the fall of the dyn. and a change of capital to Astina, that is IIasti-ina-])ui' or " Elephant town." Buddhism was officially effaced about 900 a.c, when Brahma's city — Brdin- hd-ndm was buildino- or finished. The ruling monarch was then " King of Sola or Sura-krit " ; so that Sura, Baal or Sun worship was even then the Hinduism professed by the court ; gradually as in India, Neo - Hinduism would be adopted, but Boro-Bud-or continued the ophiolatrous Bud- dhism, which it had grafted on its old Bud cult apparently about our 6th century. Pure Buddhism never seems to have been congenial to the island races ; but their tastes were met in the New-Brahman ism of their beautiful capital Brambanam with its five temples to Brahma, Vishnu, Siva (the new Bud) and other great deities and Avatars. Here was Parvati and her son Ganesa on his lotus throne with significant proboscis, and the Mouse as the stealthy night spirit ; here also was a Janus, or Brahma-lingam with four heads ; also the Trl-murti or male Tri-form God- idea ; Siva's Nandi the Bull, and everywhere, as Jeremiah complained (xi. 13), indecent Bashts {tWi) or Bashatks, which Hebrews identified with Baal and called their children after. The favourite royal residence and city of Bdga-ling was called after a Bashath [Ency. Brit. xiii. 606) ; and many like names appear in the Proho-lingo hills, though the symbols and sculptures are fast disappearing, largely owing to the numerous busy Chinese, here the chief enemy of the archae- ologist. They collected, hired, or built all into their Joss houses, and as charms into the walls of their dwellings, though affecting like Malays and other professed Mahamadans to hold all old sacred symbols in contempt. We now however know that the Japanese and inhabitants of the Chinese littoral, had long ago largely accepted a mongrel Hinduism, and indeed it could hardly be otherwise. The peoples had been in close inter- II. MONUiMENTAL REMAINS OF JAVAN FAITHS. 101 course for some 1800 to 1500 years, and though mostly at war, yet invasions had often ended in occupation and much mutual trading. We do not therefore wonder at seeing Hinduism rather than Buddliism in the religion of Japan, so carefully described by the Dutch Ambassadors of 1641-61. ' Sir S. Raffles complains in 1812-14 that his archseological researches were more especially hampered by the ikoniklastik fanaticism of the Mahamadan conquerors of 1470-80. He says " they even demolished at great expense and labor the whole capital (Hindu) city of Kedri " ; but many Buddhist caves escaped them, and Sir Stafford found these " covered with sculptures, and with places for devotion and penance, and with Chunkaps " — Dagobas or Chaityas (?), also " a casket containing a golden lingam " {p. 45) reminding us of that other richly be- jewelled one found in the treasury of the Great Mughal, which was exhibited for a few days in the Indian Exhibition of London, 1895. Bud-mts, would, of course, recognize the " golden lingam " ; but illiterate Buddhists would perhaps call it a gilded Tooth of their Tathagata ! "At Suku were found two obelisks near a pyramidal shrine," so that it was quite in character with the great Boro-Bud-or. Elsewhere " was a Garuda (Vishnu) with snake in talons" — implying the rise of this "Left Hand" cult over ophiolatry, though Vishnuism is permeated with snake worship. (Hist. Java, pp. 36, 54.) Everywhere the Commissioner found " sculptured serpents, turtk^s, the sacred boar, planetary and zodiakal signs, before many of which the natives were burning incense," and as in Bali to-day, "calling them the Gods of Javans and Balians. ... At Suhi was a great broken phallus 6 feet long and 20 inches in diameter, with four holes, and along the line of the urethra a two-line inscription and a solar circle, lunar crescent and Kris blade." A similar indecent organ was "prominently sculptured on an adjacent temple to which people were making offerings." Sir S. only mentions, however, one symbol of Yoni worship, though Mr Crawfurd saw many. It was truly in very unlooked-for and strange company — being the sacred and much- treasured " Prie dieux slab in the JMaliamadan Sanctuary" (Mosk ? 102 TEANS-IXDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJAlENT STATES. 11. or 'Idgah or Masjad ?) of Mrija-paliit, the last rich and beauti- ful Javan capital captured by Ishlm, 1470-5. (Hist. J., ii. 60.) This was the period when the Javans had nolens volcns to profess Islam, which they did very complacently, but about which they cared little and understood less ; such is very much the case yet, except on the part of some Malays who have imbibed in their many ports of call, the fanaticism of the local Arabs. The inland peoples secretly cling to the old cults and worship their sacred trees, nats, stocks and stones, adding a prayer, lest noticed: "There is no God but God (Allah), and Mahamad is his Prophet ! " but beyond the name, says Sir S. Raffles (Appen. F), they knew not Mahamad or Allah, and when asked why they did not adopt Christianity, confessed that of the two, Islam seemed the simpler and better. They were equally at sea in regard to Buddhism or any good and pious sage Buddha. " He was nowhere presented for adoration," says Mr Crawfurd in 1820, and was unknown in the islands "except as Buda" — he "who was symbolized as the spired- Omphe which crowned their Zion. " Had the people been asked," he adds, " what religion they professed, they would have said Agama Buda" — the form of Nature worship in which Hari-Hara (Siva and Vishnu) are phallically sym1)olized by Buds, cf. Ind. Arch. ii. 204,- 207, 221. Agama may signify "original," "the sexual" or "Sacred" Buda. The term "Buda or Bndha," says Sir S. KafHes, "is never found applicable to a deified person but to a destroying- Power (i.e. Siva), and the name Buddha is unknown" in the Archipelago. Yet Boro-Bud-ar showed "400 images of Budha" encircling the high central Bud, says Crawfurd, but these images and figures, says Sir S. P., are not known to the islanders as " Buddhas, Ijut only as Pandita Sahrong or Foreign Pandits," learned and pious worshipers of Bud, like to the many Hindu gods and their attendants which afterwards were enshrined and sculptured over the six lower terraces of this great national Zion. According to Crawfurd : " The sages who throng the shrines represent the reformers of more ancient gross faiths " ; evidently meaning the early Kling faith which preceded the advent of Buddhism. II. ISLANDERS KNOW ONLY ARIGHT THEIR OLD CULTS. 103 Mr Crawfurd finds " imaijes of Budba in most temples of Java except perhaps Lawa," one of the ruder early shrines which he calls the fourth class (ii. 209-15), and "here are zodiakal signs, cup markings and writings not yet deciphered, but we read that ' Siva is Lord of gods and men ; Vishnu the enlightener of the understanding, and Suma (Surya) he who en- lightens the world.' " These deities are, he finds, called Bataras — probably But-drs, a general term for deities or avatars. All this was and is the religion of Telao;us or Klinos in Telingana. ^"iVt Katto and Suka" (other early sites) were found " Lingas and Yonis in the most diso-ustino- forms . . . without diso^uise or reserve . . . but no images of Budha. ... At the entrance of a shrine at Sukub were cut representations in relief of a phallus 6 feet long and a yoni in unequivocal nakedness. . . . These objects and the bull of Mahil Deva were a hundred to one more frequent than other representations except Budha . . . or as the Javanese call him and spell the word, Buda." --^ Even in 1820 " the people could not distinguish between the pious ascetic and their old Budh. ... In many cases . . . the lingam even surmounts the sage's images . . . the people look towards the lingam Budh and worship it . . . they never look at Giitama or other figures, for they think these merely represent worshipers. ... In many shrines the islanders have forgotten even the decencies of Hinduism and remember only the grosser parts, allowing their imaginations to wanton without guide. . . . The Budha's images never have the woolly hair common to them elsewhere, and he has a consort " ; so it is evident that they thought Gotama was merely a modification of the old Bud, who as a Siva had, of course, his consort Parvati. Mr C. adds that " Sanskrit is not here the usual language con- secrated to religion," wdiich of course it could not be among early Klino; or Telagu and Tamil colonies. Even in 1820 he "found Tri-lingaites [KUvgs) flocking to Java, and Vishnuism the pre- vailing faith of AVestern Java" — although all were then bound to profess Mahamadanism. Mr C. was not, however, well up in Indian faiths, thouo^h he knew that Siva was then called " Bud- haya, the stirrer up of Nature's passion powers ! " He found " every important Hindu deity in Java and Bali, along with the 104 TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAC40 AND ADJACENT STATES. II. '^^- '-^^m'^^. C- rude forms of more ancient faiths . . . often executed in basalt stone, as is so common on the Dravidian coasts. We give here a sketch of the Javan Bud-Idea or Dravidian Bvd-a-Kal as it probably stood alone on a conical hill in the centre of the island, be- fore this Zion was terraced and covered with the gor- geous architecture of Bud- dhists and Hindus, that is till probably about the 6tli century. The lower Hindu terraces were pos- r sibly added on the fall of Buddhism in the 10th Fig. 3.-b()ko bud-ar, as on the original zion. cCUtury ; thougll they may belong to the Kling era which began with our era and continued till the 6th century. Prominent among the sculptur- ings stand the Hindu Trinity, Surya the Sun (here called Suman), Ganesa, Durga, Krdi, and the Planetary deities of Balis, as seen in Rivers of Life, ii. p. 481. It thus appears that the original and most sacred concep- tion of "the Ancient Bud" was to crown a conical hill with that oldest of ideas, viz., an obelisk on an Omphe or ovate-shaped Ddgoha, which Buddhists consequently respected, and repeated in their later terraces as " a Relic Shrine." Javans and all writers insist that the summit Bud-ar or " Cupola, is the prin- cipal and most ancient part" (Ency. Brit.) of the vast struc- tures which, in the course of a millennium — say, 2nd to 12th centuries a.c, covered the whole sacred Zion. We must now, as briefly and popularly as possible, speak of this God-Idea. It is seen in the radicals Bu, Pu, Bo, Fo, &c., more actively expressed in Bud, Puth, Bod, Bhot, &c., which philologically and historically are connected with such wor- ship as that of Hebrews at Baal-Pc-or, or rather '^)^^Z, Pitur. Alike with Turanian, Shemitik, and Aryan peoples, Bu, Bhu, and Pu signify " to blow, breathe, pant, puff, snort, hiss and roar," and causally to " cause to breathe," and hence to create, which was in Akkadian Ba and in Hebrew Bra. Egyptians called 11. OKIGIiXAL BUD-AH FAITH -IDEA-^ITS EOOT. 105 "the begotten one" or "a child," Fu ; and in Aryan we have Pii-er and Put-ra "a boy," from the Sanskrit base Pu or Bhii, " to be " and beget : Bud and Puth being " the base, root, liiig, essence, core, bud or sprout" of anything, psychologically or physiologically. In the Turano-Akkad Ba, we probably have the base of the Indo-Turanian Siva, Bas, Vas, or Basavi ; and of Bhiis-Kar, the "Light giver" necessary to the energizing of all life ; as when the Ale-im or Creating Spirits, brooding over water nnd desiring to crente, said : " Let there be light," for without Bhasavi naught could breathe, cf. the Egyptian Bas or Bast with the Hebrew Basht, which Jeremiah says existed in every street of his holy city, and which we know was the chief •Baal of Western Asia. Violent breathing or roaring is expressed by all races in words with radicals like Bah or Pah (ilt^D), PU-ci, Arabik Fa a or Fu hat; Sanskrit Phe : Lat. Fo-ri ; and from Egypt to Fiuland, Fua or Fu. The bull was Bu, the noisy rampageous form of Siva, and the cow was the milder Gu. The strong u becomes in some dialects a or o, and d = g; hence Bod, Bog, and Bhoga, the " God " of Mongolia, and Indo-Turanian Bhaga- van, the " Almighty " and terrible Creator. The idea, nay, term, is seen in the old Irish Flodh (=Fi-o) and Buh, "crea- tion" ; also in the Phenician Bod or Beda, "the Creator." Pal. Ex. Jour., April 1887. From such basis, said Sir Wm. Jones, Coleman, and other great Orientalists, comes " Budha as a Mercury as well as Wisdom " ; and we still recognise him in our Woden's day, Dies Mercurii and the Hindu Budha-Iswdr. Some Buda-Kal worshipers in Southern India have told us that their deity was " Grace, Religion, and perfect Enlightenment," hence Buddha as the ninth Avatar ! so that from Skandinavia to Java he is confused with the pious sage. We have heard him called " the child and nephew of Siva," and at once a Hermes and Minerva, which the learned Mr Coleman must have also heard, for he writes (Hind. 133): "Minerva was at first a purely phallic deity, and not only the primeval Budh, but at times the bluish green Mercurial god." If we would not lose the continuity of faith-ideas, we 106 TRAXS-IXDIA, I.NDIAN ARCHIPELAGO A^^D ADJACENT STATES. II. must, as Prof. Weber aptly says, "Search hack into 2^hi/,sical eti/mologies," aud trace our spiritual gods down to the early rude Hormaik ones which all races start with, and which Dravidian India worships " under every green tree "' — especi- ally the village sacred tree with its little Bad-a-Kdl. The same idea is grandly au naturel in the national central hiofh cone of Maha-Deva in Gondwana, marked off as "The Jewel India" by a great circle in our map of Ancient India in Rivers of Life, ii. Every nation has had its similar High Hermon or Olumpos. The present symbolisms and strange and often horrible sacrificial rites connected with Central Indian Bud-a-Kals, are carefully detailed by Mr F. Fawcett [Bom. Anth. Jour., i. 261. 82), as there witnessed hj himself betw^een Dharwar and Belary. The sacrificial victims are no longer human, l)ut the rites resemble those of ancient iVzteks and other Mexicans, especially in the eagerness of the worshipers to eat the flesh and drink the l)lood of the victims, and so partake of their virtues. But, of course, there are other kindly and simple worships mixed up with the social life of these people, as propitiations of the spirits of earth and skies, trees, waters, crops and cattle. As we pointed out in Ii. As. J. of Jan. 95, Bud is a Siva or Madra, and no mere tutelary spirit. We have sketched his shrines and symbols, and seen him receiving genuine worship and sacrifices on many parts of the Arakan, Burmese, and Tenasserim coasts. He is the rock-bound God at the dangerous entrance of the Akyab harbor, where he is or was easily recog- nisable as the Bdd-hcll or Bad-a-kal, the Bod or " Bad-stone," common in the villao-es of Southern and Central India, and not rare in Upper and Himalayan India. His shrines and charac- teristics can be seen and studied in the fastnesses of Lower Kailasa and near to Kedar-Nath — a shrine and form of Bhairava the Turanian Bud, or Siva. He has nothino- whatever to do with "The Buddha'' or o pious ascetic (universally worshiped throughout Burma and all adjacent states), though the old god did no doubt greatly facilitate the progress and popularity of the nev; saint amid all II. BUD-ISM— MADRA-ISM ENDING IN 8IVISM. 107 Turanian populations where these \Yere devoid of any etymo- logical knowledge, except that which appealed to their un- educated ears and fancies. AVe have visited nnd carefullv investio-ated the histories and surroundings of several of the Bo-dds, Bad-d-s, or Bud-d-rs — as natives here reverently drawl out the names of these ancient deities or daimons — besides the one on the treach- erous rocks at the entrance of the Akyab harbor, where he represents a guardian as well as destructive spirit. Further down this Arakan coast we had serious experience of another Bod-d-r or Bud on the islet of Chcduba, and were nearly wrecked on a third — the dread spirit at the mouth of the Sandoway river — owing to our Maslim Kaldsls (Chitagongis) falling on their knees to pray, instead of standing by the rudder and halyards in a stiff breeze and seven-knot current, as we swept round his rocky headland. On the Tenasserim coast there are Bud-d-s froia. the moutlis of the Tavoy river to that of Krau ; and near our civil station of Mergui is one often called Mctdrd, another favourite Tamil name for the old Dravidian Siva. There are also inland- mountain Bud-as, as that on the lofty, bold rocky crest of Kaiktyo overlooking the broad delta of the Sitang and Biling rivers, elsewhere alluded to, illustrated and described in Rivers of Life, ii. 314. The various rites and sacrifices of these Bud-d-rs used to recjuire human victims, as noticed by Aral)ian travelers of the ninth century (^Kenaudot, 'p. 88), and not as now only goats, cocks, rice, fruits and liowers. These are still ofiered to the deity by most rude Indian peoples, and by the coast tribes and peasantry of Arakan, Burma, Tenasserim, Siam, Java, Bali, and the Cochin peninsula. This spirit is the Javan B6i\^-B6d-6-r or "Ancient Bod," who existed there Ions; before Buddhist monks reared their beautiful shrine over this, his conical rock. Still around its base and the adjoining hills, well-named Proho- lingo, stand many of his symbolic Men-hirs, as the Histoi'ies of Crawfurd and Sir S. Raffles show. Usually he was and is a " Wrathful and Terrible One," like to Bhairava, but with also the characteristics of Fors 108 TKANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. Foj'tuna or " Jove of our Fates," the Fur or Fiery God of liigli Proe-neste or Pur-hesti, the guardian Agni of the Volscian capital of Tyr-rheiiian Antium, before the Latium Aryan knew him as lova Virilis, a god of Sortes, Purim, or Lots. There he was enshrined by Turanians, then the rulers of the Western seas on the highest peak of the Alban range, as the La-rs or La (Mongolic for " spirit ") of the vasty deep ; as he to whom their mariners must look, on approaching this low-lying dangerous coast. ^lost Bud or Bod rocks and symbols are marked with the euphemistic "Foot," "Eyes," or circles, as infalHble charms against evil. Hence the Prd-Bat of Siam and similar " Sacred Feet" on the Buds of Akyrd) and Ceylon, and the oval or Yoni charm on Kaiktyo. Chinese sailors have always recognised the Ceylon Peak as the Fo or Bod of Avaloket-Isvara and Kwanyon in the form Po-taraka or Po-Io-yu, which last is also an ancient Turanian name of Parvati, as Brahmari "the Mountain Bee," See Pro- fessor Beale's paper in R.A.S. Journal, XV. iii. July 1883. This divine name, Po-Io-yu, is also given to the sacred temple- crowned cone of Lhasa in Tibet, and to that equally holy and higher prehistoric Zion of Buddhists (really Bod-ists), the snowy apex, or Om of the Szi-chouen range — the high source of the Yancr-tse-Kiang. (See Mr Consul Hosie's report, Chinese Blue- book ii.) The Palhi-dium or Fo of this shrine of Om (a term which partakes of the quintessence of divinity) is also a " tooth " of Bod, Bud, or " Buddha," as his votaries quaintly affirm ; for "it is 20 lbs. weight," and therefore clearly a lingam, like to the Banaras Danda of Bhairava the Turanian Siva, whose name is Ddiiton or " tooth-like one." He has indeed many canine or hybodont symbols ; we know of two in Western and two in Eastern India including Ceylon, evidently pre-Buddhistic, like the numerous Bod charms or "little teeth" which Lingaites have worn upon their persons from prehistoric times.* The Fo-OM mountain-temples have not yet lost the characteristics of their Nature-worship, though most have been rel)uilt under the Ming dynasty— at heart more truly Shinto- '■'■ See p. 25, on Teeth lingams noticed by Hwen Tsang. II. PUR, PO-LO-YCT, FO-OM AND OTHER HILL LARS. 09 ists than Buddhists. Of course the numerous monks call them- selves Buddhists, or rather Fo-ists, which, if we go back to the radical ancient meaning of Fo, would signify a Bod-ist ; for a B'6 or Fo was "a tree, stick, rod, sprout or cone," and a Ruler, as the bearer of the Rod. Thus the Ddr-ji or Sacred Sceptre of Tibet, the analogue of the Dandpan (Siva's Danda), is there termed Fo, Bo, Po, La or Lha, at once a spirit, god, stick or mace, from which the Dalai Lama claims direct descent, as others do from Adam — a term the Indian Maslam applies to the temple Buds as symbols of Mahadeva. The Lidian colonists of Java, Tchampa and Co- Tcheno' also called tlieir o-ods or Buds, P6. " Mv Lady " of their capital was always addressed as Po-Nagara, and this many centuries before they knew of Buddhism. The pre-Grecian Kronos—a far traveled and no doubt Turanian God, had also a Dor-ji or So/jt described as "a magical club, rod and lance." In the Tibetan Himalaya Bo-t, Fo-t, Bhot or Bud, is radically a Llici or La ; hence the country of Bhut-ia or Bhut-dn means, says Dr Waddell in his "Tibetan Names," "the end of Bud or Pot," that is Tu-het or Tu-pot, or "land" Ijar excellence of Buds or spirits, usually written Bliuts ; but the radical is Bhu, " that which springs up, becomes, the creat- ing cause and Siva." P often takes the place of B and Bo stands for Bod and Bitda, as in the case of the sacred Plpal tree which Siamese call the Ton-po. The Creator's symbols are represented as in figs. 4,5. Mon- golians call them 0-Bo-s, Bogs or Bhogs — Russian terms foi- gods or spirits, which in Skandinavia become Bil-s and Buds, as his coarser symbols found in the rock-bound Haugs of Fig. 4. — the TIBETO-BUD-IST HERME^^, mo.M Hie. no TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. Norway are termed ; see the collections in the Bergen Museum learnedly but erroneously discussed by the late director, Pro- fessor Holmhoe, iu his T'races de Budhisme en Norwege. This writer too has made the usual mistake of confoundino; the old Nature-god and "spirit of the elements" with the pious ascetic of Bikl-a-Gayd — see de- tails and illustration in Rivers of Life, ii. 409 et seq. Fig. 5.— -mongolian bo, o-bo, axd bud. Ancicut Sabcau sailors called Lanka's peak the Al-mcdcar ; Buddhists, the lord Saindnto Kuto, which Hindus, however, say signifies "the thorn of Kama " as Samanta, "the destroyer of peace" — a form of Siva, Indra, Sakra or Bliogi, in which gi or ji is an honorary affix. The indenture on the Kuta is a Sri-Pad or " The Ineffable Foot, Eay, or shaft," says Fergusson ; and the whole great cone is, or was, in the language of the masses, a Bud, Bod, or MadrCl — that familiar and kindly name which Tamils have ever applied to village Bdd-d-kdls or " Bad-stones" as emblems of Madrfi or Siva's great son and cdter ego. These are common throughout Tel-lingdna and Southern and Central India, where Mr Fawcett found them as abundant in 1890 as Ave did some forty years earlier. He describes them, their worship, and some of their cruel rites and sacrifices in Bom. Andirop. Soc. Journ. of September 1890 ; but so little is the cult understood, that even the learned Bishop Caldwell often calls it Devil-ivorsliip, confusing it with that of Bhuts. And, truly. Bods or Buds do naturally tend to become these malevolent spirits of earth and air, trees, etc., as did Devas to become de^dls ; the high gods or Ndths of Hindus to be the Nats or Fayes of Trans-India, and as does the Mongolian and Russian Bhag or Bog, to become the Bogi of our nurseries. He is a very real and ancient god, none other than tlie original of IT. BUDS OF EUROPE AND ASIA THEIR MODES OF WORSHIP. Ill Bhaga-vat or Bliaga-vd, " The Supreme," " the God of Life and of all Spirits," for " vCi is the elemental spirit by which all exists, and which exists in all that lives," according to the Vishnu Purana, vi. 5. The geological centre of a land is commonly its tlicological Olumpos ; thus the high " centre of the Jewel-India," is the Bud or Mahadeva of Gondwana, as is "Adam's peak" that of Ceylon ; China has its Olumpos in the snowy heights of or Om ; Trojans their Ilium and their Ida. The high deity is the spirit of life and destruction — the spirit of the storm, of the rock-bound coast, of the dangerous defile, dark forest, weird mountain, and angry fiood ; and must be layed or propitiated at the most dreaded spots, whether the traveler or sailor be Buddhist, Hindu, or Maslam, Not infrequently have we thrown to him a rupee, or subscribed for cock or goat, at the solicitation of our motlev followino; of Burmans, Tamils, Telingas, etc., beseeching his god ship to let us pa.ss scatheless through his angry seas and river-torrents. Sir Walter Scott recognizes the same spirit in his well-known lines addressed to a terrified old abbot when crossing a dano-erous ford — " Under you rock the Eddies sleep Calm and silent, dark and deep, Look, Father, look, and you'll laugh to see How he gapes and stares with his eyes on thee." Many gods are styled Bhut-Isvars or Spirit-lords. We have seen Indra worshiped by Dravids at the Pongal Christmas festival, as Bog or Bhogi, when he rej)resents the sun rising from his wintry entombment. It was probably at this fete that the Arabian travelers of the ninth century saw " girls being devoted to Bod,'' as Renaudot wrote in 1733; and the rite still continues in the j an gals of Central India, wherever our magistrates are not numerous or vimlant enough. Strictly speaking, Mddrci was a son of the Dravidian Siva ; but Tamils fondly identify father and son, and call their boys and girls Madrd and Mddrl. The name is very common from Mddrd-patan (our "town of Madras, not Madras") and 112 TUANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. eastwards to Burma aud Java. On the Mergui coast the god's " al)odes " are inditierently called Bud-d-r Makcmis aod '' Madrd MakCims." The Madras were a very ancient and important people, ruling; lono- before Aryan times, from Sakala on the Du-dhs of the Biyas aud Chinab, still called Mddrd-des. They were serpent-worshipers or Ndga-ists and Tdkas, (a cult they never forsook in Dravidia, Ceylon, or Trans-India,) as the beautiful sculptures of Boro-Bud-or and the Ndg-on Vdt or " Naga Monastery" of Cam-bod-ia attest. In moving from N.W. India they gave their name to many towns, rivers, and shrines, from probably Mdt.kura to the Vindhyas, Madura and Mddnt- ■patan: See further details in Mr J. F. Hewitt's invaluable re- searches in R.A.S. Journals of 1889-90. We would not have here said so much regarding these old- world names and the conception of this all-pervading spirit of the universe, but that as Bog, Bod, and Bud, he seems to confuse archseolooists from Skandinavia and Britain to India and China, and so vitiate many valuable papers and researches. The old god is not seen by those who only visit the town and city temples of great gods like Vishnu, Siva, Indra, and other Bhagavatas, nor indeed, if we search only in the chief shrines of villages ; for he is not now favoured, at least outwardly, by Pandits, Brahmans, or even local Parahits or Pujaris, but will usually be found by those who know him lurking in some quiet nook close 1)y. His holy place is the family niche or Deva takht in hut or Immble cottage ; and there old and young- cleanse, decorate and worship him every morn and eve. In native states he is more prominent, and may be seen in corn- fields, a cool corner of the cottage garden or bye-path, to house, door or well, where the pious, and especially women and children, may be seen sweeping and beflowering his modest hypsethral shrines. He may be only " the smooth stone of the stream" to which Isaiah says (Ivii. 6) his people gave meat and drink offerings, or the Bast or Bashath D'^l, the Phenician Set, or Ba'l Barith, or Latin Jupiter Fcederis as in Jeremiah xi. 13 and Judges viii. ; but he is still the Bud or Bod dearest of all gods to the hearts of the peasants of Southern and Central India. ii. malavs, malabars, mal-dives, malagasis. 113 Malas ur Malays. This is by far the most important race not only in the Indian seas, but from Africa to Polynesia. From unknown times they have been enterprizing seafarers and colonizers in most eastern ports and coasts. They have thronged East Africa above 1000 years, and have even a colony at the Cape of Good Hope. They traded everywhere throughout Madagascar — their Mala-gasa, and the Mala-dvipas or Maldives. They colonized 500 miles of the West Coast of India, still known as Mala-bar ; the great islands of Sumatra and adjoining mainland known as the Malaka Peninsula, extending over some 700 miles ; all the large island kingdoms of Java, Celebes and their dependencies and the eponymous extensive Molucca group. Their ancient history and general character partake of that of Pelasgi, Leleges, Phenicians, and Venetians. The ocean and its littorals they looked upon as very much their dominions, and for some two millenniums they have been the carriers of nations on the Eastern seas. Their principal divisions in the Eastern Archipelago which they call their Tana-Malayu or " Mrda-land," are — 1st. The Oyang-Mcdayit or leading trading and cultured class. 2nd. Do. -Benua and 0-Gunung ; " Men of the plains and hills." 3rd. Do. -Lciut or Men of the sea. 4th, Do. -Utan do. Jano-al. o To trace their origin w^e must here digress from trans- Indian story to that of most Ancient India, which we trust to make clear and interesting by aid of the annexed map which appeared in R. As. J. of Ap. '89, and in Mr Hewitt's Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times. He kindly permitted us to coj)y his map, and w^e have added thereto many names illustrating our subject. To his writings and researches in abstruse Sanskrit literature we are also indebted for confirmation of much early pre-Aryan Indian history which, though long previously sus- pected and hinted at in Rivers of Life, we did not advance when writing that work, not having then sufficient evidence to do so. H 114 TKANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. IL We are uow conviDced that Malays are part of that early Mongol influx of Mcdas or Manas, who are so prominent in ancient Indian history and tradition, as Miigs, Moghs, Munds, Maghs, ]\[ons, Mans, Kols, Kasis, or the Kosis of Kosala, after whom India was primarily called Kolaria. One large body of these entered India through the high passes of the principal rivers of Oudh, in the highlands of ancient Kosala, where the sacred Sravasti and Malini ("river of Malas"), the Iravati and Sclrayu, Ghagra or Gogra of Lucknow break through and in- tersect the Hima-Malayaii chain. The sources of these rivers are close to the Elysium of many Indian races — a sacred tradi- tional gathering ground around the holy lakes oi Mayia-saravar, said to symbolize the bounteous Vishnu. Colonizers from this high Asian valley would, in settling on the plains of India, be first naturally called after their Indian chief center, hence the Kosis of Kosala ; the Kasis of Banaras, the Sakyas of Sclketa, &c. All, as Mr Hewitt shows, were Kolarian Mallas, Muns, Mous, or Mans, which last name may have followed them from the Mana-SaQ'avar, a lake of Manas ; though this, like the Mal-iui (river), may have been called after them. Undoubtedly Indians, especially in unlettered ages, would first know them as Mdlayas, because issuing from " the mountains," the Hima-Malas, or Himalayas, or snow-hills, for though Alya is "place or abode," m is a strange movable letter, and MCda and Mtde are common wide-spread words for hills throuo-hout India. But it is not here necessary, or even of much consequence, to lay any stress on the etymologies of these vastly ancient race-names ; enough that they are facts lying at the base of all the ancient history of Indian and trans-Indian states and races. After reaching the Ganges near Kasi or Kosi (Banaras) and Patna, the Malas came to be called Maghs and ]\Iughs, as in the Mugh-Kalingce, and Empire of Magadhas of Greek times. They settled as Munds, Mans, and Kols over the highlands of the Da-'munda, or "River of Munds," and from them did Baugal, or " land of Bangas," obtain the name of Mundaka, as in the Ramayana and Niisik cave inscriptions. It was their Karna- Suvania — " Holy or Golden-land " ; and Pliny spoke of them II. CENTKAL NORTHERN INDIA COLONIZED THROUGH KOSALA. 115 as the Munda-loi, or Mon-edcs, strictly Kolarian terms like Mod, Man, Mai, and Mavellyer. Here, as Muf/Jw-Kcd-lingce, they established their ever sacred Mountain shrine — " The Mund-ar " of their Turanian Siva or KCda, the Mons Mcdleus of Ptolemy (IGO a.c), and the Paris-iidth of later Hindus, and of all Turanian Bangds, or " Bengalis." The first northern kingdom — a Confederacy — embraced Rohilkand (with apparently holy Sravasti as the capital), Bahar and the country around Banaras, in all 400 by 150 miles of the richest states of Hindostan. Out of this arose the Vajjian, or Vrijian Confederacy, with Kusa Nagar as the capital, and here Buddha died in the most sacred of Mala groves, and within which was the holy Mut, or "Stone of Judgment" of the Mala chiefs. Buddha and his followers had many Malayan characteristics, as in the grove and serpent worship of all Kolarian peoples. In Buddha's time the King of Banaras, Prasenajit, married Mallika, a Mali maiden, and Maha-namo, a daughter of the Sakya (Saket) Raja ruling Kosala, of Avhich Prasenajit was suzerain lord. The nine Vajian tribes confederated, Turanian fashion, with the nine tribes of the Dravidian Likchavi (S. BJcs. E. xxii. 26G) before the time of Alexander, indeed at this period they were a powerful confederated State, maintaining their independence in spite of the northern Kosalias, the Magadha Sakyas and the Muo-hu Kal-lino-se. The Leao;ue became a Vidaha State, with holy Vaisala as a capital overlooking the rising imperial city of Patali-putra (Patna), which eventually absorbed it. Mr Hewitt's researches show that Vajians were thorougldy Kolarian in race, social and communal customs, religion and government ; and none more competent to here speak, than the successor of Colonel Dalton as Commissioner or Governor of Bengal Kolaria. Another Mala colony from the sacred Turanian gathering ground — Mana-Saravar- — seems to have entered the Panjalj by the Valley of the Satlej, called by them as in Oudh, the Scirdyu ; and here also they have a Papti and Iravati, or Purushni, showing an intimacy with their brethren on the Mal-ini or Sarju. The Satlej is said to take the overflow of the Mana-Saravar, and would lead the colonists into the lands of the IIG TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. Tugras or Trujartns^ a powerful Dravidian tribe known in tlie Rig Vecla as Nagas, or " Sons of the Serpent ; " also into Madrci- desa, or "land of Madras," a people who, like Mfdas, gradually worked south to Dravidian Madura, and jMadra-patuam, the Tamil name of the Driivid capital, Madras. The Panjab Malis very early concentrated around Multau, the junction of the " Five Rivers " — their Mrda-tana — and from here they ruled all the Lower Panj;lb and Upper Sind under the name of Ydna or Yavana Malis. This must have been long before the reign of Darius I., for his General, Scylax, in 509 B.C., here drove on the Kdsyapas — a Gandhdri people wlio had descended from beyond Trdva-desa. Multiin was then — early in the sixth century B.C. — known as Kasyaka-pur or Sun town, the Kdspa-puros of Herodotos, who calls it the capital of the Fdktues — our Afghans. But the Kaspa remind us of Caspiana, from which so many Turanian Dravids, and afterwards Aryan peoples came to N.W. India. The J\Ialia-bharata notices both Northern and Southern Malis in the ftir back ages of Bharata-varsha. The Southern are termed Yavanas and Serpent worshipers or Nishadhas, and they centered around Mala-tana and the very sacred shrine of Vinasana, where the ever holy Sarasvati becomes subteranean in the desert sands. All this portion of India was then ruled by Ahi-l'shtras, or " Serpent Warriors," Kurus, Nishadhas, or Nahushas, distinguished as " The Seven Snake Kings." Aryans said that " the sacred Naga" — that is, " snake worship," came to their northern Brahmans through southern Mdlayas " — a term long applied to the western Ghats about Bombay (see the Ophiolatrous rites and sacrifices described in the Maha-bharata, also by Mr Hewitt in R. As. J. Ap. '89, p. 253 et seq. Note also that ancient Delhi was Nagapur long before it was Indra- prastha, and that Alexander was chiefly opposed by Ophiolat- rous Mrdas, Nishiidas or Nahushas leagued with Kathse, Khati- avars and Kosis ; that in those days all southwards was Mali-land or Mrd-wa, even to the Narl^ada, their Ndr-Munda or " River of Munds," and beyond it still was Mala rashtra, the Avanti of Uj-jains, the holy city of Malw^a and of Jains. It would be digressing too much from our subject to here II. MALA COLONIZERS UNDER VARIOUS NAMES. 117 trace Malas throughout India, though Malayan names make this easy. Clearly the Panjfib Millas passed over all Rajputilna and largely settled along the sea-coasts of Saur-rashtra our Katch and Gujarat. We have often lingered by and sketched the ruins of one of their eastern capitals at Mund-or or Mand-ur in the Jodh-pur — once Mur-ivdr state of Rajputana, where Royal Mdhtores had ruled, claiming descent from the very ancient and revered shrine of the Mcdi-nCitha or Siva of Jasol, on the Luni river which divides Mar-war (pro- bably MCdi-iDdr), from the large State of Mdldni bordering on the Rann of Katch, a great inland sea and really a portion of the Arabian Ocean. These Rahtores no doubt became the ruling, "powerful" or " great " Mahd-Rdhtas or Mahrattas of the Bombay highlands, and Mahcl-rashta. They repelled in our seventeenth century the forces of the Great Mughal, and even threatened to sweep the British out of Calcutta, as our " Mahratta Ditch " still bears witness to. Another branch of Milla Rajputs are said to have founded and long ruled South Panchala from Kanoj ; and Rajput chiefs have assured us their traditions and histories agree, that from Kosala to the Ganges many kingdoms of Sakyas were once theirs. On reaching the Saur-rashta sea-board in Gujarat, the Malas found their true vocation on the great inland seas and then the ocean, and finally annexed as their own all the littoral of Western India, which for 500 miles we still call 3Iala-bar or " Mala-land." Gradually they overflowed to the Maldives or Mdla dvipas and Mala-gasa, where the rulers still bear this old Mala name of Yonas or Yovas or Hovas — that is, Yavanas or "Foreign" Princes. Mr J. Barras in his Decades, and M. Flacourt in his Hist. MadacjfMccir, state that the Malays of the Indian Archipelago had from prehistoric times, free inter- course with the Malagasis, " certainly for 2000 years." They are described as a widely trading and enterprising sea-faring people, who, ages ago, had found their way to the Persian and Arabian coasts, which of course were freely navigated by Gujerati Mrdas long before Alexander took his fleet from the mouth of the Indus to Babylon. 118 TRANS-EXDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. There were here considerable movements in 510 B.C., when the Persian army of Darius I. seized the Panjalj and navigated the Indus, nor relaxed hold thereon till the fall of the Empire at Arbela in 327, when Greeks seized all, and greatly extended the Jndo- Aryan possessions. The wealth of India was proverbial in the west during all the 4tli and 5th centuries B.C., and the Yona or Yavana Mfdas were then the most prominent Indian people, as Alexander found to his cost. They carried on a lucrative coastino; trade from the delta of the Indus into all the ports of the Persian or Eruthrian Sea, as it was also called ; and it was their mariners who enabled the Greek army to embark on the Indus and sail therefrom. Mrdas were specially fond of liill gods, and there are many legends of these, beginning with the first Indian Meru or " high Kailasa," the heaven of Sivaites, the first great mountain (deity) of India which they would see as they tracked down the Satlej from their Manasa lake. Kailasa was thought to be Mund-cm, a northern Meru, the waters of which fed the sacred lake. According^ to the Vishnu Purfina the ocean fell on this Meru and coursing down it, and four times round it, formed the four rivers of Paradise, feedino; the four sacred lakes of this Eastern Eden. It was believed that both the Sarayus, the Satlej, and the Sravasti, feeders of the Ganges, as well as Great Ganga itself issued from the Mana-sarvar lakes — legendary tales no doubt of Malas as they wended their way through the Hima-Mfdayas. Sir S. Raftles in his Java (i. 191) notices many marks of intercourse between Java and Malao-asa ; he savs the latter " was ruled by Mfdays from our early centuries," and that there is a great conformity in the languages of the rulers of the two islands and in official terms, showins; that India is the source of both. The first ruling class were knowm as Sakfdavas, and we have elsewhere shown that a great body of Malas from " Dcsa San- grda," (Panjclb) went to Java about 150 to 200 a.c. The French have of late been necessarily looking closely into the ethnology of Malagasis, and M. Haray, in the Rev. Scientijique of Sept. 1895, tells us that "the Sakalavas or first Indo-colonizers, are still markedly Indo-nesian, though less so than the Anti-merina or Hovas," of whom there are about 11. MALA rOWER ON INDUS HOVAS = YOVA MALAS. 