CHIPS 
 
 A GERMAN WORKSHOP. 
 
 MAX MULLER, M. A., 
 
 FELLOW OP ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 VOLUME 1L 
 ESSAYS ON MYTHOLOGY, TBADITiONS, AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 1890. 
 
 [Published by arrangement with die Author.]
 
 Hi VERBID J, CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 TXBXOTTPED AND PRINTED 3V 
 
 a. o. HOCQUTON AM> OOMPAMT.
 
 StacK 
 Annex 
 
 5013665 
 
 To 
 
 JACOB BERNAYS, 
 
 PROFESSOR IN TUB UNIVERSITY OF BONK 
 IN MEMORY OF HAPPY HOURS. 

 
 CONTENTS OF SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVI. COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY, 1856 1 
 
 XVII. GREEK MYTHOLOGY, 1858 142 
 
 XVIII. GREEK LEGENDS, 1867 154 
 
 XIX. BELLEROPHON, 1855 ....... 170 
 
 XX. THE NORSEMEN IN ICELAND, 1858 187 
 
 XXI. FOLK-LORE, 1863 . . 195 
 
 XXII. ZULU NURSERY TALES, 1867 206 
 
 XXIII. POPULAR TALES FROM THK NORSE, 1859 . . . 217 
 
 XXIV. TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS, 1861 . . . .237 
 XXV. ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 1865 .... 248 
 
 XXVI. OUR FIGURES, 1363 284 
 
 XXVII. CASTE, 1853 295 
 
 IJIDKX . 865
 
 XVI. 
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Phcedros. Dost thou see that very tall plane-tree? 
 
 Soknitcs. Certainly I do. 
 
 Pluedros. Tlere is shade there, and the wind is not too strong, and then 
 is grass to sit, or.il' we like, to lie down. 
 
 Sukriittt. Lead on then ! 
 
 riiiulrus. Tell me. Sokrates, is it not from some place here they sy 
 that Boreas <;arried away Oreithyia from the Ilissos? 
 
 Sukrales. So the}' say. 
 
 Plueilros. Should it not be fr <m this spot? for the waters seem so lovely, 
 and pure, and transparent, and as if made for girls to play on the bank. 
 
 Sokrafat. No ; it is two or three stadia further down, where you cross over 
 to the temple of Agra, and tltere you find, somewhere, an altar of Boreas. 
 
 Plicedros. I was not aware of this. But tell me, by Zeus, Sokrates, 
 dost thou believe this myth to be true? 
 
 Sckriites. Well, if I did not believe it, like the wise people, I should not be 
 so very far wrong; and I might set up an ingenious theory and say that a 
 gust of Boreas, the Northwind, carried her down from the rocks in the 
 neighborhood, while she was playing with her friend Pharmakeia ; and 
 that, having died in this manner, she was reported to have been carried off 
 by Boreas from thence, or from the Ares peak, for there goes also this 
 story, that shu was carried off from that, and not from this spot. As to my- 
 self, Pluedros, I think these explanations, on the whole, very pleasant; but 
 they require a man of strong mind and hard work, and a man who, after 
 all, is not much to be envied, if it were only for this, that when he has set 
 light this one fable, he is bound to do the same for the form of the Hippo- 
 kentanrs, and again for that of the Chimicra. And then a host of such 
 beings rushes in, Gorgons and Pegasos, and masses of other hopeless 
 beings, and absurdities of monstrous creatures. And if a man, not believing 
 in the existence of these creatures, should try to represent each according to 
 the probable explanation, dealing in a rough kind of philosophy, he would 
 require abundance of leisure- ,1, at least, haw no time to spare for thew 
 
 VOL. II. 1
 
 2 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 things, ana the reason, my friend, is this, that I cannot yet, according to the 
 Delphic line, know myself; and it seems to me ridiculous that a man who 
 does not yet know this, should trouble himself about what does not concern 
 him. Therefore I leave those things alone, and, believing what other peopl 
 believe about them, I meditate, as I said just now, not on them, but on 
 myself, whether I be a monster more complicated and more savage than 
 Typhon, or a tamer and simpler creature, enjoying by nature a blessed and 
 modest lot. But while we are tslHnjf. *ny friend, was not this the tree tc 
 which thou wert to lead us? 
 Phcedros. This is the very tree. 
 
 THIS passage, from the Introduction of Plato's " Pha&- 
 dros," has been frequently quoted in order to show 
 what the wisest of the Greeks thought about the 
 rationalists of his day. There were at Athens then, as 
 there have been at all times and in all countries, men 
 who had no sense for the miraculous and supernatural, 
 and who, without having the moral courage to deny 
 altogether what they could not bring themselves to be- 
 lieve, endeavored to find some plausible explanation by 
 which the sacred legends which tradition had handed 
 down to them, and which had been hallowed by re- 
 ligious observances, and sanctioned by the authority of 
 the law, might be brought into harmony with the dic- 
 tates of reason and the laws of nature. That Sokrates, 
 though himself accused of heresy, did not entertain a 
 very high opinion of these speculators, that he 
 thought their explanations more incredible and ab- 
 surd than even the most incredible absurdities of 
 Greek mythology, nay, that at a certain period of his 
 life he treated such attempts as impious, is clear from 
 this and other passages of Plato and Xenophon. 
 
 But if Mr. Grote, in his classical work on the " His- 
 tory of Greece," avails himself of this and similar pas> 
 sages, in order to introduce, as it were, Sokrates 
 himself among the historians and critics of our own
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. O 
 
 time, if he endeavors to make him bear witness " to 
 the uselessness of digging for a supposed basis of truth " 
 in the myths of the Greek world, he makes the ancient 
 philosopher say more than he really said. Our object 
 in considering the myths of the Greeks, or any other 
 nation of antiquity, is so different from that of Sokrates, 
 that the objections which he urged against his rational- 
 izing contemporaries could hardly be said to apply to 
 us. For what is it that makes us at the present day 
 ask the question of the origin of the Greek myths ? 
 Why do men study ancient history, acquire a knowl- 
 edge of dead languages, and decipher illegible inscrip- 
 tions ? What inspires them with an interest not only 
 in the literature of Greece and Rome, but of ancient 
 India and Persia, of Egypt and Babylonia ? Why do 
 the puerile and often repulsive legends of savage tribes 
 rivet their attention and engage their thoughts ? Have 
 we not been told that there is more wisdom in "The 
 Times " than in Thukydides ? Are not the novels of 
 Walter Scott more amusing than Apollodoros ? or the 
 works of Bacon more instructive than the cosmogony 
 of the Purawas? What, then, gives life to the study 
 of antiquity? What compels men, in the midst of 
 these busy times, to sacrifice their leisure to studies 
 apparently so unattractive and useless, if not the con- 
 viction, that in order to obey the Delphic command- 
 ment, in order to know what Man is, we ought to 
 know what Man has been? This is a view as foreign 
 to the mind of Sokrates as any of the principles of in- 
 ductive philosophy by which men like Columbus, 
 Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, and 
 Galileo regenerated and invigorated the intellectual life 
 of modern Europe. If we grant to Sokrates that the
 
 4 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 chief object of philosophy is that man should know 
 himself, we should hardly consider his means of arriv- 
 ing at this knowledge adequate to so high an aim. To 
 his mind man was preeminently the individual, without 
 any reference to its being but one manifestation of a 
 power, or, as he might have said, of an idea, realized 
 in and through an endless variety of human souls. He 
 is ever seeking to solve the mystery of human nature 
 by brooding over his own mind, by watching the secret 
 workings of the soul, by analyzing the organs of knowl- 
 edge, and by trying to determine their proper limits; 
 and thus the last result of his philosophy was, that he 
 knew but one thing, and this was, that he knew noth- 
 ing. To us, man is no longer this solitary being, com- 
 plete in itself, and self-sufficient ; man to us is a brother 
 among brothers, a member of a class, of a genus, or a 
 kind, and therefore intelligible only with reference to 
 his equals. The earth was unintelligible to the an- 
 cients, because looked upon as a solitary being, without 
 a peer in the whole universe ; but it assumed a new 
 and true significance as soon as it rose before the eyes 
 of man as one of many planets, all governed by the 
 same laws, and all revolving around the same centre. 
 It is the same with the human soul, and its nature 
 stands before our mind in quite a different light since 
 man has been taught to know and feel himself as a 
 member of one great family, as one of the myriads 
 of wandering stars, all governed by the same laws, 
 and all revolving around the same centre, and all de- 
 riving their light from the same source. The history 
 of the world, or, as it is called, " Universal His- 
 tory," has laid open new avenues of thought, and it 
 has .enriched our language with a word w.hich never
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 5 
 
 passed the lips of Sokrates, or Plato, or Aristotle, 
 mankind. 1 Where the Greek saw barbarians, we see 
 brethren ; where the Greek saw heroes and demi-gods, 
 we see our parents and ancestors ; where the Greek saw 
 nations (e^vr/), we see mankind, toiling and suffering, 
 separated by oceans, divided by language, and severed 
 by national enmity, yet evermore tending, under a 
 divine control, towards the fulfillment of that inscruta- 
 ble purpose for which the world was created, and man 
 placed in it, bearing the image of God. History, 
 therefore, with its dusty and mouldering pages, is to 
 us as sacred a volume as the book of nature. In both 
 we read, or we try to read, the reflex of the laws and 
 thoughts of a Divine Wisdom. As we acknowledge 
 no longer in nature the working of demons or the 
 manifestation of an evil principle, so we deny in history 
 an atomistic conglomerate of chances, or the despotic 
 rule of a mute fate. We believe that there is nothing 
 irrational in either history or nature, and that the 
 human mind is called upon to read and to revere, in 
 both the manifestations of a Divine Power. Hence, 
 even the most ancient and shattered pages of traditions 
 are dear to us, nay dearer, perhaps, than the more co- 
 pious chapters of modern times. The history of those 
 distant ages and distant men apparently so foreign 
 to our modern interests assumes a new charm as 
 soon as we know that it tells us the story of our own 
 i ace, of our own family, nay, of our own selves. 
 Sometimes, when opening a desk which we have not 
 opened for many years, when looking over letters 
 which we have not read for many years, we read on 
 for some time with a cold indifference, and though we 
 see if; is our own handwriting, and though we meet 
 
 1 See Cicero, Tusc. Dup. v. 37.
 
 6 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 with names once familiar to our heart, yet we can 
 hardly believe that we wrote these letters, that we felt 
 those pangs, that we shared in those delights, till at 
 last the past draws near and we draw near to the past, 
 and our heart grows warm, and we feel again as we felt 
 of old, and we know that these letters were our letters. 
 It is the same in reading ancient history. At first it 
 seems something strange and foreign ; but the more in- 
 tensely we read, the more our thoughts are engaged 
 and our feelings warmed ; and the history of those 
 ancient men becomes, as it were, our own history, 
 their sufferings our sufferings, their joys our joys. 
 Without this sympathy, history is a dead letter, and 
 might as well be burnt and forgotten ; while, if it is once 
 enlivened by this feeling, it appeals not only to the an- 
 tiquarian, but to the heart of every man. 
 
 We find ourselves on a stage on which many acts 
 have been acted before us, and where we are suddenly 
 called to act our own part. To know the part which we 
 have to act ourselves, we ought to know the character 
 of those whose place we take. We naturally look back 
 to the scenes on which the curtain of the past has fallen, 
 for we believe that there ought to be one thought per- 
 vading the whole drama of mankind. And here His- 
 tory steps in, and gives us the thread which connects 
 the present with the past. Many scenes, it is true, are 
 lost beyond the hope of recovery ; and the most inter- 
 esting, the opening scenes of the childhood of the hu- 
 man race, are known to us by small fragments only. 
 But for this very reason the antiquarian, if he descries 
 a relic of those early times, grasps it with the eagerness 
 of a biographer who finds unexpectedly some scraps 
 written by his hero when yet a child entirely him-
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 7 
 
 self, and before the shadows of life had settled on his 
 brow. In whatever language it may be written, every 
 line, every word, is welcome, that bears the impress of 
 the early days of mankind. In our museums we col- 
 lect the rude playthings of our hero's boyhood, and we 
 try to guess from their colossal features the thoughts of 
 the mind which they once reflected. Many things are 
 still unintelligible to us, and the hieroglyphic language 
 of antiquity records but half of the mind's unconscious 
 intentions. Yet more and more the image of man, in 
 whatever clime we meet him, rises before us, noble and 
 pure from the very beginning : even his errors we 
 learn to understand, even his dreams we begin to 
 interpret. As far as we can trace back the footsteps 
 of man, even on the lowest strata of history, we see 
 that the divine gift of a sound and sober intellect be- 
 longed to him from the very first ; and the idea of a 
 humanity emerging slowly from the depths of an an- 
 imal brutality can never be maintained again. The 
 earliest work of art wrought by the human mind, 
 more ancient than any literary document, and prior 
 even to the first whisperings of tradition, the human 
 language, forms an uninterrupted chain from the first 
 dawn of history down to our own times. We still 
 speak the language of the first ancestors of our race ; 
 and this language, with its wonderful structure, bears 
 witness against such gratuitous imputations. The for- 
 mation of language, the composition of roots, the grad- 
 ual discrimination of meanings, the systematic elabora- 
 tion of grammatical forms, all this working which we 
 can still see under the surface of our own speech, at- 
 tests from the very first the presence of a rational mind 
 of an artist as great, at least, as his work.
 
 8 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 The period, during which expressions were coined 
 for the most necessary ideas, such as pronouns, 
 prepositions, numerals, and the household words of the 
 simplest life, a period to which we must assign the 
 first beginnings of a free and, as yet, hardly agglutin- 
 ative grammar, a grammar not impressed with any 
 individual or national peculiarities, yet containing the 
 germs of all the Turanian, as well as the Aryan and 
 Semitic forms of speech, this period forms the first 
 in the history of man, the first, at least, to which 
 even the keenest eye of the antiquarian and the phi- 
 losopher can reach, and we call it the "Rhematic 
 Period." 
 
 This is succeeded by a second period, during which 
 we must suppose that at least two families of language 
 left the simply agglutinative, or nomadic stage of gram- 
 mar, and received, once for all, that peculiar impress 
 of their formative system which we still find in all the 
 dialects and national idioms comprised under the names 
 of " Semitic " and " Aryan," as distinguished from 
 the " Turanian,'' the latter retaining to a much later 
 period, and in some instances to the present day, that 
 agglutinative reprodnctiveness which has rendered a 
 traditional and metamorphic system of grammar im- 
 possible, or has at least considerably limited its extent. 
 Hence we do not find in the nomadic or Turanian lan- 
 guages scattered from China to the Pyrenees, from 
 Capo Comorin, across the Caucasus, to Lapland that 
 traditional family likeness which enables us to treat the 
 Teutonic, Celtic, Slavonic, Italic, Hellenic, Iranic, and 
 Indie languages on one s id e an( j ^] ie Arabian, Ara- 
 
 o o * 
 
 mean, and Hebrew dialects on the other, as mere va- 
 rieties of two specific forms of speech, in which, at a
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 9 
 
 very early period, and through influences decidedly 
 political, if not individual and personal, the floating 
 elements of grammar have been arrested and made to 
 assume an amalgamated, instead of a merely agglutin- 
 ative character. This second may be called the " Dia- 
 lectic Period." 
 