119 one million. These gradually moved some two centuries ago from their landing places to the central highlands, whilst the Sakalavas remain all alono- the northern and east coasts. The ordinary Malagasis, adds M. Hamy, "resemble the Malay of the Indo-Archipelago . . . physically, intellectually and morally. . . . Almost without exception their dialects are like those of the Sumatra Bataks ; . . . they dress like the Indo-Malays, wear their hair in the same fluffy tresses, and have the same household utensils, musical instruments, &c. . . . The higher Hova [Yova or "Foreign") nobility have all the characteristics of the pure Malay," but as they immigrated without their wives, and mixed freely with all islanders, the type of the lower classes is much obscured. During our 8rd and 4th centuries the Eastern branch of the Chalukian Malas were conquering and settling down over all the old Andhra kingdom, now called Tel-linga-ana. They seem to have left the Gangetik watersheds by the Da-munda river and Mugho-kal-linga, and to have established a kingdom stretching from Orisa to over all the Krishna delta ; whilst their brethren, the Western Chalukians — often called Cholas, or Chaeras, or Keras, were also passing south from Mala-wa by the Nar- Munda, where, as Jainas, Buddhists, Siavas, and Nagaists, they had constructed two to three centuries B.C., the beautiful hill and cave shrines of El-ura, Ajanta, and others. They probably founded the Rata states which rose to be a kingdom of Maha- Ratas, and long settled about Bijia or Vijia Nagar. A portion of them established states down along the Mala-bar coast, and finally ousted Palavas from central Dravidia, as these had ousted Pandyas, all being congenital Turanian peoples. It is not clear whether the Eastern or Western Malas seized the very ancient East Coast capital of Md-Bcdi-pur, our " Seven Pagodas." This lies thirty -five miles south of 3fc(dra-patana7n, or " town of Madras," a people who had also come from the far off" Panjab State of Madra-desd. All good authorities, includ- ing Mr James Fergusson, agree that there is an unmistakable similarity in the architecture and faith of El-ur and Ma-Velipur, or Ma-Malli-pur, as the old site came to be named on its occupation by Malas, see the Madras Government Historical 120 TRA]SS-1NDIA, INDIAN AECHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. IT. Papers of 1869. There seems, thus, no doubt that it was the Western builders of El-ura who here carved out the w^ondrous monolithik temples and caves in the intractable granitik basalt of this east coast promontory, especially the Tiger Cave, and one or two Jaina-like shrines of the fourth or fifth century a.C. Mr Fergusson says these cannot be put back later than our fifth or sixth centuries, and he calls attention to the strange " long apses similar to the temples sculptured at Bharahut, which cannot be later than the second century B.C." Eastern Arch. i. The builders of Ma-Mallapur were great Nagaists, a faith common to India and Ceylon. There is a bas-relief on a rock 90 feet long and 40 deep, entirely devoted to Ndga ivorship, which at once connects the temple faith and artificers with the ancient serpent-clad temple corridors of the Ndga-Vdt of Cambodia, a name which seems to show the race came from Camhod—a cradle of Naga-ism on the Indus. The history of Md-BCdi-pur stretches back into the mythical times of the Vth Hindu Avatar when Vishnu was a contempt- ible Vdhmana or Manikin, beseechino- favors from the great Turanian Balis then ruling South India from Miila-pur, one of the capitals of Ban Asuras. Even in the later mythical period of the quasi Aryan Krishna, the Ylllth Avatar, this too eagerly adopted non- Aryan, did not succeed in lopping off" all the arms, i.e., states of the Bali monarch, for truly there never has been any real Aryan domination in India beyond a portion of the Gan- 2;etic vallev,^ where Arvans have but acted on, and been reacted upou by Turano-Dravids, Bangas Maghs, Malas, Magadhas, &c. From the Malabar and Chola Mandel coasts, Turanian colonies pushed seawards as well as landwards, and many have ever since clung to a seafaring life, as in the coast tribes of India and the Malays of Trans-India, where one can easily trace them by innumerable Indian names, and the northerns as a whole, as K'lings, i.e., Kal-lingce. They carried on the faith and symbolisms of the ancient Andhras — those "hateful Sisna- devaites " of the Kig Veda, and adopted as their chief shrines three of the twelve celebrated Lingams of India, and hence their name the Tri-lingce. ^ This Aryan question will form a separate jDaper. II. MALA-PUE, NAGA, BAAL AND KRISHNA CULTS. 121 A large body of the northern Kosalians, with Bangrd Kols, passed into Central India or Gond-imna, which was anciently known as Mahd-Kosala — a word synonymous with Gond. Mr Hewitt identifies the people with Haihayas, the serpent, tree, and ' phallic worshipers of Upper India, whose cults they have perfervidly maintained. Usually, however, on the plains and more civilized parts of India, when Mrdas entered the states of powerful Turanian rulers, they became Dravid- ianized, and adopted the social and agricultural customs of the new state — here, probably, thinks Mr Hewitt, about the beginning of our era, when also they would become somewhat Aryanized, at least in Hindostan proper. In the Panjab they early became solarists, for long before the arrival of Aryans, they called the sun the supreme Sri- JBonga, and at Mult^ln, or Mala- tana, they had a glorious golden temple to him, which was known to the Ads (Hindu Adityas ?) and Sabas of Sabean Arabia. It was traditionally founded by Samha, son of their quasi Krishna — their dark demi-god, for AW^/wia = " dark " or bluey-black ; and this is the color of his lingam as still worshiped by Mtllas, Dravidians, and lastly, Aryans, who named the Multan sun-god Mitra Vdiia. Krishna w\as, they said, here cured of leprosy (Aryanized ?), on which account was built the shrine to Mitra, or Sri-Bonga. From here he went to Dvarka, the Dvara or " gate " of India, on the coast of Katch, and from this came to Multan; but Aryans made their Krishna an Apollo, whose sun finally set on this far west point of the great continent. He is said to have died there, and, like similar deities, from an accidental wound on the " Heel,'' where the arrow of a huntsman struck him, recalling to us the death of Achilleus, Hephaistos, and others. The Heel is, of course, like the Foot and Hand, often a euphemism for the virilities, as in Gen. iii. 15, Jer. xiii. 22, and Nahum iii. 5 ; so that this death of the Indian Apollo-Sun is similar to that of the solar Bull by the bite of the wintry skorpion, illustrated in Rivers of Life, i. 461. Krishna is still the favorite solar-phallic deity from Mala- tana and Mathura to all over Rajputana and south to the Nar-munda ; and strange rites take place before his dark 122 TRANS-INDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. 11. emblems, especially among Vallabha - cliarayas — those pious libertines best known as " Bombay Maharajas," who still maintain the jus primce noctis, once so common in Europe and even among Keltik peoples. The ]\Irilayan cultus was markedly arborial and rever- ential to the spirits of groves, forests and jangals. Ever and again, in an apparently untrodden thick jangal, one comes suddenly on a cleared bright green sward, surrounding, or in front of a primeval natural clump of trees, like to a Kolarian Surna, dedicated to the spirit of the woods, hills, and streams, with possibly some huge, grotesque figures, such as are seen under the sacred banian in Rivers of Life, i. 31-72. The race believed, as did Italians and many western peoples, that their gods lived in all the oljjects of nature, and that originally mankind sprang from trees. The great ancestral god of Malas was a But or Bud, Vasu or Basu-deva, whom x^ryans adojDted ; he was somewhat like the Hebrew Basath and Egyptian Bas of Bubastes, of whom traders on the two Eruthrean seas would readily hear much, like the early Aryans of the Rig Veda, these Turanians ofiered human victims to their gods, especially to Sri-Bonga the Earth mother, and children to Kali and Basavi ; and only after pro- lono-ed eftbrt and at m-eat cost did the British Government manao-e to suppress the Meriah or human sacrifices of their Kolarian brethren. Professor Oldenberg, in his Rel. Vedeque, p. 364, shows that this had also among Aryans the high sanction of the Rig Veda. (See R. As. J., Oct. 1895.) The Malays of Trans-India. Having established the early position and faith character- istics of Indian Malas, let us turn brieHy to their colonies in and beyond the Indian Archipelago, where they formed the most numerous and enterprising portion of the population. They evidently long traded with and settled in New Zealand, Australasia, and furthest Polynesia, where their language is recognised as " Malayan Polynesian " (Rost and Keane in Eney. Brit.). Ptolemy notices them in 130-40 a.c. as the Te-Mdlce, II. MALAY CULT, AND WIDE COLONIZATION IN AMERICA. 123 which, as they traded in tin, gave them among ignorant sailors in later times the sobriquet of Tin-Mdlas ! \mt Te = Ten, '■'land," in Malay, and the name merely distinguishes the land- miners from the marine traders. For the most part, Malays liked a roving piratical life with safe ports on all coasts as refuges when seriously pressed. They early annexed the Malaka penin- sula, and about 1160 made Singapur their capital, from whence they preyed on all commerce till the Javan king of Maja-pahit drove out their Raja, Sri-sin-Derga, who fled to Malaka, and there established a strono; Malav state. His name, Sinojh Durga, denotes a Panjab ancestry. The languages along the Australasian coasts tell alike by vocabulary and numerals, that Malays must have here and there settled, or Iouq^ and intimately traded ; and who but these clever Dravidian builders of Ma-MCda-jnira, could have reared the beautiful and massive cut stone structures of Easter isle off the coast of Peru ? This they would easily reach, stepping as we see they did from isle to isle of the Polynesian groups ; in this way also they must have reached the Californian coast, where we find the language of the Pimas to contain 15 per cent, of Malay w^ords. AYe may therefore believe that the ''Red Indians'' of North America, and the Ink a Solarists of Peru were of Malay extraction. Hence the " Serpent Mounds " of Ohio — the shrines and symbols doubtless of inveterate Ophiolaters like the subter- anean Pueblo dwellers, who were probably the descendants of those small dark Dravidian Mfda-hdrls who still favor this lowest type of Indian cults. The true Malay would be the con- structor of those great pyramidal terraced shrines of North America, with surmounting temples like the Boro-Biid-7- of Java ; whilst the exquisitely elaborated temples found buried in the prairie forests of Mexiko and Yukutan, covered with delicate tracery and hieroglyfs carved on the most intractable stone and constructed with the greatest skill, assure us that the builders must have been those of Mala-wa, the cave temples of El-ura and Kanheri, of Ma-Mala-pur and the Kambodian forests. The American shrines abound with Indian religious symbolisms ; the Svastilri cross, Hindu and Buddhist Tri-sul or Fleur de lis, arborial, solar, phallic and serpent symbols. 124 TRANS-IXDIA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. The ethnik and anthropological difficulties are also con- firmatory of our theory. We see in the present American how much "the New World" has changed the European in even 150 years. Though sj^rung from Kelt, Frank, Teuton and Saxon, there is no mistaking a citizen of the United States whose ancestors left Europe some 100 years ago. But we may not enlarge on this most interesting enquiry — here broached we l)elieve for the first time. In 1276 all coasting and sea-faring Malays may be said to have embraced Islam, although till the 15tli or 16th century they knew little about it, but, as a rule, more than their settled inland brethren, some of whom, said Mr Crawfurd, in 1820, "knew not the Prophet's name." That new faiths can but supplement old among the masses who have neither time, inclination, nor abilities to look into details is specially true of ]\Ialays, a careless, happy, tolerant and very superstitious race, easily worked up into fana- tical action regarding the mysterious or anything they do not quite understand. The simplicity and brotherhood of Islam ; its one Prophet and one God, with simple prayer when and where they liked ; no rites, sacrifices or temples, strongly commended Islam to Malays, as it is doing to all Asiatic peoples. Allah was here simply substituted for BrahnicX and Buddha, who had only partially ousted Bud or Mahadeva. There was no necessity in either case to abolish the ancient holy sites ; they were merely re-named, and dedicated to Plrs or saints ! It was argued that these abounded in Arabia and other " Holy lands," with sacred trees, groves, wells, and holy stones — of course holy to Plrs, and not as of old to Priapus. No objection was made to the sacred Sakets or Arks with serpents and charms — "just to please the old folk and especially women," and this was most convenient, as the Malay has a ^vife in every port, not excepting the seaboard of Papuans and sundry negroid races w^hose languages, religions, rites and customs he was well acquainted with, and more or less heartily followed. He has indeed interbred so freely, that in appearance, colour, features, ways and temperament, it becomes sometimes difficult to distinguish the /^K/oMfdayan. II. MALAY WORSHIP, RITES AND SYMBOLISMS. 125 In the middle of this century, if not still, Mfdays were n^/ reality only true to their old animistic, fetish, and sexual cults. In the centre of their houses we see sundry strange pendant charms and deities, some in cages or shrines and small vessels like canoes, called Sakets [cf. Sahuths of Hebrews (Amos v. 26), in which they carried their Kiim and Tsaliin or images], where the gods or spirits dwell, and come and go from, like their maritime worshipers. All these sacred objects avert the evil eye, always a great fear among the islanders. The great object of their religion is to concentrate and appease the spirits which throng the heavens and earth, seas, rivers, trees, rocks, and animals, including men and women, especially those evily disposed. On this account also are erected numerous altars and wayside shrines, where are placed viands, wine, tobacco, &c., to propitiate bad spirits ; and here persons sacrifice, leave ex- votos and murmur prayers, seeking for mercy and lilessings. In special groves and under high umbrageous holy trees are more elaborately built and decorative shrines, and often small ones hung on high branches, from which tiny ladders of cocoa fibre are stretched, to enaljle the spirits to go and come com- fortably, as Jacob saw his AUiin (spirits) doing. These Sakets are believed to be the favourite resting-places of the gods or Nats, and are very uncanny spots to approacli except with prayers and ofi"erings. They represent divinity, though ap- parently empty, and many instances of death are known from hasty approach, as in the case of the Hebrew ark. Malays believe that the souls of men and other creatures leave the body in sleep and at death, but can be attracted back and even captured and replaced by sundry rites executed by priests, wizards, or " wise ones." Sometimes the souls will return if merely whistled, danced, or sung to, or if attractively coloured cloths be waved about by experts. Should this fail, the cloth is fixed on the top of a spear, and over it is placed a sacred image, and the enchanter rushes about madly waving this on high until a priest gives an occult sign, when the spirit lands on the image. A priestess then stealthily approaches and envelopes all in a colored cloth, which she places over the patient's head, when all silently and anxiously await the result. 126 TRAXS-INDIA, INDLAX ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. 11. If be does not recover, all depart, saying the s^t'int has gone away finally to the forefathers, and preparations are made for the burial of the body — an important and solemn rite, especially in modern times. If angry and dangerous Jins often frecpient the shrines and Sakets, they are freely fed and mollified by sacrifices of goats, fowls, pigeons, &c. ; and when the spirits have been thus gathered together, the shrines are very quietly removed, loaded with stones, and suddenly dropped into deep water. Spirits are occasionally seen rowing about in small vessels by themselves when food is at once sent off to them to keep them there. But in great epidemics special boats are gaily garnished, provisioned and pushed out to sea with every imaginable clamour, shouts, and cries : " Go away ghosts to another land " ; and this noise and vociferation is often maintained for a whole day and night, till the spirits can endure it no longer and are supposed to enter tlie boats and sail away ; when men, women, and children, bathe on the shore, and return confident and cheer}' that all clanger is over. Many diseases require special treatment and strange rites, as that a white cock (Siva's emblem) should peck the body of the patient ; and some rites mark a distinct blend- ing of the oldest fetish, solar and nature cults with the latest faiths. CHEONOLOGICAL TABLES The following Chronological Sketch with running commentary, collected and sifted with much labor through the readings of many years, will enable the reader to grasp, in an orderly manner, the true histories of the early Indian and Trans-Indian peoples afore-mentioned. "We have gleaned from very many and some forgotten sources ; from ancient inscriptions on stones, coins, palm leaves, compressed into a kind of papier mache ; from writ- ings of missionaries like father Legrand de la Liraye, the Abbe Launey, the Cochin Chinese Scholar Petrus. T.V. Ky ; the Explorations and Histories of Crawfurd and Sir S. Kaffles ; the travels of M. Garnier and otlier Frenchmen ; the researches of Mr Jas. Fergusson and of our old friend Col Yule, R.E. ; Commandant Aymonier's papers to 9th Oriental Congress, the Rev. de LHist. ReL, &c., &c. B.C. 2357 Chinese records notice " Tong-Quiu " as occupied by " Giao " and other barbarous tribes. 2285 Tonkin becomes a Chinese vassal state and continues so till 257 B.C. 12 Cent. China calls the "Southland." states, Fu-nani or Bo-nam, and says 11 ,, they possess a Fonetik ideographik writing. 10 „ Parsva-nath, 23rd Jaina Tirthankar — vSaint or Bodhist. 776 Celebrated Solar Eclipse. Chinese history well authenticated. 700 Arians or Irans all over Armenia and pressing south, 640-30 Arians and " Skuthi " overrun Western Asia and Indo-Aryans of Panjab move down Ganges organizing their faith. 610-7 Phenicians sail round Afrika. Kineveh destroyed, 607. 599 Jerusalem destroyed and Jews deported. 570 LAOTSZE preaching doctrines like Plato and Mazdeans (604-515). 560 MAHA-VIRA, 24th Jaina "Saint" (598-526). Anaximander. 549 CYRUS conquers Media. Gotama Buddha (557-477). 520-510 CONFUCIUS (551-478). Darius I. seizes Upper Panjab and 128 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES. IL B.C. 520-510 Sindh ; navigates Indus, many states of which is held under Satrapes till Alexander takes them over. 505 India famous for wealth and civilisation. Mention is made of a country of Camboja adjoining Taksila, the capital of Nagaists, see Fergusson's ^Nfap of Buddhists and Jains, p. 4G in liis Hist, of India. From this may come the Cam-l)odia of Siam, "peopled by Camardans and Kheniirs " (M. Mourn) though Cam-hods, as often written, looks like Sam or Slian Bodhists which they certainly were in our early centuries. The colonizers were certain of the great building races of ^liilas who constructed shrines like El-ura, and those in M'l-MaUa-jnrr near ]\Iadras, and now known as " The seven Pagodas." Sravasti was ruled about this time by a king, Pra-senajit of Ivosala, a friend of Gotama Buddha. Some Javan traditions say that up to 4th century B.C. their islands were uninhabited but cared for by Vishnu. 460 Chinese hear of Indian foreigners south of Annam peninsula. 450 Probable date, s^ys Dr Xeubauer, of the Phenician Inscription of Rejang in South Sumatra (i?. Geo. J., June 96, p. 659. Buddiia mentioned in a Zoroastrian Yasht (Haug and Thomas). 400 Ceylon and Trans-India now well known to Phenicians and all dwellers on the Indus and Persian Gulf. Indian coinage known. 331 Alexander conquers Perso-Iranian Empire at Arbela. 328 Alexander claims Darius' Indian states, conquers Upper Panjab, 327 and Mala-tana (^Multiin) and builds a fleet. He is known as Sakander 326 Ilaja Darirb. His General, Ptolemy, saves his life in " an enslaught 325 by ]\irdlas," who are termed "the most valiant of Indian races." 324 Tradition gives him a son, Aristan Shah, by a daughter of Raja Kide. 323 ( )nesikritos (General and Historian) finds that Ceylon, acordiug to Phenician traders at mouth of Indus, is only twenty days sail. Alexander is accompanied by a Bnahman, ^Nlandanus, and a Jaina Bodhist of the naked sect (?) Kalanos, who immolates himself on the route from Indus to Babylon. 315 Chandra-gupta, Emperor of Magadha — a scion of Patala, Sindh. 300 A Javan tradition states that about this time Aristan Shah led to the Archipelago, from N.W. India, 20,000 families, most of whom got dispersed en route ; settling probably in ^lala-bar, ]\Iala-dives, Mala-gasa, &c. 295 Chinese complain of " disturbing Foreigners seizing country south of Giao-chis, Joeuks " or (1) Yunans — that is, Tongkin. 290 Javans say a second Indian invasion took place, but from the Kling coast or Tel-lingfina. It consisted of 20,000 families, who B.C. n. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES. 129 290 established Vishnuism and they were thei-efore HiiuUis flying from Buddhism — now rapidly extending over Ininlia-Linga Isvara ; endows it with lands, slaves, elephants, &c. 1278-80 Kublai-khan's army overruns Annilm and part of Tchampa, and 1281 attempts invasion of Java, which Marco Polo now visits? 1283/5 j\Iongols finally expelled from Annam and Southern States. 1295/7 A Chinese Buddhist traveler describes Cambodia as then " a flourishing Buddhist kingdom " — perhaps mistaking some of its four- faced Brahmas and Hindu gods for forms of Buddha, though Buddhism has possibly revived, see 1357. He says: "The Shdn-lop Court and capital is grand, civilised and extensive, but on the decline." Islam is now preached on all coasts and with great success. 1299 Maja pa,hit is now the rich and powerful capital of Java. 1300 Tchampa so weak as to admit .Vnnam ambassadors to the court of her old King, Jaya Sinha Varman. He marries an Annam princess. IT. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES. 141 A.C. 1304 bestowing on her three provinces. He dies, and Annam ambassador 1306 saves her body from cremation, when the king of Annam demands the dower, and on being refused, he seizes all Tchampa north of 1311-13 Hue, and peace is then accepted. In 1313 Annam defends Tchampa. 1320 Siam leaves her northern capital SokoJaij or Tholco Tai and builds Ayiithia or Aytidhia, called after Rama's ever sacred town and state. There are no inscriptions of the 14th and 15th centuries. 1325 Azteks now settled in Mexiko. 1334 Kamhodia banishes her prime minister's wife, as a witch, to 1346 Java ; probably on account of her Hinduism. 1350 Date of a Cambodian inscription. 1357 Siam begins a long war against Cambodia (as Buddhists'?), and finally "seizes the Capital, Infha-2xdJta" {Indra prasfha). 1358 Siam adorning its capital Ayidliia with beautiful shrines. Por- tuguese call it "the Venice of the East"; Fergusson's drawings [Ind. Arch., 631-5) of its Buddhistik-Sivai-lingaik towers are faithfidly repeated in the Royal Vdt Ghing monastery of Banylcuk. 1360 This period of "fifty years war between Annam and Tchampa," ended in Annam gradually absorbing all the northern states. 1374 Cambodia now a vassal state of Siam. 1376 A brave young Tchampa prince, Chi-Bonynga, springs to power, invades Annam with a large army and fleet ; seizes the capital, slays the king, captures his brother, the heir, who bestows on the Tchampa warrior his daughter, and acknowledges him as king of all the old Tchampa kingdom. 1392 War continued with varying success till the brave Tcham king was treacherously slain and Tchampa declared again a vassal of Annam. 1403 4 Rebellions in Tchampa lead Annam to overrun all its provinces and annex these N. of Binh Dinh ; and but for China the Tchampa kingdom would have been blotted out. Korea prints from copper 1410 types. Civilization and religious ideas pass freely from Mediteraneau to Pacific. 1419 Tibet now ruled by the Dalai Lama. 1428-34 Annams fighting to throw off Chinese SAvay. They send presents to " king J. S. Varman, son of Indra Varman of Brashu race " — per- haps of the Braliui Dravids, who entered India from Babylonia by Makran, where are still some colonies. R. Geog. J., Ap. '96. 1436 Japan trades with Tchampa and south. 1438 Java building many shrines. Boro-Bud-ar being Hinduized, and the Saku group near Mount Lawn extended by Vishnuvas. Their 142 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES. 11. A.C. 1438 Gariulas are prominent, and " tlie arcliitecture," says Fergusson, " extraordinarily like the contemporary edifices of Yukatan. . . . The phallus appears at Suku, but no lingam. . . . Javanese may have got to Easter Isle and onwards." In the next century, the Japanese reached INIexiko, says :Mr Consul Troup {Scot Geog. Mag., Ap. '96), and ]\ralays have been long on the Peru and Californian coasts, see p. 122. 1446 Annam seizes Tchampa capital and king, but restores the city (Binh Dinh) at request of China. 1471 Annam again invades with a great land and marine force, seizes capital and wipes out Tchampa, and creates three principalities, governed by Tchampas under Annam mandarins. 1479 Mahamadans capture Maja-pfddt, last great Hindu capital and dyn. Art ceases in Java, and its fine Hindu and Buddhist buildings fall 1485 into decay. Images and statuary everywhere being destroyed. 1490 Portuguese appear on coast. Eastern Javans, who reject Islam, 1500 fly to Bali, &c. A like fate befalls Tchampas, and those north of Hue 1510 became veritable Annams. Every rebellion is now ruthlessly quenched in blood and only Annam customs, social and political, are recognized 1511 in Hue State. Portuguese establishing ports in Sumatra and Java, 1515 as at Bantam, now ruled by a Hindu Eaja. Dutch and English on coast. South and Central India ruled by Cholas and Chalukyans. 1524-42 Portuguese take Mfdaka. First European, Mendez Pinto, reaches Japan. Tycho Brahe, the Dane, rejecting theories of Copernicus. 1580 Japan uses printing types ; trades with all Easterns. 1595 Dutch getting a port at Bantam. Islam being forced on Celebes. 1602 English port south of Dutch. Japanese records mention Mexiko. 1610 Dutch establish a fortified factory at Bantam. They say that Islam is only professed nominally throughout island, but that Hinduism, 1619 its rites and symbols everywhere obtain. Dutch take Batavia, 1619. 1640 Dutch remove their Java factory to N>ui{/as'l/ie in Japan, and de- 1650 scribe its Hinduism, temples, gods and mythology, all of which are illustrated by M out anus ; see Ogilhy's tram., Lond., 1733. 1665 '9 Dutch being driven from Japan; they finally left 1671. Southern 1670 Tchampas combine, under a brave young prince, against An-nams ; but fail. 1683 English withdraw from Bantam. They abolish slavery in Madras. 1700 The Tchampa kingdom now only extends from about 14° to 12° lat. Capital, Phuyen. The rulers and upper classes profess a mongrel Hinduism. 1750 A great Chinese and Javanese war. II. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES. 14.", A.C. 1782 The Siamese royal capital established at Bangkok. 1800 Tchampa kingdom broken up by Annams. 1805 Slavery abolished in India by Marquis Wellesley. 1811 England annexes Java and other Dutch possessions. 1812 Indo-English law rules throughout Ind. Arehip. ; slavery abolished. 1816 England restores Java to Holland. 1820 The last Tchampa ruler and most Hindus migrate to Cambodia, though some 20,000, of which one-third are jNIaslim, remain about Binh-Thuan under Annam rule. 1850 In Southern Tchampa are 80,000 to 100,000 Tchams, calling them- selves Maslim, but honoring the old gods and rites. In the state of 1870 Binh-Thuan in 1870, among a host of divinities, are two chief gods, P6-Eome and Po-, that is, i^o-Klong-garai — evident forms of Siva or Bud, for beside them still stand two of the old lingams, with faces engraved thereon like Janus and Brahma. Parvati is here as " Our Lady " of the state or city — a true Po-Nagarl or Bliagavatl. Her cliaracter partakes of Lakshmi or Ceres, as a goddess of fields and Hocks, whom the IslamTs call Eve ! The other divinities are termed Moses, Gabriel, Christ, and Mahamad, and are worshiped accordingly. Caste rites still obtain throughout the whole peninsula, especially Cambodia and parts of Siam, where, as already stated, at the mouth of the Menilm stands a Buddhist temple and lingam, named "Boda" or "Budh." Modern Tcliams have a very mixed hierarchy, the leaders being — Bashe — Corresponding to the discarded Brahmans. Pathea — The three high priests of the three great deities or " heroes," TcHAMEi — Priests with care of temples under the Bashe. Padjaos — Inspired priestesses — an evident Buddhist growth — like nuns, sworn to continence, and only accepted when 30 to 40 years old. Some of the leading Padjaos remind us of the Pythoness of Delphi by their prophecying and witchcraft. Kadhar — Temple musicians and leaders of the chantings. All these must be specially selected, and are conse- crated to their offices with elaborate lustral or baptismal rites, in which fire, eggs, corn, &c., are prominent. Goats 144 TRANR-INDTA, INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO & ADJACENT STATES. II and buffalos are baptized with lustral water and sacrificed standing before divine symbols, especially a Lingam or stone pillar, reminding us of crucifixion on trees. The Funeral services consist of seven Padhi-s or Srddhas, and are costly and important. The corpse is first wrapped in cotton cloths and placed for a month in a shed near to the house where all relatives, friends and neighbors come daily to be fed. It is then jDlaced on a litter or hearse, and conveyed to the cemetery by a pro- cession Avhicli moves erratikally and violently, tAvisting and turning so that the spirit may forget its road. On arrival it is ofi"ered a repast — another expensive feast to the quasi mourners — and is burnt with many costly things ; and the by-standers throw into the flames any objects or messages they wish to convey to their dead ones. The bones of the forehead are then collected and put in a metal casket, which is finally buried at the foot of the family grave-stones, a very sacred spot where many rites take place, as when the gods are asked to mitigate sorrows, or are thanked for joys, or asked to remember the seed that is sown, the plouman, the harvest, the home and flocks. According to Aymonier the Cambodians of to-day are more strictly Mahamadan than Tchampas. He at- tributes this to freer contact with Jcavan and Arab propa- gandists. In Rev. Hist, des Rel. this writer says that " though continuing some of the ideas, rites and festivals of the old Khemir civilization, they are worshipers of Allah, who, publicly and privately, perform their Vakton or private orisons in mosks and elsewhere, at the five daily orthodox hours" viz., dawn, noon, 3, 6, and 8 p.m. Their hierarchy consists of 1st, the Mufti, who resides in a village near the capital and rules over all priests alike — Tchame or Malay; 2nd, the Tich-Kalih; 3rd, the Rajah Kalik; 4th, the Tuon-Pake, who are all high dignitaries and reside beside the Mufti. " The court invites all to pray at the royal palace during the national festivals, and at the same tioie the Buddhic bonzes. Both II. PEESENT FAITHS OF CO-TERTIANS AND SHANS. 145 bonzes and ^lussulman dignitaries appear to be of political creation, for the advantage and convenience of royalty. The democratic spirit shown in the obedience to sacred law, very lively in both Buddhism and Islamism, seems not to agree well with the institution of a high sacerdotal hierarchy. Though all these dignitaries enjoy much con- sideration, they yet exercise very restrained powers. "The HaTcem is the head of those who take charge of each mosque ; the Katip are readers or preaching brothers ; the Bilhal, a kind of religious censors, whose business it is to watch for infractions of religious discipline and disobedience to the rules of religious con- duct. They censure on occasion all the faithful, and even the Imaums and the Katip, who are superior to them in the hierarchy. " The members of the eight classes of priests or clerical persons enumerated, are clothed wholly in white — turban, gown and tunic ; they shave the head and body, leaving only a little beard on the chin. " To worship Allah solemnly in the mosque on Friday, requires the presence of forty priests or clerical persons. Then the Djamaah (assembly) is complete. Below this figure, the assembly is not con- stituted, and each person present can only say his individual prayers. During the Djamaah, the Imaums are in the mosque, the laity generally remaining outside. Women seldom come to the Djamaah, though once in a while some old women appear there. After prayers a repast is taken in common. In the small villages which have no mosques, the inhabitants assemble for prayers in a house belonging to them jointly. " These Tchames of Cambodia, notwithstanding the relative purit}'' of their Islamism, practise some of the rites of their pagan ancestry. They worship sometimes in the house the manes of their ancestors. The priests are invited to come and pray, while there is offered to the manes a white, or black, or red chicken, the color of the chicken being traditional in each family. The fowl is afterwards eaten. In certain cases of sickness, they think that they must appease their manes by offering them cakes, black, white, and so on. They still preserve vague traditions and sujDerstitious fears in regard to certain animals, squirrels, snakes, crocodiles, and others, changing according to the families, the members of which respect the animal, not daring to put it to death and even refraining from calling it by name, designating it by some special term, which is generally djanceny—thai is, the officer, the dignitary." The people are even now, says the Times correspond- ent (writing in Jan. 1893 from Pfiompenh, the Capital, situated some 200 miles from the mouth of the Mekong) " strikingly different from the surrounding Mongolian " Tshans or Shans and others. They have full, round eyes, K 146 TRANS-INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO AND ADJACENT STATES. II. round heads, copper or claret colored skins, and coarse, black hair. They are sincere and even now militant Buddhists. The great Master's shrines, images, monks and akolytes crowd the land, and celibate Bonzas teach the whole male population (as in Siam and Burma) in Khyoungs or monas- teries and colleges, which are, continues this correspondent, throughout this peninsula still " thickly interspersed Avith Hindu emblems. Brahman gods are still enshrined on the same altars as Sakya-Muni. Vishnu and Siva are carved upon the tympana, and even the lingam is inside the temple enclosures, . . . We are now face to face with an Oriental monarchy and a subject population of the older model. . . . No love is lost between the Cambojian and An-nam-ite, the former hating and the latter despizing the other. Per contrct, in spite of centuries of warfare, the Cambojian and Siamese easily assimilate and exist on amicable terms." Siams or Shams are, like all others of the yellow Mongolian race, lovers of peace and commerce, of which the present An-naraite knows little. He has, however, benefited by his Indian rulers and constant renewals of fresh blood and energy from his Chinese fatherland, until, after a millenium of war, he has conquered all the peninsula, and at one time up to the Mekong, and even divided the suzerainty of Cambodia with Siam. So matters stood till 1859/61, when France seized Saigon, and in 1874 Tongkin, where outwardly there is now no sign of Indian blood, nor much indeed in Hue and South, which is to-day a semi-independent vassal state. In 1863 the King of Cambodia, Norodom, was conquered, and in 1884 a French administration here organised; but a spirited native rebellion caused its suppression, and in 1886 the king regained his throne, but had to accept a French Protectorate and Resident, who was shortly after made President of the Royal Council. So matters stood till 1898/4, when France annexed all Siamese states E. of the Mekong, and Britain in 1896, for political equivalents, extended this French frontier to China by ceding our Trans-Mekong province of Kian-tung. Article III ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM OR The Irano-Persian Zarathustra and his Faith IN Ahura or Aurhra Mazda, One Supreme God — " Giver of Life and Wisdom " TN our necessarily brief study of this great religion we can -*- but give the leading facts in its rise, growth and decay, which, with a running commentary, will exhibit its true place in the science of Comparative Theologies. Of the great prophet we have little history though much legend, but we know nearly everything concerning the faith he founded, perhaps 1700 to 2000 B.C., for it dominated, though somewhat fitfully, most of Western Asia from about 1500 B.C. till wiped out by Islam in our 7th cent. Neither Judaism nor Christianity affected its sway or attracted its notice. It was in its zenith when Hebrew seers began to write their quasi prophetic books, and also when as captives they were scattered amid its chief centres for nearly 200 years (599-398) without a bible or apparently any scriptures whatever. We do not there- fore wonder at finding the later compilations made by Ezra and his schools in the 4th and 5th cent. B.C. — such as those concerning the genesis of all things, priestly rites, chants and legislation, often close adaptations from the old Iranian Scriptures. None knew these for Zoroastrians were forbidden to teach them to foreigners or to any possible scofters ; so that only a few widely traveled and learned Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christians ever learnt anything about them till a generation or two ago, and then only Europeans who indulged in the widest reading. 148 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. The faith, its rituals, &c., have therefore burst suddenly upon this generation, bent on studying all " the Sacred Books of the East " like a new revelation. Mazdean influence waned under Greek and Roman domina- tion, but ever and again sprang into fresh life, and spread from its centres till it threatened to engulf Europe — this under its great Sasanian Emperors of 240 to 400 a.c. Greeks and Romans acknowledged that the rise of philosophy was largely due to a great Zoroaster — " a deep thinker, enlightened far above men of many subsequent centuries ; pre-eminent in the history of the human intellect. ... A spiritual patriarch to whom we owe so large a portion of our intellectual inherit- ance. . . . We can hardly conceive what human belief would have been had Zoroaster not spoken : " so said Mr Oust, a distinguished Indian administrator and missionary champion, at the Geneva Oriental Congress of 1894. We shall endeavour to divide this short paper on our large subject, into First, a Gerieixd Historical sketch embracing that of tribes and nations more immediately affected by the faith ; Secondly, the Languages in which it appeared ; Thirdly, the Prophet, his history and his own teachings ; Fourthly, the Literature, dogmas, rites and ethiks which will also be poetically summarized in our last " Study," " Short Texts," and chrono- logically in regard to other faiths and creeds ; Fifthly, we give a synchronous chronology of the Irano-Persian and Parthian empires ; and Sixthly, two appendices reviewing Zoroastrian Scriptures in some necessary details as these appear in the Sacred Books of East series. The history of Zoroastrianism or " faith in Ahura-Mazda" — the 'npo-Ma^T79 — Horo-mazes of Greeks, is well authenticated from the 7th century B.C., when it dominated Western Asia from the Mediteranean to Oxus and Indus, and unitedly so under Cyrus, " King of Anzan," or Elam in the middle of the 6th century, and later when as Emperor he ruled the whole western continent. Like all Mazdahau monarchs down to the Sasanian Shahpur 11. of 350 A.c, Cyrus was not only tolerant, but assisted all peoples in the development of their religions ; so much so that p^ III. DIVISIONS OF SUBJECT — RISE OF MAZDAISM. 149 even bigoted Hebrews called him : " The Anointed of Jehovah . . . their Savior . . . shepherd, the one girded by the Elohim to perform His pleasure ... to send up His people ... to rebuild His Holy house," &c. [Isaiah xli.-xlv.). Yet Cyrus was a true servant of "Ahura, The Mazda," and called him "The One, All Creator and Governor of the Universe." He was apparently an agnostik, or like his immediate successors, a pious theist, and from him and his priests Hebrews would learn what one of their teachers wrote about this time: "The Lord our God is one God ; " meaning that Yahvo and Aleim or Elohim was One God — their Creator like to the Ahura Mazda and Allah of the o-reat nations around them. This would help to raise them above the gross nature worship of "high places," trees, stocks, stones, and other phalli and the bashe or "shameful thino;" which Jeremiah about 630 B.C. said thronged their streets and altars (xi. 13). From Baby- lonian Mazdeans they probably got their Satan, Hell, Angels, and Pur si, Par si, or Fire- worshiping Pharisi sects ; and also learnt that true religion consisted not in being a Jew, in pray- ing and sacrificing at one place to any particular God or to man's highest Ideal of Divinity, whether Jehovah, Jove, Elohim, or Aleim, Allah, or Ahura Mazda ; but in doing righteously — the Karma of the Budhist, and the Hmnat, Huklit, and Huvarst, or " Good Thoughts, Good Words, and Good Deeds," of the Zoroastrian. A succession of thoughtful Hebrew priests, living as they did for nearly 200 years continuously in the centre of Mazdean teachings, literature and worshij3, would, especially at this dis- rupted period of the Hebrew faith and nation, eagerly pick up all Avestan lore they could understand and assimilate, and therewith construct or reform their lost Scriptures and Kos- mogonies, so that the Judaical parallelisms with Mazdeanism which will hereafter appear are quite naturally accounted for, and are no mere coincidences. Greeks found Avastan writings most voluminous, even in and about Alexandria. Hermippus is said to have com- mented on " 2,000,000 verses (written with ink of gold on care- fully prepared cow hides ") on every subject connected with 150 . ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM III. religioD, philosophies, history, mimdane and heavenly kosmo- gonies, and the sciences. According to the sacred books and voluminous traditions, Zarathustra delivered to King Vishtasp of the 17th cent. B.C. — his first royal convert — a bible containing 21 nasks or books, written no doubt in Magian — a non -Persian dialect and char- acter. King Vishtasp had two more copies made, but for what city or library we know not. The original was carefully pre- served in the royal " palace-temple " of Persepolis, and was evidently injured by the fire which accidentally embraced the library during the rejoicings of Alexander's Greek army when it seized and sacked the capital in 330 B.C. That the whole was not lost we see from the generally acknowledged fact and universal tradition that no jjcirt of the voluminous Yindidad (summarized in our appendix B) was injured, and the Greeks say they carried off a complete copy of the whole Avasta and translated it ; which we may be sure was true, for Alexander had many savants in his suite for the express purpose of collecting all the literary treasures of the world ; and they knew that Herodotus had listened to the chanting of the Avastan Gathas a century previous. Mazdaism had flourished during all the A;>iaimenide dynasty of Pasargade, and it arose not later than 900 to 890 B.C., cf. S. Bhs. E., IV. i. liii. Asur-ban-i-pal and Haka-mish, the founder of the Pasargadae, were then collecting libraries in their capitals, and we may well allow that their cults were then several cen- turies old, so that even on these grounds Professor Haus; and others cannot be far wrono- in assio-nino- to the Avasta the I7tli o o o cent., and to the prophet some few centuries earlier. All bibles, like their leaders and adherents, have suffered from wars and burnines and been obscured for a time, and none more so than the Hebrew bible. But if Moses' Pentateuch was lost, " a 2nd Moses " — Ezra — " was raised up and inspired to resuscitate it," so what need of contemporary evidence ? It is enough that a good man writes regarding matters which happened several hundred years before he was born ; and so did Moses, Ezra and others, for which we should be and are grateful, but not necessarily believing. We are thankful that III. LOSS OF AVESTA ZAND AND OTHER BIBLES. 151 the power and influence of the royal bibliophile Ptolemy secured a translation into Greek of the " Eoll of the Law " as it existed in the temple of Jerusalem in the 3rd cent. B.C. — torn and tattered, and on badly tanned hides, though it was then said to have been. Bibles, however original, only appear some cen- turies after the promulgation of a faith, and that of the Israelites quite possibly existed some centuries prior to Ezra's Bible, as did Hinduism before the Vedas. The Tdo of Ldotsze was scarcely heard of, if indeed WTitten, till the days of Chuangtszu and Mencius — say 300 years after the death of Laotsze ; and the same way be said of the Buddhist TripitaJca, of which we know little for 200 years after " the Lord's Nirvana." It is not otherwise with the Christian Bible, which was really the work of our 4th cent. — the Gospels only becoming known about 175 a.c, says the learned author of Suj^ernatural Religion. When the Seleukian dyn. arose in 312 B.C., a translation of the Avdstan and Zand (" Commentaries ") was made into Greek, no doubt from the stolen original ; and great efforts continued to be made to discover every fragment of Zoroastrian literature, which was always very precious in the eyes of Greeks, and not less so to Parthians, who were zealous Mazdeans and rose to empire under the great Arsakes — 260 to 220 B.C. He and his successors were keen re-establishers of the faith, and ruled from India to Syria, within which limits the Seleu- kidse were then restricted. The Parthian Bible of about 200 B.C. consisted of 15 nasJcs translated from the kuniform of the Seleukidae, into Pdrthvi or Pdhlvi. The age was alive with bible-making or compiling. Asoka had completed the Bihlia of Buddhism, and the Chinese their Confucian ScrijJtures and Tdo-teh King of Liio-tsze, and the Hebrew subjects of the Ptolemies were then reading the LXX in a language they could understand, for Hebrew was then only known to the learned. About 50 A.c. the pious King Valkasht — the Parthian Arsah's — known to Latins as Vologes, added largely to Mazclean collections, alike from oral tradition and freshly discovered MSS. of which the Dinkart speaks highly. By the close of 152 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. this Pcirtliian dynasty, about 220 a.c, the collection was even said to be complete, but the zealous Tansar and Shapurs of the new Sasanian dynasty were not satisfied, and it remained for them to form and issue an official canon. Tacitus says that Vologeses was the first Persian king who interfered w^ith other nations on religious grounds. He aided the people of Adiabene (a cradle land of the faith), w^hen their King Izates became a Jew, and he refused to initiate Nero into his faith, or to go AVest and be crow^ned by him as king of Armenia ; urging that to sail for days upon the sea defiled the water and the Spirit of the waters. Betw^een 226 and 240 (the establishment of the Sasaaian dynasty), Ardashir Babagan the founder, determined upon a more systematic and wdder research and a codification of his Bible. He called to his aid a prince of the Empire, Tansar or Tosar, who had cast aside all mundane aff'airs, entered the priesthood, and was believed by w^esterns to be a kind of Platonist. A letter of his of the 3rd cent. a.c. still exists, to the king of Taber-istan, w^hich w^as translated into Arabik in 762, by Ibnal Mukilfa, and into Persian in 1210. There Tansar whites : "Alexander burnt our books of religious law^s wa^itten upon 1200 skins of oxen ; and a mass of legends, traditions, laws and ordinances w^ere thus completely forgotten. It is therefore absolutely necessary that a wise and virtuous one should re- establish the religion. Have you heard of any so w^orthy as the Shah-in-shah (Ardashir) to place at the head of this undertaking?" It is clear that Tansar meant by "Establishing the religion," what w^e called " Establishing the Canon," that w^hicli Con- stantine and "the History-Maker," Eusebius, and others did for Christianity a century later, Ardashir and his "Establisher" defined and issued wdiat they considered canonical from amidst the great heap of nasJcs and yaslits, w^hicli, like "the 500 gospels" of our 3rd cent., were bamboozling the faithful. Mazdaism had never succumbed nor apparently been attacked from its inception. It had only between 330 and 220 B.C. suff'ered the loss of some of its Scriptures, but with Hebrews the case was more serious. They were a small high- in. ZAND AND HEBREW BIBLE CANONS. 153 land tribe, who cannot be said to liave bad a hihle till post- Ezraitik times. If a Moses wrote in the 13th or 15th cent. B.C., the tribes certainly knew it not till about the 7th cent.- — when only the name of Moses is first heard of — apparently in the reign of Josiah — 630, when an unknown witch, Hulde ("the weasel or mole rat," ni7in), declared that a writing found in the temple was the " Law of the Yahve." It was possibly part of the dubious book of Deuteronomy. Had the " witch " not been properly primed by the high priest Hilkiah, the king would have laughed the matter down or severely punished those who tried to impose on him, and no Moses or Scriptures might have been heard of till the Baby- lonian Ezraitik scribes appeared in Judea in the 7tli year of Arta-Xerxes 11. {Mnemon, son of Darius 11. Nothus), or in 398 as seen our Article IX. Septuagint. From 599, when Jerusalem was destroyed, and king, priests and all chief people deported, there was no temple, worship, rites or books heard of, nor till Ezra appeared and began his bible-making, 398-380 B.C. This task — impossible to man, was, say Rabbim, accomplished by direct inspiration of Jehovah. He revealed to scribes the history of the kosmos and of their ancestors from the Creation Era of 5688 B.C. (Josephus) down to their return from Babylon, or a period of 53 centuries ! so that mistakes or misstatements are scarcely possible and are not admitted by the orthodox. The literary task of Ardashir and his priests was far less ambitious and mundane. They diligently sought out all dis- persed MSS. and ancient texts, and translated them into the then national Pahlvi, and about 240 a.c. issued the recon- structed Bible after it had received the imprimatur of priests and emperors, as being in all respects the same Avasta as had existed prior to Alexander's invasion. Like our " king James' Bible" it was issued with a royal proclamation declaring it to be "the word of God, and to contain the only true religion in which all subjects of the empire were to be instructed, and to which all were to conform." Yet were there parts, as in the scriptures of Buddhists, Confucians, and Taoists, which, though containing no " mysteries " nor anything occult, were not meant for " babes," but were meat for strong men. Therefore 154 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-LSM. III. was it writteu in Yasht iv. 10, '•. . . . The Most Holy Know- ledge is only to be taught to the mature .... the true disciple .... not to laymen and never to foreigners " — which ac- counts for the ignorance of the faith by Greeks, Syrians and Hebrews. Yet the quasi Mosaik writer probably knew of this Law of the Lord, for he imitates it in a priestly selection at Sinai, as does Ezra in II. Esdras xiv., where Jehovah is made to say : " Some things (of the newly written Scriptures) thou shalt publish, but out of the 204 books keep back 70, they are only for the wise " (26th verse to end). No wonder Europe did not open its Bible till Keformation times, and that the great mass still know so little of its real meaning. Tansars Avastd was arranged in 15 nasks with a tripart grouping like the Budhist Tripitaka or "3 Baskets"; viz., GcithCis or theological hymns, Tlie Law, and Ha-dhama-thra, or the " Mixed Group." Shapur I., Ardashir's son, at first busied himself conquering Syria and propagating the faith, but from 252-272 a.c. he began systematically to collect the writings of the faith throughout Greek states and " India " — as all the East beyond Babylonia was then generally designated. 309-379 A.c. Shapur II. The Great was still more zealous than his father. He saw various hateful heresies around him, notably that of MCini and otlier Christian conquerors ; so, assisted by the saintly Adarpad, he had the whole canon revised in the Iranian tongue, and to prove its correctness " Adarpad under- went the fire ordeal : Molten lead was poured upon his heart and he knew it not ! " This was about 325 when the " Christian Fathers " were wrangling over attempts to establish the Bible canon at Nicea. "Christians were denouncing the marriage of their teachers, and many were forswearing the eating of flesh ; whilst Mani forbad all Manicheans to marry or to touch flesh." All the faiths were fulminating threats against " unbelievers and pagans " ! Shapur was bent on western conquests, and at one time III. MAZDEAN FAITH AND RITES 250-350 A. C. 155 seemed in a foir way to convert all Europe. He saw also that his conquests could only be stable if the peoples had one religion, and therefore in 340 issued his Imperial Bible, and officially declared "all other collections and editions illeg^al." He added : " We will no longer suffer any false Keligion," and but for some successes of Theodosius, King of Bazantium, Europeans might this day be professed Mazdeans, and Christians weakly sectarians. Descriptions of the homely and religious customs of Zoro- astrians at this time, show that they observed Sabbaths and Lenten periods for prayer, and fasts as well as fetes for pious re- joicings and praise. " Believers met together at regular times for worship," just as now, and Pausanias says that in Lydia " they sang and read from very ancient hymns and rituals," just as Eusebius (then living) describes the church assemblies which existed long hefore Christ's day. He writes of " Ancient Sects, wdio used to meet for prayer and the reading of ancient books " — practices which Essenes and Christians but imitated. In the reign of the propagandist Ardashir, a mass of Zoro- astrian literature, then little known, became prominent, as the Bundahish, Dinkard, Main-yo-akhard, &c. — second only in value to the Avasta and its Zand. A study of these show clearly how one faith gathers and evolves from another. This here appears especially in such parallels as the Vedik Varuna, Indra and Mitra ; the Greek Zeus, Latin Jove, and xVhura Mazda, the Iranian Mithras, Babylonian Bel and Merodach, Jehovah, Jah or Ba'l and Adonis, and in the Vedik Yama, son of Vivavat ; and the Zand Yima, son of Vivanhant, or Vivanghat, son of the first priest of Haoma or Soma, and in the worship of the Avestan Attilr and Vedik Agni. Vohu-Mano is apparently the source of the Logos of Plato, of the Hebrew Philo, and Christian St John. In the Avesta of about the 9th century B.C. he was described as "the first born of Ahura Mazda, through whom he made the world, religion and everything that lives, and without whom he puts forth no activities." He was therefore the Holy Ghost or Spirit of Life, of the sun and of fire ; the Euh of Genesis and Loki, Log (Log-os), or Lough of Kelts and Skands. The Avesta states that "at the birth of Zoroaster, evil Ahriman sent a demon Buiti to destroy him " — which looks like 156 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. the base of such legends as those of Krishna, Herkules, Christ, and others. In the Bundahish this " Bidti " is said " to have been worshiped as an idol in India and hy Butasp " — the early Persian term for Bodhi-sattras or monks. In India, Bhuts are still evil spirits, and like Pretas are also ghosts who do Yama's bidding. Brahma nsed them as Jehovah used Satan, and according to present Hindus, Bhuts are the ofFsj)ring of Brahma's son Krodha- Wrath or of Brahma's alter ego, Kasyapa, creator of gods, men and demons. The Jain a Bodhists and later Buddhists of Oxiana and Upper Kaspiana would be certainly known to Zoroastrians, and one of the Yaslit writers of the 4tli or 5th century B.C. says that " An impostor Gaotema was at this time refuted." But there were many Gotamas, Bodhas, and Buddhas, and at least two Zoroasters, say Pliny and several Greek writers. One came about 6000 B.C., who, said Hermippos of the 3rd century B.C., derived his chief doctrines and discourses from Ag^onakes, a name engulfed in the ages : another was thought to belono- to Proconnesus — here meaning apparently the Propontis or Sea of Marmora. He lived a little before the time of the great Magician Osthanes, whom we conclude was the eponymous Patriarch of the Ossetines of Pallas and ethnologists. See Pritchard's History of Man and Pliny N.H. under Zoroaster and Osthanes. Pliny describes two Osthanes ; one very early and no doubt the leader of the small Kakasian Aryan race of Kolchis bordering the eastern shores of the Euxine, and the second, an historical character who accompanied Alexander's armies to and from India, and "raised magik into an art and literary profession." The first was also a mystical teacher of many rites connected with the body, such as are often noticed in Mazdean Scriptures. Pliny here also says that " Hermippus translated upwards of 20,000 lines of Zoroaster's writings into Greek ; commented on two millions of his verses, and indexed several of his works." These would be some of the writings stolen from the Iranian capital and elsewhere by the savans, following the armies of Alexander about 330, and resuscitated bv his generals who ruled all Western Asia for 100 years later. III. GREEKS SEIZE AND TRANSLATE A-ZAND 157 Greeks theu claimed to have many works written by Zoro- aster and especially on magik and the sciences. In one, the prophet is said to have lived for thirty years in the wilderness on cheese only — pointing to his being a vegetarian and asetik like Buddha. He was, said Pliny, " insensible to the advance of age," and as a babe he came forth laughing from the womb (a metaphor explained by Darmesteter ; see our appen. B), and his brain pulsated so as to repel the hand when laid upon it, presaging his future wisdom. The Rev. Dr Cheyne, professor of Hebrew at Oxford, sees like most of us, " Zoroastrian influences which it is impossible to ignore in the religion of the writers of Pscdms and Proverbs ; in the development and conception of the Jewish religion under the form of Wisdom, and in the semi-intellectual element and phraseology of the earlier prophets. . . . Only by denying the antiquity of parallel parts of the Avasta,," he adds, " can we ignore this, and happily Professor Max Mliller does not attempt this in his latest Gijford lectui^es. . . . The Gathas are sub- stantially ancient and represent ideas widely current when Psalms and Proverbs were written. . . . The heavenly Wisdom of the Yasna cannot be borrowed from the Wisdom which Yahveh made from everlasting. . . . The strong intellectualistic current of the older faith is here evidently the parent." See Acad. 15th July 1893, Provs. viii. 22-31, and more fully, our Review, Impl. As. Qtly., Oct. 93, appen. A, of Mr West's Pahalvi Texts, S. Bis. of E. xxxvii., going fully into the chronology of the faith then under dispute, and which we annex. Our article was fully supported by Prof. Max Muller in Cont-py. Rev. of the following Dec, by sundry philological arguments and facts proving the great age of the Avasta, ob- scured though it was for some cents, on the dismemberment of the Iranian Empire. Our chronology was also upheld by the Rev. Dr Mills, author of S. Bks. E., vol. xxxi., in a trenchant article in Ni7ieteenth Century of Jan. 7, 94. Mr Darmesteter had thrown out, " as a mere hypothesis," that the Avastd, as ive now possess it, cannot be that of Alexander's time ; and Prof. Max Muller points out that its language shows it " must go back to at least the 6th cent. B.C. "The difficulties," he 158 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. adds, can only l)e solved "by admitting a very strong and well-organised oral tradition, dating from Darius to Tansar (say 800 years), strong enough to defy the violent measures of Alexander, and strong enough to enable Vologeses . . . and Tansar to avail himself of the ancient dialect and metres of the Mobeds, or rather Magupatis . . . Tansar . . . could not restore ancient grammar, ancient metre and ancient faith. . . . In our 1st cent. Persian was a dead language. . . . Only by a strong oral tradition, as in the case of the Vedas, was it possible for Brahmans to commit these to writing in Buddhistik times." In Sasilnian days the professor finds the dialect of the Gathas was unknown ; for it differs altogether from that of writings like the prose Vendidad. " The Zand, and more particularly the Gatha dialect, contains grammatical forms which are in strict accordance with the historical growth and the phonetic laws of the lano-uao-e." These minutiae could not have been o o known or invented about our era. This matter is far reaching, affecting the period when Indo- Aryans separated on their long march towards the east. Thus the Gathas must belong to this period ; showing all the hostility towards the Devas characterizino; an active reformation of the divine ideals ; and this would be also the Vedik period when the Indo-Aryans made their divine Asura, or Ahura into the demoniak A-Suras. Languages of the Mazdeax Scriptures. It would seem that about 2000 B.C. an Aryan or Iranian nucleus had gathered on the east and west sides of the Kaspian Sea, and that they trended south to Mount Zagrass and east to India; that in the 18th cent, there arose amons; the western branch a great reformer who organised the fire-worship of the tribes, under what he and his thought to be a divine inspiration, and called " on all kings and nations to worship Aura Mazda." He wrote down, it is said, the words delivered to him by his god on the lofty and ever sacred Sinai of the tribes — the high mountain of Darega in Airyana Vaego, see Appendix B. The universal traditions of the faith are, that about 1700 B.C. an Iranian prince, Vishtasp of Kaspiana or Bilktria or of III. MAZDA-ISM OF 12tH AND 13tH CENTS. B.C. 159 both, was converted by the prophet, and his religion generally accepted throughout these regions. There it dominated till the break up of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great, 330-320, when it again arose, and long remained the leading literary faith and theosophy of Western Asia. Now in the history of Babylonia we see that a great convulsion took place about 1701 B.C., probably due to Vishtasps Refoi-med Faith. The ''Babylonian'' and Sisku dyns., which had ruled over the plains for 660 years — from 2370 to 1700 — then fell before the strong northern Kasu or Kas-ites, whose 3rd dyn., the tablets show, arose 1709, and reigned for 576 years, or to 1132 B.C. They came from the north, very probably pressed forward by the rising Iranians, and hence also the invasion of Egypt at this time by the Hyhsos — those earlier Kasiis or Khita whom the displaced Babylonians may have pushed forward out of Syria. Professor Haug maintained that the written or unwritten Avastd-Zand belongs to about 2000 B.C., and that Zand, (as for convenience we call the language), was that spoken by the people of Atropatene (Medes ?), and to the E. and S.E. of the Kaspian. Professor Sir M. Williams "came to the conclusion, after a careful consideration of various conflicting probabilities, that the earlier portions of the Avasta-Zand most certainly existed in 1200 B.C.," and the distinguished Zand scholars and translators in the S. Bh. of E. series, Drs Mills and West contended for possibly 1500 B.C., but in 1890 the first Rev. Dr writes as follows in the introduction to his invaluable and learned tome on the Gathas, page 19: — "As to the probable age of the Gathas ... I have endeavoured to place them (why ?) as late as possible, and at the time of publishing reached the conclusion that they may date as late as about 1000 B.C., while also possibly so old as 1500 B.C. ; but since then I have ceased to resist the conviction that the latter limit may be put further bach. The italics are ours ; for looking at the Akkado-Babylonian city literature of 2000 to 3000 B.C., with its hymns, prayers, rituals or mantras, there seems to us no reason why the Gathas or the whole Avasta, should not then have been composed and IGO ZOKOASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. sung by the more thoughtful and pious recluses of the race — -men living in mountain retreats, and bent only on spiritual studies so congenial to the minds of Akkads and all Turanians, from whom probably sprang Zoroaster. It has yet to be proved that "' Air//as" of those days were really Aryans. The faith, indeed, comes to us in an Aryan language, but the Turano- Indian and Dravid peoples have read, written and worshiped in Aryan Sanskrit for 2000 years, and many consider Deva- Ndgari no Aryan invention. The Rev. Dr Mills goes on to suggest that the Gathas may " antedate the worship of Mithra, and if so, are the oldest written compositions which have reached us not inscribed on stone. But looking at all the facts, the ancient or better, the little-altered state in ivhich our Aryan speech aj^pears in them, the absence of Mithra, Haoma, and of the throng of Gods, which are common to the later Avasta and Rig Veda, they seem to express a religious aspiration so bereft of super- stition, that it must have taken a very long time for it to have degenerated, either for the first or for the second time, into the religion of Mithra, Haoma, and the rest, as we have it in the Yaslits and the Rig. But these deities were, beyond a doubt, very ancient indeed, and if the Gathas antedate their cult, there is no telling how old they may he. The decision of criticism is to refrain from conjectures too closely limiting their age." It is more than probable that the Gathas are infinitely older than the Rig Veda, and formed the basement on which the Indo-Aryan Gathas drew, as the Zand Avasta has probably been the founda- tion on wliich have been reared all the other faiths of Western Asia, Arabia and Europe, from early Etruskan times till now, for Etruski were Asiatiks. " If the history of human thought," continues Dr Mills, " is of any importance, the Avasta claims a very prominent position in that history. It not only affords one of the oldest, if not the oldest, monuments of Aryan (?) speculation, but in view of its enormous influence upon later Jewish and Christian theology, it must justly claim a decisive place in the development of religion, and so even in the mould- ing and destiny of the human soul. We have tl]e gravest reason to bcdieve that the entire change from the free-thinking III. GATHAS OLDER THAN PERSIANS AND MITHRAISM. IGl Sadduceeism to that orthodoxy which now underlies the Catholic creed, was due to Parsi-ism which moulded Judaism under the modified name of Pharisaism. So far as I can see, no thorough examination of the Jewish theology can be com- pleted without a thorough knowledge of the Avastil in its general complexion, and in many of its particular state- ments," p. xxi. The language of the faith ceased to be spoken about the same time as that of its eastern sister Sanskrit — say in the 5th cent. B.C. The Magi at the Court of Darius I., and the Medes of Atropatene and tribes E. and S.E. of the Kaspian long used it. It has affinity, says Darmesteter, with the lano'uao-e of the Talis on the south bank of the Aras or Araxes, where early existed a kind of uncial kuniform-like script, from which possibly sprang the kuniform of the Euphrates ; for Akkads and other Turanians sprang from this great fatherland ; and from Kaspiana also came the caligraphy of Central Asia and perhaps of China. The Avasta Scriptures, said Darmesteter, could not have been written by Persians, for they prescribe certain customs unknown to them, and proscribe others current amongst them. They were written in Media by priests of Raghu and Atro- pantene, and in language and ideas they exhibit the sacerdotal class of the Akhaimenian dynasty. The Professor thinks it is quite possible that Herodotos heard the Magi sing tlieir rituals in the 5th cent. B.C., and the same Gathas which the Moheds of Bombay sing in these days ; though it is probable they have added to the Zand, if not Avasta, some emenda- tions ; and to this epigrafical discoveries in Mesopotamia point. Their Fire worship was borrowed from the Turanian as well as their " Craoscha, the holy and strong Savior" who in later times became their Mithra — a sotei' unknown to the Gathas, and a clear borrowing of the Silik-Midu-Khi or Messiah of the Turano- Akkads. See Chald. Magik, 195. In the Parsi or Pazand language we have that vernacular form of Persian which followed the Pahlvi. Parsis, like early Christians and Hebrews, translated their Scriptures back into their respective sacred tongues, a process which no doubt L 162 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. led to emendations, and to what the priests and scribes thought were improvements. All revisers have so acted. The Eabbim softened the character and hid the ancient indecencies and anthropomorfik ideas of their old Jahve Ale-im. The Magi were the successors of the Avastdn Athravdns, and the Magi or early Iranians could know little of the Turano-Medo religious ideas. Cyrus strove to advance the Magi, just as Hebrews said he helped their Eabbim, for he loved toleration ; but Darius had to repress them, and hence the terrible massacre, long commemorated in the popular festival Magoj^honia. Xerxes re-established the Magi, and under him (520-400) the religion was said to have become as pure and full as in its ancient times. With a new skri^^t and the wider purview however which Babylonia afforded, the faith enlarged its mythology, rites and practices — an evolution which the old folk looked on as corruptions. The Babylonian Aphrodite became an Iranian Ardvi-Sura-Andhita — a kind of salacious Varuna presiding over " the Heavenly Waters," i.e., the numphaean principle of nature. Temples to and statues of her were erected at Ekbatana, Susa, Babylon, &c., where Mazdahan kings and peoples worshiped her as Nana, as seen in our chrono- logical tables. Her lord, the Asyrian Aslir or Siva, was a lingam or pillar, spiritualised as " The Supreme " Ahura Mazdah on the monuments of Bahisttin and Parsepolis. Other divinities and heresies quickly followed. A section of the priests went with the stream, says an Edinburgh Reviewer, and finding spiritual teachings no longer in favour, they freely adopted idolatrous rituals ; practised the occult arts of Kaldea ; muttered invocations ; divined with rods, and pretended like Hebrew and other priests to call down fire and rain, &c., from heaven. The true Zoroastrian, however, struggled on, and ever and ao-ain saw reformers arise alike amono- Seleukians and Parthiaus, though times were sometimes dark, as from the fall of Parsepolis in 330 B.C. to the rise of the powerful Sdsdnians about 250 a.c, as detailed in omy Asiatic Qtly. Arts. in appendices A and B. III. EVOLUTION OF THE FAITH — CHANGE OF DIALECTS. 163 Only about this time did Mazdahism begin to persecute other faiths. The clergy became co-administers of the law, and finally declared dissent penal, while their police or creatures enforced their views, rituals and rites. The heresies of Mani and Mazdak were locally extinguished in blood but spread far and wide. Christians and other dissenters were often deported, oppressed and even put to death, among them a prime minister, Seioces, because he had interred a corpse in "the sacred Earth." As with early Hebrews and other barbarous sects, cere- monial faults were held of equal or even greater importance than moral turpitude; see Jewish Laws of Lev. and Numbers. The life of a hedgehog was protected by penalties five times as severe as those exacted for homicide ; whilst the death of a tortoise or serpent expiated all the sins of the killer — these creatures being sacred to Satan or to heretikal deities. So Hebrew priests decreed death for using a sacred unguent. The close affinity of Zand to ancient Persian, enabled the masses to comprehend their rituals at least as well as Italians do their Latin services ; and all the leading Mazdahan monarchs did their best to collect, spread abroad, explain and popularize their Scriptures. The wliole canon was closed and completed long before Alexander's invasion of 330 B.C. The speculative parts, such as the Kosmogony of the world and Genesis of nations, however, continued to be worked up by priests and scribes. " The theory of Time and Space, as First Principles of the world, and of which only the germs are found in the Avasta, were fully developed in the time of Endemos, a disciple of Aristotle. " — Darmesteter. It was a trying ordeal for any faith to pass from an oral to a written stage, from rude Turano-Medik into the early kuniform of Cyrus, and then into Parthvi and Pahlvi, to be lost as it were in Prakrits or vernaculars, as was Sanskrit. Zand and Sanskrit are sisters of an unknown parent, and they had to express themselves in ancient Turanian skripts ; so that the key for Zandian difficulties must be sought alike in Vedas as in Pahlvi writings. In both these sacred tongues, the priestly race strove to excel, and mundane conquerors accepted the writings as classiks ; and it became part of a liberal 104 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. education to know and revere the sacred thino^s of the con- quered, and at least nominally to adopt them. Hence the great tolerance of the Akhaimenides, some of whom were Stoiks, Epikureans, Agnostiks, &c. Thus Darius I. rebuilt the temples which the Magus Gaumato had destroyed, and told the rude puritan northern Magi, that their idea of not confining the deity within walls was getting antiquated, and after a time the Mobeds accepted glorious palace-shrines and an imperial and stately worship. Hebrew priests and their pious following were permitted to go forth and rebuild their shrines and frame their Scriptures, which last they might readily do from the well-trained memories of those ages and the Scriptures and traditions of Irania and Babylon, of which they availed them- selves, as seen, to no small extent. There was a great abundance of Mazdean literature through- out Western Asia during all the Parthian (260 B.C. to 240 A.c.) and Sasanian periods. Aristotle, as well as HermijDpus and others, wrote whole books on Mazdahism, of which we have several titles and some fragments, evidently from Mandias or sacred books. For ten cents, after the time of Herodotos, frao-- mentary Zand writings abounded, from which Jews and Christians have alike gleaned, as will be shown, a goodly har- vest, thouoii fatheriuo- the orioiu of their kosmoa^onies, rites and doctrines on their own deities, patriarchs and proj)hets. Zoroastrian writings were, during the best Greek period, considered quite oracular, and equal to the best classiks, as those of Plato and the Fathers : see Darmesteter's Intro. S. B. of E., and what we have already stated regarding Hermippus' analysis of the writings of the then widely revered prophet. Theo- pompos speaks of writings which he had seen and heard of before the era of his friend and patron the Emperor Alexander ; showing that cultivated Greeks then knew that western Asia had long centuries previously embraced a book faith, like Buddhists and Hindus. Of Hebrew Scriptures nothing was known, but all knew that it was death to infringe the laws concernino- earth-defilement and destruction of certain creatures. Herodotos had written that Persians buried their dead after encasing the corpse in wax, but the Magi preferred exposure to III. EXTENT OF LITERATURE — THE PROPHET's HISTORY. 165 tlie birds, Ezra and his scribes were also at this period writing much more foolish " Commands of Yahve," which had soon to be set aside e7i hloc. The Prophet. Persians knew Zarathustra (Zand) by the name of Zar- dusht, " the Golden handed " or " Solar Hand," but Greeks called him Zoro-dster and thought it meant " the splendor of gold," though ustra is in Zand a camel. In Pahlvi the Prophet is often called Zarathustra Spltdmdn, which is thought to denote his family or clan as in Gotama Sakya-Muni. In Sans- krit, Har or (7har = Zdr, " to glow as gold," or the Sun, and also "to be wrathful." It is analogous to Sanskrit Hal, " to plou," and "the Plouer " or Fertilizer, Sol the Sdr and "Server"; with which the " Hand, Foot and Heel'' are much connected in strange euj)hemism like that used in Is. vii. 20 and Jer. xiii. 22. Aristotle, Eudoxos and Pliny say Zoroaster lived 6000 years before Plato, and Zanthes the Lydian historian said "600 years before the Trojan War, i.e. about 1900 to 2000 B.C., which agrees pretty well with Professor Haug and others. Berosos seems to think he was a Median king, who conquered part of Babylonia about 2200 B.C., and all Greeks agreed that he was born in Media, at Rdgha Rdi or Shiz-Atropatene, some say about the time of Hystaspes or Hush tasp, the Persian Guz tasp — evidently the patriarch of this name, and not the father of Darius I. of only 530 B.C. Parsis hold that their prophet was very ancient — a con- temporary of creation — a hero like Adam ; and perhaps Baby- lonians saw him in their Xitliuras or Si-sithrus — the Zi or "Spirit" thustra or thura — from which perhaps Ahura. He was a Savior, like Noah, who offered burnt sacrifices to his Ahura on a mountain ; that of Ushidarina, near the sacred Edenik river Darega. S.B.E. iv. Intro. He then con- versed with his god, who delivered to him the Avasta Zand. So Jahve gave to Moses " The Law " on Sinai, and to Mahamad the Kunln on " Holy Mount Hara." 166 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. The face of Moses then shone like the sun, and he was depicted as Lunus carrying horns, i.e. as a solar-lunar hero ; whilst Zara-dusht, " the goldcn-weaponed one," had serpentine tongues of fire, and sometimes stands on a double star with rays encircling his head. Fire appears to start from his hands, in one of which he holds a rod with seven branches. So Moses produced fiery serpents and placed before his tribal god the seven-branched candlestiks, and his solar duty is made to inaugurate his seven planetary days. The Iranian Magi are said to go back only to the time of King Gustasp of about 700 B.C., and to have ruled as priests down to our fourth century under the name of Pur-aith-oi or Athra-vdns — the Parsi Mduheds of to-day — the Arch -priest being the Mdiibeddn Mduhed. They were of the Dastar — a Levitical-like tribe — which inherited the priestly ofhce and selected their own high priest, the first of whom was " Zarathustra " of Eai. According to tradition, he went from there to Baktria, to instruct king Vishtasp, and having converted him, returned and settled at Shiz, from which spread the fire which soon enwrapped all Western Asia and seized Europe. In Shiz is the famous old fire shrine Azerekhsh, the Takht- i-Suleiman or " throne of Salvation," to which for ages, kings, Magi and peoples made pilgrimages on foot. Its modern name is Gazn or Gaza, and here, according to Alcuins Jaslier, was found their long lost Genesis, recording a reasonably w^orked out kosmogony of the earth, without the miracles and absur- dities wdiich disfigure many other such attempts. Atropatene abounds with fire springs, and is called Adar- higdn, " the seed of fire," and Atar-j^atakan, " Land of fire descent." It was the abode of the first Athravdns, and from here Cyrus brought the Magi of all his great towns. He pro- bably considered the Hebrew Pharisls or Parsis to be of this same faith, and on that account allowed many to go up to Syria to there build their fire shrines, as their temple would naturally be called from its many fire rites, of which our altar candles are the modest survival. It was about this time thinks Darmesteter, that Zoroaster's command not to burn the dead was first put in force throughout Irania. Sacred B. E. iv. li. III. RISE OF THE FAITH AND ITS LITERATURE. 1G7 Sir Monier Williams, professor of Sanskrit, argued that the Gathas of the Avasta closely resembled the Mantras or hymns of the Rig- Veda, which would put the Gathas back to at least 1500 B.C., and Zoroaster " to some time prior to 1600 ; " for his disciples were the authors of the Gathas. In no case, wrote the Professor, " after giving careful consideration to all conflicting probabilities," can Zoroaster have been born later than the 12th century B.C., and in the neighbourhood of Bak or Balk. In Vindidad, Farg. I., Baktra, Bakdi or Balk appears as one of the 16 great provinces of the Kingdom of Hiras or Iran, embracing, says Professor Haug, Sogdiana, Merv, Baktria, Northern Parthia, Aria, Sagastan, Urva or Kabul, Kandahar, Arachosia, Helmand, Northern Media, Khorasan, Ghilan and Haptu-Hindu or Upper Panjab. Now, according to the De&ater, this extensive empire of Hiras or Iras (from which Iran V) was ruled by a powerful Persian or Irasian people long before the arrival of Aryans proper, which seems only to have been 1000 to 800 B.C. ; whereas Baktrians ruled it at least 1800 B.C., according to Professor Sayce, with which cf. Pre- Hist. Nations, 36, 243. According to the Desater Dahistdn and early Iranian historians, one of the oldest dynasties of Balk was that of Khai-khusrd of Hiras, who died childless at the age of 60, and was succeeded by a pious asetik, Loharasp, who resigned in favour of his son Gustasp, whom some said was Zarathustra. He had a celebrated grandson, Bahman, who has been con- nected with a Babylonian, A-Braham, and may be the origin of the mythical Hebro-Arabian patriarch and Hindu Bdhma or Hermaik Brahma. The Baktrian or Medo-Persian Bahman was followed by a King Dardh, who was slain in a rebellion, when a great Sekan- der — the 3rd from Gustasp, succeeded, and is probably the Alexander, of whom we hear so much throughout the East, and not the great Makedonian, after whom so many places are thought to be called, and on whom so many legends are fathered. It is clear that Cyrus was not Khaikhusro (though Cyrus Khasro or Khusru in Persian), nor Darius Hystaspes, 168 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. nor Gushtasp, though ancient Persian Ijistory here requires much clearing up. Like Arabian, it begin with Ads or Adityas, for the first Persian patriarch was ^6-«c/= "Father Ad," called the founder of " the First dyn. of 13 Kings," after whom came a revolution and the rise of Aphrams (Abrams) when the priestly Ads were ruined or driven East. In the margin are shown the dynasties as given in Persian traditional histories, but of which little is known till the suc- cession of the Kaiamons of, say 7th cent. B.C., when only true history begins alike of Jews and Gentiles. There is no doubt as to the Pesh-dadis or Jamshids ruliuo^ in Balk and over the Irans or Hurasi of Medo-Persia. The Dabistrm mentions some 20 to 30 ancient writings or books, and says "Gil-shah, of the Vth dyn., lived 5371 B.C.," but Firdusi says 3529, and Sir William Ousely adopts 3436 as the mean of various dates — discrepancies, not more astonishing than the O.T. Crea- tion Eras, shown in our Chart of Eivers of Life. Indeed, 5390 B.C. was the Creation Era adopted by the Septuagint trans- lators ; and 5344 is that of the Talmud and of Hales and Poole. Plato identified Zoroaster and Gushtasp (Vishtasp ?) as living GOOO years before his time, thus connecting the prophet with one of the 3 Buddhas who preceded Gotama and belonged to Central Asia, and pointing to there being more than one Zoroaster. This would cause more complications than in the case of Gotama " The Buddha," for Zoroaster is mixed up with actual historical kings and powers like Vishtasp, and some Turkistiln rulers, and would require the movement of these also. Thus the Baktrian Vishtasp must be moved and made, as some fancy, a grandsire of Darius, in order that Zoroaster may be brought down to between the 7th and 9th centuries ; and there is no notice whatever of such a king or movements, and Zoroastrian Scriptures give multitudinous details regarding Vishtasp and others. Let us Ab-Ad . . . I. Dyn. 13 Kings — after which a great Revolutior 1. Jai Afram . . II. Dyn. Abramites. Shai Giliv . .III. Dyn. The Happy. Yasan .IV. Dyn. Revolution. Gil-shah . V. Dyn. Kai-Amors From whom 4 di/ns. to IX. Dyn. The Pbsh-dadi or Jamshid — era. Kai-Ani Ash-Kani Sasani III. ANCIENT IRANIAN AND ZAND HISTORY. 1G9 here look iuto a few of these difficulties, accepting only the more authoritative Scriptures given in S. Bks. of the East. From Vols. IV. and V. it appears that Vishtasp was a monarch of famous lineage, who routed Argasp — a king of Turkistan (v. 210), after whom the mountainous region of Ravand was named ; and that Vishtasp when ruling in Baktria and around Kaspiaua, was one of five famous Kayan kings who accepted Zartusht's teaching " twelve years after its revelation," (v. 187). We are here assured that " the faith ivas i^evealed to the World U7ider Vishtdsj), and that it folloived Fire worship : for up to that time Fii'e ivorship had j)TOt£cted the Wo7'Id"; that Vishtiisp's Faith was the Fire cultus then centred near or on "the Mountain Ravand;" and that he " removed the sacred fire from ' the Cxlorious ' Mountain Khlivarizeon to ' the Shining ' Mountain in Kavul-istiln " (v. 227) ; apparently in Perses or East of Babylonia — beyond the grasp of people residing in what became Asyria. Further we learn that the fiither of Vishtasp was Zo/^arasp, who had another son, Zarir ; and that Vishtasp had also two sons Sj^end-dad. or Spento-data, and Peshyo-tanu or Kitro-Maino, or " The Glory of the Kayans" (v. 226), who was "free from disease and death," according to Bundahish 28, 5. We are here therefore in the region of history and dealing with genuine persons. Zartusht has also a well-defined lineage and social history. His mother was Dughdd (a typical " daughter "), and he had three wives, all of whom survived him. By tliem he had three sons and three daughters ; besides three spiritual or mythical sons by his first wife Hvov — "the privileged one." He approached her three times, but (and this is evidently spoken metaphorically) " each time the seed went to the ground, and the angel Neryosang received its brilliance and strength and de- livered it to the care of AndhW (an "unsullied water Nymph And-hita or Ardvisu7'a") "who is in time to blend it with a mother" (v. 144). These three sons will initiate or appear in a millenium, when "the sun is to stand still for 21 days" (v. 233). For clearness we may tabulate the Prophet's family thus : — no ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. (Mother) Duqlula. ■| Zartusht marries (corresponds to Maya, Mary and Devi. ! (Wives) Hvov. Urvig. A rnig-bareda. s. Isadvastar. d. Fren. d. Sritak. d. Porukist. s. Hushedar. s. Hushedar-Mah. s. Soshans. To appear at the Millenium. s. Aur-vart-nar. s. Khurshed-Kihar. It is difficult to connect Avasta and Vedas to wliicli last Max Milller assigned the possibly oral date of 1200-1500 B.C., but this we think too early. The Avasta will probably be yet proved the older, unless the Vedas had originally, as we have always suspected, a Dravido-Turanian authorship. One thing is clear, as Max Miiller well puts it, that "in spite of all assertions to the contrary, the existence of hools, in our sense of this word, can nowhere be traced beyond about 600-700 B.C. Books pre- suppose alphabets and writing materials in abundance and a reading public. And although alphabets existed earlier, it is a long cry from these as used in inscriptions and treaties — to books in Alphabetic writing." Jeivish Qtly., 180, Jan. 95. The Avasta it is agreed had a long oral life like most other Scriptures ; and it possibly passed, mostly orally, from Zand into Pahlvi, and though its present MSS. only belong to our 12th or 13th century, yet this does not detract from the age of the original composition, else also we must cast aside Hebrew and Christian bibles. We have Pahlvi translations of the Avasta of our 4th century, just as we have 4th to 7th century Greek codexes of the New Testament, and quasi LXX copies of the Old Testament, wdiich correspond with copies of the Avasta made by the Parthian monarch Valkhash (Vologeses I. ) of the time of Christ. Yet it is accepted that none of these facts militate against the early reality of Bibles ; they do not efface a far earlier Pentateuch or Hebrew Psalms and Prophets, nor New Testament Scriptures, nor an original Avasta and the composers of it, its rites and rituals ; nay, nor its commen- taries and sacred books like the Bundahish, Dinkart, &c. We have many biographies of Zardusht, of which perhaps III. ZARDUSHT S GENEALOGY AND CHARACTERISTICS. 