 Now. after these two periods, but before the appear- 
 ance of the first traces of any national literature, there 
 is a period, represented everywhere by the same char- 
 acteristic features, a kind of Eocene period, com- 
 monly called the " Mythological " or " Mythopoeic " 
 Age. It is a period in the history of the human mind, 
 perhaps the most difficult to understand, and the most 
 likely to shake our faith in the regular progress of the 
 human intellect. We can form a tolerably clear idea 
 of the origin of language, of the gradual formation of 
 grammar, and the unavoidable divergence of dialects 
 and languages. We can understand, again, the earliest 
 concentrations of political societies, the establishment 
 of laws and customs, and the first beginnings of re- 
 ligion and poetry. But between the two there is a 
 gulf which it seems impossible for any philosophy to 
 bridge over. We call it the " Mythic Period," and we 
 have accustomed ourselves to believe that the Greeks, 
 for instance, such as we find them represented to us 
 in the Homeric poems, far advanced in the fine arts, 
 acquainted with the refinements and comforts of life, 
 such as we see at the palaces of Menelaos and Alki- 
 noos, with public meetings and elaborate pleadings, 
 with the mature wisdom of a Nestor and the cunning 
 enterprise of an Odysseus, with the dignity of a Helena 
 and the loveliness of a Nausikaa could have been 
 preceded by a race of men whose chief amusement con-
 
 10 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 sisted in inventing absurd tales about gods and other 
 nondescript beings, a race of men, in fact, on whose 
 tomb the historian could inscribe no better epigram 
 than that on Bitto and Phainis. Although later poets 
 may have given to some of these fables a charm of 
 beauty, and led us to accept them as imaginative coin- 
 positions, it is impossible to conceal the fact that, taken 
 by themselves, and in their literal meaning, most of 
 these ancient myths are absurd and irrational, and fre- 
 quently opposed to the principles of thought, religion, 
 and morality which guided the Greeks as soon as they 
 appear to us in the twilight of traditional history. By 
 whom, then, were these stories invented ? stories, 
 we must say at once, identical in form and character, 
 whether we find them on Indian, Persian, Greek, Ital- 
 ian, Slavonic, or Teutonic soil. Was there a period 
 of temporary insanity, through which the human mind 
 had to pass, and was it a madness identically .the same 
 in the south of India and in the north of Iceland ? It 
 is impossible to believe that a people who, in the very 
 infancy of thought, produced men like Thales, Hera- 
 kleitos, and Pythagoras, should have consisted of idle 
 talkers but a few centuries before the time of these 
 sages. Even if we take only that part of mythology 
 which refers to religion, in our sense of the word, or 
 the myths which bear on the highest problems of phi- 
 losophy, such as the creation, the relation of man to 
 God, life and death, virtue and vice, myths generally 
 the most modern in origin, we find that even this small 
 portion, which might be supposed to contain some sober 
 deas, or some pure and sublime conceptions, is unwor- 
 thy of the ancestors of the Homeric poets or the Ionic 
 philosophers. When the swineherd Eumaeos, unac-
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 11 
 
 quainted, perhaps, with the intricate system of the 
 Olympian mythology, speaks of the Deity, he speaks 
 like one of ourselves. " Eat," he says to Odysseus, 
 " and enjoy what is here, for Gou will grant one thing, 
 but another he will refuse, whatever he will in his 
 mind, for he can do all things," 1 This, we may sup- 
 pose, was the language of the common people at tin; 
 time of Homer, and it is simple and sublime, if com- 
 pared with what has been supposed one of the grandest 
 conceptions of Greek mythology, that, namely, where 
 Zeus, in order to assert his omnipotence, tells the gods, 
 that if they took a rope, and all the gods and goddesses 
 pulled on one side, they could not drag him down from 
 the heaven to the earth ; while, if he chose, he could 
 pull them all up, and suspend the earth and the sea 
 from the summit of Olympos. What is more ridicu- 
 lous than the mythological account of the creation of 
 the human race by Deukalion and Pyrrha throwing 
 stones behind them (a myth which owes its origin to a 
 mere pun on Aaos and > uas) ? while we can hardly ex- 
 pect, among pagans, a more profound conception of the 
 relation between God and man, than the saying of 
 Herakleitos, " Men are mortal gods, and gods are im- 
 mortal men." Let us think of the times which could 
 bear a Lykurgos and a Solon, which could found 
 an Areopagos and the Olympic games, and how can 
 we imagine that, a few generations before that time, 
 the highest notions of the Godhead among the Greeks 
 were adequately expressed by the story of Uranos 
 maimed by Kronos, of Kronos eating his children. 
 
 \ Od. XIV. 443. 'Eo-flie, Scu.ij.6vie fccVtuc, xai repireo TOicrSe 
 
 O'a irdpean' 6ebs Se TO ft.ev Sucre. TO &' eacrei, 
 *OTTI Ktv u Ovfj.tZ i8e\ji' ivVarai yap airavra.
 
 12 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 swallowing a stone, and vomiting out alive his whole 
 progeny ? Among the lowest tribes of Africa and 
 America we hardly find anything more hideous and re- 
 volting. It is shutting our eyes to the difficulties 
 which stare us in the face, if we say, like Mr. Grote, 
 that this mythology was " a past which was never 
 present ; '* and it seems blasphemy to consider these 
 fables of the heathen world as corrupted and misinter- 
 preted fragments of a divine revelation once granted 
 to the whole race of mankind a view so frequently 
 advocated by Christian divines. These myths have 
 been made by man at a certain period of history. 
 There was an age which produced these myths, an 
 age half-way between the Dialectical Period, pre- 
 senting the human race gradually diverging into dif- 
 ferent families and languages, and the National Period, 
 exhibiting to us the earliest traces of nationalized lan- 
 guage, and a nationalized literature in India, Persia, 
 Greece, Italy, and Germany. The fact is there, and we 
 must either explain it, or admit in the gradual growth 
 of the human mind, as in the formation of the earth, 
 some violent revolutions, which broke the regularity of 
 the early strata of thought, and convulsed the human 
 mind, like volcanoes and earthquakes arising from some 
 unknown cause, below the surface of history. 
 
 Much, however, Avill be gained if, without being 
 driven to adopt so violent and repugnant a theory, we 
 are able to account in a more intelligible manner for 
 the creation of myths. Their propagation and sub- 
 sistence in later times, though strange in many re- 
 spects, is yet a much less intricate problem. The 
 human mind has an inborn reverence for the past, 
 and the religious piety of the man flows from the same
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 13 
 
 natural spring as the filial piety of the child. Even 
 though the traditions of past ages may appear strange, 
 wild, and sometimes immoral or impossible, each gen- , 
 eration accepts them, and fashions them so that they 
 can be borne with again, and even made to disclose a 
 true and deeper meaning. Many of the natives of 
 India, though versed in European science, and imbued 
 with the principles of a pure natural theology, yet bow 
 down and worship the images of Vishnu and *5>'iva. 
 They know that these images are but stone ; they con- 
 fess that their feelings revolt against the impurities 
 attributed to these gods by what they call their sacred 
 writings ; yet there are honest Brahmans who will 
 maintain that these stories have a deeper meaning, 
 that immorality being incompatible with a divine being, 
 a mystery must be supposed to be concealed in these 
 time-hallowed fables, a mystery which an inquiring 
 and reverent mind may hope to fathom. Nay, even 
 where Christian missionaries have been successful, 
 where the purity of the Christian faith has won the 
 heart of a native, and made the extravagant absurdi- 
 ties of the Puranas insupportable to him, the faith of 
 his early childhood will still linger on and break out 
 occasionally in unguarded expressions, as several of 
 the myths of antiquity have crept into the legends of 
 the Church of Rome. 1 We find frequent indications 
 in ancient history that the Greeks themselves were 
 shocked by the stories told of their gods; yet as even 
 in our own times faith with most men is not faith in 
 God or in truth, but faith in the faith of others, we 
 may understand why even men like Sokrates were un- 
 
 1 See Grimm's Intr jduction to his great work on Teutonic Mythology, 
 second edition, 1844, p. xxxi.
 
 14 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 willing to renounce their belief in what had been be- 
 lieved by their fathers. As their idea of the Godhead 
 became purer, they felt that the idea of perfection, in- 
 volved in the idea of a divine being, excluded the 
 possibility of immoral gods. Pindar, as pointed out by 
 Otfried M tiller, 1 changes many myths because they 
 are not in harmony with his purer conceptions of 
 the dignity of gods and heroes ; and, because, accord- 
 ing to his opinion, they must be false. Plato 2 argues 
 in a similar spirit when he examines the different tradi- 
 tions about Eros ; and in the " Symposium " we see 
 how each speaker maintains that myth of Eros to be 
 the only true one which agrees best with his own ideas 
 of the nature of this god, Phaedros 8 calling him the 
 oldest, Agathon the youngest of the gods; yet each 
 appealing to the authority of an ancient myth. Thus, 
 men who had as clear a conception of the omnipotence 
 and omnipresence of a supreme God as natural relig- 
 ion can reveal, still called him Zeus, forgetting the 
 adulterer and parricide : 
 
 Zeus a-px*]> Zeus /xeVcra, Atos 8* K Travra. 
 
 "Zeus is the beginning, Zeus the middle; out of Zeus all things have 
 been made; " 
 
 an Orphic line, but an old one, if, as Mr. Grote sup- 
 poses, Plato alluded to it. 4 Poets, again, who felt in 
 
 1 Seo 0. Miiller's excellent work, Prolegomena zii einer wissemdiaftlichen 
 Mytlwkgie, 1825, p. 87. 
 
 2 Phasdros, 242 E. 
 
 * Rytltp. 178 C. Ovrtat iro^a\68fv b/ioXoyemu o *Epu>? ei> TOI? irpeaftvrdr it 
 ttici" 7rpco/?vTaro$ e Siv ntyurriav dyaBuiv r))j.lv curios earif 195 A <<rri 8t 
 KaAAirf TOS tav TOioo'6'e* irfiiaTov ftev veutraroy 6eiav u> 4>aipe. 
 
 4 Lobeck, Aylaoph. p. 523, gives 
 
 Zei>$ xe ,'iaXi), /tus fiecrira, Aib? ' e/e TTO.VTO. rrr 
 
 See Preller's Grtek Mythology, 1854, p 99.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 15 
 
 their hearts the true, emotion of prayer, a yearning 
 after divine help and protection, still spoke of Zeus, 
 forgetting that at one time Zeus himself was vanquished 
 by Titan, and had to be delivered by Hermes. 1 JEs- 
 chylos 2 says : " Zeus, whoever he is, if this be the name 
 by which he loves to be called, by this name I ad- 
 dress him. For, pondering on all things except Zeus, I 
 cannot tell whether I may truly cast off the idle bur- 
 den from my thought." 
 
 No, the preservation of these mythic names, the long 
 life of these fables, and their satisfying the religious, 
 poetical, and moral wants of succeeding generations, 
 though strange antl startling, is not the real difficulty. 
 The past has its charms, and tradition has a powerful 
 friend in language. We still speak of the sun rising 
 and setting, of rainbows, of thunderbolts, because lan- 
 guage has sanctioned these expressions. We use them, 
 though we do not believe in them. The difficulty is 
 how at first the human mind was led to such imagin- 
 ings, how the names and tales arose, and unless this 
 question can be answered, our belief in a regular and 
 consistent progress of the human intellect, through all 
 ages and in alJ countries, must be given up as a false 
 theory. 
 
 Nor can it be said that we know absolutely noth- 
 ing of this period during which the as yet undivided 
 
 1 Apotttxl. 1, 6, 3, Grote, II. G. p. 4. 
 
 2 I give the text, because it lias been translated in so many different 
 w*ys : 
 
 Zev?, OOTIT JTOT' corti', el ro6' ou- 
 
 OUK ex< 7rpocretxa<rai, 
 iravr* 67ri<rTa0fx<i/xci'Os 
 *At)V AIDS, ei TO fxarav dito Qpovntof &\Vtt
 
 16 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Aryan nations for it is chiefly of them that we are 
 now speaking formed their myths. Even if we 
 saw only the deep shadow which lies on the Greek 
 mind from the very beginning of its political and liter- 
 ary history, we should be able to infer from it some- 
 thing of the real character of that age which must 
 nave preceded the earliest dawn of the national litera- 
 ture of Greece. Otfried Miiller, 1 though he was un- 
 acquainted with the new light which comparative phi- 
 lology has shed on this primitive Aryan period, says : 
 " The mythic form of expression which changes all be- 
 ings into persons, all relations into actions, is some- 
 thing so peculiar that we must admit for its growth a 
 distinct period in the civilization of a people." But 
 comparative philology has since brought this whole 
 period within the pale of documentary history. It has 
 placed in our hands a telescope of such power that, 
 where formerly we could see but nebulous clouds, we 
 now discover distinct forms and outlines ; nay, it has 
 given us what we may call contemporary evidence, ex- 
 hibiting to us the state of thought, language, religion, 
 and civilization at a period when Sanskrit was not yet 
 Sanskrit, Greek not yet Greek, but when both, to- 
 gether with Latin, German, and other Aryan dialects, 
 existed as yet as one undivided language, in the same 
 manner as French, Italian, and Spanish may be said to 
 have at one time existed as one undivided language, in 
 the form of Latin. 
 
 This will require a short explanation. If we knew 
 nothing of the existence of Latin ; if all historical 
 documents previous to the fifteenth century had been 
 l ost; if tradition, even, were silent as to the former 
 
 l Prd. Myth. p. 78.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 17 
 
 existence of a Roman empire, a mere comparison of 
 the six Romance dialects would enable us to say, that 
 at some time there must have been a language from 
 which all these modern dialects derived their origin 
 in common; for without this supposition it would be 
 impossible to account for the facts exhibited by these 
 dialects. Let us look at the auxiliary verb. We 
 find : 
 
 
 Italian. 
 
 Wallachian. 
 
 RhaEtian. 
 
 Spanish. 
 
 Portuguese. 
 
 French. 
 
 I ami 
 
 aono, 
 
 sum (sunt), 
 
 Bunt, 
 
 soy, 
 
 sou, 
 
 81113. 
 
 Thou art: 
 
 Ml, 
 
 es. 
 
 eis. 
 
 ere, 
 
 es. 
 
 es. 
 
 He is: 
 
 6, 
 
 e 'es(c). 
 
 ei. 
 
 es. 
 
 he. 
 
 Mb 
 
 We are: 
 
 siamo, 
 
 duntemu, 
 
 essen, 
 
 somes, 
 
 somos, 
 
 sommes. 
 
 You are: 
 
 siete. 
 
 suntefi, 
 
 esses, 
 
 BOis, 
 
 sois. 
 
 ttes (estes> 
 
 They are: 
 
 sono, 
 
 6 lint, 
 
 can (sun), 
 
 son. 
 
 Bay, 
 
 sont. 
 
 It is clear, even from a short consideration of these 
 forms, first, that all are but varieties of one common 
 type ; secondly, that it is impossible to consider any 
 one of these six paradigms as the original from which 
 the others had been borrowed. To this we may add, 
 thirdly, that in none of the languages to which these 
 verbal forms belong, do we find the elements of which 
 they could have been composed. If we find such 
 forms as fai dime, we can explain them by a mere ref- 
 erence to the grammatical materials which French has 
 still at its command, and the same may be said even of 
 compounds like f aimerai, i. e. je-aimer-ai, I have to 
 love, I shall love. But a change from ye suis to tu es 
 is inexplicable by the light of French grammar. These 
 forms could not have grown, so to speak, on French 
 soil, but must have been handed down as relics from a 
 former peiiod, must have existed in some language 
 antecedent to any of the Romance dialects. Now, for- 
 tunately, in this case, we are not left to a mere infer- 
 ence, but as we possess the Latin verb, we can prove 
 
 vov n. 2
 
 10 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 how by phonetic corruption, and by mistaken analo- 
 gies, every one of the six paradigms is but a national 
 metamorphosis of the Latin original. 
 
 Let us now look at another set of paradigms : 
 
 Sanskrit. Lithuanian. Zend. Doric. Old Slav. Latin. Gothic. Armen. 
 
 1 am: 
 
 UMIli, 
 
 CMIli, 
 
 all mi, 
 
 EMM', 
 
 yesiiie. 
 
 sum. 
 
 ba 
 
 em. 
 
 Tiouart: 
 
 asi, 
 
 c."i. 
 
 alii, 
 
 iartri, 
 
 J'ei, 
 
 cs. 
 
 is, 
 
 ea 
 
 lie is; 
 
 asti. 
 
 esti. 
 
 n.<ti, 
 
 trr' 
 
 yentA, 
 
 eat. 
 
 ist. 
 
 c. 
 
 We (two) are: 
 
 Vvfa, 
 
 esva. 
 
 
 
 ycsva, 
 
 
 gijii. 
 
 
 Yon (two) are: 
 
 sthas, 
 
 eKta, 
 
 *tho? 
 