1 7 1 the best is that of Bahran, written about 1270 a.c, which of course is neither more or less trustworthy than the lives of other prophets. We can safely gather that Zoroaster was a quiet, faithful and wise preacher of all manner of goodness, a married man who from his youth had been persecuted by priests for his good and pious view^s and discourses. He is even said to have been persecuted to death by " the priest Bradro-resh or Turi " — the Turnian Bartorush. See Dinkard, viii., 35, iii. note. From his youth "the evil Karop persecuted him and banished his mother from her country as a witch, and Karops, Kais, and Kips have been ever since names for demons, pagan idolaters, and Deva- Vasts or Atheists. Firdusi, in his Shah Ndmah of our tenth cent., calls Zoroaster " a holy man of Balk, who appeared in the reign of King Kai Mustasp, carrying about miraculous fire and writings " in a sacred l)0x or ark, said to have been given to him by his god Auhra Mazda — traditions like those regard- ing Moses which Ezra compiled about 400 B.C. This Holy Fire was, said Firdusi, " a symbol of the heavens and earth, which all were to revere, whilst being instructed out of the inspired Scriptures ... in the true religion . that which can alone enlighten them in the true way and object of life, and make them despize the world. This the king accepted, and ordered all his people to follow with him." Firdusi probably got the doctrine of " despizing the world " from some of the many Jaina Bodhists and Buddhistik sects of Baktria, for Zoroaster always taught that good Mazdeans must work ivitli, and "not separate themselves from their fellows, or vow vows, but only live pure lives." Of course the Prophet's life is incrusted with miracles, and of the solar-hero class. At his birth, said Pliny [S. B. of E., iv. 77), all nature smiled, and he emerged in laughter, a poetic idea like that of the Vedik poets who call the Maruts or storm-genii " the laughter of the lightning," or as when Tennyson says, "The river is the laughter of the meadow." It was solemnly related and accepted that Dughda, his mother, was impregnated by a ray of the divine glory which descended from sphere to sphere, and finally lodged in her bosom — a 172 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. belief more firmly and universally accepted than that of Mary and the Holy Ghost, as the lengthened discussions on the old Syriak gospels, ending in Professor Cheyne's Academy letter of 16th February 1895, shows. He sees in both cases like " mythic elements, which grew with the love and zeal of their votaries." Both prophets died early, and lived in more or less direct communion with their gods. Zoroaster is believed to have received the whole Avasta when on a hioh mountain — hence, perhaps, the later legend of Sinai, for Ezra and his priests would learn all this in Babylon. It was called " The Word of Life," all, said Ahura, that men required to know to build them up in goodness of heart and life. Here too Magi came from the east to see the divine babe, and a king sought to destroy it, fearing revolution and other evils, but it was invulnerable ; though pierced with spears and trampled upon by oxen and horses, and cast into a fiery furnace ; and this curiously enough about the time (say those who believed in a Zoroaster of 600 B.C.) when Jews say their holy heroes walked scathless in the fiery furnace of Nabuchadrazar. Zoroaster took all his trials peacefully, opening not his mouth : nay, he once even fell asleep before his persecutors, and finally, whilst still young and vigorous, ascended to heaven. It was believed that " when fire burned his inner body, molten brass took its place " — a true solar figure ; as also that he was to reappear every 600 years like the Phoenix bird. Several ancient writers mention his appearance at such highly solar periods as 600, 1200, 1800, and 2400 ; though we hear of only one Zarathustra-Spitama, as there was but one Gotama- Buddha, though three similar prior Piuddhas and many Jaina " Saints " or Bod has. All this points to an original mythos which arose in or about Baktria or Sogdiana — possibly started by those early mvtholooians the Turano-Akkads. Towards Mao-ian and Aryan times it developed Mazdahism and Jaina Bodhism — this last having the advantage ; for the sage of Buddha Gayil of the 6tli cent., if not his predecessor Kasyapa, put aside all things III. ZORASTEE, A REFORMER NOT FOUNDER. 173 spiritual and the " Great Uuknown " of Zoroaster and Herbert Spencer, and confined his teaching to that only which he could and did know of. Zoroaster boldly proclaimed himself a MCihdi — " Leader," and " Messenger sent from the God of purest light ; " not to destroy faith or any religion, but to reform and build up ; to guide the wayward and strengthen tliose who had, he thought, rightly rejected the Devas (light gods) of the East, but who hesitated ignorantly regarding the worship of the great Asura, his "Living God" and "the Breather" of Vedantists, but one whom the Indo- Aryans had then cast out. Thus Zoroaster was, like all prophets and indeed leaders, but the apex of a pyramid the base of which rested on the labors of centuries, which he but gave form to and consoli- dated. He gave voice to the growing dislike of idol worship, and to the Indo-Aryan Devas, though the same idea reappeared in the Avorship of Yazatas or etherial " spirits of Light." As it would take long ages to shake off or differentiate the deities and rites of the sister peoples, once so intimately mixed up by language, religion, myths and traditions, scholars place the separation at about or before 2000 B.C. ; but history is silent as regards Aryans in or near Kaspiana before the 8th or 9th cent. B.C. Philology may here perhaps, yet aid us, for Deus, Tins or Teu, from which Teuton and even The-os, and the De or Die of Kelts seem based on the Indo-Aryan Deva, which has probably a Turanian origin. In the opinion of the ancients no less than moderns, Zoroaster propounded a Dualism, ending in a kind of pantheism more or less philosophical, in which the elements became spirits and divine symbols, which must therefore never be contaminated ; and nothing was considered so contaminating as a dead body. It was therefore thought that if birds or dogs (as in Tartary) devoured dead bodies, neither the air, earth, water or fire would suffer impurity, nor the spirits of these be angered ; so Sun, Air and Fire became a Trinity, and yet " One," which animated all nature. The Indo-Aryan was here more practical ; and whilst acknowledging a similar Trinity of Mithra, Athar and Vata 174 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. or Vfiyu — " the melting, piercing and blowing Triune," he nevertheless consigned the dead, as circumstances allowed, to fire, earth or water. There is, in fact, no abyssmal schism between the followers of the Vedas and Avasta. They have had to cleave such paths as were possible for them among the far older faiths and mythologies around them, and necessarily incorporated these in faiths which suited their idiosyncrasies, with the result that the religion of the Aryan brothers is entirely different, though still showino; the old connection. On this subject Prof Darmesteter wrote in 1880 [S.B.E. iv.) : " The only evidence of a religious schism " between the East and West Aryans " is a few words, which might a priori be chal- lenged ; . . . for the life of words is not the same as the life of the things they exj^ress." Thus Indra, Devas, etc., as names, are no longer the same in the east and west, but the west continues to recognize and deify their attributes though calling friends by the name Indra and Daeva and Great Dyaus. Asura the Indo - Aryan " Breather " fares royally, be- coming in the west Great Ahura ; though Asura fell to demonhood in sub-Vedik times in spite of Asu being Breath, Life and Spirit, which the west recognizes in Asur and Ashar, " the Life Giver " and Asyriau Siva. Exaltation seems here due to a knowledge of the linguistik base, w^hich Prof Darmesteter thinks failed the Iranian when he degraded " the Bright Devas," to Daevas or demons. The root Div, "to shine," got lost, he says, in Zand ; and the primitive meaning being forgotten, Yajata or Yazata, or " those worthy of sacrifices" {i.e., gods) became all-sufficient, and therefore Devas, heretical or wicked. Not so, however, fell Varuna, " the All Investor " (the brother of Ahura), Mitra, the Adityas, Agni and Soma. Varuna, the Zand Varana, dwells in "the heavenly mansions of Aryaman (Vedik Airyaman), with him and Mitra, "the Friend, the Lord of wide pastures," the " kind and helpful God of heavenly light " — as known to Indo-Aryans. Varana is often identified with Ahura Mazdah, and is " the All Embracing III. GODS SIMILAR, THOUGH NAMES VARY. 175 Sky," an Ouranos, Dyaiis — " the shining sky," or Svar, a Zeus and Ju-Piter. S.B.E. iv., xxix., Iviii. Aryaman is "the much desired," the "bestower of good," "smiter of disease," and the general thwarter of Angra Mainyo.— Vind. xx. I. ii. ; S.B.E. iv. 229. " In the Kig-Veda Airyaman is an Aditya usually invoked with Mitra and Varuna, and named " The Friend," like the Hindu Mitra. As Aryaman of the Avasta he has the same meaning as in the Rig- Veda, but is more fully developed as " The Healer." With Irans, Indra was the name of a Daeva or fiend Asha Vahista or destructive fire ; yet all the attributes of the Vedik Inora are seen in " the bright creation of Mazdah," the mighty Vere-thragna, identified in the Bahram Fire as the " Genius of Victory." He, like Vishnu, appeared to Zara- thustra in Ten Avatars or "Descents"; incarnated as (1) the Wind; (2) a Bull; (3) Horse; (4) Camel; (5) Boar; (6) a Youth ; (7) a Raven ; (8) a Ram ; (9) a Buck ; and (10) as a man. The Iranian Mithra, as a bull, recovers the Cow-clouds carried away by Vritra Mihir — the feat of the Vedik Indra, who was in pre- Aryan times the early Sun God of Turanian India, for Indra the first was a Turano-Dravid God, cf S.B.E. xxiii. 143, 231. Vere-thragan fully represents the Indian solar storm god, and appears in his name Vritrahan as " the fiend smiter." Iranians worshiped Vere-thragan in their Bahram or holy fire symbol, which they called " an emanation of the heavenly fire — a spirit which destroyed fiends and protected house and lands from all evil influences." The Bahram was the charmed rem- nant of most ancient ignikolists, and its " Holy Place," the Ddityd-gdtu, was the place of prayer and the theme of many chants and sacred memories. There is no more reason to doubt the existence of Zoroaster than that of other prophets and sages from Moses and Abraham to Krishna and Christ, obscured though their lives became — largely by the ignorant devotion of followers who heaped upon their his- tories absurd miracles and legends. Even Sir M. Williams, who cannot place the Faith's existence later than 1200 B.C., wrote : " It is a certain fact, not resting on the testimony of Zoroastrian 176 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. Scriptures, that this un-idolatrous aud moiiotheistik form of religion, with its liigli moral code and many points so closely resembling Judaism . . . had a very early and complete dominance in Eaktria and Ariana according to Greek and Latin writers." Herodotos said that ages before his day (5tli cent. B.C.) Mazdahans upbraided all idol worshipers, identified the great universe with the Supreme, and denied that the gods w^ere like unto men. " The arguments in favor of a real Zarathustra are," says Mr Laing, " stronger than some of those for the founders of other faiths." Experienced critics have thought that these have originated " in the crystallization of ideas floating in solution at certain periods of the evolution of societies about the nucleus of some powerful personality . . . but Zoroaster's name is connected with historical reigns and places, and his genuine early history contains nothing supernatural or impro- bable. He is represented as simply a deep thinker and powerful preacher like Luther, wdio gave new form and expression to the vague religious and philosophical ideas of his age and nation ; reformed Its superstitions and abuses, and converted the leading minds of his day, including the monarch, by the earnestness and eloquence of his discourses." Mod. Zoroaster, p. 198. Zoroaster's Early Teachings. We shall now give a few typical teachings of what tradition ascribes to the prophet himself, before the faith got clouded with rites, dogmas and mythological matters ; for a religion grows very rapidly on leaving its shell, and probably neither Zoroaster nor Mahamad would to-day recognise their ofi"spring. The religion of Buddha is not the Buddhism now found in any race or nationality ; nor Christianity the simple teaching of the Nazarene in the highways, by-ways, and wildernesses of Judea, not that the growth is to be deprecated, for else had the plants perished. " Know, King Vishtasp," said the high priest of Eai, some 1700 B.C., "that there is but one true, good and pious Father-God, like whom we must strive to be pure in heart, III. THE HISTORICAL PROPHET AND HIS TEACHINGS. 177 mind and body. Thou must establish a religion of goodness without which neither monarch nor people can have any excel- lence. Believe in one God, the Eternal Ahura the Mazda — the Great First Cause, Dweller in infinite luminous space — the Omniscient and Inscrutable. Adore Him as the principle of righteousness, in thought, word and actions, and with a pure body, according to rites and worship prescribed by Him. Eevere and be grateful to Ormazd for the intelligence He has committed to the care of nature, and act in harmony with nature's laws. Hate evil and shun Ahriman, his works and ways, the author of all evil, moral and physical. This Spirit of Darkness is a law of existence which can only be overcome when Ormazd manifests Himself (to thee) in great power, and reconciles evil and good in the eyes of His children." Here is seen the dual principle which tries to explain the ever inscrutable problem of evil by making the Supreme God not omnipotent, but bound by the fixed laws of matter. Two spirits of nature or matter pervade the universe, Angro Main- yush, " The Hurtful," and Spento-Mainyush, " The Beneficent Spirit," whom we must mentally separate from Ahura Mazda and consider as unalterable law. The Gnostik idea of Jahve as a mere Demiurgos, and not the Supreme, is no doubt an evolution from this old creed ; and here too is the first Savior or Mahdi-idea, and other religious matter which Zoroaster taught, "including reverence to a Great Un- known" — the Spencerian doctrine of these days. No stress is put on miracles or dogmas. " The Excellent Religion " is said " to be founded simply on reason " or reasonableness ; and the theory is little short of perfect, says Haug. It directly denounces murder, infanticide, adultery by either sex, sorcery, sodomy, light weights and all other forms of cheating, lying and deceiving, false oaths, slander, bribery, withholding the wage of the laborer, mis- appropriation of property, apostacy, heresy and rebellion. It requires the pious to exhibit their piety by zeal in goodness, freedom from avarice, laziness, illiberality, egotism and envy ; and if a ruler, by showing unswerving justice, sympathy and tender- ness. It insists on many good sanitary rules and methods, kindness to all animals, hospitality to strangers, respect to all, M 178 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. especially superiors, and help to the poor or needy irrespective of age or sex, rank or creed. Such was the good Gospel — an evangel of peace, which this lone prophet proclaimed some 3600 years ago. He accepted the fire and ceremonial worship of his day as Christ accepted Mosaik rites, but he tried to spiritualize the symbolisms and ideas. He seems to have increased and systematized " the adoration of Athar, the ApoUonik symbol of deity as a God of Light " ; i.e. of " Mithra or Airyman the Sun's Associate " (a god-man idea held by most of Asia), the third person in the Indo-Aiyan trinity of ]\Iithra, Varuna, and Arya-man. In many writings variously attributed to Zoroaster and Magians, God is defined as "The Supreme, Incorruptible, and All Pure ; Eternal and Indivisible ; The Wisest of the Wise ; Best of the Good ; Father of Law and Justice ; The Self-Taught and Perfect One ; and the Only Guide of His creatures to goodness of heart and life." Whatsoever the prophet said was held to be directly inspired by God (Ormazd), with whom, like Moses and other holy men, he freely conversed and even argued. At all times he was said to be, and believed himself to be, under his God's special guidance, and inspired to speak and act by Ormazd's Spirit, " the Holy Ghost " or Sraosh, corresponding to the Gabriel of Islamis and Hebrews. He confessed to be often specially inspired in the presence of Fire, feeling, as many have done before their altars or amid the sombre lights of temples or cathedrals, a " sweet communion with the Father of spirits." Only in the Gathas did the prophet speak in the first person, and usually in a simple reasonable manner, but occa- sionally with pathos and prophetik fervor ; at times, as if en- tranced before his holy symbol, he would raise his hands to heaven in extatik prayer, and, gazing fiercely into the flames of the altar, cry aloud to his brethren, " Choose ye, my disci23les, which spirit ye will serve — Ahura the Mazda, The Good, or devils : ye cannot serve both ; they are two opposing activities. If, being bad, ye choose the lying one, Ahura will forsake you, and ye can in no way prosper ; if ye be good, wise, prudent. III. Zoroaster's fervor — the goodness of ormazd. 179 and desire to help forward the life of the future, then be joined to the good, and dwell in the house of wisdom. Great Ormazd is personified goodness, and all that is excellent comes from him, and the evil from Angro-Mainyu or Ahrimanes, with whom he wages continual war." Darmesteter says (S. B. East, Intro. Z. Avesta) : " The spiritual attributes of Ormazd grew more and more defined, and the material fell further into the background as Mazdahism slowly struggled towards unity." Ormazd became Supreme, and other deities faded away or became his creatures before the 4th century B.C., wdien Ezra and his scribes were compiling the Old Testament Books. It was easy for them to transcribe and enlarge from these Mazdahan Scriptures, as that God " delighteth not in the blood of bullocks " or " vain oblations," in " incense," " new moons or sabbaths" ; and that men " must cease to do evil and learn to do well ; love justice and mercy and walk humbly before their God." Here was a vast change ; slow, no doubt, but fundamental. It was the worship of goodness displacing, in a great measure, that universal God or Bhogi, Fear — ^a tyrant and demon, who the Rev. Dr J. Martineau well describes as "an ethical mon- strosity, in the jDi'^sence of which no philosophy of duty is possible, and in which every moral ideal is dwarfed or deformed," [Seat of Authority in Religion, p. 157). "A man's hope of salvation," said Zoroaster, " rests with himself ; future reward will depend not on beliefs, but on perfect thoughts, words and deeds" — assertions common in Avastan Scriptures. "Fear" has, in all lands and ages, been a veritable worship and been often symbolized as a Deity. " The Fear " (Irdth) of Yahve is the beginning of wisdom, and, without " Fear," there is neither worship, wisdom, or religion, cried Hebrews and Arabs. There is no need, say most peoples, to oflfer worship and sacrifices to good gods, but only to the evil ; to powerful devils, fiends, or those who can do mischief. Hence the many altars of Asia to such gods and symbols as the well- honored Bhairava and Bhima, the "Terrible," and to deities of flood and tempests, disease, famine and death. We may in ignorance or arrogance call these " Devils," not knowing 180 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. their histories and various attributes ; nevertheless, they are great and powerful deities in the pious conceptions of the hundreds of thousands of devout souls whom we have often watched crowding their sanctuaries during disease and famines, and eagerly striving, with chant and prayer, to get near enough to throw a flower at the foot of the image or within the holy adytum. Few deities are better worshiped than those of famine, cholera, and small-pox, or " Angry Mdtha " — though called "The Good," as Kelts called their devil, "the good man of the croft." Gods and devils are local and relative terms — o-hosts or spirits, good and bad according to the current ideas or education. Thus Zoroastrians saw only " devils " in the bright Devas of their Indian brethren, and in the gods of the Yazats or Yazids of the middle and lower Tio-ris : and still we call these " Devil worshipers," and their worshipful gyrations " Devil Dances " ; but Yazids might retort with effect on seeing the turnings, genuflections, &c. at certain christian rites and altars. Yahve Ireh, or "Jehovah the Wrathful," had like Yama and Pluto, power over the evil spirits, of death, famine and pestilence. He glories in being a terrible and jealous god or Bliogi, of the Bhagava, Bhuta and Bhairava type, and was only very gradually spiritualized. Greeks and Romans also deified Fear as Fhohos, Pavor, and Pallor, and rulers and generals of armies alw\ays humbly invoked these before and during wars and troubles, bowing lowly to the statues and praying Pavor not to wrongly sway their soldiers and sailors. Zoroastrians were perhaps the earliest conductors of worship in private houses ; at first no doubt like Buddhists and Chris- tians, in caves, cells or katakoms. Phorphyrios wrote about 250 A.c. that Mazdean chapels were orbikular caves like those of Mithras — no doubt the then old Mithreums, for new sects always seek the old and revered sites. The chapels had flowers, lights, fonts, and outside, fountains or cascades, for they were generally near mountains or grand natural scenery like the Mons ArgcBus in our PL xiii.. Rivers of Life. " Ahura's worship might be aided but was not dependent," III. THE " GOD OF FEAR TRINITIES SCRIPTURES. 181 said Zoroaster, " on any objects ; not even fire, though, this is existent throughout nature." He thought this element ex- hibited in a very special manner God's enigmatical, exoterik, and esoterik presence ; more especially when it burst into life by rubbing together two consecrated pieces of wood in an assemljly met together for prayer and praise. Fire is defined as " one of the three great ' Manifestations ' of Ormazd, embodying the ideas of light, truth, soul or spirit. ... It is an expression of Ormazd, materially, spiritually, and mentally," and a distinct step in the early growth of trinities. Though still upholding one Supreme God, the faith is unable to get over the difficulty of the supremacy of Matter as an unconquerable evil spirit. Egypt had probably before this recognized alike in litera- ture and symbolisms a dual and triune, as in the talisman which the LXX translators describe as Thmei (Themis) Deloses and Aletheia. But Thmei or Tliam was also a dual, viz., " Light and Truth," and was pictured as a sexual Power [Rivers of Life, fig. 113), worshiping the lingam in a temple or ark with Ra, the Sun. Thmei has also many sexual and serpentine con- nections, see ibid, i., 29, 108, 133, &c., where it is suggested that Hebrews here got their Thum-im idea, with Ur, the Fire or Light God — necessary to creative acts. Literature of Mazdahism. The Avasta and Zand, like the Vedas of the sister faith, no doubt existed orally for centuries, even before being rudely skratched in Medo-Baktrian, and long before being transcribed for Iranians in Akkadian kuniform. That a voluminous bible could thus be handed down from father to son or priest to neophyte, we have had practical demonstration of in India ; having several times started Brahmans in some part of their scriptures and heard them recite on until stopped, and this though they often could not explain the subject. As before seen, competent scholars place Zoroaster and the Avasta Zand at from 1200 to 2000 B.C., but there are others who cannot accord it, as a whole, a greater age than 700 B.C., the 182 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. period assigned for the codifying of the Egyptian Ritual ; so some scholars pLace all the 0. Test, writers at from 350 to 100 B.C. [R. As. J., July 85). Professor De Harlez, though granting that the " Avasta Zand as a whole belongs to about 700 B.C. . . . (adds), several passages in it mention facts Avhich imply, at least for these sections, an epoch not far removed from the christian era — say 400 to 100 B.C." ; and as regards Zoroaster, he finds no real historical mention of him till towards the close of the 5tli cent. B.C. He inclines to think there were several Zoroasters, as some see five Pauls in the New Testament Acts and Ejnstles ; three Isaiahs, and two Ezekiels, and very many writers of Psalms ; and there were, said Gotama, "three Budhas before me." Professor Harlez sees great simi- larity in the legends and doctrines of Budhism and Mazdahism; and thinks that the " Gaotema spoken of in Yasht XHI. must be Gotama Buddha, otherwise the passage is unintelligible ; . . . . that the persecutions mentioned in Gathils 45 and 48 " were possibly the proscription of the Magi under Darius of about 530 B.C., though other Gilthas go further back." He adds, " many fragments " of the Avasta are even older than Zoro- astrianism, as are parts of the Pentateuch, than Moses. Aristotle said, about 350 B.C., that "the Magi were older than the Egyptians ; and in the times of Thothmes HI. — say 1600 B.C. — Mazdahism, Magianism and Fire-worship were often held to be identical. All the known world had then fire rites, which might naturally first arise and be most intense amidst the fire founts of Zarathustra's cradle-land. What more natural than that ignorant peoples should see a strange and powerful god or spirit in the hot angry fumes which ever and again started up from the wet dank and often frozen earth of the wildernesses of Balk ? Zoroaster, as a wise and g-ood man, Avould seek to direct and develope this fear and reverence, and reform its gross and materialistik worship ; just as Gotama did that of the Hermaik Brahmanism and Jain a Bodhism of his day. Both j^rophets greatly elevated their peoples ; and Fire-faith rose to Solarism and the worship of "the hosts of heaven," till the very lives of the leaders became incrusted with solar myths, and mixed up III. AGE OP AVASTA ACCORDING TO SOME SCHOLARS. 183 with the legends and symbolisms of the nature and demon cults, which prevail to-day among Tibetans and their Lamas, though they call themselves good Buddhists. Buddha wisely put aside the worship and fear of genii, ghosts, demons and deities which Zoroaster weakly clung to, and though he thus probably gained adherents in his day, his faith has receded as culture advanced, whilst that of Buddha is more than ever acceptable to civilized communities. Both equally and strongly inculcated " good thoughts, good words and good deeds," which was a startling advance in those days, and gave life and endurance to the two faiths ; though ethikal beliefs do not show that rapid growth which clear-cut dogmatical assertions exhibit. " Be good and do good," cannot compete with " There is one God and one Prophet ; believe or die." It is very probable that "the preachers of abstinence," who are in Vindiddd IV. denounced as heretiks, were, as Prof, de Harlez suggests, Buddhists, for the Buddha or Jaina Bodhist, Kasyapa, had perhaps, half a millenium before Gotama, been preaching all over Baktria, and, said Chinese pilgrims, had converted the land. (Sir Henry Eawlinson in R. As. J., Sept. 85, and our Appendix A.) Gotama often speaks of Kasyapa and his other two predecessors, and their doctrines would be largely commended by Zoroastrians, and might well develop into the ethikal and mystik faith of the west. Aryans, in descending from Kaspiana (from which per- chance the name of the third Buddha), would be in close contact with the civilized Turano-Akkads and their Shemitik disciples — even then old and settled peoples with a ripe faith and rich mythology, thronged with gods and demons, prophets, heroes and revelations therefrom, in the past and present. They had detailed kosmogouies, good laws, and wise teachings, mixed up with sorcery and an earnest spirit worship, embracing, of course, fire, planets and all the powers of nature. Against the theory that Zoroaster possibly lived in the seventh century B.C., we must place the fact of the early close alliance of Zand and Sanskrit ; and that it would take ages to differentiate them from their parent stock and each other. It would take centuries before the good and great Ahura, " The 184 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM, III. Supreme," could develop into Asura and become a demon, as devas become devils. In the older parts of the Avasta, Ahura and Mazda are two distinct titles of God, but later they are conjoined; thus Darius calls his god "Aur Mazda" (the Hor- mazd of Parsis and the Oro-mazd of Plato), but nowhere speaks of Zarathustra. His name as Zuradacht, is seen on a stone at Pdi Kuli, which some think, however, belongs to Sasanian times — 250 to 350 a.c. The greatest divine heroes have scant notice. Contemporary evidence there is none ; nor is there any of Jesus and the apostles ; and as to a Moses, no one mentioned his name till about a milleuium after he was supposed to have lived. Faith and traditions are the true biblical foot-holds. The Zend Avesta {Anglice). This Bible of the faith should rather be called " The Avdstd and Zmid, where Avasta, says Prof. Darmesteter, comes from Ahastci, "the Law^" and Zand, its "commentaries" {S. Bhs. of E. iv., Intro, iii. iv.) ; but Prof. West reads Zand as merely the Pahlvi translation of Avasta, and Oppert finds Zand also signifies " prayer." Practically, the words have for ages corres- ponded to the Vedas and Brahmanas or Tura (Torah) or Law and Mishna or Targums. The Pahlvi writings, says Mr West, always present a Sasanian or post-Sasanian view of Avastan matters ; thus, though in the Avasta mention is made of great persons — after- wards incorporated into the Peshdddian or Kaydnian dynasties of the Persii — it shows no knowledge of Akhaimenian Kings, so must have preceded these, and they belong to about the ninth century B.C. Even after the " Holy Nasks " had been revized by Sasanian kings, these are not once noticed, though Persian writers freely allude to Avastan matters, but only as obtained from the far east. Persian history, as already show^n, is patchwork even at its best, and this in the Shdh-ndmeh of Firdusi, which was written in our Middle Ages. The three great divisions of the Avasta Zand are — The Vindidad or Genesis being mostly moral and purgatoria laws, some mythology and history. III. THE BOOKS COMPOSING THE AVASTA-ZAND. 185 The VisPiRAD — Litauies used in worship, at sacrifices, &c. „ Yashna — Do. do. Here are five of the most ancient Gathas, of which the principal are the Ahun-Avaiti and Usht-Avaita. These Gathas are held to be "the prophet's own words, as revealed to him when in an extatik state by angels whispering them in his ear." They are headed : " The revealed thought, word and deed of the righteous Zoroaster," and are said to have been found in original MSS. They are written in an altogether different dialect to that of the rest of the sacred writings, which Darius 1. says appeared in his day in Arian — a proto- Median lanQ;uao-e. He had the whole Biblia translated into his Iranian tongue, and required all the subjects of his vast empire to read and obey it. See his Behistun inscriptions. The entire Bible or Avasta Zand is termed in its Pahlvi commentary : " The Whole Laio and its Traditional Revealed Explanations ; " and the three books are said to have been found in the original MSS. written in the Zand language, but in two ways: viz., each book by itself, and with a Pahlvi translation ; and secondly, in an edition where all three books are mingled suitably for reading at sacrificial and general worship. This last is called " The Vendlddd Sadah " or " Pure Vendidad," of which, apparently, there was no trans- lation, showing that priests and peoples were then supposed to understand the Zand language. In addition, there is the Khord or Small Avasta — the Missal of the faith — a collection of all the required daily prayers and recitations. These five books constitute the sacred scriptures of Mazdahans which have come down from very ancient times, and form " The Avastan and Zand." They first appeared in Akkadian kuniform skript, and in the composite Iranian language of the Akhaimenian monarchs, and never passed into the modern Shemitik Persian. Between these two Persian tono;ues there intervenes a philological desert of five or six centuries ; the border lands being the Iranian Avasta Zand, Akhaimenian inscriptions and Firdusi's Shdh-hdmeh of our tenth century. There is a well marked kinship, mythological and religious, between Vedas and Avasta, which only difi'erentiated when the 18G ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. sister-peoples separated north of the Kiikases. The ludian section evidently feared to plunge headlong into a Daitya or " Infidel" land, and those who crossed the Araxes or "Drdtya river" have ever since been Daityas to the Indo- Aryan. They were held to be seduced by Magian sorcerers, then Zoroastrians and ignikolists, all of whom have, however, been to Iranians even more distinct sects than are Pharisis and Sadukis, or Protestants and Catholiks. The earliest Zoroastrians had apparently neither Fire, Solar nor Mithras worship, but possibly the Bodhism and then Buddhism of Baktria as developed by Kasyapa and other pre-Gotama Buddhists. Those who dwelt among the fire founts of Atropatene could not avoid the worship of Atar, Adar, or Agni — one of the most ancient of faiths : yet Lenormant said that Zoroaster seems to have somewhat repudiated it, and that it only came in with the ]Medo-Magians after which came Mithraism, which must therefore be placed much later than the perfervid hymns of the Veda to Agni. He was thus addressed in the Eig : " We invoke Thee, Agni, before all gods, pronouncing the venerable name before all other Immortals. Whoever be the god honored by our sacrifices, always to thee do we off"er the holokaust." The whole Eig abounds with his praises, which, of course, is true Magianism, and next to this sacred fire came the worship of the heavenly hosts — first mentioned in the Vendlddd Sddi, Fargard xxi., but until then probably considered a heresy received from the Babylonians. Chald. Magic, 267. The solar development is seen in the seven colored planetary walls of Ekbatilna, the seven stories of the Borsipa pyramid, &c., and in the Zand scriptures where Sol is Vayu, "the good shepherd," the I^dma-Jtvdstra, or Mithra — "Lord of wide pastures." Here too the Zoroastrian would glean a rich harvest of spiritual lore and language from the fertile old Turanian mythologies. Every Iranian acknowledged his Mdga-indn, Magos, Athra-van or " Fireman," the Greek Pur-aiihos. He was priest, the " man of god, nay a demi-god, who alone knew the will and ways of the heavenly powers, and could manage the III. THE DEVELOPMENTS AND FALL OF THE FAITH. 187 much feared gods, but doubly feared and revered demons ; and this high status pertained to the Furaithoi till the sword and teaching of Mahamad dissolved the charm. It ruthlessly swept aside all the spiritualistic settings, never again to apj^ear except in a clever small remnant, who escaped by the Makran coast of the Indian ocean, carrying with them their magical fire, threads, barsam and other interesting symbolisms. It could scarcely have been otherwise, even if Iranians had given birth to a succession of great Khosrus. The faith had lived its long life of twenty-three centuries, and was then pressed on all sides by younger faiths. It fell before the vigorous assaults of the youngest, aided by internal disease and a wavering con- fidence in itself The masses were groaning under the ever tightening priestly bonds of rites, rides and customs which encompassed them in every hour of private as well as public life, while they saw around them freer and yet religious peoples, though lacking the acknowledged higher and purer ethikal relio;ion of their Avasta. Islam therefore meant to them emancipation; and thus the great old faith died as all "Religions" (but not religion) must. Springing from our common nature they have no immunity from the universal law. Here the dualistik fell before the simpler monotheistik, the former like Christianity being too complicated for the masses. What could they grasp in such priestly teaching as that : " A paternal good monarch or spirit ruled as he best could in the presence of an evil one who mostly controlled all matter ; that the good monad posited or generated an only son who sits beside him " shining forth with intellectual beams and governing all things" — a virtual Trinitarian creed as the Rev. J. Maurice shows in Ind. Ants., iv. 250, &c. Such complicated faiths are not adapted to popular intelligence, and therefore Islam everywhere swept the field, especially as she spared not the sword. Mazdean priests taught that under great Ormazd are six Ameslia Sjjentas — the Am shaspands of Parsis — heavenly bene- factors and guardian archangels ; and under them are innum- erable hosts of Yazatas, Yasads or Izads, who follow the behests of Sraosh, the Holy Spirit. As the executive of The Supreme, he 188 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. guards tlie universe " against the machinations of Aharam with his six opposing arch-demons and their hosts, who can only be controlled by the Word of the Lord." Hence arose sacred texts which became spells and magical talismans, but this idea was older than Zoroaster, for the most ancient pietists of Babylon used to affix these, as does Europe to-day, on the walls of their rooms, over their beds, &c. The Mazdean believed that every person and element had a Yazata or spirit — a Fravashi or guardian angel, being that of a deceased, living or future person. Therefore were the dead worshiped with sacrifices and prayers as in the Srddhas of Hindus and the Manes of the west. Even Zarathustra had a Fravash, as had Elohim a Ruh, Jehovah or Adonis, a Logos or Spirit of Wisdom, and the New Testament Theos, a Holy Ghost. Zoroaster and Buddha were worshiped, as Arabs, Jews and Syrians worshiped Adam, Seth, Abraham and Moses ; and so the older Nature cult made itself a home in the new, however ethikal and abstruse. Mazdahism had also its arborial, elemental and bestial stage, just as had the faiths of Hebrews and others. The Mazdahan priest cherished and venerated Imlls, cows, cocks, dogs, &c., as " belonging to the good Creation," and hated ser- pents, frogs, mice, &c., as a lower stage of the older paganism " belonging to the bad Ahriman." These creatures w^ere really symbols of attributes and principles which were liked or disliked. The bull and cow represented the Yang and Yin of China and the lingam and sakti of India, or the princijDles of creative force. The cock — " the solar anouncer " stood lat- terly for Sraosh, " the Angel of Light," and the dog was the valuable early scavenger — the vulture of Egypt, which with Parsis became the attendant on the dead, and with Greeks and Hindus the guardian of the lower regions — the Kerberos and Sarama, the dog of ludra and mother of the Sarameyas, Yama's four-eyed watch dogs. The mystikal ceremonies and symbolisms of Mazdahans became as numerous and tiresome as those of Christians and Buddhists ; yet Zoroaster as little intended this as did Christ and Gotama. Besides the altar prayers and fire rites, there III. DEGENERATION OF FAITH FROM SPIRITS AND RITES. 189 were ceremonies concerning mystikal charms, cups, barsom, crosses, svastikas, holy water or Zaothra, holy wine or Haoma, buns or altar bread, sacred twigs and pomegranates ; and Christian-like palm leaf rites, analogous to the sacred " Branch " of Ezek. viii. 17, the Hebrew " Sprig of Almond," &c. There were Mithraik eucharistik fetes nearly as old as those of Egypt, where consecrated bread and wine were solemnly offered on tables and altars, and partaken of as by Christians to-day, in honor of the sun and of the dead ; and there were confessions and consecrations after more or less purificatory rites, and often with Ni7Xing (urine of bulls and cows) and occasionally with human urine, see Bourke's Scatalogical Rites. The Zoroastrian followed the Egyptian, but not the Kal- dean, in declaring that our life here determined our life here- after ; that we must work out our own salvation, and that heaven keeps an hourly record of our deeds, good and bad — a debit and credit account which no amount of prayers, rites or sacrifices can efface, and this account is presented for immediate execution on the bridge of Sraosh. A Savior is to appear in the latter days for the guidance of the good and establishment of a kingdom of righteousness, but no vicarious sacrifice is pos- sible in this faith. Good works and virtues can alone discount evil doings or the neglect to do good. It remains that we go into some textual details to see how the faith stands in the science of Comparative Eeligions, that is, in regard to other faiths: without this, we cannot fairly judge it, and it is now a universally accepted axiom that he who studies only one religion can neither know it or other faiths aright. The Mithraik- Savior- Idea, M. Lenormant traces from the Turano-Akkadian Apollo, Silih-Mulu-khi, through Marduk, who became with Zorastrians Saoshyant or Sraoscha, " The Holy and Strong " — " the Son of the Lawo-iver still unborn." " At His appearance Angra Mainyu and Hell will be destroyed ; men will arise from the dead and everlasting happiness reign over the world" (Darmesteter). Here was a sufficient base for the Hebrew and Christian Messiah and the legends of "graves, yielding up the dead." The Rev. Dr Mills, in the Nineteenth Cent. Rev. of Jan. 94, 190 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-I8M. III. wrote, quoting S. B. of E., that according to "Zoroastrian Soteri- OLOGY, a Virgin conceives without the loss of virginity from the seed of Zoroaster miraculously preserved," and so the Savior will be produced in the latter ages. " The seed was caught up h}^ two angels and guarded by myriads in the lake Kasava, till, at the end of the earthly cycle, a maid Ey^etdt-fedhri bathing in the lake will conceive by it and bring forth the last Saosh- yant or Savior. There were two predecessors similarly en- gendered," just as there were Buddhas before Gotama, In the words of the sacred Yashts — xiii. 142. " We worship the guardian spirit of the holy virgin Eretat-fedhri, who is called 'The All Conquering,' for she will bring forth him who will destroy the malice of demons and men. xix. 92. Astvatereta (the Savior of the Restoration) will arise from the waters of Kasava (like Sargon and Moses), a friend of Ahura Mazda, a son of Vispa- taurvi, the All Conquering," &c., &c. ; see some coarse details in Bund : and S.B.E., v. 144. The Rev. Dr Mills puts the date of this writing as early as /' 600 B.C., and not later than 300," and says that Eastern Magi would be familiar with the idea of the Virgin-l)orn babe of Bethle- hem and ready to believe that he would be "King of Jews." He shows mildly but clearly how the Judeo-Christian idea of the Teniptation arose. Thus in Vindlddd xix. 43, " Zoroaster is be- sought by the Evil One to abjure his religion and to obtain a reward such as an evil ruler oot." After " much shoutino- " and angry declamation at a council in hell, Angra Mainyu said : " Let us (demons) assemble on the top of (the high mount) Areztiixi, for born indeed is He, the righteous Zarathushtra of the house of Pourushpa, (the Hindu Purusha or divine primeval man). He is a Druj of the Druj (a Destroyer of the Destroyer), the demon's foe . . . slay the holy Zarathushtra now no longer just born, but in the vigor of his age." This assault is repelled by prayer, sacrifices and the fervent recital of the creed ; when Satan confesses " there is no death for Hmi ; oiorious is tlie righteous Zarathushtra." " He knowing the heart of the demons said : evil-minded Angra Mainyu ; I will smite the creation of III. THE COMING SAVIOR AND Zoroaster's TEMPTATION. 191 demons, even Nasu and the fairies who seduced earlv sages until the Victorious One — the Savior — is born from the waters of Kasava," probably the Kaspian or a sacred affluent. Angra Mainyu then shouted : " Slay not my creatures, but renounce the worship of Mazda and obtain the reward. ... I know thou art Pourushaspa's son." To which Zarathushtra — " Never shall I abjure the faith," &c., &c. The Evil One angrily replied: " By whose word wilt thou conquer or abjure? By what weapon canst thou conquer my creatures ? " Zarathushtra answered : " With the Haoma" and like holy symbols and rites, " and the Word which God pronounced. . . . With that word shall I be victor and expel thee. ... It is the weapon . . . forged by the Bounteous Spirit in boundless time . . . and given to the Immortals to enable men to rule aright." ..." The demons shouted . . . and fled away to the bottom of the Place of Darkness . . . the frightful Hell." Though here skiping too briefly through the Yashts, the analogies with the Gospel story are as Dr Mills says " very strik- ing." Compare the words " high mountain : cried with a loud voice : my name is Legion. . . . Art thou come to destroy us ? . . . The Holy One. , . . Led up into Wilderness to be tempted. ... I know Thee who thou art. . . . All these things I wiU give Thee. . . . Thou shalt worship the Lord God. ... It is written . . . get Thee hence. . . . The sword of the spirit. . . . Him only shalt thou serve. . . . The devil leaveth him and goes into the abyss," &c. Much more might be added to the same efi^ect. The translations and notes thereon by Dr Mills show how almost everywhere and closely the Judean writers have followed the Zoroastrian ; cf. the garden legend of the first Mazdean parents and quasi Fall. There it is distinctly told that the Tempter was " the old serpent, the evil Spirit," which Hebrews and Christians believe, though this is not stated in Genesis. The Evil One opposes every good object of creation," with the result that the pair are expelled from Eden, and sin and misery abound to the present time. Now these legends were from the earliest days of Mazdean- ism familiar to every dweller in and around Babylonia : as Dr Mills says, from " 1000 to 1500 or earlier . . . they must have 192 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. struck the attention of every learned scribe and been constantly repeated, and would therefore mould Jewish and Christian expressions," as we find they do through all the ages. "The Asmodeus of Tobit iii. 8, 17 is positively the Aesh- Madaeva of the Avasta, Y. 47. 7, &c. If the priests of Cyrus conferred to the smallest degree with those of Ezra, then not only the Gnostiks felt its influence, but the pre-Christian and Christian theology. . . . Thus Tohit refers to 'the Seven Spirits,' and Zechariah (iv. 10) speaks of the seven which are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro throughout the Earth ; . . . further expanded in Rev. v. 6, where the Lamb has seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." The " attributes of Ahura the Mazdah," continues Dr Mills, were defined "about B.C. 1000-1500 or even earlier, and were those adopted by Hebrews for their Yahve. Ahura was " Our Creator, and in a theological sense. Sovereign. A discern- ing Arbiter, the Omniscient . . . our Judge and Lawgiver — the Friend, Protector and Streng^thener — the LTnchang^eable . . . the Establisher of Evil for the evil, and blessing for the good. He was Mazdah, ' the Great Wise One.' " The " Maga " of Cyrus was " with little doubt Avestic ; for Maga as ' The Holy Cause,' occurs repeatedly in the Gathas . . . but was pre-Gathic by centuries, and may have been carried down to Akkadia by Turanians, cp. Y. 46. 12. . . . Had Cyrus the Mazdah-worshiper not sent the Hebrews back, later prophets might not have spoken in Jerusalem, nor Jesus been born and taught at Bethlehem. . . . For a considerable period after the Return, Jerusalem was in many respects a Persian city . . . hence the rise of Pharisees or Farsees and the later Parsls ; " and hence the many Pursian or Fire rites of the Jewish temple. The people were then Persian subjects still gazing afar on their familiar and greater synagogue in Babylonia. As Dr Mills says, " no Persian subject in the streets of Jerusalem — even for long after the Return (400-390 B.C.) — could fail to know " all the above as well as the doctrines of Angels, Resur- rection and Immortality ; till then unformulated by Hebrews III. CHRISTIAN BIBLE AND AVASTA PARALLELISMS. 193 and denied even long after Christ's time by their leading body the Sadducees or Tsadukim. " The Zoroastrian Scriptures, adds Dr Mills, are one mass of spiritualism referring all results to the Heavenly or Infernal worlds . . . and an unending futurity therein . . . Immortality is a spirit. Ameretatdt — one of the six personified attributes of the Deity, as never dying life." Heaven and hell appear in the earliest Avastan age as chiefly mental states. For the wicked is ordered the worst life (hell), for the holy, the best mind (" Heaven," Y. xxx. 4, 20). The wicked are said to have " curst their souls and selves by their own deeds, and their bodies are therefore to rest for ever in the Home of Lies." The soul departs to its own land before the resurrection, and meets the body on Chin vat, the bridge of judgment, where it appears as the Conscience, and in the case of the good man as a beautiful and pure maiden who welcomes him thus : " I am Conscience, thy good thoughts, words, and deeds, thy very own." Who he says sent thee ? Answer : " Thou hast loved me and desired me . . . even thy good thoughts, words, and deeds," and she then rehearses his good and pious life, adding, " this it is which has made me loving and beautiful ; " but the man is incredulous and replies, as Dr Mills remarks, like the pious ones in Matt. xxv. 37 : " When saw we thee a- hungered and fed thee ? " and is answered that he was ever the friend of righteousness, &c. Then he is led over the Chin vat Bridge to the golden throne where is seated Voliu Manah, "The Good Mind," who rises and welcomes the now united soul, and asks various questions as to where he left " the perishable world . . . found salvation, &c. " The first step places him in the entrance of the threefold heaven — The good Tliought ; the second step in that of The good Woixl, and the third, in The good Deed heaven," and so "to the throne of Ahura Mazda and the golden thrones of the bountiful immortals and to the abode of sublimity or song ; even to Ahura Mazda s and the other homes of immortals." All this is reversed in the case of the wicked. The soul or conscience that awaits him is a hideous hag, and " Angra N 194 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. Mainyu is there to laugh and mock liim until he himself rushes into the hell of all evil thoughts, words and deeds." Vind. xix. The Mazdahan is enjoined to strictly cherish the " Three Great Precepts " which must guide his conduct through life, and as aid to his memory, to wear a triple girdle. He must remem- ber that Asha — " Kightness " or " Righteousness," will not alone suffice ; neither will belief, nor any dogmas, necessary though these be to the perfecting of the saint. " He is gifted with Free Will and must earn his salvation," says Professor Sir M. Williams, " by his benevolence, benedicence and beneficence, for he is not here the helpless slave of fate, and will therefore be judged according to his deeds " — a doctrine which Christians and others have too scrupulously accepted ; for free will is not a Zoroastrian dogma, and a very thorny question we must refrain from entering on. From Zoroastrianism, Shemites and others would get their dogma : " the soul that sinneth, shall die," for as seen, no sacri- fice or substitute — religious merit or self-mortification — was accepted even in extenuation for unrighteous ways or neglect of duty. Zoroastrians so dogmatized 1000 years B.C., and this teaching is reiterated by Hebrews in Ezekiel some 400 years later (chap, xviii.), and in apokalyptik writers like Enoch and others. Zoroaster does not seem to have sharply distinguished good and evil, but rather to have held, like some in our days, that these are abstract ideas and opposite conditions of our nature, changing with the age, culture and circumstances. Even the evil and good spirits seem to have been crystalized by the illiterate into harder conceptions than the prophet's philosophy admitted of. He simply considered them to be two opposite but not opposing principles or forces (he calls them " twins") inherent in God's nature, and even set in motion by Him. The one was constructive, the other destructive, and both are said to be necessary in moulding and recreating — doctrines taught by Vedantists in their cult of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. Hindus constantly reiterate : " There can be no life without death ; light without darkness ; reality without un- reality, or truth without falsehood." "Only by these opposites," III. MYSTERY OF GOOD AND EVIL — -BOUNDLESS TIME. 195 says Professor Williams, " was eternal and immutable law evolved," nor till much later l)y Hebrews and Christians. We are, nevertheless, as far as ever from clearing up this mystery. It is only complicated by religions, for they posit the creation or permission of evil, sin and miseries by a perfectly good, wise omnipresent all-mighty and omniscient God. From " The Supreme " flowed both good and evil, said Greeks as well as the Hebrew Isaiah (xlv. 6) : indeed, the oftentimes querulous Yahve Ale-im inspired evil as well as good, false as well as true pro- phets, battle, murder, and sudden death, and brought misery unspeakable upon his own and all other peoples. As races became more logical and inquisitive, a devil spirit became a necessity, and was perhaps first produced in Angro- Mainyus — the Anlio or Anhas — " Evil "-Mainyus or Spirit, abbreviated in Ahriman ; and this led to Ahura being called the Spento-Mainyus or "Beneficent Spirit." But he, like Yahv6, was unable without the co-operation of Angra Mainyus to evolve kosmikal being, and without " the Fall " there could have been no kosmos ; no hioidedge of good and evil, no pluck- ing of "the Tree of Knowledge," no propagation of mankind, no Savior or scheme of salvation. Zoroastrians were satisfied with their Dualism up to the Greek age of the Sasanians, when it became distasteful to the better educated. Then, as now, men laboured to define and see their god-idea more clearly, but a " god explained is a god dethroned," so priests pushed their god further back, and said hazily, that the opposing principles were tlie product of a Supreme Being, ZarvCni Akhardna or ''Boundless Time"; for did not a text of the Vindidad state, that " The Supreme created all things in Boundless Time " ? — an argument in a circle, but then thought sufiicient ; and thus the Zarvanian idea grew into a personification of " Time without end." The Dual God of good and evil belonged to Median Maz- ■dahism, and was a doctrine but faintly known to Baktrian Zoroastrians. Ahura was their one and only power to be worshiped and feared ; and Angro Mainyus, " the accursed .serpent of evil " — often personified in Azhi Dahak. He was the supreme spirit of darkness and sterility, and 196 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. swore eternal war asfainst all the creations of Ahiira — God of O Light and Fertility ; and when Ahura crowned his goodly works of creation by that of man, and placed two pure and spotless beings in a Var, " enclosure " or garden, to dwell with Himself in Edenik beatitude, Angro Mainyus, disguized as a serpent, entered this Airyana Vcedya, or holy land, and tempted the pure ones, who sinned, forgot their god, and following the ways of the daevas perished. After a time, Ahura relented ; they were restored to life, and this " Adam lived for a millen- ium " ; so in the Hebrew legend their Adam lives for 930 years. There are many traditions of this kind, but we will here give the authoritative one from the Avasta and Bundahish. During the first great kosmik period of 3000 years, the God of Light and goodness lived above with a knowledge of the existence in " the abyss of Aharman, the Spirit of Dark- ness," who, however, knew not of the heavens and Ahura Mazdah. The deity went to the Daeva and asked him to assist his creation which that evil spirit had then commended ; but he execrated them, and " shouting, said he would destroy all and make them hate their creator, and love and serve the Daevas." Ahura confessed he was helpless, but he proffered peace, and told the Daeva that his creatures were immortal, but if this was not to be, the conflict was to be limited to 9000 years, during the first 3000 of which Ahura's will would rule ; in the second 3000 there was to be an intermingling of rule ; and, in the last 3000, Aharman's powers were to decline, " which confounded the demon." The war of good and evil then began. Almra created Vohu Mano, " good thoughts," which Aharman opposed by creating Ako-mano, " evil thoughts," and so on. Ahura then created six powers — the sky, water, earth, plants, animals, and lastly mankind, and "found joy therein," as did the Hebrew god when he rested, and declared all very good. But Aharman created in opposition to each a destroying spirit, and was specially wrathful against the reproducing powers of Ahura's creatures, because they had carnal pleasures denied to the demons of sterility. This subject as a war of light and dark- III. CKEATION OF THE KOSMOS AND OF MANKIND. 197 ness is well worked up, though shortly, in Bible Folk Lore, a valuable anonymous work published by Kegan Paul, 1884. With the rise of the righteous Gdyo-mai'd ( = "living man") arose Geh, a boisterous, violent female spirit of lust and all impurity, whom "Aharman kissed and endowed with menstruation " (aS. Bhs. E. v. 16), and with whom was conjoined an evil youth of fifteen made out of a lizard or toad. Then the demon host went forth and created all noxious things and creatures, to destroy by darkness and every kind of misery, Ahura's goodly creation, and especially Gayo-mard ; whereupon " vegetation withered away and avarice, want, pain, disease, and hunger, lust and lethargy were diffused throughout the world. This Gayomard first appeared as a solitary man-like but etherial being, who lived during the first 3000 years, when Ahura re-formed, or reproduced him from light and fire. He was materialized " as an As-ruko (fire priest), and called Ahura mazd," and in the second 3000 years became a man — " a material existence which did not progress, neither eating nor speaking, ])ut thinking righteousness, true religion and the glory of the creator." (Ibid, xviii. 198.) Upon him Aharman brought misery and mortality, which the appellation Gayomard implies ; but Ahura then caused him to sweat, which induced him to recite prayers," and he became "a radiant, tall youth of fifteen years old," who, though the Daevas enveloped him in darkness, temptations, and all the ills of man's life, survived till he was thirty, (v. 19.) Then he passed away, but "his seed fell upon Spendermacl or Armaiti (the earth spirit), his own mother," and she pro- duced a real man, Mashya, and woman, Mashyoi, and from them came the twenty-five races of mankind, (v. 54, 59, and xviii. 402, cf. here the escape of Siva's seed into Ganga.) For forty years the pair grew conjoined like a plant, but " they had a soul or reason " [nismo), from and like to that of their creator ; and this soul or nismo is said to be " older than the body, which was only created to give it activity." Between forty and fifty the pair grew separate, and became a true man and woman, and " spirituality went into them . . . which is the soul or ruban in Huzvaris ; nismo being in 198 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. Kalcli not only soul, but reason and glory " — a confusion like that of the Hebrew ruh and napash, of Gen. i. 21, when napash ha chic is translated " every living creature ; " no doul)t to avoid the idea that all living creatures have, like man, a "soul, the life," or spirit as well as " breath, the life." (S.B.E. v. 16, 53-4, 149.) Finally Auhar Mazdah told Mashya and Mashyfu that by them the world would be peopled ; that they " were the first and best of the Armaiti or sj^irits of earth, and must perform devotedly all the duties of the law — think good thoughts, do good deeds, and worship no devas or idols." This they believed and acted on for a time, but at last forgot, and finding antagonism everywhere as in earth, water, plants, animals, &c., they attributed Ahura's creations to Aharman, and went out of their paradise into the wilderness with the Daevas and learned all corruptions and falsehood. On this account " their souls are in hell until a future existence," (Bund. XV, 9,) which here evidently means that mankind have, therefore, the pains and sorrows of hell until their death, and may then have a new birth unto righteousness. Here below they starved in the wilderness, clothed themselves with herbage ; drank goat's milk, were taught to hunt by the devils, to make fire and roast meat and fruits, and give offerings of all before eating, to the sky, fire and symbolik animals. They clothed themselves with skins, then wove o-arments, duo- and forsjed iron, made knives and built houses, quarreled, smote and oppressed each other, until "the Daeva called out from the darkness : ' Worship the demon so that your demon of malice may repose.' Up to fifty years of age they had no desire for intercourse, and though they had had intercourse they would have had no children . . . but at 50 the source of desire arose, first in Mashya and then in Mashyoi ; and he said, ' When I see thy shame my desires arise,' &c. ; to which she freely responded, and ' from them was born in nine months a pair, male and female . . . Ijut owing to their intense afliection, they each devoured one'" (Dr Mills, p. 20-22). We may compare this with the late arrival of ofispring among Jewish patriarchs, and the late desire of Adam for Eve, and the killing of Abel. Ahura Mazdah in compassion diminished this love, so that their ofispring might live, and they had only seven pairs from III. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIRST PAIR AND THEIR GOD. 199 whom came all nations, but the duration of life was reduced to about 100 years. Ahura then conferred lust on all his creation so that they might reproduce, but Aharman sterilizes many, and causes misery and death especially through his demons Asto Vidad and Vizaras. As illustrative of Hebrew analogies we should study the creation legend of " Yima the son of Vivanghat" corresponding to the Vedik Yama, son o/Vivasvat the first man, first priest and king of the dead, Yima's creation-legend, though older it is believed than Gayomard's {S.B.E. iv.), is chiefly Noahitik, and like Noah, Yima has serious backslidings, with which we fear to tire the reader. All kosmikal legends — Babylonian, Mazdahan and Hebrew — show sad defects in the quasi creator's knowledge of mankind, in his omniscience and omnipotence. He is good and seeks a certain measure of good for his creatures, but often shows vanity, self-seeking, and a desire of personal glory, praise, worship and service. To fawn and kneel before him is the creature's proper attitude, and betokens true religion. None must on any account try to climb into his heaven whether by a Babylonian tower or otherwise. Yalive the Elohim is jealous "lest men become like unto us"; therefore whoso toucheth "the Tree of Knowledoe" must be cast down into utter darkness. Only by the god's grace or favor can any good thing be attained. Compare with this such Texts as : — He made man but repented Him, And destroyed the works of His hands. He made all things for His own pleasure, Even the wicked for a day of wrath and damnation. To some few will be given eternal bliss. But others have been elected to eternal misery ; Those were chosen by the Father from the beo-innino; ; These for eternal damnation and torture. Whom He willeth He quickeneth : the rest He hardeneth. The pious and learned Dean Plumptre wrote that " God was the creator and conceiver of hell and the devil. . . . He the Almighty thought these necessary so as to excite man's moral nature " ; and so thought the ancient men who w^orked up these kosmik legends. All suppose the necessity of a devilish 200 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. as well as a good spirit, and tlie bliss of an eternal idle paradise where sloth must rule in the absence of all incentive to work and duty. Therefore did Buddhists reject the popular heaven, and Gotama said that we must at all costs pluck "the trees of knowledge of good and evil " ; that there is no rose without a thorn, nor any good without an alloy ; nor happiness nor virtue without good and honest work ; nay, no advancement for the race without battles, physical, mental or spiritual. Now indeed many ask : " where would Europe have been intellectually to- day without its bloody wars and crusades, foolish and cruel though these were, and costing the lives of over 5,000,000 pious ignorant ones as well as thousands of heroes " ? Karely has man depicted his god as deligliting in love and mercy ; usually he is " a Lord of hosts and God of battles," wielding every destruc- tive energy, sword, famine and disease, to make us it is said gird up our loins and fight lest we perish. We have now briefly and as fairly as possible depicted the ancient mother faith of Western Asia. It largely gave birth, and nourishment to the religious ideas of the west. Greeks and Hebrews, Romans, Christians and Maslim, each took from its vast stores what suited their tastes and idiosyncracies ; yet each ignobly denied its parent, claimed to be of divinely inspired lineage, and too commonly set aside the older, noble and fundamental doctrines, that good thoughts and words, followed by good deeds, alone constitute pure religion ; and that virtue carries its own reward, as does vice its due sorrows and turmoil. So taught the Avasta-Zand. By no ofiering, said Zoroaster, " but by personal eff'ort and continual warfare, must salvation be won. . . If ye strive, good will overcome evil, but sacrifices, whether to gods or demons, avail not without a pure mind, a body free from defilement, and a spirit fed by the words of truth. Strive by every means, however simple, not to forget thy religious duties ; as by changing thy Kusti (white loin girdle) five times a day, say then suitable prayers as each of its three folds are undone and re-knotted. Think of Ormazd when thou seest fire, air, sun, and sea ; and look to one or more of these when thou prayest, unless when thou addressest Ahura Mazdah ; then turn not thy face to any emblem." III. nature's cruel methods FAILINGS OF FAITHS. 201 Nevertheless, Mazdahism bad, to some small extent, that almost universal commercial taint on which Christianity is so largely based — that " give-and-it-will-be-given-you " idea. Its votaries, perhaps in spite of their prophet's teaching, sought a quid pro quo for their faith, rites and pious labours, mental and material, for which Christians have naturally not blamed it. Prof. Sir M. Williams says of it : " Like all faiths, it is a simple reflection of the natural workings, counter-workings, and inter-workings of the human mind in its earnest strivings after truth, in its eager gropings after more light ; in its strange hallucinations, childish vagaries, foolish conceits, and unaccount- able inconsistencies " — a verdict applicable, unfortunately, to all faiths and every age ; though such condemnation cannot apply to great philosophik teachers like Buddha and Confucius. Faiths, however, are growths and accretions of ages of ignorance usually followed by culture, which makes the whole illogical ; for gods — the creation of men — have to evolve or develope with the race ; and the superstitious and supernatural die before that great moral evolution, the rise of true religion exhibited, as Zoroaster insisted, by " good thoughts, good words and deeds." In the Yasnas we have probably the first though an in- formal Greed, beginning with a denial of all false gods like Devas, and an acknowledgment of Mazdali and his prophet and of " the creation of all things by Ahura, the Living God." None may deal in "sorcery or other evil knowledge," but follow the teaching of Ahura's prophet, who had many personal conferences with liim, as had Moses with his Yahve. It is now held that matter was created by, or emanated from Ahura, but it is not, as say pantheists, to be identified with his spiritual essence. Men are to be rewarded in a future life according to their deeds done on earth, and the body will be resurrected to join " the immortal soul," and so the memory of the past main- tained. Hence probably, does Sir Monier Williams say " the moral code of this Faith is worthy of Christianity, . . . being comprised in six words, ' Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds ' . . . which again is comprized in one word. As ha, or Eighteousness " — the Rita of Hindus — a term, nevertheless, like the names of all gods, w^ith a carnal base. Elsewhere, as in the earliest Gathas and " Little Avasta," it 202 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-LSM. III. is laid down that "all good thoughts, words and works spring from knowledge (so Buddha and others taught), and not from gods ; that goodness leads to paradise, as do evil thoughts, words and deeds to hell." The following may be accepted as a Mazdean hymn of prayer and praise ; it is substantially such as our Parsi otHcials used to use : "Teach me, Mazdah, The Ahura, by thy own Living Spirit : Thou art the only giver and forgiver, ever rich in love ; who was, and is, and ever will be. Thou Ormazd art the heavenly amongst the heavenly ; from whom alone proceedeth all rule, dominion and power. Thou created, and it is Thee who upholds and defends all that is just, good and pure, and without whom nought is. By good works do I seek forgiveness for my sins and shortcomings, my ignorance and unprofitableness. Praise be to Thee who rewardeth the good, and helpeth the poor and weakly — nay, the sinner has received Thy mercy even in hell." There is a Patet or "General Confession" in use, which em- braces all manner of sins of omission and commission, " and is as perfect as any thing in Christianity. ... It w^as in use during all the ages of the Irano-Persian Empire . . . how much longer, we know not." SpicgeVs Avasta, Bleek's trans., p. 153. One of the homely prayers of the Mazdahan runs thus : "It is by Thee, Ahura, I am able to keep pure the six great powers, Thought, Speech, Work, Memory, Mind and Under- standing, and enter on the path to paradise, and so fail not on the dread chasm of judgment (the Chinvat bridge). I praise thee, immortal sun — thy image the brilliant one with swift flying coursers. Thou, Ormazd, art the only in- creaser of our race and flocks and herds, and to Thee we give ofterings of prayer and praise. Let these ascend to Thee from all our hearts and homes, and do Thou, God, confer upon us the blessings of faith and knowledge." We will now close with portions of two articles (slightly amended), which we wrote in the Impl. R. As. Qtly. of Oct. 1898 and 1894, as supplemental to the foregoing in the historical, literary and doctrinal portions of the Faith. This, with our poetical but accurate summary of it in Study, xi., " Short Texts," will show how this ancient Eeligion stands in the history of Comparative Religions. APPENDIX A PAHLVI TEXTS AND CHEONOLOGY OF THE AVASTA-ZAND. Reprinted with slight Emendations FROM " The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review " OF Oct. 1893. The following invaluable translations now enable us to securely grasp the great body of pious and doctrinal teachings attributed to the revered Prophet of Ahura Mazdahism by his immediate and later followers. We can see now the foundations on which the old religion arose and still stands, and more especially if we have studied other ancient Persian history, the writings of Professors Haug, and the two Miillers. In " the Sacred Books of the East " series we have — 2 Vols. (4 and 23) by Prof. Darmesteter on the Zend Avasta. 1 „ (31) „ Eev. Dr Mills on do. 3 „ (5, 18 and 24) „ West on Pahlvi Texts. 1 ,, (37) ,, Do. JVasJcs, &c. and lastly, Dr Mill's Great Work on TJte Ghdtds. In his vol. xxxvii. Mr West gives us a translation from the Pahlvi of the viiith and ixth Books of the Dinkard, which, though only "a 'popular summary" extends over nearly 400 pages ! showing what a voluminous literature must have existed. This vol. only contains " a ivriting for the informaMon of the inany-^a. commentary and explan- ation of a Revelation — in itself a Revelation." Unlike most sum- maries it enables us to see the doctrines taught and desired to be inculcated, and so to draw our own conclusions and regulate our conduct accordingly. The masses it was thought need not go beyond this summary unless in special cases and on the more difficult subjects ; they are even permitted to quote it as Deiio or "Revelation." It is divided into the usual JVasks or Chapters, Fargards, Has or Sections ; 203 204. ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. each chapter devoutly ending with the favourite motto of the faith, "Righteousness is the Perfect Excellence," or "Perfect Excellence is Righteousness." After this at p. 400 come favourite selections from tlie writings of Zdd-Sparain a high priest of Southern Irania in 880 A.c. when the revision of our present addition of the Dinkard was fixed. He surveys retrospectively in a kind of tripart division, matter, which he con- siders the most important of the Revelations accorded to Zaratusht and his immediate followers. He too summarizes parts of the Dinkard (Books iii. and iv.), and as was the way of all old priests, finds a pro- phetic number in " the 6666 words in the Gathas, and 6666 ordin- ances in the Nasks — an idea which Hebrew and Syrian Christians seem to have somewhat followed in their Apocalyptic "Beast" of 666 (Rev. xiii.). In both cases there is an Apollyon or Abadon who pre- vails for an allotted time, and the Mazdean high priest states that the 6666 words "indicated the period when the Adversary (Aharrnan) came to all creatures," — but there are millenniums here to the Apocalyptic centui'ies, (p. 405). If Satan is to be chained for a millennium, " Aharman is to reign for three millenniums nearly the equal of Aiihar Mazd, and during the next three millenniums to gradually diminish." Prof. West translates some sketchy Rivdyats or early Persian commentaries; and the Din-Vigirgard, a Pahlvi Rivdyat, Avhich opens with the too-assured and pompous dedication, that it is " written in the name and for the propitiation of the Creator Auhar Mazd," and that these " several Zand (Commentaries) are published from Revelation." Here we are told that " of all the 21 nasks, only the 20th, the Dadad or Vendlddd — 'the law against demons' alone remained entire when others were scattered, not effaced, by the accursed Alexander. He, the Arurnan took several transcripts in the Aruman language and character," p. 446 ; so that only to this writer was there any real loss of the Scriptures. He probably lost his own copy. Mr West's vol. closes with sundry Extant Fi-agmcnts of JVasks found only iu Pahlvi, of which the leading idea is the benefits derived from chanting aloud and taking inwardly to heart, the revered Ahunavair — the Ahuna-vairya of the Avasta, the sacred formula of all Mazdeans on which hinge innumerable literary matters and formations. Briefly, it is a stanza of three lines contain- ing the Avastan words YatJta ahu vairya, and may be called an acknowledgment of the ever abiding presence of God, and the necessity of good thoughts, good words and good deeds. (Dink. ix.. ii.) It is a chant, potent spell, and appeal for success or aid from God, a rejjeti- III. THE DINKARD THE LOSS OF AVASTA AND OTHER BIBLES. 205 tiou of his high and holy attributes, power and grace ; like our Ave Mary, " Glory to Father, Son and Holy Ghost " ; the Hindu Ram Bdm, or Om ; tlie Buddhist " Om Mani," etc., Maslim, BlsmiUah, and the " vain repetitions " of all peoples. It is necessary to pause here and see precisely how we stand on the all important points of history and chronology : for the Avastan Zand though full of the highest teaching, must like the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, stand or fall according as it satisfies the demands of the historian, in so far as it touches on historical matters. On this, all criticism must eventually hinge, and the very authenticity of the Avasta like that of the writings of our Bible, has been called in question — ignorantly, says the Mazdean, inasmuch as, that though loss and injury occurred to the Zand Scriptures by fire and stealth, it was only to one Standard copy and fragments of others. Even the Alexandrian invaders boasted that they had a picked body of Savants for the express purpose of gathering together, and not destroying such treasures of all nations : and that they successfully secured one com- plete copy, from which say several ancient Pahlvi and other writers, they " took several transcripts in the Aruman or Greek language and character." Let us "take stock" then of our position on this vital subject, and show, though too briefly owing to want of time and space, the historical facts on which Mazdeans rely. They of course scout the idea that they ever wholly lost their Bible — the history, Logia or " Teachings " of their great Prophet — at the sacking of the Persian capital by Alexander in 330 B.C., just as Hebrews deny that they finally lost their Scriptures when Babylonians and others destroyed their city and temple. They claim its divine restoration through ''Ezra the Second Moses." All bibles like the religions founded thereon have at some periods of their existence, and for several centuries, led a chequered and often very obscure life ; and Avestan scholars have said nothing here to the contrar}^, nor in this respect do these later vols, on Mazdahism propound anything very new to the student of ancient faiths. They do, however, add to the universal testimony of history, that it is dangerous to contend for the continued existence of bibles ; their inspiration, and ipsissima verba, as they pass through the ages. They die not, but grow as do other fundamental symbols of faiths. Neither kings nor armies, fire nor water, could destroy a tooth of Buddha, the sacred stone of Maka, the wood of a cross or even the sacred coat of Treves ! Let us then give here a sketch of the chronology of the Avasta beginning with historic men and tolerably well-known times. 206 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. Ezra's Time — 100 to 370 b.c. It is now certain that Ezra only left Babylon in 398 or seventh year of Arta-xerxes II., Nothus, not Arta-xerxes I. Longi- manus, and that Nehemiah went up as Governor 385. The 4th and 5th cents, were a great bible-compiling era, and probably before and during this time, Ezra and his scribes were collecting, writing, editing or compiling Hebrew Scriptures. The original and several other copies of the Avadd-Zand or " Law and Commentaries " reposed in the Royal Libraries of the Pasargadae, and these consisted of 21 great Nasks "written on ten thousand hides" in a Magian and non-Persian lauguage, and no doubt kuniform character. It was then an ancient Faith — a growth like most from Turanian sources — originally of the old Akkadian spiritual type, modified by non-Aryan Magian Medo-Baktrians, and systematized and commended to kings and princes by the reformer Zaratusht. This, said Prof. Haug and others, probably " at the same time as was the Vedik religion . . . both the result of a schism among the followers of the old Aryan religion." Outlines, p. 164, by Dr Tiele, Prof of Theol. Leiden. As Aryan names, however, do not appear on Assyrian tablets till about 800 B.C. we cannot admit that Aryans existed in any appreciable numbers, or with a distinct and written faith, within the cognisance of the Eastern Assyrian Empire, prior, say to 900 B.C. Yet long before this Irans had their '■' Divine Law and Commentaries," and had far earlier still, their Manthras or GCithds which they chanted (probably when only oral like those of their Vedik brethren), around their Atash gclhs or Fire altars to the accompaniment of Yasnas, Stod Yashts and other rituals of their simple sacrificial rites. All traditions agree that the Original completed Avasta Zand was delivered to the Iranian King Vishtasp of the 17th century B.C. by Zoroaster, and that he was the first monarch converted to the faith, on which account he suffered much trouble like his Prophet. Vishtasp however like Asoka cherished his faith and its Biblia, and caused many copies to be made from the original, which appears to have gone to the vaults of " the Shapigan Treasury " with orders that copies be made and distributed. One celebrated copy was securely locked up " in the Fortress of Documents," evidently the Imperial Museum and Library, and only this copy we are told was burnt. The quasi original or the early complete copy of the Shapigan Treasury fell into the hands of the Arumans (Greeks) and was trans- lated into the Greek language say the old Pahlvi writers. They deny any complete destruction of records, or any attempt thereat ; saying all was accident and fragmentary, see Professors Darmesteter III. AGE OF AVAST A HOW PRESERVED PRIOR TO 300 B.C. 207 and West, as in Intro, p. 31, Fragts. and Dinkard viii. i. There we are told that out of a set of 905 chapters, only 180 are said to have been lost from the Philosophical Nasks during the Greek rule," and much greater care would be taken of the religious Nasks. The former were probably fragments of the six Ddsinos (Dink. ix. i. 11) corres- ponding to the six Hindu Darsanas of say the 7th century B.C. — a noteworthy connection of the sister faiths. We notice here also a fact — important as bearing on the age of the Avasta, that " all its historical legends end with the sons of Vishtasp," and come down from the times of Zaratusht and his con- temporaries ; and that it is uniformly stated to have been the revered Bible of all the Achsemenian dynasty which arose about 900 to 890 B.C. and founded the Parsio-Pasargadian Empire. Alexander the Great — b.c. 330. Confessedly many of the 21 voluminous Nasks were lost by the destruction of the Persian capital and the devastating war waged by the Greek armies of this great Captain ; but the priests eagerly and rapidly set about collecting and compiling their treasures, and could easily make good their losses from the memories of those who like ancient Brahmans knew their sacred books by heart. Especially were the most valuable religious parts, as the Gdthds, Rituals, Litanies, the Sacred Myths, Ceremonial Laws and Commentaries, well and widely known ; and a canonical Avasta Zand was soon announced of 15 Nasks, of which one of the most important — the Vindidad, was, as seen in the most ancient Pahlvi documents (translated by Profs. Darmesteter and West), always complete and uninjured. We must remember also that the Greeks claimed to have carried off a complete Original of 21 Nasks and to have had all translated into Greek ; which was no doubt done, seeing that Alexander had with him a picked body of Savants bent on collecting such literary treasures. Cf. 8. B. of E. iv., i. : xsxvii., and the earlier vols, iv., xxiii., xxiv. Rise of the Seleukian Empire — 312 b.c. This was an important matter in the life of the Avasta, for this Greek Empire doubtless possessed the stolen original ; and we are assured that active and systematic royal efforts were now made by the Seleukides to further the recovery of all lost records, and to trans- late all from the kuniform into western languages ; and favored by monarchs and chiefs, the uprising priestly classes. Magi, Medes and all good Mazdeans, the task was zealously and effectively entered on, and we may well believe was largely accomplished. 