 (TTOV, 
 
 yesta, 
 
 
 sijuts, 
 
 
 They (two) are: 
 
 'bias, 
 
 (eti), 
 
 to. 
 
 ancov, 
 
 ycsta, 
 
 
 
 
 We are: 
 
 'sinas, 
 
 esnil, 
 
 hmahl, 
 
 <TM' 
 
 yesino, 
 
 suinus, 
 
 Bijum, 
 
 cinq. 
 
 You are: 
 
 'stlia, 
 
 eate, 
 
 ta, 
 
 ore, 
 
 ycste, 
 
 cstis, 
 
 sijuth, 
 
 eq. 
 
 They are: 
 
 santi, 
 
 (CBti), 
 
 henti, 
 
 ITi, 
 
 somte, 
 
 sunt. 
 
 Bind, 
 
 en. 
 
 From a careful consideration of these forms, we 
 ought to draw exactly the same conclusions; first, that 
 all are but varieties of one common type ; secondly, 
 that it is impossible to consider any of them as the 
 original from which the others have been borrowed ; 
 and thirdly, that, here again, none of the languages in 
 which these verbal forms occur, possess the grammatical 
 materials out of which such forms could have been 
 framed. Tbat Sanskrit cannot be taken as the .original 
 from which all the rest were derived (an opinion held 
 by many scholars), is clear, if we see that Greek has, 
 in several instances, preserved a more primitive, or, 
 as it is called, more organic form than Sanskrit. 'EO--/ACS 
 cannot be derived from the Sanskrit " smas," because 
 " smas " has lost the radical a, which Greek has pre- 
 served, the root being as, to be, the termination " mas," 
 \\e. Nor can Greek be fixed upon as the more primi- 
 tive language from which others were derived, for not 
 even Latin could be called the daughter of Greek, the 
 language of Rome having preserved some forms more 
 primitive than Greek ; for instance, sunt instead of 
 ivri or Vo-i or elo-i. Here Greek has lost the radical as
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 19 
 
 altogether, evri standing instead of eo-evri, while Latin 
 has at least, like Sanskrit, preserved the radical in 
 wnt=santi. 
 
 Hence, all these dialects point to some more ancient 
 language which was to them what Latin was to the 
 Romance dialects, only that at that early period 
 
 */ r I 
 
 there was no literature to preserve to us any remnants 
 of that mother- tongue that died in giving birth to the 
 modern Aryan dialects, such as Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, 
 Latin, Gothic, Slavonic, and Celtic. Yet, if there is 
 any truth in inductive reasoning, that language was 
 once a living language, spoken in Asia by a small tribe, 
 nay, originally by a small family living under one and 
 the same roof, as the language of Camoens, Cervantes, 
 Voltaire, and Dante, was once spoken by a few peas- 
 ants who had built their huts on the Seven Hills near 
 the Tibris. If we compare the two tables of para- 
 digms, the coincidences between the language of the 
 Veda and the dialect spoken at the present day by the 
 Lithuanian recruit at Berlin are greater by far than 
 between French and Italian ; and, after Bopp's " Com- 
 parative Grammar " has been completed, it will be 
 seen clearly that all the essential forms of grammar 
 had been fully framed and established before the first 
 separation of the Aryan family took place. 
 
 But we may learn much more of the intellectual 
 state of the primitive and undivided family of the 
 Aryan nations, if we use the materials which Com- 
 parative Philology has placed at our disposal ; and, here 
 again, the Romance languages will teach us the spell by 
 which \ve may hope to open the archives of the most 
 ancient history of the Aryan race. If we find in all 
 t le Romance dialects a word like the French " pont,"
 
 20 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 the Italian " ponte," the Spanish " puente," the Wal- 
 lachian " pod," identically the same in all, after making 
 allowance for those peculiarities which give to each 
 dialect its national character, we have a right to say 
 that *' pons," the name for " bridge," was known be- 
 fore these languages separated, and that, therefore, the 
 art of building bridges must have been known at the 
 same time. We could assert, even if we knew nothing 
 of Latin and of Rome, that previous, at least, to the 
 tenth century, books, bread, wine, houses, villages, 
 towns, towers, and gates, etc., were known to those 
 people, whoever they were, from whose language the 
 modern dialects of Southern Europe are derived. It 
 is true, we should not be able to draw a very perfect 
 picture of the intellectual state of the Roman people 
 if we were obliged to construct their history from such 
 scanty materials ; yet we should be able to prove that 
 there really was such a people, and, in the absence of 
 any other information, even a few casual glimpses of 
 their work in life would be welcome. But, though we 
 might safely use this method positively, only taking 
 care to avoid foreign terms, we could not invert it or 
 use it negatively. Because each of the Romance dia- 
 iects has a different name for certain objects, it does 
 not follow that the objects themselves were unknown 
 to the ancestors of the Romance nations. Paper was 
 known at Rome, yet it is called " carta " in Italian, 
 " papier " in French. 
 
 Now, as we know nothing of the Aryan race, before 
 it was broken up into different nationalities, such as 
 Indian, German, Greek, Roman, Slavonic, Teutonic, 
 and Celtic, this method of making language itself 
 tell the history of ancient times will become of great
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 21 
 
 value, because it will give a character of historical real- 
 
 o 
 
 ity to a period in the history of the human race, the 
 very existence of which had been doubted, to a pe- 
 riod that had been called " a past that was never pres- 
 ent." We must not expect a complete history of civ- 
 ilization, exhibiting in full detail a picture of the times 
 when the language of Homer and of the Veda had not 
 yet been formed. But we shall feel by some small but 
 significant traits the real presence of that early period 
 in the history of the human mind a period which, for 
 reasons that will be clearer hereafter, we identify with 
 the Mythopoeic. 
 
 Sanskrit. Zend. Greek. Latin. Gothic. Slavonic. Irish. 
 
 Father : pitar, pntar, TraTTJo, pnter, fadar, . . athair. 
 
 Mother: matar, matar, fiijnjp, mater, . . mat! (gen. niatcre), mathair. 
 
 Brother: bhratnr, bratar, (0par>jp), frater, brfithar, brat', brathalr. 
 
 Sister: svasar, qnnhar, . . eoror, Bvistur, sestra, siur. 
 
 Daughter: duhitir, dughdhur, fltrya-njp, dauhtar, (Uth.) dukte, dear. 
 
 The mere fact, that the names for father, mother, 
 brother, sister, and daughter are the same in most of the 
 Aryan languages, might at first sight seem of immate- 
 rial significance ; yet, even these words are full of im- 
 port. That the name of father was coined at that 
 early period, shows that the father acknowledged the 
 offspring of his wife as his own, for thus only had he a 
 rio-ht to claim the title of father. " Father " is derived 
 
 O 
 
 from a root PA, which means not to beget, but to pro- 
 tect, to support, to nourish. The father as progenitor, 
 was called in Sanskrit, "^anitar," but as protector and 
 supporter of his offspring he was called " pitar." 
 Hence, in the Veda these two names are used together, 
 in order to express the full idea of father. Thus the 
 poet says (I. 164, 33) : - 
 
 " Dyails me p'tft r/anit&." 
 " Jo(vi)s mei pater genitor."
 
 22 COMPORATIVh MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 In a similar manner, " matai'," mother, is johicd 
 with " <7anitri," yenitrix (Rv. III. 48, 2), which shows 
 that the word " matar " must soon have lost its etymo- 
 logical meaning, and have become an expression of re- 
 spect and endearment. Among the earliest Aryans, 
 " matar " had the meaning of maker, from MA, to 
 fashion ; and, in this sense, and with the same accent 
 as the Greek ^n/p, ma'tar, not yet determined by a 
 feminine affix, it is used in the Veda as a masculine. 
 Thus we read, for instance, Rv. VIII. 41, 4 : 
 
 " So/t mata pflrvyam padam." 
 
 " He, Varuna (Uranos), is the maker of the old place." 
 
 Now, it should be observed, that " matar," as well 
 as " pitar," is but one out of many names by which the 
 idea of father and mother might have been expressed. 
 Even if we confined ourselves to the root PA, and took 
 the granting of support to his offspring as the most 
 characteristic attribute of father, many words might 
 have been, and actually were formed, all equally fit 
 to become, so to say, the proper names of father. In 
 Sanskrit, protector can be expressed not only by PA, 
 followed by the derivative suffix " tar," but by " pa-la," 
 " pa-laka," " pa-yu," all meaning protector. The fact, 
 that out of many possible forms, one only has been ad- 
 mitted into all the Aryan dictionaries, shows that there 
 .nust have been something like a traditional usage in 
 language long before the separation of the Aryan fam- 
 ily took place. Besides, there were other roots from 
 which the name of father might have been formed, 
 such as GAN, from which we have "^anitar," genitor, 
 yeverrjp ', or TAK, from which the Greek roKevs ; as PAR, 
 from which the Latin par ens ; not to mention many 
 other names equally applicable to express some promi*
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 23 
 
 nent attribute of a father in his relation to his children. 
 If each Aryan dialect had formed its own name for 
 father, from one of the many roots which all the Aryan 
 dialects share in common, we should be able to say that 
 there was a radical community between all these lan- 
 guages ; but we should never succeed in proving, what 
 is most essential, their historical community, or their 
 divergence from one language which had already ac- 
 quired a decided idiomatical consistency. 
 
 It happens, however, even with these, the most es- 
 sential terms of an incipient civilization, that one or 
 the other of the Aryan dialects has lost the ancient 
 expression, and replaced it by a new one. The com- 
 mon Aryan names for brother and sister, for instance, 
 do not occur in Greek, where brother and sister are 
 called dSeA(/>os and aSX^. To conclude from this that 
 at the time when the Greeks started from their Aryan 
 home, the names of brother and sister had not yet been 
 framed, would be a mistake. We have no reason to 
 suppose that the Greeks were the first to leave, and, if 
 we find that nations like the Teutonic or Celtic, who 
 could have had no contact with the natives of India 
 after the first separation had taken place, share the 
 name of brother in common with Sanskrit, it is as cer- 
 tain that this name existed in the primitive Aryan lan- 
 guage, as the occurrence of the same word in Walla- 
 chian and Portuguese would prove its Latin origin, 
 though no trace of it existed in any other of the other 
 Romance dialects. No doubt, the growth of language 
 is governed by immutable laws, but the influence of 
 accident is more considerable here than in any other 
 branch of natural science ; and though in this case it 
 
 * O 
 
 is possible to find a principle which determines the ac-
 
 24 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 cidental loss 1 of the ancient names for brother and sis- 
 ter in Greek, yet this is r/ot the case always, and we 
 shall frequently find that one or the other Aryan dialect 
 does not exhibit a term which yet, on the strength of 
 our general argument, wo shall feel justified in ascrib- 
 ing to the most ancient period of Aryan speech. 
 
 The mutual relation between brother and sister had 
 been hallowed at that early period, and it had been 
 sanctioned by names which had become traditional be- 
 fore the Aryan family broke up into different colonies. 
 The original meaning of " bhratar " seems to me to 
 have been he who carries or assists ; of " savasar," she 
 who pleases or consoles, " svasti " meaning in San- 
 skrit joy or happiness. 
 
 In "duhitar," again, we find a name which must 
 have become traditional long before the separation took 
 place. It is a name identically the same in all the dia- 
 lects, except Latin, and yet Sanskrit alone could ha\ r e 
 preserved a consciousness of its appellative power. 
 " Duhitar," as Professor Lassen was the first to show, 
 is derived from Dun, a root which in Sanskrit means 
 to milk. It is perhaps connected with the Latin duco, 
 and the transition of meaning would be the same as 
 between "trahere," to draw, and " traire," to milk. 
 Now, the name of milkmaid, given to the daughter of 
 the house, opens before our eyes a little idyl of the 
 poetical and pastoral life of the early Aryans. One of 
 the few things by which the daughter, before she was 
 niarriid, might make herself useful in a nomadic house- 
 hold, was the milking of the cattle, and it discloses a 
 kind of delicacy and humor, even in the rudest state 
 of society, if we imagine a father calling his daughter 
 
 l See Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1851, p. 320.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 25 
 
 his little milkmaid, rather than " suta," his begotten, 
 or " filia," the suckling. This meaning, however, 
 must have been forgotten long before the Aryans 
 separated. " Dnhitar " was then no longer a nickname, 
 but it had become a technical term, or, so to say, the 
 proper name of daughter. That many words were 
 formed in the same spirit, and that they were applicable 
 only during a nomadic state of life, we shall have fre- 
 quent opportunity of seeing, as we go on. But as the 
 transition of words of such special meaning into gen- 
 eral terms, deprived of all etymological vitality, may 
 seem strange, we may as well give at once a few anal- 
 ogous cases where, behind expressions of the most 
 general currency, we can discover, by means of ety- 
 mology, this peculiar background of the ancient nomad 
 life of the Aryan nations. The very word " peculiar " 
 may serve as an illustration, taken from more modern 
 times. Peculiar, now means singular, extraordinary, 
 but originally it meant what was private, i. e. not com- 
 mon property; being derived from peeuhum. Now, 
 the Latin pecul.ium stands for pecudium (like consillum 
 for considium) ; and being derived from pecus, peeudis, 
 it expressed originally what we should call cattle and 
 chattel. Cattle constituting the chief personal property 
 of agricultural people, we may well understand how 
 peculiar, meaning originally what refers to one's own 
 property, came to mean not-common, and at last, in 
 our modern conversation, passed into the meaning of 
 strange. I need hardly mention the well-known ety- 
 mology of pecunia, which being derived from the same 
 word, pea, and therefore signifying " flocks," took 
 gradually the meaning of "money," in the same man- 
 ner as the Anglo-Saxon " feoh," the German " Vieh," 
 cattle (and originally according to Grimm's law, the
 
 26 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 same word as pecu), received in the course of time the 
 sense of a pecuniary remuneration, a fee. What takes 
 place in modern languages, and, as it were, under oui 
 own eyes, must not surprise us in more distant ages. 
 Now, the most useful cattle have always been the ox 
 and the cow, and they seem to have constituted the 
 chief riches and the most important means of subsis- 
 tence among the Aryan nations. Ox and cow are 
 called in Sanskrit "go," plur. "gavas," which is the 
 same word as the Old High-German "chuo," plur. 
 " chuowi," and with a change from the guttural to the 
 labial media, the classical (3cv<s, /2oe?, and 6o, boves. 
 Some of the Slavonic languages, also, have preserved a 
 few traces of this ancient name : for instance, the Let- 
 tish " gows," cow ; the Slavonic " govyado," a herd ; 
 Servian " govedar," a cowherd. From /Sot-?, we have 
 in Greek /3owo'Aos, which meant originally a cowherd, 
 but in the verb /?ouKoAot>, the meaning of tending cows 
 has been absorbed by the more general one of tending 
 cattle, nay, it is used in a metaphorical sense, such as 
 cA.7ri'o-i povKoXovp-ai, I feed myself on vain hopes. It is 
 used with regard to horses, and thus we find for horse- 
 herd, i;r7ro/3ouKoAos, originally a cowherd of horses, an 
 expression which we can only compare to Sanskrit 
 " g ovu a >" meaning a yoke of oxen, but afterwards 
 any pair, so that a pair of oxen would be called " go- 
 go-yuga." Thus, in Sanskrit, " go-pa " means originally 
 a cowherd, but it soon loses this specific meaning, and 
 is used for the head of a cow-pen, a herdsman, and at 
 last, like the Greek TTOI//.T/I' Aawi/, for a king. From 
 " gopa " a new verb is formed, " gopayati," and in it 
 all traces of its original meaning are obliterated ; it 
 means simply to protect. As " gopa " meant a cow- 
 herd, " go-tra," in Sanskrit, was originally a hurdle,
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 27 
 
 and meant the inclosure by which a herd was protected 
 against thieves, and kept from straying. " Gotra," 
 however, has almost entirely lost its etymological power 
 in the later Sanskrit, where the feminine only, " gotraV' 
 preserves the meaning of a herd of kine. In ancient 
 times, when most wars were carried on, not to maintain 
 the balance of power of Asia or Europe, but to take 
 possession of good pasture, or to appropriate large herds 
 of cattle, 1 the hurdles grew naturally into the walls of 
 fortresses, the hedges became strongholds ; Anglo- 
 Saxon " tun," a close (German " Zaun "), became a 
 town ; and those who lived behind the same walls were 
 called a " gotra," a family, a tribe, a race. In the 
 Veda, "gotra" is still used in the sense of folds or 
 Hurdles (III. 39, 4) : 
 
 " Naki/i esham nindita martyeshu 
 Y<* asmakam pitaraA goshu yodhaA 
 Imlra/i eshiim dri/nhita mahinavan 
 Ut gotratii sasri^e damsanavan." 
 