208 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. EisE OF THE Parthian Empire — 2 GO b.c. The Parthians were perfervid Zoroastrians, and they too continued the good and genial work of collecting their Scriptures throughout and beyond all their wide empire. They busied themselves in also translating from the kuniform, but into their own Parthvi or Parthian — an evoluting Pahlavi or Pahlvi language, in which they were ably supported by the Seleukians who continued to rule Syria and all west of the Parthian Empire. From 250 to 220 B.C. was everywhere a bus}'' Bible-compiling and arranging era. In India the pious Emperor " Asoka the Great — the Constantine of Buddhism," was zealously compiling his Bihlia and founding the first Buddhist Empire ; and the Bibliophile, Ptolemy, King of Egypt, was collecting and translating all the literature of Asia, amongst which we hear of the Scriptures of Hebrews whicli fortunately for Jews and Christianity, he discovered, seized and trans- lated into Greek and so formed the oldest Christian Bible — the Septuagint* Bat for Ptolemy, it has been said, the Standard Hebrew Texts would have been for ever lost ; they were fast disappearing being " written mostly on shreds and tatters of half tanned hides." The best Hebrew Bible now existent was probably largely drawn from the Greek in our Middle Ages, when Europe began in earnest to translate its Greek and Latin New Testament into the languages of the peoples. There was then a Renaissance of learning in which Hebrews shared and produced the present Hebrew Scriptures, chiefly from the quasi Alexandrian Septuagint and a few other scanty and questionable sources : see details in our Study IX., Septuagint. King Valkhash or Vologeses I. — say 60 a.c. We again hear a good deal about the Avasta during the reign of this Arsakide, Arsakian or Ashkanian monarch, for he was an ardent Zoroastrian who busied himself in Mazdean research and in the rearrangement of the Texts and rituals, at this time well known though varied in form, to the busy schools of Alexandria and to the learned in the Latin kingdoms. The last Parthian Arsakes of 220 prided himself in having collected and compiled probably all the Avesta and Zand. * The Original was lost for ever in the burning of Ptolemy's library at Bruchium in 47 B.C. All the quasi Septuagints have been tampered with alike by Jew and Christian, as all the Fathers confessed : nor is there any "Word of God " — Hebrew or Greek — like to the " Temple standard " of the 3rd to 1st cent. B.C., from which our Septuagint was translated, but these are facts known only to the learned, and avoided even by them, not to say priests. III. RULE OF PARTHl VOLGESES AND SASANIANS. 209 The Sasanian Empire which arose 240 to 250 a.c. About 230 Arta-Xerxes or Ardashlr Bdhazan or Pfvpakdn rose to great power, and finally founded this dynasty — his chief recommen- dation being zeal for a great revival of the faith. He called to his aid a very pious prince of the Empire — Tdnsar or Tosar, who had thrown aside great wealth and all mundane concerns, and become a High-priest, He set to himself the task of " Establishing the Faith," or rather the Canon, that which Bishop Eusebius endeavoured to do for Christianity a hundred years later. In both cases the Monarchs and their High-priests were perplexed with a great mass of Gospels and Epistles, Nasks and Yaslds, which sadly bamboozled the faithful, so that a shorter and official canon was a felt necessity. Ardashir and Tosar (called " The Restorer ") caused all that was to be accepted as genuine, — i.e., original, — to be translated into the language of their people, the national Pahlvi, and to be freely dis- tributed. And the 15 Nasks of the Parthi then received a Trijxtrt grouping, like the original 21 Nasks of the Pasargadse, and similar to the Tri-pitaka or "Three Baskets of Light" of Buddhists. The Avastan division was, — 1st, NwgcUhas or Theological Hymns ; 2nd, The Law ; and Srdly, the Hadha-Mathrik or "Mixed Group," called in the Sacred Dinkard : " the Religious, the Worldly, and Intermediate " — a division which some see in Jeremiah's Priestly Lavj, the Counsel of the Wise, and the Word of the Prophet. Sacred Books of the East xviii. 18, xxxvii. 39. In this last vol. the learned Zand scholar wrote in 1892 : " It is evident that all the Nasks have accumulated around the Gatha centre of the Stodyast . . . and that the age of Gathic composi- tion had so long passed away in the time of the earliest Sasanian Monarchs (250 A.c), that the sages whom they appointed to collect and rearrange the sacred literature were unable to understand many of the stanzas they had to translate into Pahlvi, much less could they have added to their number. How far they may have been able to write ordinary Avasta text is more uncertain, but any such writing ivas pro- hahly confined to a fevj 'phrases for uniting the fragments of old Avasta which they discovered. . . . All such compositions would have been hazardous, as forming no part of their duties, which seem to have been confined to the arrangement of the fragmentary Avasta texts, and their translation into Pahlvi with explanatory comments in that language." The case of these Scriptures is therefore parallel to that of the recovery of the Hebrew Bible as collected, edited or compiled and copied in the Ezraitik and other periods of their obscuration ; and we are here also assured by the Rabbim that it would have been impossible o 210 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. and very " hazardous " for Hebrew compilers or copyists to have added to, or tampered with, the texts of their prophetic and Mosaic writers. This argument has been used in a rather wild " hypothesis " thi'own in as an Appendix to Prof. Darmesteter's otherwise valuable volumes just published on the Avasta. This we had intended here dealing with, but find in the current number of the R. Asiatic Jour. (July '03J that the author of these Pahlvi Texts (Prof. West) has done so sufficiently and very much to the point. He writes : " Admitting as Prof. Darmesteter does in vol. iii., p. ii., that on more than one important point he has had to content himself with mere hypothesis, it would have been far safer to wind up the brilliant summary of his opinions in pp. xcvi.-c, by reminding his readers of these hypotheses, than to leave them to infer that he had thoroughl}^ convinced himself that his conclusions were all founded upon indis- putable facts. . . . The Dinkard describes the successive restorations of religious writings, as collections and arrangements of all fragments of the old texts that were still extant, either in writing or in the memory of the priesthood, whereas the theory (this ' mere hypothesis ') describes some of the restorations as almost completely new inventions." * It is parallel to the theory of some Biblical critics, who advance many and some strong reasons for the Hebrew Bible being not older than the 4th or even 3rd cent. B.C., and most of the New Testament writings as belonging to the beginning of the 3d century A.C. Mr West adds : " The wilful forgery of the central documents of a religion which must have been committed under the observation of a watchful and con- servative priesthood, is a totally different atfair, not only as to morality, but also as to possibility." . . . " The continuance of a religion like that of Hebrews and Mazdeans implies the continuance of an active and power- ful priesthood during the four centuries of adversity, as well as the con- tinuance of the religious rites which would secure the preservation of the liturgy in the memory of the priests, even if it had not been com- mitted to memor}'." See the case of the Vedas and Vedik faith which all Sanskritists assure us was carried on in the memories of its adherents — brothers of these Iranians — for nearly a thousand years. And what a literature ! Pliny says Hermippos in 8rd cent. B.C. translated 20,000 lines of Zoroaster's verses and commented on 2,000,000 ; and Greeks had a multitude of works on mystikal lore said to have been written by the Prophet and his disciples. Nat. Hist. * Prof. Max Muller in the Jevnsh Qtly. of Jan. '95 says : — " I do not luidervahie his (Prof. Darmesteter's) arguments as to the late age of the Zend Avesta, but I am not convinced by them," p. 191. III. MODERN PROFESSORS ON AGE OF AVASTA. 211 The Sasanian Shahpur I. — 240-274 a.c. This worthy scion of the founder of the dynasty continued his father's good work, until the Faithful found themselves in a position to boldly propagate their faith. The too zealous monarch thought he had only to present his religion to Westerns, Christians and all reason- able men, to gain its acceptance and their good will ; but he soon found that neither reason, goodness nor love of righteousness, moved the masses in relig^ious matters, but rather feelings, customs and circum- stances. The Monarch's zeal only engendered strife and political com- plications which hastened his end. Shahpur II. " The Great " — 309-380 a.c. The propagandism still continued and nearly ended in making us all Zoroastrians, or at least most of the populations of the southern and central parts of Europe. This clever and distinguished monarch and zealous pietist, now officially issued the whole Canon of the faith as did our King James. All other collections and editions were now declared by Royal Decree to be " illegal and false," and for the first time in the Western history of Mazdeism persecutions began, and an Edict declared that " no more false Religions can be now permitted." His high priest was the holy Adarahad Mah-Raspand, correspond- ing to "the 2nd Moses " or Ezra of Hebrews. Prophecies had foretold the temporary discomfiture of the faith, and these and all miracles centred around Mahraspand, and were said to be fulfilled when he finished the new Canon under Shapur II. in 333 A.C. It was then given out that true translations of all the Original Mazdean Scriptures had been made, and this was reasserted by a proclamation of the great monarch, Nosharvan, of 531-579 A.c. The literature of the faith had been rapidly increasing for some centuries, and was now abundant, historical and interesting. The pious and learned were pondering over and explaining the sacred Dinkard, Bundahish and MainyoaJcard as " Scriptures second only in importance to the Avasta Zand," though our editions of these works are considered to be some centuries later. Now seeing the above historical facts, and inter alia that from the 6th to 4th centuries B.C., Plato and most of the early western schools of light and learning, believed that Zoroaster (as they called him) lived some thousand or more years before their time, we may reasonably accept the well informed and studied conclusions of Avastan scholars beginning with Prof Haug, that the Prophet lived between the 20th and 17th centuries B.C., and that his principal 212 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. ITL teachings — the Avastd or " Laws of Auhar- Mazda " — were embodied with Zand or " Commentaries " about the 17th century B.C. when the Reformed Faith took effect under King Vishtasp. Prof. Sir Monier Williams had all along declared them to be " certainly not later than 1200 B.C." It would be marvellous were it otherwise, seeing the voluminous kuniform literature — Turanian and Shemitic — which throughout these centuries, and indeed from 3000 B.C., filled the palace libraries of Babylonia and Assyria, and which was current and abundant in Syria, as seen in the Tell el Amarna tablets of the 14th to 16th centuries B.C. On many other grounds also it is incredible that the most valued treasure of all Western Asia — its only Bible — should not have existed in numerous copies throughout the widespread Iranian Empire and its far older Magian satrapies, and that all could have been lost in one conflagration of a palace in the 4th century B.C. Prof. West and others here give us many and strong reasons why we can rely on still having the original and most Ancient Avasta, and among others the one already mentioned, viz., that it contains no his- torical matter later than the era of " Kai Vistasp King of Iran in the time of Zaratust . . . the last King of the old history derived from the Avesta." In Dinkard, viii.-xi., xii., the quasi " inspired writer " devotes one chapter of one verse to the words : " The Avasta and com- mentary of the Vastag have not reached us through any high -priest." And we must remember that all Mazdeans have ever held, that the Pahlvi version of this holy and much revered book, is considered " almost of equal authority with the Avastan Text." We certainly can see no flaws in the Mazdean Bible similar to those which make Moses describe his own death or speak of later matters, tribes and places, known only many centuries after that Prophet's death. The necessity of dwelling on this vital point of the antiquity and authenticity of the Avasta is very apparent from the Academy of 15th July 1893, which has come to hand since writing the above. In it one of our best Biblical critics. Professor the Ptev. Dr Cheyne, of Oxford, says : " There are Zoroastrian influences which it is impossible to ignore in the Hebrew Psalms and Proverbs," in the development and " conception of the Jewish religion under the form of Wisdom, and in the semi- intellectual element and phraseology of the earlier prophets." He pointedly adds : " We can only ignore this by denying the antiquity of parallel parts of the Avesta," and this he notices Professor Max Mliller "happily does not attempt" when touching on the Avasta in his late Oifford Lectures. He indeed fully supports our contention for the great age of the Avesta and Zand, in Contp. Rev., Dec. '93, and this from a strong philological standpoint. III. EVIDENCE OF AGE THE FRIVOLOUS AND VALUABLE. 213 The "Gathas or main parts of the Avesta," says Dr. Cheyne, " are substantially ancient, and represent ideas widely current when the Psalms and Proverbs were written. . . . The Heavenly Wisdom of the Yasna. . . . cannot be borrowed from the Wisdom which Yahveh made from everlasting" as in Prov. viii. 22-31. The "strong in- tellectualistic current of the older Faith " is more or less the parent. But enough ; to continue this argument would be to enter on the thorny paths of Comparative Theologies, for which this is neither the time nor place. From these Pahlvi Texts, strange and difficult " Summaries " though they be, we can gather with great distinctness the views of the good and wise old teachers. If the volume contains a mass (to us in these days of a plethora of books) of weary platitudes and wordy ethical and doctrinal teaching, similar to that which the ecclesiastics of our early centuries and Middle Ages laboriously pondered and quarreled over, the Texts also contain much good matter of the greatest importance in the conduct and government of all peoples, throughout all ages alike in family, public, social and political life. If some long chapters discuss such mysteries as "sins committed consciously or unconsciously ; " of the many and varied symptoms thereof ; whether stinginess benefits pride or pride stinginess, or pride pride : the quantity of holy water due to different sacrifices, and how it should be carried ; the danger from spirits if a sacred shirt or girdle be neglected or wrongly made ; the proper positions of the shaver and the shaved ; the care of hair and nail clippings ; the nurture and value of the Parodarsh or domestic cock — " the foreseer of the dawn," etc.; (pp. 123-163, Dink, viii.) there is also here in abundance, the highest ethical and wise teaching by writers of marked piety, good- ness and genius ; men who are keenly and grievously moved by the sins and sorrows, worries and miseries of their fellows, and who are pro- foundly anxious to alleviate these and to lead all men into paths of holiness and peace, by the doing of justice, the love of mercy, righteous- ness and truth ; and as they add, " looking always to and walking humbly before their God " — Auharmazda, no mean God-idea. The Texts continually and piously counsel us regarding " the peace which follows the renunciation of sin ;" and though finding even here much that is new, we still feel ourselves, as Professor Cheyne has said, in presence of "a literature substantially ancient," and one foreign if not impossible to the busy Western world of either the times of the Seleukian, the Sasanian, or our own era. There is scarcely a conceivable situation of life public or strictly private, from that of the King on his throne, the Judge on the bench, the maiden or wife in her chamber, the herdsman and his dog on the 214 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. hillside, which is not here dwelt upon by these laborious and experi- eQced old writers ; and the burden of their teaching is the Ashem Vohu or " praise of Righteousness," as that which alone exalteth the individual and the nation. Righteousness alone maketh they say " a perfect character, . . . it alone is the 'perfection of religion," and is summed up in the three Avords which ought to be ever on our lips and in our hearts — Huniat, Hukht, and Huvarst, Good Thoughts, good Words, and good Deeds. Dink. viii. 23. In these Pahlvi Texts we are also either directly told or can gather the following conclusions : That our virtues proceed from the good, and our vices from evil spirits; that Judges may base their decisions on the Avasta Zand, or common consent, or precedents recorded by the priesthood ; that men may be justifiably sold or bartered away (for of course slavery existed), but that to refuse food to any starving one is worthy of death ; that " to keep a promise is not only advantageous, but pleasurable " and pious, and is " required by Mithro the Spirit of the Sun and friend of man." . . . He is a God of Covenants and Testi- monies, records every breach of vows and requires simple offerings and thankful hearts, reminding us of the Hebrew Jah"i\ie. Sun of Righteous- ness " (Mai. iv. 2). Other passages recall the Mosaic ark and its 'Oduth or 'Edidh, mii?, wrongly translated " Testimony," before which the tribal priests were directed to place bread or manna. Of. Exod. xvi. 34, and Dink. viii. 44. " We cannot forget," said Prof. Max Miiller in Jeivish Qtly. Jan. '95, p. 190, "that the whole system of Angels and Arch-angels has always been supposed to have been borrowed by Jews from Zoro- astrians. While in the Avestic writings we find not a single foreign name from a Jewish source, we actually find one Zend name at least in the book of Tobit. . . . The stream of thought flowed from Persia to Judea, not from Judea to Persia." There was no Mithra in the days of Gclthas, nor any Savior re- quired or probably then dreamt of by Zoroaster ; these were very early ideas, but evidently later than his bona fide teaching ; see Ch.ald. Mag. 196, where we hear of the Babylonian Savior. " Dr Cheyne " finds in the later Old Testament books abundant traces of a Hebrew myth of a supervaturnl dragon (Akriman), the enemy of light and the God of light," who was subdued by the Avestan Yahve, Ahura Aiazda. Acad., Mar. 27/3/95, and Amos ix. 3. The Pahlvi Texts show also that only by diligence can we attain salvation, and to this end should commit great parts of the Scriptures to memory, especially the Gclthas, the HadoJM, and Vistaj Nasks. Rushnii the great angel of death, will it is said, weigh our evil deeds against our good ones, for all are recorded; and on " the Bridge of Sighs" III. AVASTAN TEACHINGS ITS RITES AND SCIENCE. 215 — the dangerous Kinvdt, we must confess all, and either fall or pass on into the courts of Auharmazda to dwell for ever in bliss with Him. The good Mazdean is kind to all creation ; smite thouo^h he must occasionally and even unto death, man or beast, fowl or fish. He does so not in haste or anger, but with the least possible injury and pain. War is to him a sad and evil necessity, but he calls together his troops, explains to them the reasons, and fulfilling the religious rites required by the Avasta, he quiets their fears and scruples. Great honor and reward are meted out to " the true and qualified physician, and condemnation to him who attempts this profession un- worthily or who imposes on the sick ; " also upon all doctors " who seek undue fees or carelessly spread disease by walking in times of pestilence amongst those who are sick and then amongst the healthy ; for they spread disease and offend Airman the Spirit of Healing." No profession is so honourable as that devoted to the study of the precious protective powers of plants, etc., for " Auharmazda has granted a specific for every ailment." The Oculist or Didpdn is cautioned lest he injures when he essays to cure defective sight. We are not to speak at meals or only in whispers lest we offend the Spirits of Health and Life and so vitiate the spell or good of our prayers (evidently the " Grace before meals "), or as doctors now tell us, our digestion, by swallowing half-masticated food. Dk. xviii. 19. Deities and demons, spirits good and evil abounded everywhere in this old Zoroastrian world as with us, but by prayer and a virtuous life, the gods could be propitiated and demons warded off. If we would avoid sin let us begin inwardly by subduing evil thoughts, and outwardly by avoiding evil company and all first promptings to sin, A-Mazda sees the heart and our hidden springs of action, and at Dk. ix. 31, 15; 32, 1-5, we have examples as to those spirits who tried to deceive Him. We are cautioned to beware " of seductively assuming religion, coloring thought (i.e. canting ?), talking and reciting hypocritically of righteousness whilst adopting evil practices ;" (Dk. ix. xiii.) and almost in the words of Matt. xxv. 40 we are told that those " who give to the disciples (of the Lord) give unto him " — Zaratusht, a commercial reason not usual in this faith. It is wrong to deal in Witchcraft or to attempt to bewitch any. The whole Vindad (the name given in the Rivayats to the sacred Vindldad which passed unscathed through all the Greek wars) is more or less against witches and demons. Its Avastan name, the Data Vidaera signifies " Law against demons," see Dk. viii. 44, note. It discusses much good medical lore and practice as known in Irania some 2600 years ago. Amid strange sexual matters, the grave old medical theosophists ever and again wander into the spiritual, and 216 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. IIL vainly speculate as to when a baby attains to mental and spiritual perceptions ; for tliey have no doubt about its soul and whither it is going, though not clear as to when it was developed, and where it came from. Vind. iii. 34-44, Dk. viii. 45. Earth, Water and Fire must be ever kept pure from all defile- ment especially by dead matter, and for this we must answer to the powerful living spirits of the elements on the dreaded Kinvat Bridge. He is a pagan or Devi-Yast (idolater) who would here presume to offend. " Great Yim " or Jamshed though here offending- " received the grace of A-Mazda because " he drove away from earth the four heinous vices of drunkenness, keeping bad company, apostasy and selfishness. Fire is the sacred symbol of Divine life — the incarnated spirit of God, of the Sun and of A-Mazda, and very similar to Suriya Agni, Horos, Marduk, Apollo, etc. It is the cliild of God, and thus addresses the deity : " I am thy son, A-Mazda, and not of this world from which I must extricate myself and soar to heaven : Carry thou me away to Aircm Vcg the home of Zaratusht and of the race of Airycmeni Vaego," from which all good Parsis or Pursians affect to have their sacred fire. High and continual respect is due to fire, even when used for lighting or cooking purposes. Xo impure thing or person may approach it, nor even blow upon it. The precautions are detailed and endless. So too are the descriptions, joys and pains of Heavens and Hells. The less we know of this world, the more we seem to do of the unseen. A tribe which has never crossed the neighbouring mountain range and knows only its own rude jargon, can always describe the whole universe and tell us of the discourses and manners " in heaven above and the earth beneath;" so in this inspired volume we learn what goes on away deep down "below the base of high Alburz — the gate of hell " over which spans the Kinvat bridge with " its breadth of nine spears for the righteous and a razor edge for the wicked." In this hell, like the proverbial forest which cannot be seen for the trees, the souls stand so thickly about, that they cannot see each other (elsewhere it is said to be " the blackness of darkness "), and they all think they stand alone. Though there is weeping and wail- ing, no voice is heard, but there are noxious smells, though it freezes, here, so different to our Gehenna. Cf Dadestan xxvii., Dk. ix. 20. Mazdeans like Hindus divide time into 4 yugas or A2^s : the Golden when A-Mazda inspired his prophet Zaratusht : the Silver when King Yishtasp was converted by Zaratusht : the Third or Steel, when Aturpad, " Organizer of Righteousness," completed the Dinkard; and the 4th or Irov, when apostasy became rampant. This would be over two and a half millenniums — say from 1800 B.C. to 800 a.c. III. ELEMENTAL CULT HEAVENS, HELLS, DEMONS, ^ONS. 217 It is strange though common, that the gods of one age and people are the demons or nonentities of another. Here we find the loved Devas of Indo-Aryans — the Gods of Light — are demons of darkness, and great Indra, the Indian Jove is with these Iranians, an Arch demon, the Son of Satan or Aharnian and opponent of Asha-vahist the Archangel of Goodness, (ix. 9, and xxx.) Like Osiris and Typhon the Mazdean God and his " Adversary " were brothers who long worked together ; but we are exceeding our limits, and must leave for some other place and opportunity a great deal of the interesting contents of these old Palilvi Texts. APPENDIX B SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST" SERIES. The Zend-Avesta ; Vols. IV., XXIII., and XXXI. Translated BY Prof. James Darmesteter. Reprinted ivith slight U mended ions from " The Imp. Asiedic Revieiv " of Oet. 94. Any attempt to review the Iranian Sacred Scriptures is as impossible as it is to review our own Bible : both must be read over repeatedly from beginning to end, then studied in detail, and dio^ested at leisure. Even then, unless the reader be a specialist in languages and critical exegesis, he must trust the versions of translators, and the texts handed down through the lapse of ages. Difficult, if not impossible, will it be for him to decide the numerous critical questions which have been raised, and to judge between conflicting theories. In the case of the Zend-Avesta, he can at least console himself with the idea that he has here as in other bibles only the substance of what was produced by the original writers, who were neither better nor worse, more accurate or more competent than later emendators of the texts. On the con- trary, it may be reasonably surmised that the last must be the best or wisest ; and the oldest composers the most credulous and ignorant ; though, pel' contra, the former were no doubt biased priests fighting for their order, and that power and position which a great sacrificial 218 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. HI. and ministering system gave them, backed as it was by the quaHi words of a God and his acknowledged Prophets. We shall not, therefore, here attempt to review the gi'eat Bible of this faith, but confine our attention principally to the section of it translated in Vol. IV. of this series — " Tlt^. Vendiddd." The other two divisions of the Avesta are usuall}'^ in the East called, for brevity, the Visparad and Yasnas ; to which is subjoined the Zend, " Com- mentaries or Explanations " of the original text in Pahlvi. In this Oxford series, of " the Zend-Avesta " appear the following Scriptures : Bv Professor Darmesteter Vol. IV., The Vendiddd, and Vol. XXIIL, The Si-rozahs, Vasts and Nydyis: and by Dr the Rev. L. H. Mills Vol. XXXI. The Yasna, Visparad, Afrinagdn Gdhs and Fragments. These terms need a brief explanation. The Sirosahs (" 80 days ") are invocations or Collects suitable for each day of the month, and are addressed to its special Ized or tutelary Spirit. Gdhs are short Gdthds (hymnal prayers) suitable for the five divisions of each day of 24 hours. Nydyis are prayers of entreaty, as opposed to Sitdyis or prayers of praise. Afrtnagdns are " Graces " or Blessings recited before rites and meals for the dead, and addressed to them and their guardian spirits. Visparads are invocatory prayers and rituals addressed to " All Lords " or to each deity. Vasts and Vasnas are too often identified ; but Vast or rather Vesti signifies simply an " Act of Worship," as by readiug or using the Yasnas of which there are 20 and a fragment, full of most valuable historical and mythological matter, poetical and epical, prayers, praises, liturgies and, precious above all, the ever revered ancient Gdthas universally attributed to the Prophet himself. Two of them are headed : " Words revealed to Zoroaster, when in an ecstatic state, by angels whispering in his ear." This complete Bible is usually headed in Pahlvi : " The whole Law and its Traditional Revealed Explanations " : meaning, as it was found in Original MSS. in the Zend language. Each book is separate as in the Hebrew Bible, and is translated into Pahlvi. For general use, Zoroastrians j^refer two books — the Vendiddd Sddah or " Pure Vendidad " and the Khord (Small) " Avasta," the last being their short summarized collection of all necessary daily pi'ayers and recitations, most of which the pious learn by heart. The Vendiddd Sddah is similarly known to all priests, and combines, suitably for dail}' services, the parts of this Bible read in litanies and liturgies, arranged for the sacrificial and other rites and special holy days. The term Vendiddd is a contraction of Vi-daevo-datem or " Law concerning daevas," that is against all manner of sins and evils held to be created by Altriman, a word contracted from Angra Mainya or III. TERMS USED IN AVASTA ITS CRADLE LAND. 219 "Spirit of Evil," the ruler of Bruj or hell and its hosts, often called Brujes. It was no difficult task to commit the Vendiddd to heart. Our translator shows that it has only about 40,000 words, nearly half of which are repetitions in questions and answers, and in long-set phrases, such as : " O Ahura Mazda, Beneficent Spirit, Maker of the Material World ! Thou holy one," &c., with a similar preface : " Holy Spitama Zarathustra," &c. Then follows a full repetition of the questions, two or three of which sometimes cover a whole page. In the Asiatic Quarterly of Oct., 1893, I showed in my review of Prof. West's Pahlvi Texts (vol. xxxvii. of this series), that the Vendiddd is the only part of the Avestan Bible which Zoroastrians hold never to have been either lost or manipulated. I there lightly sketched the chronology of this great faith, especially from its domi- nation of Western Asia, which began with the rise of the Parsio- Pasar-gadian Achsemenian Empire of the 9th cent. B.C. These Iranians had then descended from their cradle lands — the Georgian Alps — " the high and holy Airyano-Vaego by the good river Daitya " or Araxes with its " ten months of winter, and two of summer," regarding which Ahura Mazda might well say, as here : " I have made every laud dear to its dwellers, even though it has no charms whatever, . . . otherwise all would have invaded Airyana Vaego." See Farg. V. where, too, are specified the other fifteen northern homes of the Faith, extending E. to Sughdha or Samarkand, and S.E. to Heptu-Hindu or India, but which centred principally in Atropatine or Adarbaijan and south Kaspiana. We can identify nine of the sixteen lands described in the first chapter of the work, and can well believe in all the evils, diseases and famines which the wicked Angra Mainyu is said to have there created. He visited Ahura Mazda's goodly creation with venomous flies, plagues and epidemics as well as moral and doctrinal death, till fair " Bakh-dhi, beautiful Haroyu and holy Ragha of the three Races " (Balk, Hari-rud or Herat, and Rai — the birthplace of the good Prophet), fell an easy prey to wild Tatar hordes, which have through all ages, ever and again swooped down W. and S. from their desert steppes. " Into these lands which I made bright and glorious, saj's Ahura Mazda to "his holy Zarathustra," "the evil one counter- created unbelief, witchcraft, wizards howling forth their spells, abnormal lusts, the burying and burning of the dead (for which there is no atonement), and the dire winters of the accursed Daevas." Our translator does not spare the faith and its prophet, either in his long and excellent introduction or his copious annotations. He shows us, as in duty bound, all its historical and other weak points. 220 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. Historical difficulties, however, occur iu the case of other prophets and heroes, called variously " sons and friends of God," and believed to have been in daily converse with him as Zoroaster is here said to be with his " Most High Ahura." Many lives of great ones have been, as here, accepted from writings and legends of unknown times and sources, though mixed up with the wildest and most palpable fictions, on which are built wondrous structures of faith. " Mazdeism," says Professor Darmesteter, I. xxvi. et seq., " has often been called Zoroaster's religion in tlie same sense as Islam is called Muhammed's religion, that is, as being the work of a man named Zoroaster, a view which was favoured not only by the Parsi and Greek accounts, but by the strong unity and symmetry of the whole system. . . . When he lived no one knows, and everyone agrees that what the Parsis and the Greeks tell of him is mere legend, through which no solid historical facts can be arrived at. (But the same holds good in the case of all early Biblical heroes as Adam, Abraham, Moses, &c.) The c^uestion is whether Zoroaster was a man converted into a god, or a god converted into a man. No one who reads . . . the Avesta itself, will have any doubt that Zoroaster is no less an essential part of Mazdean mythology than the son (Saosh-Yant) expected to be born of him, at the end of time, to destroy Ahriman. . . . Zoroaster is not described as one who brings new truth and drives away error, but as one who overthrows the demons." Is not the latter only old world phraseology for the former ? Many figures of speech occur, which to us seem wild ; as that Zoroaster chiefly repels the devils (Ahriman and his hosts) not as others do " with material weapons, but with a spiritual one — the Word or Prayer." Occasionally he is said, metaphorically to hurl stones and thunderbolts as do Indra, Agni and the Maruts (Rig Veda II. 30, i), and as does the Norse Thor, where " the stone signifies the flame wherewith, as with a stone, the storm-god aims at the fiend, Zarathustra's birth ... is hailed with joy ... by the whole living creation, because it is the end of the dark and arid reign of the Demon ; in Zaratushts' growth the floods and trees rejoice ; " hence the strange metaphor of Pliny and others that he alone of mortals " laughed while being born," analogous to the Vedik metaphor, that the Maruts or storm-genii were born of the laughter of the lightning. Compare, says Professor Darmesteter, " the Persian Khandah-i-barq, ' the laughter of the Lightning.' . . . Zoroaster's great weapon is, however, neither the thunderstones which he hurls, nor the glory with which he is surrounded ; it is the Word," Ixxviii. The Greeks recognised the idea in their "Ocrcra Ato? ayyeXog — the Word, Messenger of Zeus ; the Goddess Fama of the Romans, and the Vach Amhhrinl or " cloud voice " of India. " The Word from above is either a weapon that kills, or a revelation that teaches." Thus the pious one " smites down Angra Mainyu . . . burns him III. PERSONALITY OF PROPHET MIRACLES AND SYMBOLISMS. 221 up with the Ashem Vohu (a prayer or ' praise of righteousness '), as with melted brass." This is the Mathra Spenta or HOLY WORK, which is " the soul of Ahura Mazda." (Farg. xix. 14.) In this, and much else, we detect the after growth of a solar myth which encrusted Zoroaster's religion as it did others. The Prophet is the summer Sun which smites the arid wintry fiends, and the faith has, therefore, not without reason, been called a war of " Light and Darkness" — an ideograph like to the Yin and Yang of China, and the western idea of Mithras and the Titans. The Greeks failed to understand the Magi or " Great ones," and thought they were pious Spiritists and clever " Magicians," Avith a religion of Magic and second-sight ! ; as some Theosophists have said in regard to the religion of Buddha ! Than Buddha, there could however, be no more earnest or better Agnostik, nor one further removed from all things occult, as Professor Max MUller showed in a late Co'iitemporary Beview. Buddha never knew or spoke of spirits, or of anything of which he was not cognisant, and which he could not substantiate ; and he advised all to do the same, as shown in my summary of his views in the Asiatic Quarterly Beview, April 1893. I need not here discuss the Introduction to Professor Darme- steter's work as to the age and authenticity of the Avastan Scriptures, having done so in my review of Professor West's Pahlvi Texts (A.Q.B. Oct. 1893). This was fully supported, from a philological standpoint, by Professor Max Miiller in the December Conteiiqjorary Bevieiu ; and again historically and generally, by the Rev. Dr. Mills (author of vol. xxxi. of Sacred Books of the East series) in the Nineteenth Century of January 1894. These points may, therefore, be considered settled, at least so far as history and scholarly research by specialists at present permit, and with the result, that these Scriptures are quite as well authenticated as those of other faiths, — as the Vedas, Tripitakas, the Sutras of the Jains, the Jewish, and Christian Scriptures. A close study of all these Scriptures raises very much the same doubts and difficulties, regarding the dates and authorship of the different books, the discrepancies and contradictions in details, and additions, interpolations and omissions. In regard to this much revered old Avestan Bible, it may be likened to the site of some ancient city where the excavator finds tier upon tier belonging to different ages, marking the rise and decay of divers peoples. The original citadel has been built and rebuilt upon, as fire and war levelled it, or earthquakes shook its old foundations. Nevertheless we can still see these plainly as well as much of the superstructure and its form and symmetry, though often buried deep under the many subsequent structures of later times and peoples. 