 ** Thei*e is not among men one scoffing at them who 
 
 o O 
 
 were our fathers, who fought among the cows. Indra, 
 the mighty, is their defender ; he, the powerful, spread 
 out their hurdles, 2 (i. e. their possessions)." 
 
 " Fighting among or for the cows," "goshu-yudh," 
 is used in the Veda as a name for warrior, in general 
 (I. 112, 22) ; and one of the most frequent words for 
 battle is " gav-ishd," literally *' striving for cows." In 
 the later Sanskrit, however, " gaveshana " m^ausr. 
 dimply, research (physical or philosophical), " gavesh," 
 
 1 'Yitff poAii}? ij Xi naxiufQa. Toxar. 36. Grimm, History of the German 
 fangvagt, p. 17. 
 
 2 Hurdle spms to be connected with the Vaidik " Wmrdis," house, '. e, 
 inclosure, an<! from the same root we have Gothic '' hairda," An<jlo-Saxon 
 " heord," " hKiro," a Irerd. The original root would have been ' Wiard." 
 which stands for " skard," and the initial is dropt. Another explanation 
 te given by Aufredit in Kubn's Zeitschrift, vol. i. p. 382
 
 28 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 to inquire. Again, " goshf/ta " means cow-pen or stable 
 (/Jouo-rafytov) ; but, with the progress of time and civil- 
 ization, "gosh^i " became the name of an assembly, 
 nay, it was used to express discussion and gossip, as 
 gossip in English too meant originally a godfather or 
 godmother, and then took the abstract sense of idle 
 conversation or tattle. 
 
 All these words, composed with " go," cattle, to 
 which many more might have been added if we were 
 not afraid of trying the patience of our less skeptical 
 readers, proved that the people who formed them must 
 have led a half nomadic and pastoral life, and we may 
 well understand how the same people came to use 
 "duhitar" in the sense of daughter. Language has 
 been called a map of the science and manners of the 
 people who speak it, and we should probably find, if 
 we examined the language of a maritime people, that 
 instead of cattle and pasture, ships and water would 
 form part of many words which afterwards were ap- 
 plied in a more general sense. 
 
 We proceed to examine other terms which indicate 
 the state of society previous to the separation of the 
 Aryan race, and which we hope will give to our dis- 
 tant picture that expression of truth and reality which 
 can be appreciated even by those who have never seen 
 the original. 
 
 We pass over the words for son, partly because their 
 etymology is of no interest, their meaning being simply 
 that of r iatus, born, 1 partly because the position of the 
 
 l For instance, Sansk. " sflnu," Goth. " sunus," Lith. " sunus," all from 
 " su," to beget, whence Greek vios, but by a different suffix. Sansk. 
 " putra," son, is of doubtful origin. It was supposed to be shared by tha 
 Celtic branch (Bret. " paotr," boy; " paotrez," girl), but it has been shows 
 that the Breton " paotr " comes from " paltr," aa " aotrou " is the Corn. 
 " altrou."
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 29 
 
 Bon, or the successor and inheritor of his fathers Avealth 
 and power, would claim a name at a much earlier time 
 than daughter, sister, or brother. All these relations 
 in fact, expressed by father and mother, son and 
 (laughter, brother and sister, are fixed, we should say, 
 by the laws of nature, and their acknowledgment in 
 language would not prove any considerable advance in 
 civilization, however appropriately the names them- 
 selves might have been chosen. But there are other 
 relations, of later origin, snd of a more conventional 
 character, sanctioned, it is true, by the laws of society, 
 but not proclaimed by the voice of nature, relations 
 which are aptly expressed in English by the addition 
 of in-law, as father-in-law, mother, son, daughter, 
 brother, and sister-in-law. If the names for these re- 
 lations could be vindicated for the earliest period of 
 Aryan civilization, we should have gained something 
 considerable, for though there is hardly a dialect, in 
 Africa or Australia in which we do not find words for 
 father, mother, son, daughter, brother, and sister, and 
 hardly a tribe in which these natural degrees of rela- 
 tionship are not hallowed, there are languages in which 
 the degrees of affinity have never received expression, 
 and tribes who ignore their very meaning. 1 
 
 Sanikrit Greek. Latin. Gothic. Slavonic. Celtic. 
 
 Father-in-law i ivatura exvpot BOCCT evaihra svekr W. chwegrw> 
 
 llother-in law I vartt e/cvpo. socru* svuihro svekrvj W. chwegjl 
 
 Son-in-law i 0ainatnr yo^/Spof gener . . . . Bret gevcr 
 
 Daughter-in-law i enusha wos nurus $ :R'?' ? snocha 
 
 Brother-in-law, dvar ,U*M\* \ A r * -}" \ 
 
 Uter-in-law, (nanandar) J glo. .. * 
 
 yali (wife's < 
 .ister)' ) 
 
 t). 
 
 See Sir J. Lubbock, TrantacL of Ethnol. Society, vi. 337.
 
 80 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 The above table shows that, before the separation of 
 the Aryan race, every one of the degrees of affinity had 
 received expression and sanction in language, for, al- 
 though some spaces had to be left empty, the coinci- 
 dences, such as they are, are sufficient to warrant one 
 general conclusion. If we find in Sanskrit, the word 
 44 putra," son, and in Celtic, again, " paotr," son, root 
 and suffix being the same, we must remember that, al 
 though none of the other Aryan dialects has preserved 
 this word in exactly the same form, yet the identity of 
 the Celtic and Sanskrit term can only be explained on 
 the supposition that " putra " was a common Aryan 
 term, well known before any branch of this family was 
 severed from the common stem. 
 
 In modern languages we might, if dealing with 
 similar cases, feel inclined to admit a later communica- 
 tion, but fortunately, in ancient languages, no such in- 
 tercourse was possible, after the southern brancli of the 
 Aryan family had once crossed the Himalaya, and the 
 northern branch set foot on the shores of Europe. 
 Different questions are raised where, as is the case . 
 with ^ainatar and ya///3po'?, originally bridegroom or 
 husband, 1 then son-in-law, we are only able to prove 
 that the same root was taken, and therefore the same 
 radical idea expressed by Greek and Sanskrit, while 
 the derivation is peculiar in each language. Here, no 
 doubt, we must be more careful in our conclusions, but 
 gcno.rally we shall find that these formal differences are 
 only such as occur in dialects of the same language, 
 when out of many possible forms, used at first promis- 
 cuously, one was chosen by one poet, one by another, 
 and then became popular and traditional. This at least 
 
 KoAciToi 6 yq/xa; iurb ra>v OLKtiiav
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 31 
 
 is more likely than to suppose that to express a relation 
 which might be expressed in such various ways, the 
 Greek should have chosen the same root ya/j. to form 
 ya/j.p6's and ya/jifipos, independently of the Hindu, who 
 took that root for the same purpose, only giving it a 
 causal form (as in " bhratar " instead of " bhartar)," 
 and appending to it the usual suffix, " tar : " thus form* 
 ing "^a'matar," instead of "^amara" or "yamara." 
 The Lai in word gener is more difficult still, and if it is 
 the same word as the Greek -ya^./?pos for ya^po?, the 
 transition of m into n can only be explained by a proc- 
 ess of assimilation and by a desire to give to the an- 
 cient word gemer a more intelligible form. When, as 
 it happens not unfrequently, one of the Aryan lan- 
 guages has lost a common term, we are sometimes en- 
 bled to prove its former existence by means of deriva- 
 tives. In Greek, for instance, at least in the classical 
 language, there is no trace of nepos, grandson, which 
 we have in Sanskrit " napat," German " nefo " ; nor 
 of neptis, Sanskrit " napti," German " nift." Yet 
 there is in Greek d-vei//to's, a first cousin, i. e. one with 
 whom we are grandsons together, as the uncle is called 
 the little-grandfather, avunculus from avus. This word 
 d-vei/aos is formed like Latin consobrinus, i. e. comorori- 
 nus, one with whom we are sister-children, our mod- 
 ern cousin, Italian cugino, in which there remains very 
 little of the original word soror, from which, however, 
 it is derived. Ai/ei/ao? therefore proves that in Greek, 
 also, some word like re-revs must have existed in the 
 sense of child or grandchild, and it is by a similar proc- 
 ess that we can prove the former presence in Greek, 
 of a term corresponding to Sanskrit " syala," a wife's 
 brother. In Sanskrit a husband calls his wife's brother
 
 82 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 " syala," his wife's sister " syiili." Therefore, in 
 Greek, Peleus would call Amphitrite, and Poseidon 
 Thetis, their " syalis ": having married sisters, they 
 would have " syalis " in common, they would be 
 what the Greeks call cU'Aioi, for " sy " between two 
 vowels is generally dropt in Greek ; and the only 
 anomaly consists in the short e representing the long 
 a in Sanskrit. 
 
 There are still a few words which throw a dim light 
 on the early organization of the Aryan family life. 
 The position of the widow was acknowledged in lan- 
 guage and in law, and we find no trace that, at that 
 early period, she who had lost her husband was doomed 
 to die with him. If this custom had existed, the want 
 of having a name for widow Avould hardly have been 
 felt, or, if it had been, the word would most likely 
 have had some reference to this awful rite. Now, hus- 
 band, or man, in Sanskrit is " dhava,'' a word which does 
 not seem to exist in the other Aryan languages, for dea, 
 which Pictet brings forward as Celtic, in the sense of a 
 man or person, is a word that has never been authenti- 
 cated. From " dhava," Sanskrit forms the name of the 
 widow by the addition of the preposition " vi," which 
 means without; therefore "vi dhava," husbandless, wid- 
 ow. This compound has been preserved in languages 
 which have lost the simple word "dhava," thus showing 
 the great antiquity of this traditional term. We have it 
 not only in Celtic " feadbh," but in Gothic " viduvo," 
 Slavonic " vdova," Old Prussian "widdewu," and 
 Latin vidua. If the custom of widow-burning had ex- 
 isted at that early period, there would have been no 
 " vidhavas," no husbandless women, because they would 
 all have followed their husband into death. Therefore
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 83 
 
 the very name indicates, what we are farther enabled to 
 prove by historical evidence, the late origin of widow- 
 burning in India. It is true, that when the English 
 Government prohibited this melancholy custom, as the 
 Emperor Jehangir had done before, and when the whole 
 of India was said to be on the verge of a religious rev- 
 olution, the Brahmans were able to appeal to the Veda 
 as the authority for this sacred rite, and as they had 
 the promise that their religious practices should not 
 be interfered with, they claimed respect for the Suttee. 
 Raghunandana and other doctors had actually quoted 
 chapter and verse from the Rig-veda, and Colebrooke, 1 
 
 l "On the Duties of a Faithful Widow," Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. pp. 
 209, 219. Calcutta, 1795. The principal authorities of this Essay are to be 
 seen in Colebrooke's Digest, book iv. cap. 3. sect. 1, which is a literal trans- 
 lation of a section of G'agannatha's " Vivada-bhangarnava," to be found in 
 MS. Wilson, 224, vol. iii. p. 62. See some interesting remarks on this sub- 
 ject, and the correction of a mistake in my notes, in the third volume of the 
 Journal of lite Royal Asiatic Society, Part. I., Art. VII., the source of Cole- 
 brooke's Essay, On the Duties of a Fnitlful Hindu IVuhno, by Fitzedward 
 Hall, F.sq.. M. A., D. C. L., Oxon. The reasons which I gave at a meeting 
 of the Hoyal Asiatic Society for my opinion that Colebrooke availed him- 
 self of the " Vivada-bhangarava," while writing his Essay on The Dutie$ 
 of a Fuitltful Hindu Widow, were as follows: " On page 117, Colebrooke 
 quotes: 
 
 1. A passage from Vishnu ; 
 
 2. A passage from Pratetas ; 
 
 3. A passage from the Smriti. 
 
 The same passages, in exactly the same order, are quoted as Nos. 133, 134, 
 135 of the Digest. 
 
 This argument has been, if not invalidated, at least modified, by the fact 
 that the same passages occur likewise in the same order in Raghunindana's 
 " Sud dhi tat tva," a work which was consulted by G'agannatha in the com. 
 pilation of his Corpus Juris. 
 
 My second reason was: " On page 119, Colebrooke quotes: 
 
 1. A saying ascribed to Narada (i. e. taken from the " Bnhan Naradfya 
 
 Purawa" ); 
 
 2. A passage from Brihaspati. with which, at the end, aline of Raghunan- 
 
 daua's commentary is mixed up. 
 
 3. A passage supported by the authority of Gotama (or Gautama). The 
 same passages, in exactly the same order, form Nos. 127, 128, 129 of the " Vi- 
 
 VOL. II. 3
 
 84 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 the most accurate and learned Sanskrit scholar we have 
 ever had, has translated this passage in accordance with 
 their views : 
 
 " Om ! let these women, not to be widowed, good 
 wives adorned with collyriutn, holding clarified butter, 
 consign themselves to the fire ! Immortal, not child- 
 less, not husbandless, well adorned with gems, let them 
 pass into the fire, whose original element is water." 
 (From the Rig-veda.) 
 
 Now this is perhaps the most flagrant instance of 
 what can be done by an unscrupulous priesthood. 
 Here have thousands and thousands of lives been sac- 
 rificed, and a fanatical rebellion been threatened on the 
 authority of a passage which was mangled, mistrans- 
 lated, and misapplied. If anybody had been able at 
 the time to verify this verse of the Rig-veda, the Brah- 
 mans might have been beaten with their own weapons ; 
 nay, their spiritual prestige might have been consider- 
 ably shaken. The Rig-veda, which now hardly one 
 Brahman out of a hundred is able to read, so far from 
 enforcing the burning of widows, shows clearly that 
 this custom was not sanctioned during the earliest pe- 
 riod of Indian history. According to the hymns of the 
 Rig-veda and the Vaidik ceremonial contained in the 
 Grihya-sutras, the wife accompanies the corpse of her 
 
 vadu-bhangarnava." The line from Raghunandana follows in the " Vivada- 
 Viangarnava," as in Colebrooke's Essay, immediately after the extract from 
 Srihaspati, and the mistake of mixing the words of Rnghunamlana with those 
 of lirihaspati could only have arisen because, instead of mentioning Jia- 
 ghunandana's name, the MS. of the '' Viv&da-bhangarwavR " reads: "iti 
 Sinartu/j.'' Neither the "SmUlliitattva," nor any other work that 1 have 
 met with, gives these three passages with the extract from Raghunandana 
 in the same order as the " Vivada-bhangarnava " and Colebrooke's Essay.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 85 
 
 husband to the funeral pile, but she is there addressed 
 with a verse taken from the Rig-veda, and ordered to 
 leave her husband, and to return to the world of the 
 living. 1 " Rise, woman," it is said, " come to the 
 world of life ; thou sleepest nigh unto him whose life 
 is gone. Come to us. Thou hast thus fulfilled thy 
 duties of a wife to the husband who once took thy 
 hand, and made thee a mother." 
 
 This verse is preceded by the very verse which the 
 later Brah mans have falsified and quoted in support of 
 their cruel tenet. The reading of the verse is beyond 
 all doubt, for there is no various reading, in our sense 
 of the word, in the whole of the Rig-veda. Besides, 
 we have the commentaries and the ceremonials, and no- 
 where is there any difference as to the text or its mean- 
 ing. It is addressed to the other women who are pres- 
 ent at the funeral, and who have to pour oil and butter 
 on the pile : 
 
 " May these women who are not widows, but have 
 good husbands, draw near with oil and butter. Those 
 who are mothers may go up first to the altar, without 
 tears, without sorrow, but decked with fine jewels." 
 
 Now the word, " the mothers may go first to the al- 
 tar," are in Sanskrit, 
 
 " A rohantu </anayo yonim agre; " 
 and this the Brahmans have changed into, 
 
 " A rohantu //anayo yonim agne/i ; " 
 
 1 See Grimm's Kssny on The Burning vf the, Demi ; IJoth's article on 
 Tli e Bnritd in Jmliri; Professor Wilson's article on The si</>/><>seil \'(ti<Jik av- 
 Aorityfortht Burning of Hindu Wihws ; and my own translation of the 
 complete documentary e% idcnce published l>y Professor Wilson at the end 
 of his article, and by myself in the Journnl f (lie (Itrmnn Oriental Sucitty, 
 vol. ix. fasc. 4. Professor Wilson was the iirst to point out the falsification 
 of the text, and the change of " yinim agre " into "yo
 
 86 COMPAKATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 a small change, but sufficient to consign many lives 
 to the womb (yonim) of fire (agne/i). 1 
 
 The most important passage in Vedic literature to 
 prove the decided disapproval of widow-burning on 
 the part of the ancient Brahmans, at least as far as 
 their own caste was concerned, occurs in the Brihad- 
 devata. There we read : 
 
 " Udirshva narity anaya mritam patny anurohati, 
 Bhrata kaniyan pretasya nigaclya pratishedliati 
 Kuryad etat karma hota. devaro na bhaved yadi, 
 Pretanugamanaw na syad id brahmanasasanat. 
 Varnanain itaresham ka. stridharmo 'yan bhaven na v&." 
 
 " With the verse ' Rise, woman,' the wife ascends to 
 follow her dead husband ; the younger brother of the 
 departed, repeating the verse, prevents her. The 
 Hotri priest performs that act, if there is no brother- 
 in-law, but to follow the dead husband is forbidden, so 
 says the law of the Brahmans. Wiih regard to the 
 other castes this law for women may be or may not 
 
 1 In a similar manner the custom of widow-burning has been introduced 
 by the Brahmans in an interpolated passage of the " Toy-Cart," an Indian 
 drama of king Sudraka, which was translated by Professor Wilson, and 
 has lately been performed at Paris. Le Chariot, d'Enfanl, Drame en 
 vers en cinq actes et sept tableaux, traduction du Drame Indien du Eoi 
 Soudraka, par MM. Me"ry et Gerard de Nerval. Paris, 1850. 
 
 2 Part of this passage is wanting in MSS. B. b, but it is found in A. C. 
 See also M. M., " Die Todtenbestattung bei den Brahmanen," Zdtschrifl 
 dtr Deutschen Moryenldndischen Gesettschafl, vol. ix. p. vi. where the ritual 
 is somewhat different. 
 
 I add a few extracts from Mr. H. J. Bushby's work on Widow-Burning, 
 p. 21, " Long ago, oriental scholars, both native and European, had shown 
 that the .<^ of widow-burning was not only unsanctionecl, but imperatively 
 forbidden, by the earliest and most authoritative Hindoo scriptures. Nay, 
 Colonel Tod, in his book on Rajpootana (Annals of Rnjas/ltan, 1829, vol. i. 
 p. 635\ had actually indicated this anomaly in Hindoo doctrine as the best 
 point of attack for abolitionists to select.'' P. 22, " Scholars, it is true, had 
 proved Suttee to be an innovation and a heresy; but it was an innovation 
 of 2,000 years standing, and a heresy abetted by the priesthood since th
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 37 
 
 After this digression, we return to the earlier period 
 of history of which language alone can give us any 
 information, and, as we have claimed for it the name 
 ot widow, or the husbandless, we need not wonder 
 that the name for husband, also, is to this day in most 
 of the Aryan languages the same which had been fixed 
 upon by the Aryans before their separation. It is 
 " pad " in Sanskrit, meaning originally strong, like Latin 
 potis or pot ens. In Lithuanian the form is exactly the 
 same, " patis," and this, if we apply Grimm's law, be- 
 comes " faths,"as in Gothic " bruth-faths," bridegroom. 
 In Greek, again, we find TTOO-IS instead of Trons. Now, 
 the feminine of " pati " in Sanskrit is " patni," and there 
 is no doubt that the old Prussian "pattin,"in the accu- 
 sative " wais-pattin," and the Greek Troma are mere 
 transcripts of it, all meaning the mistress. 
 
 What the husband was in his house, the lord, the 
 strong protector, the king was among his people. 
 Now, a common name for people was "vis" in San- 
 skrit, from which the title of the third caste, the house- 
 holders, or " Vaisyas " is derived. It comes from, the 
 
 days of Alexander. Though unnoticed by Manu, the supplementary writ- 
 ings with which the Hindoos, like the Jews, have overlaid their primitive 
 books, are profuse in its praise." P. 29, " Major Ludlow determined, if 
 possible, to induce two or three trustworthy and influential natives to un- 
 dertake the cause; to ply them with the critical objection drawn from the 
 older Scriptures." For further particulars as to the efforts made for the 
 suppression of Suttee I may refer to the interesting narrative of Mr. H. J. 
 Bushby, on " Wido\v-13urning," published originally in the Quarterly 
 Ret-ieu), and afterwards as a separate pamphlet. (London: Longmans, 
 1355.) It shows how much has been done, and therefore, how much more 
 tiny be done, by appealing to the most ancient and most sacred Sanskrit au- 
 thorities in discussions with the natives of India. If the fact that Manu never 
 sanctions the burning of widows could produce such an impression on the 
 Vakeels o' IMjputana as described by Mr. Bushby, how much more pow- 
 erful would be an appeal to the Veda, the authority of which, whenever a 
 discrepancy occurs, invariably overrides that of Manu!
 
 38 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 same ivot from which we have in Sanskrit " vesa," 
 house, oT*os, vicus, Gothic " veihs," German " wich," 
 and the modern English termination of many names of 
 places. Hence " vispati " in Sanskrit meant king, i. e. 
 lord of the people, and that this compound had become 
 a title sanctioned by Aryan etiquette before the separa- 
 tion, is confirmed in a strange manner by the Lithua- 
 nian " wiesz-patis," a lord, " wiesz-patene," a lady, as 
 compared with Sanskrit "vis-patis" and "vispatni." 
 There was therefore, at that early period, not only a 
 nicely organized family life, but the family began to be 
 absorbed by the state, and here again conventional titles 
 had been fixed, and were handed down perhaps two 
 thousand years before the title of Caesar was heard of. 
 Another name for people being " dasa " or " dasyu," 
 "dasa-pati" no doubt was an ancient name for king. 
 There is, however, this great difference between " vis " 
 and "d&sa," that the former means people, the lat- 
 ter subjects, conquered races, nay originally enemies. 
 " Daayu " in the Veda is enemy, but in the Zend-Avesta, 
 where we have the same word, it means provinces or 
 gentes ; and Darius calls himself, in his mountain 
 records, " king of Pcrsia and king of the provinces' 
 (" kshayathiya Parsaiya, kshayathiya dahyunam "). 
 Hence it is hardly doubtful that the Greek Setr-TroV^ 
 represents a Sanskrit title " d&sa-pati," lord of nations; 
 but \ve cannot admit that the title of Hospodar, which 
 has la tely become so notorious, should, as Bopp says, be 
 the sr oie as Sanskrit " vis-pati " or " dasa-pati." The 
 word is " gaspadorus " in Lithuanian ; in Old Slav. 
 " gos od," " gospodin," and " gospodar ; " Pol. " gos- 
 podu; : ; " Boh. " hospodar." A Slavonic g, however, 
 doe i not correspond to Sanskrit v or d y nor could
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 39 
 
 the t of "pad" become dJ Benfey, who derives 
 " gospod,' from the Vaidik "</aspati," avoids the for- 
 mer, but not the latter difficulty ; and it is certainly 
 better to state these difficulties than to endeavor to 
 smuggle in some ancient Aryan terms in defiance of 
 laws which can never be violated with impunity. 
 
 A third common Aryan word for king is " rag " in 
 the Veda ; rex, regis, in Latin ; " reiks " in Gothic, 
 a word still used in German, as "reich," reynum, 
 " Frank-reich," regnum Francorum; in Irish " riogh ; " 
 Welsh " ri." 
 
 A fourth name for king and queen is simply father 
 and mother, " 6ranaka " in Sanskrit means fatlier, from 
 GAN, to beget ; it also occurs, as the name of a well- 
 known king, in the Veda. This is the Old German 
 " chuning," the English " king." Mother in Sanskrit is 
 " gam " or "#ani," the Greek yw>/, the Gothic " quino," 
 the Slavonic " zena," the English " queen." Queen, 
 therefore, means originally mother, or lady ; and thus, 
 again, we see how the language of family life grew 
 gradually into the political language of the oldest 
 Aryan state, and how the brotherhood of the family 
 became the <f>parpia of the state. 2 
 
 We have seen that the name of house was known 
 before the Aryan family broke up towards the south 
 and the north, and we might bring further evidence to 
 tin;; effect by comparing Sanskrit " dama " with Greek 
 SO/AOC, Lalin domus, Slav, "domii," Celtic "daimh," and 
 Gothic "timrjan," to build, from which English " tim- 
 
 1 See Sehleicher's excellent remarks in his Formenlehre der Klrchen- 
 tlawischtn S/n-ache, 1852, p. 107. 
 
 2 See Lectures on tie Science of Language, Second Series, p. 255, and 
 particularly the German translation, where objections to this derivation 
 Vave liven answered.
 
 40 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 her," though we may doubt the identity of the Slavonic 
 " grod " and " gorod," the Lithuanian " grod " with the 
 Gothic "gards," Latin hort-us, Greek ^dpros, all mean- 
 ing an inclosed ground. The most essential part of a 
 house, particularly in ancient times, being a door well 
 fastened and able to resist the attacks of enemies, we 
 are glad to find the ancient name preserved in Sanskrit 
 "dvar," " dvaras," Gothic "daur," Lithuanian " dur- 
 rys," Celtic " dor," Greek 6vpa, Latin/ores. The builder 
 also, or architect, has the same name in Sanskrit and 
 Greek, " takshan " being the Greek re'/moi/. The Greek 
 aoru, again, has been compared with Sanskrit " vastu," 
 house; the Greek Kia^rj with Gothic " haims," a village ; 
 the English " home." Still more conclusive as to the 
 early existence of cities, is the Sanskrit " puri," town, 
 preserved by the Greeks in their name for town, TTO'AIS ; 
 and that high-roads also were not unknown, appears 
 from Sanskrit " path," " pathi," " panthan," and 
 " pathas," all names for " road," the Greek TTCITOS, the 
 Gothic "fad," which Bopp believes to be identical 
 with Latin pons, pontis, and Slavonic " ponti." 
 
 It would take a volume were we to examine all the 
 relics of language, though no doubt every new word 
 would strengthen our argument, and add, as it were, a 
 new stone from which this ancient and venerable ruin 
 of the Aryan mind might be reconstructed. The evi- 
 dence, however, which we have gone through must be 
 sufficient to show that the race of men which could 
 coin these words, words that have been carried down 
 the stream of time, and washed up on the shores of so 
 many nations, could not have been a race of savages, 
 of mere nomads and hunters. Nay, it should be ob- 
 served, that most of the terms connected with chase
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 41 
 
 and warfare differ in each of the Aryan dialects, while 
 words connected with more peaceful occupations be- 
 long generally to the common heir-loom of the Aryan 
 language. The proper appreciation of this fact in its 
 general bearing will show how a similar remark made 
 bv Niebuhr with regard to Greek and Latin, requires a 
 very different explanation from, that which that great 
 scholar, from his more restricted point of view, was 
 able to give it. It will show that all the Aryan na- 
 tions had led a long life of peace before they separated, 
 and that their language acquired individuality and na- 
 tionality, as each colony started in search of new 
 homes, new generations forming new terms con- 
 nected with the warlike and adventurous life of their 
 onward migrations. Hence it is that not only Greek 
 and Latin, but all Aryan languages have their peaceful 
 words in common ; and hence it is that they all differ 
 so strangely in their warlike expressions. Thus the 
 domestic animals are generally known by the same 
 name in England and in India, while the wild beasts 
 have different names, even in Greek and Latin. I can 
 only give a list, which must tell its own story, for it 
 would take too much time to enter into the etymolog- 
 ical formation of all these words, though no doubt a 
 proper understanding of their radical meaning would 
 make them more instructive as living witnesses to the 
 world of thought and the primitive household of the 
 Aryan race :
 
 42 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Cattle : 
 
 pasu 
 
 patu 
 
 ffwu? 
 
 pecu 
 
 io'l f l'u U rthu 
 
 '' r !w"ku 
 
 \ '' 
 
 .. 
 
 Ux and 
 
 cow : 
 
 (go dioin. 
 
 i 
 
 C gao 
 
 /Sous 
 
 bos 
 
 U.ll.U. chuo 
 
 Lett, gow 
 
 govjado 
 
 Ir. bo 
 
 Ox: 
 
 ulfs'lmu 
 
 ukhslian 
 
 
 vacca? 
 
 G. utihsan 
 
 
 
 W. ych 
 
 Steer: 
 
 Btliuru 
 
 ttauru 
 
 TOVpOS 
 
 tauriis 
 
 Btiur 
 
 taura-s 
 
 tour 
 
 Ir. tor 
 
 Heifer i 
 
 ttari 
 
 .. 
 
 orcipa 
 
 (stciilia) 
 
 stuiro 
 
 
 .. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I Ir. cch 
 
 Horse- 
 
 au, atva 
 
 aspa 
 
 IJTirOS 
 
 equus 
 
 A.S. eoh 
 
 aszua, fen 
 
 i. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f C|)0-0 
 
 Foali 
 
 .. 
 
 
 irwAo; 
 
 pullus 
 
 G. fula 
 
 
 
 
 Dogi 
 
 (van 
 
 pa 
 (cnraica) 
 
 glW 
 
 cani, 
 
 G. hund 
 
 >zu 
 
 JR. sobaka 
 { tiulf. kuce 
 
 | Ir. cu 
 
 Bbcep i 
 
 avi 
 
 .. 
 
 ot? 
 
 ovis 
 
 ) G. avi-str 
 1 E. ewe 
 
 avl-s 
 
 Slav, ovj za 
 
 Ir. oi 
 
 Calf: 
 
 vatsa 
 
 .. 
 
 iTaAot 
 
 vitului 
 
 
 
 
 Ir tithul 
 
 Hc-goat i 
 
 .. 
 
 .. 
 
 tan-pos 
 
 caper 
 
 O.lV.G. liafr 
 
 
 .. 
 
 Ir cubha 
 
 She-goati 
 
 apa 
 
 
 pij 
 
 
 
 ozi-s 
 
 
 Ir ai^he 
 
 Sow : 
 
 eu (kara) 
 
 .. 
 
 
 BUS 
 
 O.1KG. eu 
 
 
 svinia 
 
 Ir suig 
 
 klog: 
 
 .. 
 
 
 irdpxof 
 
 porous 
 
 O.li.U. farah 
 
 parsza-s 
 
 Pol. prosie 
 
 Ir pore 
 
 Pig: 
 
 ghiishvi 
 
 .. 
 
 XoJpos 
 
 .. 
 
 JO.N.grin 
 j Scotch, gris 
 
 \ - 
 
 
 .. 
 
 Donkey t 
 
 .. 
 
 .. 
 
 0?0f 
 
 asinus 
 
 ilsilll 
 
 asila-s 
 
 osilu 
 
 , W. asvn 
 ! Ir. asail 
 
 Mouse : 
 
 ninsh 
 
 .. 
 
 wi)s 
 
 in us 
 
 0. II. G. in Qs 
 
 M 
 
 Pol. mysz 
 
 .. 
 
 Fly : 
 
 makhhika 
 
 muklishi 
 
 /xuia 
 
 in usca 
 
 O.ll.G. micco 
 
 muse 
 
 K. mucha 
 
 
 Goose : 
 
 ha/,a 
 
 " 
 
 X 1 ?" 
 
 anser 
 
 U.ll.G. kans 
 
 zasi-s 
 
 Boh. hus, 
 
 G- goer* 
 
 Of wild animals some were known to the Aryans 
 before they separated, and they happen to be animals 
 wl.ich live both in Asia and Europe, the bear and the 
 
 Sanskrit Greek. Italian. Teutonic. Slavonic. Celtic. 
 