222 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. Ill, In the Avesta, as we dig down to the oldest foundations how- ever, and clear aAvay the evident priestly additions, we find at the base, the handwriting of a master mind, of a good and strong Theistical philosopher ; one who out of an upright and pious spirit founded the citadel of a spiritual state, within which for some 2000 years, busy, weary multitudes had a sufficient resting-place, begrimed though it ever and again became, through royal or priestly manipulations and the overlapping of many and divers later builders, — would-be reformers, but more often destroyers. It is evident that the wise old Prophet never taught as here said of Ahura Mazda, that : " gods, like men, need drink and food to be strong, and praise and encouragement to be of good cheer ! " Nor would pious Hebrews write of their God as in Judges ix. that he required " wine to cheer him." The kosmological parts especially of the Vendiddd are probably not by Zoroaster himself. According to it, the world springs from an Edenic Paradise — a Var, Ark, or Gdn-Eden constructed under God's command by " the fair Yima " — a kind of Noah and the first King and founder of civilization. He is called " the son of Vivanghat," and corresponds to the Indo-Aryan Adam or " Yania son of Vivasvat, first of the dead and therefore King of the dead." Yima is here told by Ahura Mazda to " bring the seeds of sliee}), oxen, men and women, dogs and birds and red blazing fires ; and of every kind of tree and fruits . . . two of every kind ... of the greatest and best, into the (ark or) vara, and to seal it up with a golden ring, and make to it a door and a window." The difficulty from want of room in the Hebrew ark is thus got over, though others equally serious arise, as to the collection and incubation of the various seeds ! Yima's vargard is however said to be a mile square with rivers, meadows and gardens which he had cul- tivated to the utmost, and with full warning that fatal winters of frost and snow, storm and flood were to befall the world — then so little known. The vara was evidently a charmed enclosure in the High- lands of " Ariyana Vaeg5, where, by the good river Daitya " or Araxes, the young colony were able to escape a long succession of severe months or perhaps winters, and where Spenta Armaita, '' the holy Earth-Mother," kindly yielded most unusual favours. Farg. II. A word here as to this oft-repeated name Daitya. As this is still a common terra of reproach in India, signifying a pagan, infidel and stranger, I am inclined to think that it arose at the crossing of the river Daitya. Such a move would be no doubt hotly canvassed, as it has for ever separated the Aryan brethren. One large body (the Iranians) then determined to push straight south over the Kakases III. THE EDEN ARK DAITYAS MORAL LAWS. 223 and across the Daitya, and so occupy Georgia and Armenia, whilst others feared to attempt this invasion of strong settled Pagan {Ddsya- = Desa or country-people) and Daitya Kingdoms. The others who became Indo-Aryans then separated and struck East, over or around the Kaspian Sea, and finally settled among the great Turano-Dravidian races then ruling the Upper Panjab, where many still exist. This last has for the first time been learnedly established by Mr Hewitt in R. As. Journals of 1888-90 ; by Mr Chas. Johnston's excellent papers in the Asiatic Quarterly Revieiu, and Professor Oppert's " Original Inhabitants of India.'' But to resume. After Yima's civilization we find in the third and fourth Fargard of the Vendiddd, its raison d'etre, and the first code of social and moral laws which the Iranian Prophet introduces with : " Thus saith the Lord." Very quaintly, the sage is made to ask the Lord, " which is the first place where the earth feels most happy ? " that is, " What is good for man ? " and the reply is to the effect, " Where there is set apart a holy place, holy wood, and holy meat," so that all may " fulfil the law with love and pray to Mithra, Lord of wide pastures and good flocks." (III. 1). " Secondly ; Whereon is erected a house with a priest within, with cattle and a wife ; . . . and thirdly where the ground is cultivated." Great care is to be taken by all not to defile the earth or themselves with Ndsds, or "dead bodies," for "this gives strength to the Druj " and all the subordinate fiends — that is, it induces the deadly epidemics that scourged these lands, then as now. The rest of this chapter, and indeed of Farg. v. to xii., is devoted to precautions thought necessary by a priestly sanitary body to arrest infection and so drive away or modify the terrible fevers, black death, diarrhoeas and all manner of zymotic diseases. These are said to be "sent by Angra Mainyu to destroy Ahura's goodly creation." And Ahura here tells us through his Prophet how to avoid these and other ills. The arid places of the earth should be irrigated and cultivated, and " he who does not work, neither shall he eat." The husband- man must give " piously and kindly to the faithful, or evil will befall him and his, and eventually land him in the house of hell " (35). There is " no atonement for those who know the Asha Vahista or holy Law and Order, of the universe — the path of Righteousness and of Mazda — and follow it not, unless by confession of error, and resolutions not to sin again." " This law of the Lord " enacts (as say some among ourselves) that the true believer cannot sin. Ahura Mazda " takes away from him who confesses it, the bond of sin .... even for deeds for which there is no atonement .... cleansing the 224 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. faithful from every evil thought, word and deed" (Farg. viii. 28, 30, 40, 42). Thus this faith has no need of a Savior. Man's hope of salvation rests with himself. All future reward, said Zoroaster, depends on our good thoughts, words and deeds. In Farg. iv. we have an excellent code of justice which, though devoted chiefly to the laws and practice of contracts, oaths and agree- ments, " by hand, word, and writing," and treating also of penalties for menace, assault and all violence, yet has a far wider range. It touches upon incentives to evil, the thoughts and intentions and righteousness before God and men. The strange mode and phraseology in which all this is here put is rather repellent to us ; but it was no doubt clear, graphic and pleasant reading to the ancient Easterns. Ahura Mazda is made to ask his prophet in a free and familiar manner " What are the various kinds of contracts men make ? " evidently with the object of clearly defining them, of giving divine guidance and authorit}' in each case, and of cultivating the moral characters of his people. The deity then lays down how we ought to act in all the affairs of dail}'^ life ; not selfishly, but on the principle of doing unto others as we would they should do unto us, of being diligent in business and thus serving God and man ; a realization of the old adage '' Ora et Lahora," in the sense that all true work is worship. Nothing is so base, as to lie and to deny or break our word when once given, especially in the absence of witnesses, and when ratified by striking hand in hand. An unwritten bond it is said, should hold from father to son, and some bonds though unwritten, should hold to the ninth degree of kinship. The penalties are public scourgings, and are often absurdly violent like some of our own old laws ; but con- fession and penitence greatly modify the punishments, especially if there has been no premeditation. The contract between pupil and teacher is classed with those for goods, for a wife, etc. The good lawgiver says : " There are those who abstain from food, but better are those who abstain from sin in thought word and deed. ... In other religions men fast from bread, but the religion of Mazda requires us to fast from sin." It is better " he ne'er was born who takes a false oath," for the punishment for such is awful, alike in this world and the next (Saddar, 83 ; Vend. iv. 48, note). It is repeatedly said that religion, exoterically considered, con- sists mainly in keeping pure the elements, as earth, fire, air, water, etc. By doing so " They can hurt no one ; it is only the Dm] which flies there, that defiles the air and swims in the waters. . . . Nothing that I created does harm," says Ahura Mazda; "it is the bad im or vaya (Drujes) that kills man. . . . Fate may drowai III. PUKIFICATORY RITES : SEVERE AND FOOLISH. 225 by floods, and birds feed upon the nasfi, or ' dead matter ' ; that is one's destiny and the way men depart" (v. i.-iii.). " Purity is for man, next to life, the greatest good ; and this purity," says Ahura Mazda, " is procured by the Law of Mazda to him who cleanses his own self by good thoughts, words and deeds" (v. 21). Yet purificatory rites are here innumerable ; showing that we have other builders on Zoroaster's older and better foundations. Almost every rite is connected with the droppings and water of cattle, and even of humanity, in a manner here unmentionable. Yet from tiie land of the Arctic Eskimo to the Torrid Zone, this water is used as a disinfectant and purifier (viii. 12, 18). By the soapless Eskimo it is preserved and used for its ammoniacal qualities, especially for all thorough washings of bodies and very filthy garments. Amongst these Iranians it is held to purify the soul as well. The student will find much on this strange subject in the valuable work of Captain Bourke " Scatalogic Rites"; and in the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology, 1887-88 : Washington, U.S. Prof. Darmesteter remarks (Introd. xcviii.) upon the (to us) absurd ancient purification rites, fear of burials, etc. : "No one should wonder at the unqualified cleanser being put to death wha reads Demosthenes' Neaera; the Persians who defiled the ground by burying a corpse were not more severely punished than the Greeks were for defiling with corpses the holy ground of Delos, or than the conquerors at Arginousae ; nor would the Athenians who put to death Atarbes, have much stared at the awful revenge taken for the murder of the sacred dog. There is hardly any prescription in the Vendidad, however odd, and absurd it may seem, but has its counterpart, or its exjilanation in other Aryan (and Hebrew) legislations : if we had a Latin or a Greek Vendidad, I doubt whether it would look more rational." The Professor adds : — " The very absurdity of the Mazdean law is a proof of its authenticity," but " it may be doubted whether it could ever have been actually applied in the form stated in the texts. "^ See especially the many and severe scourgings inflicted for what we regard as foolish puerilities, though we must remember that 2700 years later, similar penalties were inflicted among ourselves for like follies or shortcomings. Dogs in early days were specially sacred, as the guardians of homes and flocks, for they were public scavengers who kept oflF disease and death, and thus aided in the purifications these Easterns so intently sought after ; and therefore do dogs usually take precedence of mankind in these early laws. Cf Fargs. xiii. and xiv,, devoted to dog legislation. " Without dogs," says the Preacher, " no house could exist on earth . . .they are the good spirits which kill the evil ones which surround us especially from midnight to sunrise " (xiii. 49). The lives of dogs and in some cases of hedgehogs were protected by P 226 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-IS^f. III. penalties five times as severe as those exacted for homicide ; while the death of a tortoise or serpent — ancient religious symbols — expiated all the sins of the killer, " for these creatures had become emissaries of Satan," "E'en gods must yield, religions take their turn." Disease was thought due to the serpent as a poisoner, whom "Thrita the first healer invented medicine to overcome" (Farg. xx.). From him Greeks have evidently borrowed their mythological Aisklepios and his serpents, which became with Indo-Aryans the celestial symbols of storm and destruction, this under the names of Thraetaona, Thrita, and Aptya — " Son of the waters who destroys the evil powers and storms" (Rig Veda, viii. 47, 13 seq.). The above foolish penalties for injury to these creatures and for other ceremonial faults, are classed by the Zoroastrian as of equal or even greater importance than moral turpitude, and probably these very ancient rulings are to blame for the absurd and severe treatment of like frailties and faults in Hebrew and other legislations. The earthly tenement of the soul is of no value in the eyes of Zoroastriaus ; no expense is permissible on a corpse ; no pious person may approach it, nor bestow thereon any good garment. "Not an asperena (pennyworth) of thread or any clothing is allowed ... let the dead body be clothed only with the light of Heaven, or old, worn out but well washed garments" (v, 60). "Let the dead bury their dead " reads like a Mazdean text. Gods and fiends are said to struggle three days and three nights for our souls at death. The arch fiends of Ahriman strive to drag the soul to hell, but solar Mithra, the " friend of God " and man, aided by three other archangels and the prayers and sacrifices of the pious, and of deceased relatives, withstand the hosts of hell. This continued warfare at the Dahhmas or places where the deati are laid, make, it was and is believed, these localities very dangerous to the living ; not exactly on the same grounds however, as timid peoi^le fear burial grounds, especially after dark ; but for the excellent sanitary reasons, that " here various infectious diseases, hot fevers, etc., prevail, and death has most power when the sun is down." Farg. vii. 58. Doctors and their art are not forgotten among all this divine legisla- tion, as is seen in our remarks on Farg. xx. on the invention of an Aisklepios or Thrita. The doctors are directed in Farg. vii. to show first a successful practice upon unbelievers, and are excused if they kill a few of these ; but if death follows their treatment of a Mazdean " with the knife," they must die ; nor may they practise among the faithful until they can point to at least three successful pagan cases 1 Their fees — gifts from the flocks, are graduated according to the rank of the patient : but Ahura adds : " he who heals with the Holy Word III. DOGS, DISEASE, DOCTORS, SATAN's ASSAULTS. 227 will best drive away sickness ; " which brings us to Fargs. x. and xi. on the important subject of curative spells, repetition of texts, and prayers for the sick, etc. : on which account Mazdeism has been un- justly thought to be a religion of magic. " Vain repetitions " of sacred names and texts, and the hanging of these in dwellings, dates back to the spiritualistic Akkadians of Babylonia, of about 3000 B.C. and is still in practice. Words and verses from the beautiful Gdthds — by far the oldest and holiest part of the Avesta, were evidently so used by pious Mazdeans from very ancient times. These are " the words of the Lord " so constantly re- ferred to, with which to drive away all visible and invisible spirits and all evils and miseries, — " The word " with which the prophet resisted the temptations of the Devil, on " Mount Darega in Iran Veg," as related in Farg. xix., and more fully elsewhere (Cf. also Intro. III. 15), In the Rev. Dr. Mills' valuable paper in the Nmeteenth Century, January 1894, he shows the most striking parallelism between the narrative of Christ's Temptation and this old Mazdean text (see p. 1 9 1 ante). In Farg. xix. the legend is briefly this : Satan " rushes forth from hell on holy Zarathustra" and directs his arch " Druj of hell-born unseen death, to smite him down." Zarathustra confronts him calmly chanting aloud the Ahuna Vairya : " The will of the Lord is the law of holiness," and the talismanic Ashem Vohu : " The riches of Vohu-Mano (' the Good Mind, or Holy Spirit ') shall be given to him who works in this world for Mazda, and wields according to Ahura's will the power he gave him to relieve the poor . . . ofl'er up prayers . . . profess the laws of Mazda," etc. On hearing these holy texts the " Druj fled back to hell " and confessed that the prophet was invulnerable. Zarathustra then in turn " assailed Satan with mighty (spiritual) weapons obtained from the Lord," until Satan prayed Zarathustra to no more attack him, and " cried aloud : I know thee, who thou art — the son of Pourusaspa. . . . Renounce Mazda, and thou shalt rule the world for 1000 years." "No, never," says the Holy One, " shall I renounce the law — though I lost body, life and souk" Satan then asks : " How, and by what weapons hopest thou to resist ? " And Zarathustra replies : " By the word, and all holy rites taught by Sj^enta Mainya (God's Holy Spirit) : by the word which was given of old by Boundless Time, the all ruling and beneficent one, I will smite and repel thee." After which the prophet chanted texts from his Bible as : " Teach me thy truth, Lord," etc. ; and then besought " the holy Ahura to aid him, not only in this difficulty, but in freeing the whole world from Satan's continual machinations." 228 ZOROASTER AND MAZDA-ISM. III. Ahura replied that " only by the holy word, good law, and all that is most intelligent, best and holiest, can evil be overcome." The pro- phet pleads that " owing to Satan's Daevas, God's holy spirit (the Vohu-Mano) gets indirectly defiled." "Then recite," says the Lord, "such texts as '■ Ashem Vohu is the Lest of all goocl ; happy the man who is perfect in all holiness ; . . . God's will is the law of holiness ; the riches of the holy spirit shall be given to him who executes his will, and VoJtK. Maud and man shall then be kept pure. . . .' Chy, ' Glory be to God ; glory to the immortal Spirits ; glory to all holy beings,' " etc. Here, too, we are told how " the noose of sins falls off the neck of the righteous at death, else would fiends drag him by it to hell : " and how '■'•VohuMand welcomes him to a golden seat in heaven, saying, 'Come, thou holy one, to us, from that decaying world to this undecaying one, . . . gladly do the righteous pass to the golden seat of God in ' the house of Songs,' and sit for ever with the briglit spirits of knowledge and holiness.' " Among the parallelisms between these Zand Scriptures and the Old Testament, we see that God delights not " in the blood of bullocks ... in vain oblations, incense, new moons or Sabbaths." It is more and more taught that " men must cease to do evil, and learn to do well ; love justice and mercy and walk humbly before God." But man loves the mysterious, so the spiritual attributes of Ahura Mazda grew with the faith, getting more and more defined, and the materialistic fell farther into the background as Mazdahism slowly struggled towards unity. Ormazd remained " The Inscrutable " and " Supreme," and other powers had faded away or become his creatures, before the 4th century B.C., when Ezraitik scribes were editing the Old Testament Books. CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY TREATING MAINLY OF MAZDEAN TIMES Turanian race strongly settled in Babylonia and Kaspiana, and migrating towards India, China and Syria. 23 „ Aryans beginning to appear north of Kfikasia. Berosos thought 22 „ Zoroaster had reached Babylon 2200. Plato said he lived 9300 B.C. and Hermippos 6500. Bailly puts down the time of the great Iranian Yam ShTd as 3200. Kuniform writing common. 21 „ Zoroaster, according to Haug. Sanskrit Aryans separating from Iranians and moving East of Kaspian. Dravidian Turanians moving 20 „ towards India already peopled by Turanians ; perhaps pressed E. by 19 ,, Iranian movements in Kaspiana. Indo-Jaina Bodhists known. 18 „ Zoroastrianism spreading into Media and Persis, and Magianism arising, and Gdthas and Vedik mantras chanted. 17 " Zoroaster preaching. Delivered to Vishtasp the first Iranian king the Avastd and Zand or " Commentary " said to be written in Medik as "inspired by Ahura-Mazdrdi." Copies were apparently made and deposited in the Royal and Shahpigfin Treasuries. 16 „ Ptev. Dr L. H. Mills formerly thought this to be the Gatha age, but in 1895 he "cannot resist the conviction that Gathas are earlier;" indeed there are now legendary notices of Yasnas, Vespered, &c. Egypt rules Syria. Some Eig Veda manthras supposed to be chanted. 15 „ Yamshid built his north Persian capital. Vindidad is spoken of. Solar worships overcoming serpent and phfdik faiths. 14 ,, Asyrians seize Babylon, Sumir and Akkad. 13 ,, Babylon recovering independence. Phenicians colonizing Car- thage—city of their Malak-Karth or Herakles, to whom they now build a great temple (Herod.). 1280 Shalman-asr I. king of Asyria is succeeded by son Tiglath- Adar I., who wages Avar with Babylon. Medes and Iranians 1100 rising in power, and Hitites and Phenicians forming Syrian states. 1080 Indo- Aryans in the Panjab. Avastd and Zand widely known 1050 Hesiodik-Orphean faith and mythology well defined'? 1000 Pandus and Ivurus on Sarasvati and Jamuna. Pelasgi and 950 Greeks pressing north and on Anatolian coasts. Jews build first 2o0 CHRONOLOGICAL HLSTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. III. B.C. 950 temple Ijy aid of Phenicians. Iranians now mentioned on Asyrian mountains, and a Jamshid Princess marries a king of Baktria. Ophiolatry being suppressed by Iranians. 900-890 The Royal Akhaimenean Iranian dynasty now arises, and HaJcJiamisJi, a perfervid Zoroastrian king rules at Pasargilde. 885-880 Tiglath-Adar II. and son Asur-natsir-pal ruling Asyria. They drive Egyptians out of Syria. 858 Shalmanasar II, attacks !Medcs and Armenians — possibly Irrmians. 855 Iranians claim independence and extend south and east. 853-840 Battle of Karkar 853-4, Shalmanasar fighting Perso-Iranians. 830 Laws of Lykurgos. Shalmanasar meets with reverses. 823-812 Shams Vul or Ptimon II. succeeds 823. Vul Nirari III. succeeds 812. 785-776 Jeroboam dies 785. Judea ruled by Uz-iah ? Greek Era 776. 770 Judeans separate from Israelites. East Medish Aryans claim inde- pendence. Shalmanasar III., 781 ; Asur-dfm III., 771; Asur-nirari, 753. 750-740 Jerusalem besieged 745. Eoman Era 753. Pul or Tiglath Pileser III. succeeds 745. Hebrew said to be written in Phenician characters. 730 Asyrian Empire extends over Egypt, Persia and Armenia. 720 Samaria recolonized by Easterns. Iranian rule extending towards 700 India under Akhaimenidai. Sargon II. (722-705). Median monarchy strong. Homer and Heb. Hosea probably writing. Senakarib 705. 698-650 Persians rule all east of Babylonia. Manasseh King of Judea 698- 643. Esar-hadon succeeds his f. 681. Asur-bani-pal 668. 640-630 Skuthi and Aryans descending from mid-Europe and mid-Asia 620 on southern Europe, Syria and Babylonia. Indo-Aryans in Pan- 612 jab moving down Ganges and reforming their faith. Jainism flourishes, from Baktria to all over India. Esar-hadon II. ruling. 607 XiNEVEH destroyed. Median Iranians rule Kaspiana. Astyages. 599/8 Jerusalem destroyed by Nabukadrazr. Leaders deported, but Zadekiah allowed to succeed. Thales 640-546. 594 Persia a satrapy of Media under Mazdean King KAMBYSES. 595 Pasargade or Pur-sa-gard becomes the Mazdean capital. 588 ^Nabukadrazr utterly destroys Jerusalem. 585 Persians war with Modes, AnAximander 610-585. 570 MAHA-VIRA 24th Jaina saint resuscitating Jainism. 560 Cyrus son of Kambyses conquers Media. Great rise of Akhai- menidai, who claim royal dynasties from 900 B.C. 550 Cyrus, called " King of Anzan and Elam," conquers Media, and 549 makes Pasargade his capital. LAOTSZE 604-515. 545 PYTHAGORAS the Western Putha-guru traveling and teach- III. CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. 231 B.C. 545 ing, b. 585. Onomakritos mentions "Irene" or Ireland. He and Kerkops, says Aristotle, wrote many " Orphean poems." 538/6 Cyrus enters Babylon and its empire ends. 529 CYRUS killed warring with Masagsetae. His son Smerdis snc- 525 ceeds and is murdered, when Kambyses succeeds. He conquers Egypt, 522 is murdered in 522, Avhen a pseudo Smerdis reigns for a year. 521 DARIUS L Hystaspes proclaimed " IX. king of Persis." 520 Babylon revolts, and is recovered. 516 BUDDHA (557-477) preaching in India, and CONFUCIUS (551- 478) in China. Date of Bahistan inscription. Firidun or Phraortes 512 Governor of Media. Magian Puraithoi or Atriavans (fire priests) are in great power. Xeuophanes, 5-35-445. 510 DARIUS invades Panjab. Beginning of Lido-Iranian States. 490 Persians defeated by Greeks at Marathon. Herakleitos. 485 XERXES I. succeeds his father Darius I., 485. Conquers Egypt. Rules from Nile to Panjab and from Indian ocean to sea of Aral. Destroys Greek temples, rears Mazdean ones, Pindar 552-442. 477 Osthanesu the Magian writes. Anaxagoras 500-420. GOTAMA BUDDHA dies; his faith begins to dominize India. 465 ARTA-XERXES I. Longimaxus succeeds his father Xerxes L, who is murdered. Aiskulos 525-456. Parmenides 520-450. 460 Herodotos writing his history. A great massacre of Jews in Babylonia. Zeno of Elea and Empedokles, 490-430. Protagoras, 482-411. 450 Mazdeans stop burying, burning, and drowning as defiling earth and elements. Euripides, 480-406. Perikles fl. 460, d. 429. 425 Xerxes 11. and Sogdianus reign a few months, and then a son of Arta-Xerxes I. Sophokles 496-405. 426 DARIUS II. Nothus succeeds, 425/6. Avastd Zand widely knoAvn from the Indus to Europe. Gorgias 480-375. 420 Sokrates 469-399 ; Aristophanes, Alcibiades, Plato, 428-347 ; Ctesias and Demokritos of Abdera 465-375. 405 ARTA-XERXES II. Mnemon succeeds ; he worships Nana as the divine type of womanhood. 398 EZRA goes to Jerusalem to build second temple. Jonathan is 385 High priest, 386-5. Nehemiah goes to Judea apparently as a Consul 373 or Governor in 385, and returns to Persia, 373. 359 ARTA-XERXES III. Okus succeeds, 359. Carries off sacred 350 books of Egypt, and returns some in 350. Builds palace at Persepolis. Worships Nana as the heavenly Yenus. 338 ARES succeeds 338, and in 336 DARIUS III., Kodomanus. 232 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. III. B.C. 338 ARISTOTLE (384-322) mentions " Irene," or Ireland, and " tliat :Magi are more ancient than Egyptians." Diogenes of Apollonia 412-323. 334 ALEXANDER "The Great" invades Persia 334 ; Battle of Issus ; 332 he annexes Syria and Egypt 332 and founds Alexandria. Conquers 331 at Arbela 331 and seizes Capital Pasargadc^, wliich is accidentally burned with loss of some original IMazdean scriptures. 328-7 Alexander subdues Sogdiana, and establishes Greek rulers. (Jver- 326 runs Panjab, 327. Chandra Gupta joins him from Patala, Lower 325 Indus, and in 325 becomes king of Patali-putra ; founds Magadha 323 Empire and ^Maurya dynasty. Alexander dies in Babylonia, 323. Nearchos and others sail to Sumatra ? Demosthenes returns to Athens. 320 Greek kingdoms in Ivaspiana, Baktria, and Afghanistan end 120. Ptolemy, king of Egypt, carries 100,000 Jews into Egypt. 312 Aristotle receives Astronomical Tables from Kalistheues in Baby- lon going back to 2234. Seleukos captures Babylon, 312. Pyrrho the skeptik fl. Epikuros, 342-270. Megasthenes in India 305. 300 Seleukos I. Xikator rules from Mediteranean to Indus. Invades Panjab and founds many Greek colonies in Asia. Avast a and Zand translated into Greek. Mazdeans trying to recover all their Scriptures carried off by Greeks and others. 295 Aristophanes, 444-380. Euclid in Alexandria, where are four schools of science. Zeno the Stoik fl., Kleanthus, his disciple, fl. 293 Seleukos gives all kingdoms E. of Syria to his son Antiochos SoTER, who thus rules some Western Indian states. 290 Ptolemy I. Soter begins collection in Brucldum {Alexandria) of a 285 library under guidance of Demetrius of Phaleria and Zenodotos of Ephesus. Soter orders Jerusalem Rabbim to send copies of their 283 Scriptures. He dies 283 ; son, Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, succeeds ; orders originals of all writings to be sent to Bruchium National Library, • Perseus the Stoik. Alexandrian year is now 365 d. 5 h. 49 m. 280 Antiochos I. Soter succeeds his father. Berosos writing history in Babylon. Rabbi Eleazar recites Targums. 270 King of Pergamus collects library, and founds Institutes of Arts 266 and Literature. Ptolemy recovers Phenicia and Syria 266. Manetho's history of Egypt added to Bruchium librarj'. 263 Emperor Asoka propagating Jaina Bodhism ; inscribes its leading texts on rocks. Had corresponded with Zexo the Stoik who d. 263. 260 Axtiochos II. Theos tries to quell Parthian revolt. 261 Arsakes, as head of all Zoroastrians, founds Parthian Empire. 250 Asoka now inscribes on Lids or pillars the ethikal teachings of III. CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. 23o B.C. 250 Buddhism, and decrees it to be the State Religion of the IMagadlia Empire. He enters on a correspondence with many Greek stoiks. 248 Tiridates I. succeeds Arsakes. Antiochos Tiieos is succeeded hy 247 Seleukos II. China burns religious literature. Ptolemy Euergetes suc- 245 ceeds 247. Eratosthanes (276-196) librarian notices Ireland as Irene. 241 Buddhism fully embraced in India and Ceylon, is strong in Baktria, and fast spreading East and West. Kuniform is modifying. 230 Appolonius becomes the third librarian in Alexandria. Tatars 226 expelled from China, press westwards, bringing Buddhism witli them. 223 Seleukus III. or " Antiochos the Great," becomes Ruler of Syria. 215 Kuniform of Persian Empire now passing into Parthvi. 210 Artabanus I. succeeds. Wars with Seleukos. Ptol. Philopator 222. 196 Priapatus or Arsakes IV. succeeds, is thought to be the JamshId OF FiRDusi. ]Macedonian War. Rome has gold coinage. 190 Phra-ates I. subdues the Mardi. Ptolemy Epiphanes 196-181. 187 Antiochos the Great plunders temple of Jupiter Bel at Elymais ; is 188 defeated and killed in Media. Seleukos IV. succeeds. 175-172 Seleukos IV. dies 175. Antiochos Epiphanes succeeds. Invades 170 Egypt in 172. Takes Jerusalem and plunders temple, 170, and in 167 168 sets up an altar to Jupiter and images of other gods. Rome gets books from Makedonia and founds first library, 167. China uses paper. 165-163 Judas the Makablor Hashmonai purifies Jerusalem temple, 165. Makabis rule Judea, 163 as an " Asmonean " dynasty. Cato 235-150. 156 ]\lithra-dates I., son of Arsakes IV., greatly extends Parthian rule and the Mazdean faith. Rabbi Joshua recites Targums. 150 MiLiNDA, the Greek Menander, is king in Panjab ; embraces Buddhism on the preaching of Naga-Sena, 150-140. 148 Jonathan Makabeus defeats Apollonius and takes Askalon. Is 144 murdered by Try pi ion, 144. "Simon the Just " High Priest ; captures 139 citadel of Jerusalem, and a foreign Sylian Government ceases in Judea. Gko-Baktrian kingdoms overthrown by Arsakes, 139. 138 Demetrius Xikator, king of Syria, imprisoned 138. 136-5 Jounus Hyrcanus succeeds Simon as High Priest, and rules Judea, till 106. Hipparchos, Astronomer, 200-125. 230 Phra-otes II., 130, slays Antiochus VII. — Sidetes, king of Syria. 128 Artabanus XL, brother of Arsakes IV. Menander, Greek king of Baktrian, conquering Panjab. Roman census 324,000. 127 Mithradates II. "The Great" extends Parthian Empire. 124 Seleukos V. succeeds. Is murdered by his mother. Seleukos VI. succeeds. ]Many learned foreigners settled in Alexandria. 234 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. III. B.C. 120 Gko-Baktrian kingdoms now with native niler.s. 116 Cleoi)atra I. Queen of Egypt, 116. Joiinus Hyrkanus takes 119 Samaria 109-106. C. Sulla Felix becomes Quaestor. 105 Alexander Janarus High Priest and king of Judea, 105-75. 96 Parthia sends embassy to China, 96. Selenkos YL, last of dyn., 95 banished and burnt in Kilikia, 95. Arsakes (YIII. ?) makes alliance 92 with Pome because Sulla defeats Greeks and restores the Kapadokian 91 ]\razdean prince; this is the first transaction with Parthia. 90 Herod Agrippa II. King of Chalkis died 90. Seleukians driven 88 out of Eaktria by Skuthi. Sulla becomes Consul ; captures Athens, 86 : 86-1 ] blunders Delphi, 82. Pompey from Africa, has a "triumph." 80 HvRCANUs II. High Priest Jerusalem. Alexander Janarus king 78 Judea, dies 78 or 75 ? Sulla dies Dictator in Eome 78. Saxatrokes 77 the Parthian Arsakes IX. rules 80-76. 75 Phra-ates III. or Pharnaces II. ? quarrels with Pompey and is 68 killed by his sons in 68. Aristobulus 11. king Judea (68-49). 7 Hyrcanus II. High Priest and ruler of Jerusalem. Catiline, Roman Governor in Africa. Pompey invades Armenia. 64 End of Seleukida}. Pompey (106-48) takes Jerusalem (63), and 63 Syria becomes a Ptoman province. Mithradates III. killed. 60 Cassar overruns Spain. Triumvirate of Pompey, Csesar and Crassus. 56 Hindu Era of Sam-vat or Yikram-Aditya. Ptolemy Auletes king 55 of Egypt, 80-55. Orates I. defeats Romans. Mwxlahan proj)aganda very vigorous. Crassus plunders Syrian temples. 50 Zoroasfrian armies all over Syria. Civsar takes Alexandria. 47 Bruchium Library accidentalh/ hnrnf in 47, with the loss of 440,000 Books and Sertuagint. Herod the Great made Governor of Galilee, and his father Antipater Procurator of Idumea and Palestine. Virgil, 70-19; Horace, 65-8; Livi, 59 to a.c. 18. Caesar is Dictator. 46 Herod Great leaves Jerusalem, on becoming Governor Coele-Syria. Cicero 106-43. Sallust is Governor of Xumidia. 45 Herod and Hyrcanus reconciled, visit M. Antony 41-2. 44 C. Julius Ca3sar is murdered ; was born 100. Augustus becomes 42 first Emperor. Anthony kills the Mazdean King of Kapadokia. 40 Pacoris, son of Parthian Emperoi' Orodes I., overruns Syria, lets 39 Antigonus drive out Herod and seize Jerusalem. Parthia overruns Baktria, X.W. Panjab, and rules large parts of Gujarat. 38 Romans recover Syria. Phraates IY. kills father and brothers : repulses Antony the last representative of Asraonean dynasty. 37 Herod murders Hyrcanus and becomes king of Judea by aid of III. CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. 235 B.C. 36 Antony's General Sosius. Antigonus High Priest, and all Sanliedrini save two are put to death. Anthony defeated hy Parthians. 34 Antony seizes Armenia. Takes Mazdean ruler prisoner. 33 Herod Antipater dies 33. Rome's pop. = 4,100,000. Rise of 32 Roman Emperors. Straho and Diod. Siculus writing their histories. 31 Pergamus Library removed to Alexandria, Avhich is taken by (Jctavius. Battle of Actium 31. Antony and Cleopatra kill themselves. 30 Herod made Governor from Egypt to Samaria, including coast. Hyrcanus II. killed. Temple of Janus shut. Ovid, 43 b.c. to 17 a.c. 29 Egypt a Roman Province. Hillel High Priest of Jerusalem. 19 Herod restores Jerusalem temple, 19-17. Places Jove's eagle on 17 gate, which causes rebellion. China makes Tiloism a State faith. 15 Agrippa goes to Syria and Judea. Augustus burns I'ontifical 10 books but preserves Sibylline ; assumes office of Pontifex ^Nlaximus. Herod builds Csesarea and other towns ; plunders temple. 6-5 Christ probably born, for in Matt. ii. 15 he is taken to Egypt 5-4 to escape Herod, icho dies 4 b.c, and is succeeded by Archelaus. In 5 B.C. Varus is Governor of Syria, and Cyrenius Governor of Judea from 6 B.C., when, according to Luke, Mary and Joseph went to 3-2 Jerusalem to be taxed. Cyrenius took the census in 5 or 4 B.C. 1-0 Rome, a.u.c. 755. Philo-Judeus, 20 B.C. — 50 a.c. A.C. 0-1 Cffisar makes peace with Parthia. Tiberius returns to Rome. 2 Phril-ates V. ; his Empire extends over most of W. Asia. 3 Do. V\ . or Orodes II. % On his death, Yanones succeeds. 4-5 Caius Caesar dies. CHRIST born, said many Fathers. 6 Archelaus deposed and Judea attached to Syria, and a Procurator placed in Jerusalem. Population of Rome 4,037,000. Cyrenius or Quirinius becomes Governor Syria. Capital Csesarea % 14.16 Emperor Augustus dies and Tiberius succeeds, 14. Artabanus II. becomes King of Parthia. Kapadokia becomes a Roman province. 18-20 HEROD ANTIPAS builds Tiberius and rules Galilee. Jews banished from Rome 19. Armenia noAV a Roman province. 25 6 PONTIUS PILATE becomes Procurator Judea and removes headquarters from Caesarea to Jerusalem. 28 Jews rebel owing to Roman Eagle and other standards as gilt shields, &c., being placed in Pilate's palace with names of gods. Tiberius orders their removal. Great conflagration in Rome. 29 This 15th "year of Tiberius" CHRIST baptized (Luke). Must have been 34 years old = (29 -1-5). John Baptist beheaded 1 32-33 The usually accepted time of Christ's crucifixion, in which case he would T^e (33 -f 5) 38 years old, but some say he lived to be 50. 236 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. IIL AC. 37 Tiberius and Pilate both die, 37. Herod Antipater who 39 judged Christ (Luke xxiii.), dies in exile 39. 40-42 Caligula killed, 41. Claudius succeeds. Artabanus d. 42. Apion, the Alexandrian, settled in Eome, writes against Jews. SEXECA, Stoik (10 B.C. — 65 A.c.) is banished to Corsica by Caligula, 41. 44 Herod .Vgrippa I. d. The ^lazdean King Vonones II. succeeded by Vologcses I., or Artabanes II., who accepts peace with Rome. 49 Seneca becomes tutor to Xero. Athens under Archons. 54 Xero succeeds Claudius. Felix is Procurator Judea 52-60. Herod Agrippa II. becomes king of all the tetrarchies. 64 Gesius Florus Procurator Judea, 64-66. Ananus High Priest Jeru- salem. Vologeses I. visits Xero and is crowned King of Armenia : is ardent ]\Iazdean and feeds the sacrifices. Lives to be the friend of Vespasian. ApoUonius of Tyana, the Putha-guru, born 4 B.C. Great conflagration in Rome. Persecution of Jews and Christians. 65 Seneca, by order of Xero, kills himself. Persius, Roman Stoik Hourished. Josephus visits Rome. Great pestilence. 66-8 Jews rise in rebellion, 66. Vespasian re-conquers Syria and Judea, 68. Imprisons the priestly General Josephus (b. 37, d. 93). 69 Xero dies, 68. Galba and Otho killed, 69. Vespasian Emperor. 70/71 Titus talces Jerusalem, Sept. 70. Se7ids " TemjyJe Standard" of Hebrew Scriptures to Home. Herod Agrippa returns to Rome. Vologeses I. or Pakorus the XXth Arsakaj, ruling Mazdahan Empire from 70. Hindu Saka Era of Ujain begins 78, 78-79 Josephus writes " Wars." Vbspasiax dies, 79. Pompeii over- Avhelmed. Roman Capitol and Pantheon burned. 81-5 Titus difs, 81. Chinese drive Huns west. Tacitus (54-110), and Epictetus flourish. Agricola proclaims South Britain a Roman province. 93-96 Josephus writes "^In/s." Domitian persecution. Emp. X^erva, d. 98 Trajan becomes Emperor. Dacian war in progress. 100 Chosroes or Khusru Emperor. Trajan marches to Persian Gulf 110 and seizes west Parthian states. Suetonius, 70 to about 123. Pliny fl. 115-7 Jewish massacre in Cyrene. Emperor Trajan dies and Hadrian succeeds, 117 to 138. Chosroes recovers west Parthian States. Date of Rabbi 'Okiba's translations. South Dacia a Roman province. 122 Vologeses IL regains all Parthia btit cedes Mesopotamia to Rome. Sundry Eaith prosecutions. Hadrian visits Britain, Greece and Asiatik states of the empire. Barkokaba, 120-130. 128 The pervert Aquila( = Onkelos) translating 0. Test, into Greek. 130/2 Hadrian rebuilds Jerusalem and a temple to Jove. Jews rebel and III. CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES 237 A.C. 130/2 are banished from Judea. Ptolemy, Astronomer, writing on stars and earth. Hadrian enlarges the libraries of Athens. 133 Aristides gives Hadrian his Apology for Christianity ; copy 136 extant. Egyptian Canicular year; the second, began 20 July 136. Hadrian dedicates a temple in Athens to Jupiter Oluinpos. 137 Papias writing. Justin Martyr (132-150). Sanhedrin remove from Jamnia to Ousha, near Acre. Clement Bp. Ro., 90-150? 138 Emperor Hadrian dies. Justin ]\Iartyr said to write his Apology. 140 Gnosticism led by Basilides is strong. Serapis worship in Rome. 150 Yologeses III., 149 ; accepts cession of Mesopotamia. Jews still decreed death on Hadrian's law if entering Jerusalem. 152 Antoninus stops religious persecutions. Extends Roman Empire even to Baktria. Marcion teaching his " heresies." 160 Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180). Docetism arises, 163 Rome seizes states up to Indian borders from Parthians. Christians punished for disobeying Roman laws. Theodotion, a pervert, translates Bible. Hegesippus a Hebrew pervert writing Church history 1 166-8 Rome sends embassy to China. Great plague. 169 A'ologeses III. invades Syria. Irenseus, fl. 165-180. 170-2 Vologeses IV. Montanus' heresy, 171-5. 175 Christians teach that Holy Ghost speaks still in his saints. 180 Vologeses IV. loses Ctesephon to Romans. 190 Rome defeated by Saracens, 189-190. Great fire in Rome. 194 Byzantium besieged by Severus, who overruns Parthia, 195. 200 Clement of Alex., 155-220? and Tertullian, 155-240? jNIishna 205 finished at Tiberias. Symachus, a pervert, translates Scriptures, 180-210. 208-211 Emperor Severus subduing Britain, dies at York. 212 Jewish colonies at Palmyrene and all over Roman world. Ac- 215 cording to a legend the Septuagint is now found in a cask, just as Jews said their "Law" was miraculously preserved in a well during the Babylonian captivity. But see its utter destruction, 47 B.C. and 216 70 A.c. Artabanus III. invades Syria but has to retire. 218 Artabanus IV. last king Parthia of line of Arsakes, which dynasty had ruled for 476 years. Origen, 186-254. Hippolytus fl, Elagabelus, high priest Emesa, becomes Emperor. 222 Rome pays tribute to Goths. Julius Afrikanus' Chronology. First great Council of Nice. Mathematics now publicly taught. 226 End of Arsakean dynasty. Ardeshir, a Magian neophite, con- 228 quers Parthia, and afterwards becomes Emperor as Sasanian I. or Arta-Xerxes I. or Babagan, son of Babek. 238 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. III. A.C. 230 The son of Sasiln claims divine authority to revive Mazdahism and persecutes all " Pagans and Heathen " including Christians. (.)rigex writes that all existing Heb. and Christian Scriptures are corrupt. 240 Shaii-pur I. succeeds Babagan. Ammonius teaches in .Vlexandria. 245 St Cypriati of Carthage flourished. Peace between Komans and Persians. Translators and transcribers of Scriptures numerous. 250 Empr. Decius (249-251) persecutes Christians, ^""ovatian heresy. 257 Valerian Emperor 25.3/60. Pome pays tribute to Goths. Bp. Gregory, Thaumaturgus and Cyprian fl. Mazdeans invade Syria 256. 260 Valerian persecution ; he is killed by Persians. Maxi tries to 264 amalgamate Christians and ^Nlazdahans. Persians seize Antioch, 262, 265 but lose Palmyra to king Odenatus. Diana temple burned. 270 Aurelian succeeds Emperor Claudius II. Skuthi ravage Eomau Empire. Zenobia seizes Egypt. Chrysostum Bp. 347, d. exile 407. 273 Persians conquer Zenobia. All Bruchium quarter burned down. 274 HoRMAZD I. succeeds f. Shilpur I. Christian persecutions. ^lani- kian Temple to sun built at Rome by Aurelia, also one in Palmyra after conquest of Zenobia. Dacians recover their provinces. 275 Varanes I. or Bahram. ]Mani flayed alive. Emperor Aurelia murdered. Images of sun, moon, and saints destroyed throughout 276 Persia. Emperor Tacitus dies; is succeeded by Probus, 276/81. Varanes II. succeeds and loses Seleukia and other states. Franks 277 settle in Ga\il. Rome and Mazdeans agree to peace. 280 Ceylon constructs Buddhist shrines on old sites of serpent and phrdik faiths, without effacing these. Emperor Carus 282/4. 284 Era of Diocletian begins 20th August. Roman embassy to China. 290 Porphyry (233-305) teaching Platonik philosoph3% 294, 5 Varaxes III. reigns 8 months when Xarses succeeds ; drives Romans from ^Mesopotamia, part of which and Armenia they recover. Gregorian Codex published. Arnobius writes Ad Gentes. 296 Emperor Diocletian (245-307) seizes Alexandria. 302 Diocletian persecutes Christians for opposing the laws. 303 Hormazd II. succeeds, has a peaceful reign, and religion and arts flourish. He effaces solar and other temple images. 305 Galcrius ]Max. II. Emperor. Hierokles writes against Christ. 306 Constantine (magnus), ruling in Britain, becomes Emperor. 307 Ceylon receives Buddha's Tooth. Dalda Vansa now written in Pali. 309 Shapur II. The Great. Magi crown liis mother when pregnant. 310 Constantine Great divides Britain into four governments. 313 Constantine stops Christian persecutions. Bundahish and Maixo- III. CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. 239 A.C. 313 KHARD quoted. Mazdians, Buddhists, and Christians reside in Kaspiana and Baktria. Active Mazdean propaganda in China. (Dr 315 Edkins.) Constantino favors Christians ; forbids crucifixions. Porphyry- describes Eastern Buddhism. Donatus Bp. of Carthage developes Donatism. Chinese say Zoroaster taught fire worship 1700 b.c. 321/3 Constantine orders Sun's day to be held sacred, 321. Gives Christians liberty, 323. Alexandrian Ch. Council condemn Arius. 325 Church Council of 318 Bishops at JS-ice, June to August. Bp. 327 Eusebius completes his Hist. Mazdeans persecute Christians. 328 Eoman seat of Empire goes to Constantinople. Mazdians rule throughout Kaspiana. INluch Buddhist literature in Baktria and 330 Eastward. Constantinople dedicated. St Sophia building. Emperor 331 Constantine, prompted by Eusebius, destroys ancient temples, and ]\lazdeans continue to persecute Christians. 335 CONSTANTINE professes Christianity. Samaritans writing their Pentateuch ? Athanasius deposed by Arian Councils. 337 CoNSTANTixE Great dies. St. Hilary flourishes. Buddhists Avrite 340 Dipa Vaimo. Constantine jun. killed. Constans succeeds. 341 Christianity preached Aithiopia. Books of Esdras declared Canonical by the Council of Carthage. Pagan sacrifices forbidden. 345 Tiradates the old king of Armenia becomes Christian. 350 Shapur Great recovering old limits of Empire. Is a fervent 355 Mazdrdian, and aided by High Priest Tosar, completes National Biljle 360 in Puhlvi. Persecutes Christians who now call other faiths " Pagan." 361 CoNSTANTius dies. Julian succeeds ; rejects Christianity as a solar faith ; tolerates all faiths. Christian jNIonasticism fl. 363 Julian killed in battle with Shapur. Gregory Naziaxzen fl. ; urges persecution of all faiths. Jeniscderu temi:ile building under Julian's edict of toleration. He reinstates exiled Bishops, but subjects 364 all ecclesiastics, magicians, &c., to the Civil laws. 365 Eastern and Western Christian churches separate. Jerome 366 baptised and settles Bethlehem, 386 ; issues Vulgate, 404, died 420. 367 Theodosius " The Great " issues decree against all faiths but liis own. 370 Shapur's Canonical Avasta Zand now widely known. 375 Roman See greatly enlarged. Jerome becomes a desert hermit. 380 St Augustine (354-430) l^ecomes a Manichasan. Emperors Gratian and Valeres II. Gregory Nazianzen preaches Nicene faith. 381 Arta-Xerxbs II. or Ardeshir succeeds Shapur II. 'Ind Cli. Council, Constaji. Huns invade Europe. Goths to Thrace. 385 Shapur III. Theodosius massacres Thessalonikans. 240 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. III. A.C. 387 Shapur loses Armenia and Kakasia. St Augustinb baptized. 388 Varanes IV. Palladius a monk. Kirmanghah rebuilt. 391 Sarapeiim destroyed by Bishop Theophilns. 394 Theodosius the Great is declared Emperor of E. and West. 395 Do, dies. Son, Theodosius II., succeeds. Pelagius, 370-440. 404 Yesdigird I. or Ulathim, called "The Sinner," because broad and tolerant; concludes a peace, and is friend of Theodosius If. 405 Christians persecute Mazdahans. Pelagian heresy arises. 