 Bean riksha opKros ursiis .. Lith. loky- Ir. art 
 
 Wolf: vrika AUKOS {{"jirpus \ - vulf Ltth. wilka-s Ir. brech 
 
 To them should be added the serpent : 
 
 Sanskrit. Greek. Italian. Teutonic. Slavonic. Celtic. 
 
 tahi iex l <! ianstiia lO.H.G.unc ll.ith. nngi-s > 
 
 ^rpent: < VryvfAw) <(ni"!-'iiilla) S .. Vangury-t) > 
 
 fsaqia (iprrerov Cerps > .. > .. )W. t&rff 
 
 Without dwelling on the various names of those ani- 
 mals which had partly been tamed and domesticated, 
 while others were then, as they are now, the natural 
 enemies of the shepherd and his flocks, we proceed at 
 once to mention a few words which indicate that this 
 early pastoral life was not without some of the most 
 primitive arts, such as ploughing, grinding, weaving, 
 and the working of useful and precious metals. 
 
 The oldest term for ploughing is AR, which we find
 
 COMPAKATIVK MYTHOLOGY. 43 
 
 in Latin arare, Greek, dpow, to ear, Old Slav. " oi-ati," 
 Gothic "arjan," Lithuanian " arti," and Gaelic "ar." 
 From this verb we have the common name of the 
 plough, aporpov, aratrum, Old Saxon " erida," Old 
 Norse " ardhr," Old Slavonic " oralo " and " oradlo," 
 Lithuanian " arkla-s," Welsh " aradyr " and " arad," 
 Cornish " aradar." ''Apoupa and arvum come probably 
 from the same root. But a more general name for field 
 is Sanskrit " pada," Greek Tre'Sov, Umbrian " perum," 
 Latin pedum in oppidum, Pol. " pole," Saxon " folda," 
 O. H. G. " feld," "field;" or Sanskrit a#ra," dypcfe, 
 ager* and Gothic " akr-s." l 
 
 The corn which was grown in Asia could not well 
 have been the same which the Aryan nations after- 
 wards cultivated in more northern regions. Some of 
 the names, however, have been preserved, and may be 
 supposed to have had, if not exactly the same, at least 
 a similar botanical character. Such are Sanskrit 
 "yava," Zend "yava," Lithuanian "javai," which in 
 Greek must be changed to 'a. Sanskrit " sveta " 
 means white, and corresponds to Gothic " hveit," O. 
 H. G. " huiz " and " wiz," the Anglo-Saxon " hvit." 
 But the name of the color became also the name of the 
 white grain, and thus we have Gothic " hvaitei," Lith. 
 " kwetv-s," the English " wheat," with which some 
 
 V 
 
 scholars have compared the Slav. " shito," and the 
 Greek o-iros. The name of corn signified originally 
 what is crushed or ground. Thus " yfcurna " in San- 
 skrit means ground, #irna," pounded, and from the 
 same radical element we must no doubt derive the 
 Russian " zerno," the Gothic " kaurn," the Latin 
 granum. In Lithuanian, " girna " is a millstone, and 
 
 1 Lectures on the Science of Language, fifth edition, vol. i. p. 283.
 
 44 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 the plural " girnSs " is the name of a hand-mill. The 
 Russian word for millstone is, again, " zernov," and 
 the Gothic name for mill, "qvairnus," the later " quirn." 
 The English name for mill is likewise of considerable 
 antiquity, for it exists not only in the O. H. G. " muli," 
 but in the Lithuanian " maluna-s," the Bohemian 
 " mlyn," the Welsh " melin," the Latin mold, and the 
 Greek 
 
 We might add the names for cooking and baking, 
 and the early distinction between flesh and meat, to 
 show that the same aversion which is expressed in later 
 times, for instance, by the poets of the Veda, against 
 tribes eating raw flesh, Avas felt already during this 
 primitive period. " Kravya-ad" (Kpeas-e'Sw) and "ama- 
 ad " (w/xo's-eSw) are names applied to barbarians, and 
 used with the same horror in India as <fyio<aycu and 
 icpe<a<j>dyoi in Greece. But we can only now touch on 
 these points, and must leave it to another opportunity 
 to bring out in full relief this old picture of human life. 
 
 As the name for clothes is the same among all the 
 Aryan nations, being " vastra " in Sanskrit, " vasti '' 
 in Gothic, vestis in Latin, eo-fl^s in Greek, " fassradh " 
 in Irish, " gwisk " in Welsh, we are justified in ascrib- 
 ing to the Aryan ancestors the art of weaving as well 
 as of sewing. To weave in Sanskrit is " ve," and, in 
 a causative form, " vap." With " ve " coincide the 
 Latin vieo, and the Greek radical of F^-T/HOV ; ivith 
 " vap," the O. H. G. " wab," the English " weave," the 
 Greek u^-aivw. 
 
 To sew in Sanskrit is " siv," from which " sutra," a 
 thread. The same root is preserved in Latin suo, in 
 Gothic " siuja," in O. H. G. " siwu," the English " to 
 sew,'' Lithuanian " siuv-u," Greek Kaz-a-vu for Karoo va>.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 45 
 
 Another Sanskrit root, with a very similar meaning, 
 is NAH, which must have existed also as " nabh" and 
 " nadh." From " null " we have Latin neo and necto, 
 Greek veto, German " nahan " and u navan," to sew ; 
 from " nadh," the Greek vr?#w; from " nabh," the San- 
 skrit " nabhi " and " nabha " or " ur/mnabha," the 
 spider, literally the wool-spinner. 
 
 There is a fourth root which seems to have had orig- 
 inally the special meaning of sewing or weaving, but 
 which afterwards took in Sanskrit the more general 
 sense of making. This is " ra&," which may corre- 
 spond to the Greek pair, to stitch together or to weave ; 
 nay, which might account for another name of the 
 spider, apdxyi] in Greek, and aranea in Latin, and for 
 the classical name of woven wool, Xa^vos or Aa;^, and 
 the Latin lana. 
 
 That the value and usefulness of some of the metals 
 was known before the separation of the Aryan race, 
 can be proved only by a few words ; for the names of 
 most of the metals differ in different countries. Yet 
 there can be no doubt that iron was known, and its 
 value appreciated, whether for defense or for attack. 
 Whatever its old Aryan name may have been, it is 
 clear that Sanskrit " ayas," Latin ahes in aheneus, and 
 even the contracted form, ces, ceris, the Gothic " ais," 
 the Old High-German " er," and the English " iron," 
 are names cast in the same mould, and only slightly 
 corroded even now by the rust of so many centuries. 
 The names of the precious metals, such as gold and 
 silver, have suffered more in passing through the hands 
 of so many generations. But, notwithstanding, we 
 are able to discover even in the Celtic " airgiod " the 
 traces of the Sanskrit " ra^ata," the Greek apyvpos, the
 
 46 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Latin argentum; and even in the Gothic " gulth," 
 gold, a similarity with the Slavonic " zlato " and Rus- 
 sian " zoloto," Greek xp^Vos and Sanskrit " hiranyam," 
 although their formative elements differ widely. The 
 radical seems to have been " har-at," from whence the 
 Sanskrit " harit," the color of the sun and of the dawn, 
 as aurum also descends from the same root with aurora. 
 Some of the iron implements used, whether for peace- 
 ful or warlike purposes, have kept their original name, 
 and it is extremely curious to find the exact similarity 
 of the Sanskrit " parasu " and the Greek Tre/XeKvs, axe, 
 or of Sanskrit " asi," sword, and Latin ensis. 
 
 New ideas do not gain ground at once, and there is a 
 tendency in our mind to resist new convictions as long 
 as we can. Hence it is only by a gradual and careful 
 accumulation of facts that we can hope, on this linguis- 
 tic evidence, to establish the reality of a period in the 
 history of mankind previous to the beginning of the 
 most ancient known dialects of the Aryan world; 
 previous to the origin of Sanskrit as well as Greek ; 
 previous to the time when the first Greek arrived on 
 the shores of Asia Minor, and looking at the vast ex- 
 panse of sky and sea and country to the west and north, 
 called it " Europa." Let us examine one other wit- 
 ness, whose negative evidence will be important. Dur- 
 ing this early period, the ancestors of the Aryan race 
 must have occupied a more central position in Asia, 
 whence the southern branches extended towards India, 
 the northern to Asia Minor, and Europe. It would fol- 
 lov, therefore, that before their separation, they could 
 not have known the existence of the sea, and hence, if 
 our theory be true, the name for sea must be of later 
 growth, and different in the Aryan languages. And
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 47 
 
 this expectation is fully confirmed. We find, indeed, 
 identical names in Greek and Latin, but not in the 
 northern and southern branches of the Aryan family. 
 And even these Greek and Latin names are evidently 
 metaphorical expressions, names that existed in the 
 ancient language, and were transferred, at a later time, 
 to this new phenomenon. Pontus and TTOVTOS mean 
 sea in the same sense as Homer speaks of vypa /ceAeutfo, 
 for pontus comes from the same source from which we 
 have pons, pontis, and the Sanskrit "pantha," if not 
 " pathas." The sea was not called a barrier, but a 
 high-road, more useful for trade and travel than any 
 other road, and Professor Curtius 1 has well pointed 
 out Greek expressions, such as U-OVTOS oAos iroAtrjs and 
 OdXaa-aa TroVrou, as indicating, even among the Greeks, 
 a consciousness of the original import of TTOI/TOS. Nor 
 can words like Sanskrit " sara," Latin saZ, and Greek 
 aAs, aAo's, be quoted as proving an acquaintance with 
 the sea among the early Aryans. " Sara " in Sanskrit 
 means, first, water, afterwards, salt made of water, but 
 not necessarily of sea-water. We might conclude from 
 Sanskrit " sara," Greek oAs, and Latin sal, that the 
 preparation of salt by evaporation was known to the an- 
 cestors of the Aryan family before they separated. But 
 this is all that could be proved by oAs, sal, and Sanskrit 
 " sara " or " salila ; " the exclusive application of these 
 words to the sea belongs to later times ; and though the 
 Greek eVaAtos means exclusively marine, the Latin in 
 tula is by no means restricted to an island surrounded 
 by salt water. The same remark applies to words like 
 cequor in Latin or WAayos in Greek. aAaoro-a has long 
 
 1 See Kuhn's Journal of Comparative Philology, i. 34. Professoi 
 Co/tins gives the equation : IJWTO: 7raTos=ireV0o : jra9o=/?ev9os : /Jaflor.
 
 48 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 been proved to be a dialectical form of Gdpao-o-a or 
 pao-o-a, expressing the troubled waves of the sea (-a 
 8 TTOVTOV Iloo-etSoov), and if the Latin mare be the same 
 as Sanskrit " vari," " vari " in Sanskrit does not mean 
 "sea," but water in general, and could, therefore, only 
 confirm the fact that all the Aryan nations applied 
 terms of a general meaning when they had each to fix 
 their names for the sea. Mare is more likely a name 
 for dead or stagnant water, like Sanskrit " maru," the 
 desert, derived from " mri," to die ; and though it is 
 identical with Gothic " marei," Slav, "more," Irish 
 " muir," the application of all these words to the ocean 
 is of later date. But, although the sea had not yet 
 been reached by the Aryan nations before their com- 
 mon language branched off into various dialects, navi- 
 gation was well known to them. The words "oar" 
 and " rudder " can be traced back to Sanskrit, and the 
 name of the ship is identically the same in Sanskrit 
 ("naus," " navas "), in Latin (wawzs), in Greek(vavs), 
 and in Teutonic (Old High-German "nacho," Anglo- 
 Saxon "naca"). 
 
 It is hardly possible to look at the evidence hitherto 
 collected, and which, if space allowed, might have 
 been considerably increased, 1 without feeling that these 
 
 1 A large collection of common Aryan words is found in Grimm's Hit" 
 lory of the German Lrmcjiuxje. The first attempt to use them for histor- 
 ical purposes was made by Kichhof; but the most useful contributions have 
 sirce leen made by Winning in his Manual of Comparative Philuliifly, 1838; 
 bv Ruhn, Curtins, and Fiirstemann; and much new material is to be found 
 in Hoop's Gluasarium and 1'ott's Ktymoluginche Forsrhwngen. Pictet's great 
 work, Les Oriyines Jn(to-Eur<i/>cennes, 2 vols. 1859 and 1863, brings to- 
 gether the most complete mass of materials, but requires also the most care- 
 ful sifting. With regard to Sanskrit words in particular, the greatest 
 caution is required, as M. Pictet lias not paid to it the same attention au to 
 Celtic, Latin, Greek, and Slavonic.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 49 
 
 words are the fragments of a real language, once 
 spoken by a united race at a time which the historian 
 has till lately hardly ventured to realize. Yet here 
 we have in our own hands, the relics of that distant 
 time ; we are using; the same words which were used 
 
 C5 
 
 by the fathers of the Aryan race, changed only by 
 phonetic influences ; nay, we are as near to them in 
 thought and speech as the French and Italians are to 
 the ancient people of Rome. If any more proof was 
 wanted as to the reality of that period which must 
 have preceded the dispersion of the Aryan race, we 
 might appeal to the Aryan numerals, as irrefragable 
 evidence of that long-continued intellectual life which 
 characterizes that period. Here is a decimal system 
 of numeration, in itself one of the most marvelous 
 achievements of the human mind, based on an abstract 
 conception of quantity, regulated by a spirit of philo- 
 sophical classification, and yet conceived, matured, and 
 finished before the soil of Europe was trodden by 
 Greek, Roman, Slave, or Teuton. Such a system 
 could only have been formed by a very small com- 
 munity, and more than any part of language it seems 
 to necessitate the admission of what might almost be 
 called a conventional agreement among those who 
 first framed and adopted the Aryan names for one to 
 hundred. Let us imagine, as well as we can, that at 
 the present moment we were suddenly called upon to 
 invent new names for one, two, three, and we may then 
 begin to feel what kind of task it was to form and fix 
 such words. We could easily supply new expressions 
 for material objects, because they always have some 
 attributes which language can render either metaphor- 
 ically or periphrastically. We could call the sea " the
 
 60 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 salt- water;" the rain, "the water of heaven ;" the 
 rivers, " the daughters of the earth." Numbers, how- 
 ever, are, by their very nature, such abstract and 
 empty conceptions, that it tries our ingenuity to the 
 utmost to find any attributive element in them to 
 which expression might be given, and which might 
 in time become the proper name of a merely quantita- 
 tive idea. There might be less difficulty for one and 
 two; and hence, these two numerals have received 
 more than one name in the Aryan family. But this 
 again would only create a new difficulty, because, if 
 different people were allowed to use different names 
 for the same numeral, the very object of these names 
 would be defeated. If five could be expressed by a 
 term meaning the open hand, and might also be ren- 
 dered by the simple plural of the word for fingers, 
 these two synonymous terms would be useless for the 
 purpose of any exchange of thought. Again, if a 
 word meaning fingers or toes might have been used to 
 express five as well as ten, all commerce between indi- 
 viduals using the same word in different senses, would 
 have been rendered impossible. Hence, in order to 
 form and fix a series of words expressing one, two, 
 three, four, etc., it was necessary that the ancestors of 
 the Aryan race should have come to some kind of un- 
 conscious agreement to use but one term for each num- 
 ber, and to attach but one meaning to each term. This 
 was not the case with regard to other words, as may be 
 seen by the large proportion of synonymous and poly- 
 onymous terms by which every ancient language is 
 characterized. The wear and tear of language in 
 literary and practical usage is the only means for re- 
 ducing the exuberance of this early growth, and for
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 51 
 
 giving to each object but one name, and to each name 
 but one power. And all this must have been achieved 
 with regard to the Aryan numerals before Greek wag 
 Greek, for thus only can we account for the coinci- 
 dences as exhibited in the subjoined table : 
 
 Sanskrit. Greek. Latin. Lithuanian. Gothic. 
 