407 SuLncius Severus writing ecclesiastical history. Hypatia teaching. St Chrysostom in exilement. Epiphanius 315-404. 408 Christianity spreads into Persia. Donatist heresy. 410 Rome sacked by Alarik. Ch. Cowicil of Carthage. Jerome's Bible effaced with emendations. Bp. Cyril tortures and murders 415 Hypatia, 415 Council of Carthage condemns Pelagius. 420 Varanes V., "The Gour " or "Wild Ass" hunter. 421 Eome issues Salic Law. Varanes wars with Theodosius. Huns, Turks and other Tatars, moving west. Augustine and Sokrates write. 422 Christians destroy temple of Susa. Huns ravage Thrakia. 426 Theodosius establishes schools at Constantinople. Eomans finall}' 428 leave Britain. Pelagianism said to arise in Ireland. Bp. Xestorius. 431 A turbulent " 3rd Ch. Coun.," at Ephesus declares Nestdrius, Pelagius and Ceelestius heretics. Bp. Palladius sent to Britain. 440 Yezdigird II. Vandals and Christians persecute each other. 445 Moses Khorene writing. Atila invades Europe, 433-453. 448 Persecutions among all faiths. 450 Marcian succeeds Theodosius II., whose Code is promulgated. Saxons invade Britain. Atila's Huns ravage Europe. 451 4th Ch. Council, Chalcedon. Hormazd Persian Emperor? 458 Firose Persian Emperor. Genserik and Vandals ruling Italy. 476 Italy ruled by King Odoacer. Western Empire ends. 482 Palasii Emperor Persians. Vandals persecute Christians. 486 Kobad do. Arthur, King of Britons, defeats Saxons. 493/4 Roman Pontiff asserts supremacy. Theodorik, king of Italy, establishes Ostrogoth rule. Eastern Emperor Anastasius I., 491-517. 495 Clovis, king of Franks, becomes a Christian. Sklavs seize Poland. 498 Jamaspes or Zames dethrones Kobad or Khosru Parvaz. 502 Kobad enthroned by aid of Huns. Loses Mesopotamia to Rome. 510 Pope resists civil magistrate. Saracens ravage Syria. 513 English Prince Alfred, a Christian, wars with. Saxons around Bath. Paris, now capital of Franks, ruled by Chlodomir, 511/24. III. CHRONOLOGICAL H [STORY OF MAZDEAX TIMES. 241 A.C. 514 Constantinople besieged by Vitaliauus. Getae ravage Thrakia. 516 Dionysius, a monk, tries to fix the birth of Christ and introduce 525 the Christian Era. The British Arthur defeated by the Saxon 527 Cerdik. Justinius I. rules Eastern Empire, 527/64. 529 Code of Jusfim'an published. Order of Benedictine Monks estab- 530 lished. Christian Era occasionally used. Saracens invade Syria. 531 Persian Khosru I. Xiishirvan, "the generous minded," 531-578. 535 Khosru destroys the Mazdak Persian sect. Declares that the 540 only canonical Avastd Zand is that issued by Shapur II., 309-380, 550 which is also that of the last Arsakides of 215-220. Samarkand, 560 called " the Athens of the East." Persians hold Krete and Kupros. 561 Emperor Justinian purchases peace. Pays 440,000 gold pieces 565 and agrees to receive "Pagan sages," who are not to be subject to European laws or customs. Columba preaching to Scots and Picts. 567 Khosru drives all Europeans out of Arabia and Mesopotamia. 568 Seizes part of Africa and even Italy; rules from Mediteranean 569 to Indus ; holds suzerain rights in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, 570 and threatens to make Europe a Zoroastrian land. Has the best 572 Greek, Syrian, Latin and Indian writings translated into Persian or Pahlvi. Declares war against Justin II. and invades Syria, 270-2, 575 The present edition of the Avastd Zand is perhaps of this period. 577 St Sophia building. Gregory of Tours. Great advances in 578 arts. Emperor Justin II. dies ; is succeeded by Tiberius II., who d. 581. First monasteries in Bavaria. Civil wars in France. 579 Hormazd II. or IV. strives vainly to uphold his father's Empire. 580 MAHAMAD is 10 years old. Said to be bom at Maka, 20th August 570 or 20th April 571. Khosru defeated and dies. Latin 582 ceases to be spoken. Emperor Maurice rules East, 582-601. 590 Veranes YL, called also Shubin or Bahram, usurps throne. 591 Khosru II., or Purvis, 590-627, reconquers Mesopotamia, Syria 595 and Palestine ; seizes Jerusalem and Holy Cross, 595, 597 Bishop Augustine goes to England as Archbishop of Canterbury. 600 He baptizes Ethelbert, King of Kent and Essex, parts of which become Christian. Lombards ruling most of Italy. 604 Bishop Augustine dies. Khosru II. seizes Egypt, Persia, most of 610 Asia Minor, and nearly Constantinople. Vows solemnly at Chalcedon 611 that "he wiU put down the worship of a Crucified God," of sun and all idolatry. Mahamad similarly denounces Christianity, and declares himself the " Prophet of Allah," and calls upon Khosru to acknowledge 612 Allah. Heraklius Emp. in East, 610-41. Persians seize Csesarea. Q 242 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MAZDEAN TIMES. IIL A.O. 614 King Harsha Varclh rules North, Central and Western India from 606 to 648. Kapadokia conquered by Mazdeans. 620 Baktria has now a colony of 4000 Arab families. 622 Mahamadan Era; HajIra, 16tli July or 20th June. 625 Emperor Heraklius wins back provinces from the aged Khosru. 627/8 Internecine wars arise and Khosru is killed. Kobah II. Emperor. 629 Holy Cross and all Christian captives restored. Hwen Tsang goes as a pilgrim to India. Describes Buddhism in Baktria. 630 Nestorians moving to Central Asia. Mahamad invites foreign.. 631 kings to accept his faith. Makes a royal entry into Maka, and destroys all images. Circuits Ka'ba seven times, saluting the black, lingaik stone, and performs most of the ancient pagan pilgrim rites. 632 Mahamad dies, Monday, 7th June. All Arabia accepts him. 633 Yesdigird III. last Mazdahan Emperor of Sasanian dynasty. 634-5 Mahamadans take Damascus, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. 637 Khalifa Omar founds a INIosk on site of Jewish temple. 638 Mahamadan army conquering Persia ; death decreed to all who 640 refuse Allah and his prophet. Yesdigird losing his Empire, Syria 643 and Egypt (640) embrace Islam. Fatal battle of Nihdvand. Othman 644 I. Khalifa 644/60. China implores Mahamadan aid. Tibet receives Buddhism and abandons human sacrifices, substituting images. 650 End of Perso-Mazdean Empire and Sasanian dynasty. Constans II. rules Eastern Empire 642/67 ; and Martin I. is Bishop of Eome 649/55. Article IV THE VEDAS OR BIBLE OF HINDUS AND VEDANTISM ny /TANY volumes have been, and will yet be, written on tbe -^-^ Vedas and early sub-Vedik literature of India ; bere it is only intended to give a light popular sketch of the leading Hindu sacred Scriptures sufficient to enable the busy and oft times oppressed general reader, to see their place and stand- point in the History of Comparative Religions. The Four Veda,s, the Big, Vdju7\ Sama and Athdrva, but especially the more ancient Rig- Veda, belong to an antique Indo- Aryan Hinduism which gradually developed when the Aryan colonists obtained a footing in the far north-west about Taxila, but principally when they assumed some slight importance as Tritsus, or mayhap mercenary supporters of Tritsu princes. When Tritsus got as far south as the Sarasvati, they are heard of as Aryans or Aryanized Tritsus, usually at enmity with the ruling Dra vidian kings or rather independent princes — confede- rated, Turanian fashion, as the Kurus and Purus, the royal Nagas of Nagapur or Delhi, and the Mala races ruling on the Satlej, Indus and their tributaries. All Upper, Western, and North Central India was then — say 1500 to 800 B.C. and, indeed, from unknown times — ruled by Turanians, conveniently called Dravids, and given to tree, serpent, and phalik worship. The most prominent Dravids were the Nagas, Malas, Yadus, Bharatas, Bhrigus, Bhojas, Tak-kas, Abhirs, Kathis, Suvars, Chalukyas, and Madras, powerful peoples with well-defined religions and mythologies, which apparently swamped, effaced or absorbed, the simple fire worship of the rude Aryan pastoral singers of the northern Panjab. The dominant faith of Bharata-Varsha or Kolaria, as 24 i THE VEDAS OR BIBLE OF HINDUS AXD VEDANTISM. IV. "India" was then called, was the ophiolatry of its leading- peoples, the Nflgas, Nishadhas or Xahushas, Haihayas, Ahi- Kshatras, &c., — all named after their serpent symbol ; but there also then existed throughout Upper India an ancient and highly organised religion, philosophikal, ethikal and severely ascetikal, viz., Jainisni, out of which clearly developed the early ascetikal features of Brahmanism and Buddhism. Long before Aryans reached the Ganges, or even the Saras- vati, Jain as had been taught by some twenty- two prominent Bodhas, saints or tirthankaras, prior to the historical 23rd Bodha Parsva of the 8th or 9th century B.C. ; and he knew of all his predecessors — pious Eishis living at long intervals of time ; and of revered Scriptures even then known as Purvas or Pumnas, that is, " ancient," which had been handed down for ages in the memories of recognised anchorites, Vdna-prasthas or " forest recluses." This was more especially a Jaina Order, severely enforced by all their ''Bodhas," and particularly in the 6th century B.C. by the 24th and last, Maha Vira of 598-526 B.C. This ascetik Order continued in Brahmanism and Bud- dhism throuo'liout distant Baktria and Dacia, as seen in our Study I. and >S'. Books E., vols. xxii. and xlv. The Aryan colonists entered India, like most Dravids, by the north-west passes, and evidently some milleniums after the Turanian tril^es, and in small parties which did not for a long time attract the attention, and for a still longer time the fears of the ruling races. The Aryans apparently joined the banners of the monarchs in-whose lands they dwelt, and at first were identified with the Tritsus where these occupied Tak Jca deslia, serving largely under the Tritsu Prince Divo-ddsa, his son Sudas and successors, until they reached the Panjab Sarasvati, the Aryan claims to have first owned Indian lands. Here their language and faith developed. They called the Turanian Vdch or "speech," "the Sarasvati," and idealized Vdch as " Vdch-vir-dj, queen of gods, wife of Indra the heavens, mother of Vedas and a melodious cow from whom they drew force and sustenance." This is stated in the Katha Upanishad and some Brahmanas, written, it is justly thought, in later times by Dravid Pandits in Deva Nagri, the sacred IV. RISE OF JAINA-BODHISM AND INDO-ARYANISM. 245 character of their Naga ancestors. Vach, said the old mytho- logists, became pregnant by Prajapati, or, said others, " tlie Ancient of Days," evidently the heaven god, the pervader of the whole universe. She was known as the voice of Bnlhma, his spouse and daughter, and he — a Hermes — was wisdom and eloquence ; hence mankind became speaking and worshiping creatures. Thus from the simple fire and elemental cultus of the first Aryan communities, developed a vast Indo-Aryan mythology abounding with that spirit-worship which Aryans and Turanians have alike reveled in. The Aryan writers of the Eig Veda mention the Turanians of Upper India as at this time consisting of "five royal races," of which the Nagas and Nahushas are the primordial and greatest. On the Sarasvati they were led by " Nahusha, son of the great Naga,'' whose son YdyCiti married the daughter of Sukra or Indra, the Turanian rain and sky god. Their progeny were Turanian " Yadus and Tur-vasus — two united races whose bards, the sons of Kanva, composed the whole of the hymns of the VIII. Mandala, Eig iv., 1, 7" — an Aryan confession which points to these quasi holy Aryan Scrip- tures and mythologies being originally Dravidian groivths, for, of course, the Yadus and Tur-vasus are well-known non-Aryan tribes living south of the Panjab and towards the Indus, as seen in our map of Anct. India. Through Devi-Yani, the first wife of Yayati and mother of Yadu, they are related to the Asuras, who called Indra or Sakra, Ushana and Bhargava ; and the first Aryan success in war was over a weakened body of these Yadus, see Eig V. iv. 30. 18, where it is stated that an Aryan or Aryanized people discomfited the Arna of Cittra-7'atha on the Sarayu or Satlej. Hewitt, B. As., J., Ap. 93. As followers and soldiers in the armies of various Dravid princes, the Aryans gradually worked down to the Ganges, which the early Vedik singers had evidently never seen, for it is not mentioned in those early Vedik writings supposed to be genuinely Aryan. The commentaries and subsequent philo- sophik works are only doubtfully so, for they are in a very difierent language to that of the early hymns. These last, says Max Muller (1891) '' are full of faded, decayed, and quite 246 THE VEDAS OR BIBLE OF HINDUS AND VEDANTISM. IV. unintelligible ivords and forms, and in some j^oints nearer Greek than ordinary Sanskrit ; " so that the Aryan tongue, which first appeared in India, was 7iot '' intelligibly '' put into " ivords or forms" This was the work of several centuries later, when civilized Dravidian Pandits probably wrote it out for Aryans in their sacred Deva Nagri or Dravid character. Necessarily they taught the illiterate colonists how to write their language and reform their faith and mythology. The same process was then going on in the west, when Greeks were beginning to write their Aryan tongue in Shemito-Phenician characters, and aided by Egyptians and Shemito-Syrians, they too w*ere organizing an Aryan mythology and faith. In those times, say 800 to 600 B.C., there was no hard and fast Brahman caste, and Brdhmanas were only in utero — in the fertile brains of some village priests, one of whom, perhaps as early as 600 B.C., suggested that his ancestors had sprung from the arms and thighs of Brahma, and that Brahmans must hence- forth be the high and only priests of Aryas, who were no longer to be styled Aryds — the " lowly 3rd class " {Benfeys Diet., p. 52), but Aryas, "the noble ones." Even the Upanishads speak of Brahmans as mere ' ' religious students or those who swerve not from the truth " (Khan. Up. Midlers Ved., p. 79-80). So that down to and in early Vedanta times, the Brahman was not so much a caste as the priest of the family who tended the sacred rites as of fire and Soma, if these then existed, as the chief syml^ols. He was the Wiz-ard or "Wise-one called in to relieve the busy or careless parent ; and so arose the Purcdiit — the simple family priest like our village curate, who did not trouble himself or others about the great neuter Brrdim as the only " centre of intelligence." 'The few Aryas, and still fewer " noble ones " among them, could not have long stood apart amidst the vast masses of Turanian peoples, so greatly their superiors in an even then " old world civilization." Before they had struggled down to Magadha or the Gangetik kingdom of Mags or Mugs, most would be absorbed in this Turanian population ; anyhow we only hear of a small Aryan settlement there, as Prof. Rhys Davids says, " at the end of the 6th century B.C." {Bud. p. 22). IV. DRAVIDS THE FIRST PANDITS TEACHERS OF ARYANS. 247 Neither tliey nor any Turano-Dravid or Kolarian, Mags or Mfilas seem to have established temples or any structural shrines with priests and rites till the .5tli century ; for neither Vedas nor commentaries denote more than a simple domestic and rural or rude hypa^thral worship of the elements with offerings mostly agricultural. The Sanhitas of the Rig Veda make no allusion to caste, transmigration, images or idols. The gods are Devas or ^'bright ones" — sun, moon, fire, etc. — the attril)utes of which often stir the poetic worshipers into divine raptures which persuaded their ignorant admirers that they were inspired by the gods. Oriental scholars who are practically acquainted with India, have too long silently accepted the popular European opinion that all that is best in Indian literature, languages, religion and mythologies, is Aryan or due to Aryans ; and that Indian languages from the base of the Himalayas to Central India and Bombay, and from the highlands of the Indus to the mouths of the Hugly, are either pure Aryan or based thereon ; whereas the contrary is true, or more nearly so — an opinion now more frequently voiced by many scholarly Indian administrators. Those not infatuated with Sanskrit or misled by the glorious literature it has given us, now see that neither the Hindi of the Bangas (Bangalis) of the Ganges, nor of the Panjabis, nor the language of the Western Ma-rhilttas, or even of Eajputs, are Aryan, though much Aryanized by some of the upper classes. The traveler throughout even upper India will not meet 100 Aryans to 100,000 non- Aryans, and as regards Gangetik peoples, Mr C. Johnston (Bengal Civil Service) told the Oriental Con- gress of 1891 that " 70 out of the 71 millions of Bengal who talk Hindi, are of Indo-Chinese or Dra vidian extraction" — that is, are Kolarians and Bangas. See also Mr Hewitt's valuable papers in R. As. Jours, of 1888/9, and his later vols. Amid such dense Dravidian masses the small Aryan in- fluxes would make slow progress, and we must not be misled by their adopting as their own, the chiefs, heroes, gods and histories of the Turanians, for all peoples have so acted, whether they arrived as conquerors or colonists amongst settled communities : see especially the histories of Babylonia or Akkadia, Asyria, &c. It took long centuries before even a few Aryans got south of Central India . 8 mills „ Pro vs. . 10 „ Haidarabad . 2 ,, Madras Presy., ] ^^ including Mysore j 248 THE VEDAS OH BIBLE OF HINDUS AND VEDANTISM. IV. the basin of the Ganges, and still longer over the Vindhyas, the deserts of Kajputana and kingdom of the Malas (Malwa) and of Gujars of Gujarat. Only towards our middle ages did Aryan influence aid in pressing southwards the great Dravidian races of Andhras, Chalukyans, Cholas, Keras, Rathas or Ma-Rattas, &c. Even in these days we scarcely find any Aryans in either Central or Southern India, (of true Aryans there are none any- where outside the Parsi communities) where has always existed a great Turanian population — mostly Dravids and hitherto estimated at 40,000,000, but by the latest census at 60,000,000, as per margin, not including Mahamadans and Christians. From prehistoric times these Dravids have been the most intellectual, civilized and cultured people of India ; famed for arts and architecture, piety and religions with elaborate rites and symbolisms. These last they have left to us in magnificent monolithik cave temples, carved out of rocky mountains and in the most intractable stone, beautiful in design, elaborate in rich decoration, with grandeur and yet delicacy. The artists are quite unsurpassed by any race in the world. The people are deep thinkers, powerful rulers and administrators who never permitted any Aryan interference in central or southern India, its govern- ment, religions or occupations, though their upper classes have for some centuries affected a good deal of Sanskrit, no doubt because this early appeared in Deva-Nagri, the ancient character of their northern Naga faith and ancestry. The rise of Buddhism in the 5tli century B.C., and the Greek invasion of 150 years later, greatly renovated the old Turano-Magadha empire, and opened up a bright political future alike for Aryans and Turanians, Brahmans and Buddhists. The too stolid and more conservative Dravids proper, like the Chalukyans, preferring their ancient Jainism, nature and spirit worship, then hastened their southern trend from the Gangetik provinces, moving largely on the Andhra states in Tel-lingana and the highlands of Kalinjar (Kala-linga) — long one of their outposts overawing the central Gangetik states. Then, no doubt, arose in Central India the second Mahci Kosala (the IV. DEAVID CHAEACTEE, POPULATION AND ANCIENT POWEE. 249 first kingdom of this name being the northern Oudh of Mfila Dravids) which is still the great non-Aryan state of Gondwana, stretching from Telingfina to Mahfi Eashtra and Malabar — names also proclaiming Turanian rulers and settlers. In the Rig Veda mantras we hear only of "Aryas and DCis- yas'' or country people (fr. cUsa) — " the white and the dark, the beautiful nosed and the noseless or goat-nosed" — but not till later times, if at all, and only in well Aryanized states, did the Aryan venture to speak contemptuously of the Turanian rulers of India. " Barbarians, outcasts, Mlechas," &c., were names only applied to wild, rude Ddsias, or the country people of the hills and forests, whom Dravidian and Aryan alike enslaved. The Dravidian was a born Kshatrya, hero, fighter and politician — " the Arms of Brahma," who protected the pious teachers, the gods or Brahmans," and. singers of mantras. All others were merely classed as Vish or "people." The Aryan rise and long-standing power of the ruling Turanian is clearly depicted in the graphic legend of the bth Hindu Avatar a, where the Aryan (Vishnu) repre- sents himself as a poor de- formed, deceitful Vdmana or dwarf — a son, he said, of Kasyapa and Aditi, the ancestors of the Turanian solar and lunar races. He begs for a little land from " Bali, the great Daitya Emperor then ruling the three worlds . . . and who Fig. 6. THE 5th or VAMANA AVATAR OF VISHNU WHO HERB SUPPLICATES BALI FOR FAVORS. 250 THE YEDAS OR BIBLE OF HINDUS AND VEDANTISM. IV. had sliorn the very gods of power and dignity." The request was at once but too heedlessly granted, for the clever dwarf deceit- fully circumvented the generous and all-confiding monarch, and the Aryans secured great possessions. See details in Rivers of Life ii. 478, and annexed fig. 6. TJiey were then no longer the poor semi-barbarous hordes who had emerged from west central Asia or the forests of S.E. Europe on the fertile plains of the N.W. Panjab, and who had encamped like other central Asian nomads and shepherds in leafy huts or " black tents before the great walled cities " of powerful Turanian princes.* There they had chanted their mantras, performed their simple fire rites, drank their sacred Soma oblations, and gazed in amazement at the use of metals, stone, brick and wood, mechanical appliances, and a general civilization which they heretofore could have had no conception of, never having been on the Euphrates or the Nile. But the Aryan has always been quick to learn, apt and practical ; and we read in the Vedas (probably a modern part) that he, too, soon built cities, used armor-plated chariots which resisted spears and arrows ; wore ornaments of gold and silver ; rode horses and hunted ; used medicines ; was guilty of all sexual vices ; concealed his illegitimate children ; allowed daughters to inherit parental possessions ; women to walk al^out unveiled ; built rest houses for travelers ; and finally calculated time astronomically. This civilization he could readily acquire from the alma mater of Gotama Buddha, the Turano-Dravid schools or Ndlanda of Kapila-Vasta which flourished in the 7th and 8th centuries B.C. From this early center sprang most of the metaphysical and learned writings of Vedik times — Upanishads and Darsanas ; six schools, each with its text-book and sutra — sundry Brahmanas and philosophies, theistical and atheistical, all of which preceded Buddha, and were founded by Kapila, a quasi divine incarna- tion of Vishnu, but in reality a stolid old Dravidian Pandit. The philosophik schools scorned the ideas of sacrifices, and were therefore heretiks to Vedaists. " He who lived on sacrifice," said some Kapilaists, " must at death be born again, . . . True * See Histories of Early India — Hunter, Wheeler, &c. IV. PRE-BUDDHIST AND PRE-ARYAN DRAVID SCHOOLS. 251 religion is knowledge or Jnana, but tlie pious may adopt modes and forms for its sustainance, as Bhajna, ' prayers and liturgies,' repetitions of divine names ; Yatras, or pilgrimages to lioly sites and slirines ; Dana, gifts or offerings ; and SnCina, baptisms or bathings in sacred waters." Philosophers like Kapila would certainly not teach thus ; and we learn that the schools became divided, perhaps Aryanized, about the time of Sakyamuni — say 500 B.C., when three schools are named. One holding the doctrine of Karma, which Jaina saints or Bodhas had taught in the days of Parsva of the 8th and 9th centuries B.C., or even a millenium earlier. The second school taught a Vedik-like sacrificial religion and Bhakti or faith ; and the third, a philosophik gnosticism or Jnana. This last did not, of course, suit the masses, who require an objective and more apparent religion, and cared little for theories " identifying the soul with the infinite, and requiring abstract contemplation.'" They stuck to their old rites and sacrifices — a physical worship to wdiicli their wiser ones super- added the theories of Karma and Bhakti ; and in this way, owing to the talents and energy of Buddha, was developed a neo- Brahmanism and Buddhism which taught the value of good thoughts, good deeds and good words which could live for ever, and benefit the present and the future, even if there were no deity, soul or immortality. The great moving power here, however, was not Aryan, but Turanian — " Dravidians," as we may conveniently designate the great old rulers of India then, and from 2000 to -3000 B.C. Long expected evidence is now appearing that they — Dravid Pandits — composed some Upauishads and Brahmanas, and why not Vedas, engrafting therein the hymns, prayers and faith of the illiterate Aryans 'i All these scriptures are inferior and easy compositions to the philosophical works which issued from the schools of Kapila before Buddha's day or any Aryan settlement in the middle Ganges. Nor would Vedik composi- tions prove difficult to learned Dravidian Brahmans, e.g., from Apastamba to Sankaracharya of 800 A.C., who wrote on the complicated philosophies of the Vedanta, the Basliya or com- mentaries on the Sutras and Upanishads — aphorisms and hymns 252 THE VEDAS OR BIBLE OF HINDUS AND VEDANTISM. IV. which are still the admiration of even European metaphysicians, theopathists, and most pious thinkers. But enough, for this is too large a subject to be here dealt with, though one we could not avoid, lest the reader should erroneously imagine that all Indian literature which appears in an Aryan garb was origin- ally and solely the work of Indo- Aryans, Mr 'Jliomas, a good numismatist, learned and cautious writer, here agrees with Sir Walter Elliot, a distinguished Dra vidian scholar, that "the Vedas ivere not co-ordinated by any x^RYAN Rislii, l:)ut first arranged and comj^iled by Veda Vyasa Krishna Dvaipa-Yana, who was born on an ilet of the Jamuna." According to Aryans, he was inspired by a Rishi Para-Sara, and was called Kanina " the bastard," implying that he was a half Aryan ; but no Aryans had then reached the Jamuna, and all learning was in the hands of the Turano-Dravids, then un- doubtedly, as now, a highly religious and philosophik people, with their own gods, heroes, rites and a great sacrificial system. Barth says (Rels. India) " the Vedas are a selection from many ancient jDoems which in India developed a faith inter- mixed with Rudraism and Vishnuism." He sees " no natural primitive simplicity in even the oldest A^edik hymns " ; and agrees with Prof. Tiele that "there never could have l^een a Vedik people, nor could the Vedas have been popular, inasmuch as they are liturgical and sacerdotal." Their language, subjects and metaphors, adds Barth, show that they have been composed by very different minds and at widely different periods. At the commencement of every psalm or sidcta, of the Rig is seen the name of some deity or Rishi, supposed to be the composer or compiler, as when a collector of ballads takes some from a popular minstrel. " However, we may antedate the oldest of the hymns of the Rig Veda," says Mr E. Clodd, in Acad. 3 Mar. 83; "the conditions under which they took the form which insured their transmission, are ipso facto as of yesterday, compared with that period in which man's endeavour was made to read the riddle of the earth. . . . The indications of worship of the several powers of nature wliich the Vedas supply, are the survivals of that mythopceik age in Aryan culture, of which the ruder IV. ARYANIZED LITERATURE, NOT NECESSARILY ARYAN. 253 features lingered among the tribes ... of the German Ocean or sunnier waters of the Aio^ian." It is believed that the Vedas and a voluminous Vedik and pliilosophik literation, were transmitted orally down to the time of the great grammarian Panini of 400-500 B.C., because we have as yet no prior direct evidence of writing, and we have marvelous proofs of how the memory can transmit the most difficult and unmeaning matter ; for few Vedins or Brahmans versed in the Vedas, whom we have listened to repeating page on page of their scriptures, could translate to us almost any thin o- they said, yet not a word or quantity was, we believe, wrong. The earliest portions of the Vedas are the Sanhitas or " collection " of liyms in the Ch-handa era of the Kig Veda ; and following them comes the mantra era, placed variously by some Sanskritists at from 1500 to 1200 B.C. The Brahmanas with appended Aranyakas and Upanishads, thinks Prof AVeber, may belong to 1000-1400, having some parts as late as 860 B.C. {Hist. Ind. Lit., p. 21), but this is generally thought too early. The sanctity of the Vedas is as great as ever it was to the masses of Hindus ; these firmly believe that their Vedas con- tain all that is precious, good and divine ; all that is necessary to our happiness here and salvation hereafter. Tlie educated and skeptical ones are but a small minority ; upper and lower classes alike believe, as Max Midler wrote in 1876 and since, that " Vedas contain all-sufficient authority for all that is en- joined and prohibited to the modern Hindu. All customs, all usages, all stories, all laws are held to be based on Vedik texts." And just as most Christians believe that no one can truly in- terpret their Bible save an infallible x^ope, so Hindus hold that "it is impossible for any human being, not inspired like the old Rishis, to interpret Veda." One of the early schisms in the Brahma Samdj (Theistik Church) was occasioned by a preacher saying : " the voice of God could speak to the heart of all as it spoke to the writers of the Vedas" — a doctrine which destroys all the ecclesiastic means by " inspiration," here more rigid than even with our strictest clergy. Vedik inspiration is Sriiti, " that which was Eared " or " Heard," not " a guiding Spirit,'' far less Hand, 254 THE VEDAS OR BIBLE OF HINDUS AND VEDANTISM. IV. but the very voice of God — au idea far beyond the Bath-Kol of Hebrews and others. Most Hindus, like most Catholiks, are of course very ignorant of their Bible ; not knowing that the writers often claim human authorship and beseech the divine blessing and enlightenment, they boldly teach that their Scriptures "contain all knowledge, divine and human, a completeness like unto those of the gods." Sruti inspiration is also claimed for some of the early commentaries on the Vedas, but Sruti applies really to only the four Vedas as " containing the pure and undefiled words of God whispered to holy men in heaven." All else, as Upanishads, Brahmanas, Sutras, &c., are Smriti, which comes nearer to the "inspiration" idea of Chris- tians, as that which good and holy men were inspired to write by God, his angels or the Holy Ghost. The spirit or god prompted their "memories," and Smriti is therefore applicable to all the sacred body of tradition handed down by pious and wise ancient sages. They, like Moses, Mahamad, and other prophets and apostles, were held to commune with gods and spirits, and through them, under heavenly guidance, came Hindu liturgies, prayers and puranas, based of course on the foundation of Vedas or Sruti, and in amplification of its higher and holier Vedik literature. As the Vedas are elaborate works markino- a considerable civilization and depth of philosophik thought, we must not expect to find in them anything regarding the primitive, rude, coarse symbolisms and rites of sexual nature worshipers, then and everywhere far more than even now prevalent throughout the East. Only once, and in condemnation, does the Rig Veda allude to the Sisna devaites or lingam worshipers. The old authors sought a higher elemental cult, and often adopt a spiri- tual standpoint. They urged men to look to Devas, or " gods of light," fire, storm, &c., and even to see all these as converg- ing to unity. They " yearned after one God," says Professor Max Midler, "in hymns chanted perhaps 1500 B.C.," at which we wonder not, for if the Aryans passed through Kaspiana they could not but meet with wandering teachers from Babylonia, Asyria, and Syria, not to say Jaina Sramans, who at least 1500 IV. INSPIRATION AND LIKE ANCIENT THEORIES. 255 years B.C. knew most of our arguments for and against Theism, Atheism, Agnosticism (A-janaka, as they well called this), and a future life. See our Articles I. and XI. Yaska, the first known commentator of the Vedas, " formed to himself (about 500 B.C.) a systematic theology," says Pro- fessor Max Miiller. He reduced all the Vedik gods to three, viz., Agni, Indra and Savitri, or fire, air or sky, and sun or the generator ; and finally said the three were really repre- sented by one divine Atman, as thousands of good Jainas had long before upheld. One of the Upanishads reduces the popular 3300 gods to 33, 6, and finally to one, called "The Breath of Life," or Atman (M.'s Ved., p. 27). But in the ancient East, as in the West, Henotlieism rather than Monotheism was the rule, each tribe preferring its own Baal or Yahve, though freely acknowledging that of others, as is seen in Egypt in the case of the royal treaty between Rameses II. and the Hitites, and in the fear of Hebrews for the Moabite Chemosh. The Vedas, of course, know of no one great personal God or Creator of a Universe ; it may rather be said that the highest phase of Vedaism is to see God everywhere as well as in the totality of all that is, not as apart from or outside of nature. Hence Tritheism, Pantheism or Polytheism were high phazes of Vedik intellectual life, whilst Monotheism, in omitting the deification of divine attributes was held to be imperfect.. Vedantism was an early rebound (much earlier than the Vedanta Sutras) of the learned and pious, against the many anthropo- morphik and anthropopathik ideals of deity. It was an attempt to soar into the empyrean, where Vedantists, like others, lost themselves in a hazy " Absolute Great Neuter Brdhm " — confessedly incomprehensible and indescribable ; but whom nevertheless they are for ever describing in poetic or wordy metaphysical language, until their He or It almost comes under the universal law that all Gods are of the earth earthy ; certainly all Biblical ones are unmistakably physical, as their planetary and elemental names and attributes declare. Nor can deities anywhere escape the universal law of development. The First Brahma was " that which sprouted " — a bud, core, ling or essence, from, says Max Mllller ( Vedanta, 256 THE VEDAS OR BIBLE OF HINDUS AND VEDANTISM. IV. 149), "hrih or Vrik, that wliicli breaks forth in the sense of creation or creator," hence Isvara, the common name for Siva. From Vrih also comes Vridh and Vardha, and hence the Latin verhum the " Word" or Logos, which burst forth as soon as man conceived a thought or idea ; for the Logos would be to Vedist and Vedantist the deified Vach or " speech" — that which gave, as it were, life to thought, and which, " springing forth " like to, and from the creating Brahma, was known as his offspring or power. In this sense the Logos or Son was " witli the Father from the creation of the world," or, at least, of man, and Hermes is the same idea, as the eloquent and seducing god. Argu- ments have been advanced, here out of place, for the parent- age of Log-OS from the old north Aryan god Log, or Loki, Loch or Lough, Fire and Flame — an Agni " Son of the Highest," and "Messenger" of Aryan gods. The first great Hindu Creating Father was a real Praja-pati, "Lord of Creations" — a true Hermaik Brahma; and being depicted as a potent masculine Zeus, like to Yahve, Chemosh, Anion, &c., he in time naturally became distasteful to cultured and pious philosophik minds searching after a great ideal and no magnified man, solar or royal governor. As did Vedantists, so have others developed a great neuter Brdhm ; even pious Chris- tian philosophers have sought, and some few dared to own, a Brahm, despite the direct anthropomorphik teaching of the Christian and Hebrew Scriptures. Thus the Rev. Principal Caird (D.D., Glasgow University) boldly says, in his Gifford Lectures, 1895/6, that in his view : " Christianity knows no such thing as a ' First Cause,' or an Omni- potent Creator and Moral Governor of the world, a being fi-amed after the image of man ; an anthropomorphic potentate seated on a celestial throne, publishing laws and dispensing rewards after the manner of an earthly sovereign or magistrate." Of course this sets aside Yahve and Theos or the Kurios, and all Als or Els as he on whom Christ called at death ; for he said " His Father worked as He worked," and that Eli " governs the world with righteousness" ; looks after sparrows, lilies, grass, &c.; that "for Him and through Him are all things " ; that He made them all in six days, and rested, being tired, on IV. BRAHMA AND BRAHM THE NEUTER UN-MORAL IDEA. 257 the seventh day, and finally became incarnate in a Jewish babe, and dwelt amongst men. Hebrews recognized no Neuter God. Such-like matter, the philosophical Vedantist said, arose from Avidyd or Nescience, and must not be ascribed to " The Great Atman, Soul, Self or Spirit of the Ujiiverse," though admissable, perhaps, among those who could not rise beyond the phenomenal. All Vedantists did not agree however with many Buddhists that the phenomenal was " unreal, illusive, or false." They spoke of "a reality behind the unreal," apparently on the ground that the masses must have a ivorship, and therefore a person, prattJca or face, a God, Father and Creator. But the true Vedantist confessed, like Athanasius, that he could only say what God was not. Prof. Max Muller's Vecl, 83/4. The Vedantist creed of, perhaps, the 4th century B.C. is as incomprehensible as the Deity, and in this respect, like that ascribed to Athanasius of the 4th century a.c. Max Miiller translates it as follows : — " Nor aught nor naught existed : yon bright (Sun) was not, Nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. The Only One breathed by Itself . . . Other than It there nothing since has been. Who knows from ivJience this great creation came ? He from whom this great creation came ? Whether His Will created or was mute ? The most High Seer that is in highest heaven, He knows it, or perchance even He knows not." — all sufficiently mysterious, and like much that precedes and follows, wild, indiscriminate trifling with ignorant men, and with words which every accurate scholar must condemn. Prof. Midler thinks that, owing to the use here of the word taddnUn, " this is not the most ancient stratum of Vedic thought and language." There were, however, skeptiks, who asked such questions as : " What covered all ? " " what sheltered?" "what concealed?" "was it waters?" &c. Notice also that in Rig Veda, X. 129 : The gods knew not the genesis of the universe, for one writer asks, " Who truly knowest whence hither (all) were born ? . . . The gods had no priority. Whether did it (the world) make itself or not ? ... Who was its overseer ? . . . R 258 THE VEDAS OR BIBLE OF HINDUS AND VEDANTISM. IV. He surely knows, if not, who can ? Not the non-existent existed . . . the Existent existed not at that time : . . . not death nor aught which is immortaL" Here, as elsewhere, it appears that immortality was not attributed to either gods or men ; though perhaps accepted, the subject was wisely avoided. All could win a sort of invincibility by severe austerities, and more pleasantly, as did Soma and Indra by drinking Amrita. All ate and drank, married and were given in marriage, and no heaven could have been attrac- tive without these mundane pleasures. The Kig Veda alludes to a genuine heaven for the righteous ; but of the wicked nothing is said, and some think they died eternally, which would con- flict with the universal primitive belief in transmigration. There are also positive traces of a belief in a hell. See Prof. Macdonell's Review of Oldenberg's Veda, R. As. J., Oct. '95. Like many Biblicists, Hindus speak less and less, and lean not at all on the older gods, legends and rites of their scriptures, but more and more on the ethical teachings. They remain strong sj)iritualists, believing they can interview the gods by inducing an extatik condition, especially by fasting and other austerities or tapas, and originally by exposure to heat, as we would expect from fire worshipers. Cf. Rig, x. 136 ei seq. Sdti or widow-burnino; also seems inferred, and is far from an inven- tion of later Brahmanism {ibid. p. 961/2); though it is not so clearly a sacred institution as was the sacrificial burning of Hebrew children and offering up of the first-born. The post-Buddhistik Hindus or neo-Brahmans, tried to check spirit lore for much the same reason as the Pope does Freemasonry. They urged that though souls or spirits existed in all things as well as creatures, yet that " man has only to do with, and must alone meditate on the great universal spirit, Atman or Breath of Life — He who arises out of, and returns into, and breathes in itself (Chand. Upan.). This is akin to the western Holy Ghost idea, and to the teaching of Lao-tsze of the 6th century B.C., whose Tao was really God, "the Way and V^ital Principle." It could not, he said, " be seen or grasped ; has neither limbs, eyes or ears ; but is eternal, all-pervading, im- perishable and infinitesimal, yet the source of all that is." About IV. DOCTRINES, GODS AND LIKE IDEAS OF VEDAS. 250 this time also the learned author of the Mundaka Upauishad was writing " Our Brahma is joined unto Maya-matter and Illusion " — doctrines wliich had reached China. In spite of all this ancient theosophy, out-rivaling in mystik occultism and wordy logomachy anything of even these days, clever men have ever continued to define and condition what they still assert is unconditioned and incomprehensible. They grasped at shadows of their own making, and brought down to earth the most ethereal of spirits, until they appeared as suitable " gods walking like men," when alone gods can bo worshiped. The Vedas mention Triune forms of great gods and powers, but no T7'i-murti or heroes like Eama and Krishna, though there is a Krishna, probably the dark Apollo of Dravids. Vishnu is shown as a solar deity, who compasses the earth in three strides, also, as a creator of all life, and even of Brahmfi, a later idea of his Puranik devotees. He was shown as reclining with Lakshmi on his serpent couch, and from the euphemistik navel arises Brahma. Egypt expresses the same idea in this snake deity. The Vedik Siva is the tempestuous Eudra, and not connected with the Linga or " the abhorrent Sisna devaitis,'' though these were everywhere, from Kaildsa, 8iva's heaven — the highest cone overlooking the sources of the Indus and Satlej, to the lands of Andhras and Tri-lingaits, the energetic colonizers of Trans-India. Everywhere in Vedik, as in present times, Biids, Budhs, Bods or Bada-Kcds or little " stone lingams " (Tamil, ''Bud-stones'')