 I. 
 
 ekas, 
 
 <rls (olvri), 
 
 unus, 
 
 wienus, 
 
 ains. 
 
 II. 
 
 dvau, 
 
 Sl'tO, 
 
 duo, 
 
 du, 
 
 tvai. 
 
 III. 
 
 tray as, 
 
 Tpeiv, 
 
 tres, 
 
 trys, 
 
 threis. 
 
 IV 
 
 iatvaras, 
 
 TeVrapet, 
 
 ^uatuor, 
 
 keturi, 
 
 fidrdr. 
 
 
 
 (jEolic, irwrvpes), 
 
 (Oscan, petora). 
 
 
 
 V. 
 
 pania, 
 
 irtvre, 
 
 quinque, 
 
 pcnki, 
 
 fimf. 
 
 
 
 
 (Oscan, pomtis). 
 
 
 
 vr 
 
 shash, 
 
 , f 
 
 sex, 
 
 szeszi, 
 
 saihs. 
 
 VII. 
 
 sapta, 
 
 euro, 
 
 septem, 
 
 septyni, 
 
 sibun. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ashlau, 
 
 OKTu'l, 
 
 octo, 
 
 asztiini, 
 
 ah tan. 
 
 IX. 
 
 tiava, 
 
 ewea, 
 
 norem, 
 
 dewyni, 
 
 iiiiui. 
 
 X. 
 
 dasa, 
 
 MM, 
 
 decem, 
 
 deszimt, 
 
 taihun. 
 
 XI. 
 
 ekadara, 
 
 fV&tKO. 
 
 undecim, 
 
 wieno-lika, 
 
 ain-Iif. 
 
 XII. 
 
 dvadasa, 
 
 StaSexa, 
 
 dnodecim, 
 
 dwy-lika, 
 
 tva-lif. 
 
 XX. 
 
 vinsati, 
 
 eiKotri, 
 
 viginti, 
 
 dwi-deszimti, 
 
 tyaitipjus. 
 
 c. 
 
 satam, 
 
 iicarov, 
 
 centum, 
 
 szimtas, 
 
 taihun taihund. 
 
 til. 
 
 sahasram, 
 
 XiAioi, 
 
 mille, 
 
 tukstantis, 
 
 thusundi. 
 
 If we cannot account for the coincidences between 
 the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Walla- 
 chian numerals, without admitting that all were derived 
 from a common type, the Latin, the same conclusion is 
 forced upon us by a comparison of the more ancient 
 numerals. They must have existed ready made in that 
 language from which Sanskrit as well as Welsh is de- 
 rived ; but only as far as hundred. Thousand had not 
 received expression at that early period, and hence 
 the names for thousand differ, not, however, without 
 giving, by their very disagreement, some further in- 
 dications as to the subsequent history of the Aryan 
 race. We see Sanskrit and Zend share the name for 
 thousand in common (Sanskrit " sahasra," Zend "ha- 
 zanra "), which shows, that after the southern branch 
 had been severed from the northern, the ancestors of
 
 52 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 the Bralmians and Zoroastrians continued united for a 
 time by the ties of a common lanuao;e. The same 
 
 / o o 
 
 conclusion may be drawn from the agreement between 
 the Gothic " thusundi " and the Old Prussian " tusim- 
 tons " (ace.), the Lithuanian " tukstantis," the Old 
 Slavonic " tiiisasta ;" while the Greeks and the Romans 
 stand apart from all the rest, and seem to have formed, 
 each independently, their own name for thousand. 
 
 This earliest period, then, previous to any national 
 separation, is what I call the mythopceic period, for 
 every one of these common Aryan words is, in a cer- 
 tain sense, a myth. These words were all originally 
 appellative ; they expressed one out of many attributes, 
 which seemed characteristic of a certain object, and the 
 selection of these attributes and their expression in lan- 
 guage, represents a kind of unconscious poetry, which 
 modern languages have lost altogether. 
 
 Language has been called fossil poetry. But as the 
 artist does not know that the clay which he is handling 
 contains the remnants of organic life, we do not feel that 
 when we address a father, we call him protector, nor did 
 the Greeks, when using the word Sa^/>, brother-in-law, 
 know that this term applied originally only to the 
 younger brothers of the husband, who stayed at home 
 with the bride while their elder brother was out in the 
 field or the forests. The Sanskrit " devar " meant 
 originally playmate, it told its own story, it was 
 a myth ; but in Greek it has dwindled down into a 
 mere name, or a technical term. Yet, even in Greek 
 it is not allowed to form a feminine of Sa?jp, as little 
 as we should venture even now to form a masculine of 
 " daughter." 
 
 Soon, however, languages lose their etymological
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 53 
 
 conscience, and thus we find in Latin, for instance, not 
 only vidua, husbandless ( " Penelope tarn diu vidua 
 viro suo caruit "), but viduus, a formation which, if 
 analyzed etymologically, is as absurd as the Teutonic 
 *' a widower." It must be confessed, however, that 
 the old Latin viduus, 1 a name of Orcus, who had 
 temple outside Rome, makes it doubtful whether the 
 Latin vidua is really the Sanskrit " vi-dhava," however 
 great their similarity. At all events we should have 
 to admit that a verb viduare was derived from vidua, 
 and that afterwards a new adjective was formed with a 
 more general sense, so that viduus to a Roman ear 
 meant nothing more than privatus. 
 
 But, it may be asked, how does the fact, that the 
 Aryan languages possess this treasure of ancient names 
 in common, or even the discovery that all these names 
 had originally an expressive and poetical power, ex- 
 plain the phenomenon of mythological language among 
 all the members of this family ? How does it render 
 intelligible that phase of the human mind which gave 
 birth to the extraordinary stories of gods and heroes, 
 of gorgons and chimeras, of things that no human 
 eye had ever seen, and that no human mind in a 
 healthy state could ever have conceived ? 
 
 Before we can answer this question, we must enter 
 into some more preliminary observations as to the 
 formation of words. Tedious as this may seem, we 
 believe that while engaged in these considerations the 
 mist of mythology will gradually clear away, and en- 
 able us to discover behind the floating clouds of the 
 dawn of thought and language, that real nature which 
 mythology has so long veiled and disguised. 
 
 1 Hartung, Die Religion der Romer, vol. ii. p. 90.
 
 64 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 All the common Aryan words which we have hith- 
 erto examined referred to definite objects. They are 
 all substantives, they express something substantial, 
 something open to sensuous perception. Nor is it in 
 the power of language to express originally anything 
 except objects as nouns, and qualities as verbs. Hence, 
 the only definition we can give of language during that 
 early state is, that it is the conscious expression in 
 sound, of impressions received by all the senses. 
 
 To us, abstract nouns are so familiar that we can 
 hardly appreciate the difficulty which men experienced 
 in forming them. We can scarcely imagine a language 
 without abstract nouns. There are, however, dialects 
 spoken at the present day which have no abstract 
 nouns, and the more we go back in the history of lan- 
 guages, the smaller we find the number of these use- 
 ful expressions. As far as language is concerned, an 
 abstract word is nothing but an adjective raised into a 
 substantive ; but in thought the conception of a quality 
 as a subject, is a matter of extreme difficulty, and, in 
 strict logical parlance, impossible. If we say, " I love 
 virtue," we seldom connect any definite notion with 
 " virtue." Virtue is not a being, however unsubstan- 
 tial ; it is nothing individual, personal, active ; nothing 
 that could by itself produce an expressible impression 
 on our mind. The word " virtue " is only a short-hand 
 expression ; and when men said for the first time " I 
 love virtue," what they meant by it originally was, " I 
 iove all things that become an honest man, that are 
 manly, or virtuous." 
 
 But there are other words, which we hardly call 
 abstract, but which, nevertheless, were so originally 
 and are so still, in form; I mean in words like "day*
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 55 
 
 and " night," " spring " and " winter," " dawn " and 
 " twilight," " storm " and "thunder." For what do 
 we mean r. we speak of day and night, or of spring 
 and winter ? We may answer, a season, or any other 
 portion of time. But what is time, in our conceptions ? 
 It is nothing substantial, nothing individual ; it is a 
 quality raised by language into a substance. There- 
 fore if we say " the day dawns," " the night ap- 
 proaches," we predicate actions of things that cannot 
 act, we affirm a proposition which, if analyzed logically, 
 would have 110 definable subject. 
 
 The same applies to collective words, such as " sky " 
 and " earth," " dew " and " rain," even to "rivers v 
 and " mountains." For if we say, " The earth nourishes 
 man," we do not mean any tangible portion of soil, but 
 the earth, conceived as a whole ; nor do we mean by 
 the sky the small horizon which our eye can scan. 
 We imagine something which does not fall under our 
 senses, but whether we call it a whole, a power, or an 
 idea, in speaking of it we change it unawares into 
 something individual. 
 
 Now in ancient languages every one of these words 
 had necessarily a termination expressive of gender, and 
 this naturally produced in the mind the corresponding 
 idea of sex, so that these names received not only an 
 individual, but a sexual character. There was no sub- 
 stantive which was not either masculine or feminine ; 
 neuters being of later growth, and distinguishable 
 chiefly in the nominative. 1 
 
 1 " It is with the world, as with each of us in our individual life: for as 
 \te leave childhood and youth behind us, we bid adieu to the vivid impres- 
 sions things once made upon us, and become colder and more speculative. 
 To a little child, not only are all living creatures endowed with human in- 
 telligence, but everything is alive. In his Kosmos, Pussy takes rank with
 
 56 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 What must have been the result of this ? As long 
 as people thought in language, it was simply impossible 
 to speak of morning or evening, of spring and winter, 
 without giving to these conceptions something of an in- 
 dividual, active, sexual, and at last, personal character. 
 They were either nothings, as they are nothings to our 
 withered thought, or they were something; and then 
 they could not be conceived as mere powers, but as 
 beings powerful. Even in our time, though we have 
 the conception of nature as a power, what do we mean 
 by power, except something powerful ? Now, in early 
 language, nature was Natura, a mere adjective made 
 substantive ; she was the Mother always " going to 
 bring; forth." Was this not a more definite idea than 
 
 o 
 
 that which we connect with nature ? And let us look 
 to our poets, who still think and feel in language, 
 that is, who use no word without having really en- 
 livened it in their mind, who do not trifle with lan- 
 guage, but use it as a spell to call forth real things, 
 full of light and color. Can they speak of the sun, or 
 the dawn, or the storms as neutral powers, without 
 
 Pa and Ma, in point of intelligence. He beats the chair against which he 
 has knocked his head; and afterwards kisses it in token of renewed friend- 
 ship, in the full belief, that like himself, it is a moral agent amenable to re- 
 wards and punishments. The fire that burns his finger is " Naughty Fire," 
 and the stars that shine through his bedroom window are Eyes, like 
 Mamma's, or Pussy's, only brighter. 
 
 " The same instinct that prompts the child to personify everything remains 
 unchecked in the savage, and grows up with him to manhood. Hence in 
 all simple and early languages, there are but two genders, masculine and 
 feminine. To develop such an idea as that of a muter, requires the slow 
 growth of civilization for its accomplishment. We see the same tendency 
 to class everything as masculine or feminine among even civilized men, i/ 
 thev are uneducated. To a farm laborer, a bundle of hay is " he," just aa 
 much as is the horse that eats it. He resolutely ignores " it," as a pronoun 
 for which there is not the slightest necessity." Printer's Register, Feb. 6 
 1863.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 57 
 
 doiiig violence to their feelings ? Let us open Words- 
 worth, ana we shall hardly find him use a single ab- 
 stract term without some life and blood in it : 
 
 Religion, 
 
 " Sacred Religion, mother of fonn and fear, 
 Dread arbitress of mutable respect, 
 New rites ordaining when the old are wrecked, 
 Or cease to please the fickle worshipper." 
 
 Winter, 
 
 "Humanity, delighting to behold 
 A fond reflection of her own decay, 
 Hath painted Winter like a traveller old, 
 Propped on a staff, and, through the sullen day, 
 In hooded mantle, limping o'er the plain, 
 As though his weakness were disturbed by painr 
 Or, if a juster fancy should allow 
 An undisputed symbol of command, 
 The chosen sceptre is a withered bough. 
 Infirmly grasped within a palsied hand. 
 These emblems suit the helpless and forlorn; 
 But mighty Winter the device shall scorn. 
 For he it was dread Winter! who beset. 
 Flinging round van and rear his ghastly net, 
 That host, when from the regions of the Pole 
 They shrunk, insane Ambition's barren goal, 
 That host, as huge and strong as e'er delied 
 Their God, and placed their trust in human pride! 
 As fathers prosecute rebellious sons, 
 He smote the blossoms of their warrior youth; 
 He called on Frost's inexorable tooth 
 Life to consume in manhood's firmest hold .... 
 
 And bade the Snow their ample backs bestride,- 
 And to the battle ride." 
 
 So, again, of Age and the Hours: 
 
 " Age I twine thy brows with fresh spring flowers, 
 And call a train of laughing Hours, 
 And bid them dance, and bid them sing; 
 And thou, too, mingle in the ring! " 
 
 Nc'w, when writing these lines, Wordsworth could 
 hardly have thought of the classical Horce: the con- 
 ception of dancing Hours came as natural to his mind 
 is to the poets of old.
 
 58 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Or, again, of titorms and Seasons : 
 
 " Ye Storms, resound the praises of your Ring! 
 And ye mild Seasons, in a sunny clime, 
 Midway, on some high hill, while father Time 
 Looks on delighted, meet in festal ring, 
 And loud and long of Winter's triumph sing! " 
 
 We are wont to call this poetical diction, and to 
 make allowance for what seems to us exaggerated lan- 
 guage. But to the poet it is no exaggeration, nor was 
 it to the ancient poets of language. Poetry is older 
 than prose, and abstract speech more difficult than the 
 outpouring of a poet's sympathy with nature. It re- 
 quires reflection to divest nature of her living expres- 
 sion, to see in the swift-riding clouds nothing but 
 vaporous exhalations, in the frowning mountains masses 
 of stone, and in the lightning electric sparks. Words- 
 worth feels what he says, when he exclaims, 
 
 "Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you 
 To share the passion of a just disdain;" 
 
 and when he speaks of "the last hill that parleys with 
 the setting sun," this expression came to him as he was 
 communing with nature ; it was a thought untranslated 
 as yet into the prose of our traditional and emaciated 
 speech ; it was a thought such as the men of old would 
 not have been ashamed of in their common every day 
 conversation. 
 
 There are some poems of this modern ancient 
 which are all mythology, and as we shall have to refer 
 to them hereafter, I shall give one more extract, which 
 to a Hindu and an ancient Greek would have been 
 more intelligible than it is to us : 
 
 " Hail, orient Conqueror of gloomy N ight ! 
 Thou that canst shed the bliss of gratitude 
 On hearts, howe'er insensible or rude ; 
 Whether thy punctual visitations smite
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 59 
 
 The haughty towers where monarchs dwell, 
 Or thou, impartial Sun, with presence bright 
 Cheer'st the low threshold of the peasant's cell ! 
 Not unrejoiced I see thee climb the sky, 
 In naked splendor, clear from mist and haze, 
 Or cloud approaching to divert the rays, 
 Which even in deepest winter .testify 
 
 Thy power and majesty, 
 Dazzling the vision that presumes to gaze. 
 Well does thine aspect usher in this Day; 
 As aptly suits therewith that modest pace 
 
 Submitted to the chains 
 That bind thee to the path which God ordains 
 
 That thou shouldst trace, 
 
 Till, with the heavens and earth, thou pass away! 
 Nor less, the stillness of these frosty plains 
 Their utter stillness, and the silent grace 
 Of yon ethereal summits, white with snow, 
 (Whose tranquil pomp and spotless purity 
 
 Report of storms gone by 
 
 To us who tread below) 
 Do with the service of this day accord. 
 Divinest object which th' uplifted eye 
 Of mortal man is suffered to behold; 
 Thou, who upon these snow-clad Heights has poured 
 Meek lustre, nor forget'st the humble Vale; 
 Thou who dost warm Earth's universal mould, 
 And for thy bounty wert not unadored 
 
 By pious men of old ; 
 
 Once more, heart-cheering Sun, I bid thee hail! 
 Bright be thy course to-day, let not this promise fail! " 
 
 Why then, if we ourselves, in speaking of the Sun 
 or the Storms, of Sleep and Death, of Earth and Dawn, 
 connect either no distinct idea at all with these names, 
 or allow them to cast over our mind the fleeting 
 shadows of the poetry of old ; why, if we, when speak- 
 ing with the warmth which is natural to the human 
 heart, call upon the Winds and the Sun, the Ocean 
 and the Sky, as if they would still hear us ; why, if 
 plastic thought cannot represent any one of these 
 beings or powers, without giving them, if not a human 
 form, at least human life and human feeling,
 
 60 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 should we wonder at the ancients, with their language 
 throbbing with life and reveling in color, if instead 
 of the gray outlines of our modern thought, they threw 
 out those living forms of nature, endowed with human 
 powers, nay, with powers more than human, inasmuch 
 as the light of the Sun was brighter than the light of a 
 human eye, and the roaring of the Storms louder than 
 the shouts of the human voice. We may be able to 
 account for the origin of rain and dew, of storm and 
 thunder ; yet, to the great majority of mankind, all 
 these things, unless they are mere names, are still 
 what they were to Homer, only perhaps less beautiful, 
 less poetical, less real, and living. 
 
 So much for that peculiar difficulty which the human 
 mind experiences in speaking of collective or abstract 
 ideas, a difficulty which, as we shall see, will explain 
 many of the difficulties of Mythology. 
 
 We have now to consider a similar feature of ancient 
 languages, the auxiliary verbs. They hold the same 
 position among verbs, as abstract nouns among sub- 
 stantives. They are of later origin, and had all origi- 
 nally a more material and expressive character. Our 
 auxiliary verbs have had to pass through a long chain 
 of vicissitudes before they arrived at the withered and 
 lifeless form which fits them so well for the purposes of 
 our abstract prose. Habere, which is now used in all 
 the Romance languages simply to express a past tense, 
 "j'ai aime"," I loved, was originally, to hold fast, to 
 hold back, as we may see in its derivative, habence, the 
 reins. Thus tenere, to hold, becomes, in Spanish, an 
 auxiliary verb, that can be used very much in the same 
 manner as habere. The Greek Ixw is the Sanskrit 
 ' 4 sab," and meant originally, to be strong, to be able,
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 01 
 
 or to can. The Latin fui, I was, the Sanskrit " bhu," 
 to be, corresponds to the Greek <u'o>, and there shows 
 still its original and material power of growing, in an 
 intransitive and transitive sense. " As," the radical of 
 the Sanskrit " as-mi," the Greek e^.-//t, the Lithuanian 
 " as-rni," I am, had probably the original meaning of 
 breathing, if the Sanskrit " as-u," breath, is correctly 
 traced back to that root. Stare, to stand, sinks down 
 in the Romance dialects to a mere auxiliary, as in " j'ai- 
 e'te'," I have been, i. e. habeo-statum, I have stood ; 
 "j'ai-e*t6 convaincu," I have stood convinced; the pho- 
 netic change of statum into 6te being borne out by the 
 transition of status into etat. The German " werden," 
 which is used to form futures and passives, the Gothic 
 " varth," points back to the Sanskrit " vnt," the Latin 
 verto. " Will," again, in " he will go," has lost its 
 radical meaning of wishing ; and " shall " used in the 
 same tense, " I shall go," hardly betrays, even to the 
 etymologist, its original power of legal or moral obliga- 
 tion. " Schuld," however, in German means debt and 
 sin, and " soil," has there not yet taken a merely tem- 
 poral signification, the first trace of which may be dis- 
 covered, however, in the names of the three Teutonic 
 Parcae. These are called " Vurdh," " Verdhandi," and 
 "Skuld," Past, Present, and Future. 1 But what 
 could be the original conception of a verb which, even 
 in its earliest application, has already the abstract 
 meaning of moral duty or legal obligation ? Where 
 could language, which can only draw upon the material 
 world for its nominal and verbal treasures, find some- 
 thing analogous to the abstract idea of he shall pay, or, 
 he ought to yield? Grimm, who has endeavored to 
 
 * Ruhn, Ztitschrift filr veryleichende Spracliforschung, vol. iii. p. 449
 
 62 . COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 follow the German language into its most secret r. 
 cesses, proposes an explanation of this verb, whicfi 
 deserves serious consideration, however strange and 
 incredible it may appear at first sight. 
 
 Shall, and its preterite should, have the following 
 forms in Gothic : 
 
 Present. Preterite. 
 
 Skal, Skulda. 
 
 Skalt, Skuldes. 
 
 Skal, Skulda. 
 
 Skulum, Skuldedum. 
 
 Skuluth, Skuldeduth. 
 
 Skulun, Skuldedun. 
 
 In Gothic this verb " skal," which seems to be 
 present, can be proved to be an old perfect, analogous 
 to Greek perfects like oT3a, which have the form of the 
 perfect but the power of the present. There are sev- 
 eral verbs of the same character in the German lan- 
 guage, and in English they can be detected by the 
 absence of the s, as the termination of the third person 
 singular of the present. " Skal," then, according to 
 Grimm, means, " I owe," " I am bound ; " but origi- 
 nally it meant " I have killed." The chief guilt pun- 
 ished by ancient Teutonic law, was the guilt of man- 
 slaughter, and in many cases it could be atoned for 
 by a fine. Hence, " skal " meant literally, " I am 
 guilty," " ich bin schuklig ; " and afterwards, when this 
 full expression had been ground down into a legal 
 phrase, new expressions became possible, such as I 
 have killed a free man, a serf, i. e. I am guilty of a free 
 man, a serf; and at last, I owe (the fine for having 
 slain) a free man, a serf. In this manner Grimm ac-
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 63 
 
 counts for the still later and more anomalous expres- 
 sions, such as he shall pay, i. e. he is guilty to pay (" er 
 ist schuldig zu zahlen ") ; he shall go, i. e. he must go ; 
 and last, I shall withdraw, i. e. I feel bound to with- 
 draw. 
 
 A change of meaning like this seems, no doubt, 
 violent and fanciful, but we should feel more inclined 
 to accept it, if we considered how almost every word we 
 use discloses similar changes as soon as we analyze it 
 etymologically, and then follow gradually its historical 
 growth. The general conception of thing is in Walla- 
 chian expressed by " lucru, " the Latin lucrum, gain. 
 The French " chose " was originally causa, or cause. 
 If we say, " I am obliged to go," or "I am bound to 
 pay," we forget that the origin of these expressions 
 carries us back to times when men were bound to go, 
 or bound over to pay. Hoc mefallit means, in Latin, 
 " it deceives me," " it escapes me." Afterwards, it took 
 the sense of " it is removed from me," I want it, I 
 must have it : and hence, " il me faut," I must. 
 Again, / may is the Gothic 
 
 Mag, maht, mag, maguin, maguth, magun; 
 
 and its primary signification was, " I am strong." 
 Now, this verb also was originally a preterite, and 
 derived from a root which meant, " to beget," whence 
 the Gothic "magus," son, i. e. begotten, the Scotch 
 " Mac," and Gothic " magath-s," daughter, the Eng- 
 lish "maid." 
 
 In mythological lano-ua^e we must make due allow- 
 
 v ~ O ~ 
 
 ance for the absence of merely auxiliary words. Even'' 
 word, whether noun or verb, had still its full original 
 power during the mythopoeic ages. Words were 
 heavy and unwieldy. They said more than they
 
 64 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 ought to say, and hence, much of the strangeness 
 of the mythological language, which we can only un- 
 derstand by watching the natural growth of speech. 
 Where we speak of the sun following the dawn, the 
 ancient poets could only speak and think of the Sun 
 loving and embracing the Dawn. What is with us 
 a sunset, was to them the Sun growing old, decay- 
 ing, or dying. Our sunrise was to them the Night 
 giving birth to a brilliant child ; and in the Spring they 
 really saw the Sun or the Sky embracing the earth 
 with a warm embrace, and showering treasures into 
 the lap of nature. There are many myths in Hesiod, 
 of late origin, where we have only to replace a full 
 verb by an auxiliary, in order to change mythical 
 into logical language. Hesiod calls Nyx (Night) the 
 mother of Moros (Fate), and the dark Ker (Destruc- 
 tion) ; of Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), and the 
 tribe of the Oneiroi (Dreams). And this her progeny 
 she is said to have borne without a father. Again, she 
 is called the mother of Momos (Blame), and of the 
 woful Oizys (Woe), and of the Hesperides (Evening 
 Stars), who guard the beautiful golden apples on the 
 other side of the far-famed Okeanos, and the trees that 
 bear fruit. She also bore Nemesis (Vengeance), and 
 Apate (Fraud), and Philotes (Lust), and the perni- 
 cious Geras (Old Age), and the strong-minded Erig 
 (Strife). Now, let us use our modern expressions, 
 such as " the stars are seen as the night approaches," 
 "we sleep," "we dream," "we die," "we run danger 
 during night," " nightly revels lead to strife, angry 
 discussions, and woe," " many nights bring old age, 
 and at last death," " an evil deed concealed at first by 
 the darkness of night will at last be revealed by the
 
 MYTHOLOGY. t)5 
 
 day," " Night herself will be revenged on the criminal," 
 and we have translated the language of Hesiod a 
 language to a great extent understood by the people 
 whom he addressed into our modern form of thought 
 and speech. 1 All this is hardly mythological language, 
 but rather a poetical and proverbial kind of expression 
 known to all poets, whether modern or ancient, and fre- 
 quently to be found in the language of common people. 
 Uranos, in the language of Hesiod, is used as a name 
 for the sky ; he is made or born that " he should be a 
 firm place for the blessed gods." 2 It is said twice, 
 that Uranos covers everything (v. 127), and that 
 when he brings the night, he is stretched out every- 
 where, embracing the earth. This sounds almost as if 
 the Greek myth had still preserved a recollection of 
 the etymological power of Uranos. For " Uranos " 
 is the Sanskrit " Varuwa " and this is derived from a 
 root VAR, to cover; "Varuwa" being in the Veda 
 also a name of the firmament, but especially connected 
 with the night, and opposed to " Mitra," the day. At 
 all events, the name of " Uranos " retained with the 
 Greek something of its original meaning, which was 
 not the case with names like " Apollo " or " Diony- 
 sos ; " and when we see him called dorepoeis, the starry 
 
 1 As to Philotes being the Child of Night, Juliet understood what it 
 meant when she said : 
 
 " Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night! 
 That unawares eyes may wink; and Romeo 
 Leap to these arms, untalked of and unseen! 
 Lovers can see to do their amorous rites 
 By their own beauties; or, if Love be blind, 
 It best agrees with Night." 
 Hesiod, Theog. 128: 
 
 Tata e TOI irpuiroi' nev fyeiVaro Tcrov eaVTJj 
 Qvpavbv oarepoevfl', tea fj.iv jrepl Tracra KaAvirroi* 
 o<t>p' fir) jLiaKapetriri 0oi eSos 
 VOL. II. 5
 
 66 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 heaven, we can hardly believe, as Mr. Grote says, that 
 to the Greek, " Uranos, Nyx, Hypnos, and Oneiroa 
 (Heaven, Night, Sleep, and Dream) are persons, just 
 as much as Zeus and Apollo." We need only read a 
 few lines further in Hesiod, in order to see that the 
 progeny of Gsea, of which Uranos is the first, has not 
 yet altogether arrived at that mythological personifica- 
 tion or crystallization which makes most of the Olym- 
 pian gods so difficult and doubtful in their original char- 
 acter. The poet has asked the Muses in the introduc- 
 tion how the gods and the earth were first born, and 
 the rivers and the endless sea, and the bright stars, and 
 the wide heaven above (ovpavo9 evpvs i/n-ep^ev). The 
 whole poem of the " Theogony " is an answer to this 
 question ; and we can hardly doubt therefore that the 
 Greek saw in some of the names that follow, simply 
 poetical conceptions of real objects, such as the earth, 
 and the rivers, and the mountains. Uranos, the first 
 offspring of Gasa, is afterwards raised into a deity, 
 endowed with human feelings and attributes ; but the 
 very next offspring of Ga3a, Ovpea //afcpa, the great 
 Mountains, are even in language represented as neuter, 
 and can therefore hardly claim to be considered as per- 
 sons like Zeus and Apollo. 
 
 Mr. Grote goes too far in insisting on the purely lit- 
 eral meaning of the whole of Greek mythology. Some 
 mythological figures of speech remained in the Greek 
 language to a very late period, and were perfectly 
 understood, that is to say, they required as little ex- 
 planation as our expressions of " the sun sets," or " the 
 sun rises." Mr. Grote feels compelled to admit this, 
 but he declines to draw any further conclusions from it. 
 " Although some of the attributes and actions ascribed
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 67 
 
 to these persons," he says, " are often explicable by 
 allegory, the whole series and system of them never 
 are so : the theorist who adopts this course of explana- 
 tion finds that, after one or two simple and obvious 
 steps, the patli is no longer open, and he is forced to 
 clear a way for himself by gratuitous refinements and 
 conjectures." Here, then, Mr. Grote admits what lie 
 calls allegory as an ingredient of mythology ; still he 
 makes no further use of it and leaves the whole of 
 mythology as a riddle, that cannot and ought not to be 
 solved, as something irrational as a past that wa3 
 never present declining even to attempt a partial 
 explanation of this important problem in the history of 
 the Greek mind. IIAe'oi/ TJ/JLLO-V TTOVTOS. Such a want of 
 scientific courage would have put a stop to many sys- 
 tems which have since grown to completeness, but 
 which at first had to make the most timid and uncer- 
 tain steps. In palajontological sciences we must learn 
 to be ignorant of certain things ; and what Suetonius 
 says of the grammarian, "boni grammatici est non- 
 nulla etiam nescire," applies with particular force to 
 the mythologist. It is in vain to attempt to solve the 
 secret of every name ; and nobody has expressed this 
 with greater modesty than he who has laid the most 
 lasting foundation of Comparative Mythology. Grimm, 
 in the introduction to his " German Mythology," says, 
 without disguise, " I shall indeed interpret all that I 
 can, but I cannot interpret all that I should like." But 
 surely Otfried Miiller had opened a path into the laby- 
 rinth of Greek mythology, which a scholar of Mr. 
 Grote's power and genius might have followed, and 
 which at least he ought to have proved as either right 
 r)r wrong. How late mythological language was in
 
 68 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 voo-ue among the Greeks has been shown by O. Miiller 
 
 o o 
 
 (p. 65) in the myth of Kyrene. The Greek town of 
 Kvrene in Libya was founded about Olymp. 37 ; the 
 ruling race derived its origin from the Minyans, who 
 reigned chiefly in lolkos, in Southern Thessaly ; the 
 foundation of the colony was due to the oracle of 
 Apollo at Pytho. Hence, the myth, "The heroic 
 maid Kyrene, who lived in Thessaly, is loved by 
 Apollo and carried off to Libya ; " while in modern 
 language we should say, " The town of Kyrene, in 
 Thessaly, sent a colony to Libya, under the auspices of 
 Apollo." Many more instances might be given, where 
 the mere substitution of a more matter-of-fact verb 
 divests a myth at once of its miraculous appearance. 1 
 Kaunos is called the son of Miletos, i. e. Kretan colo- 
 nists from Miletos had founded the town of Kaunos in 
 Lycia. Again, the myth says that Kaunos fled from 
 Miletos to Lycia, and his sister Byblos was changed, 
 by sorrow over her lost brother, into a fountain. 
 Here Miletos in Ionia, being better known than the 
 Miletos in Kreta, has been brought in by mistake, 
 Byblos being simply a small river near the Ionian 
 Miletos. Again, Pausanias tells us as a matter of 
 history, that Miletos, a beautiful boy, fled from Kreta 
 to Ionia, in order to escape the jealousy of Minos, 
 the fact being, that Miletos in Ionia was a colony of the 
 Miletos of Kreta, and Minos the most famous king of 
 that island. Again, Marpessa is called the daughter 
 of Evenos, and a myth represents her as carried away 
 by Idas, Idas being the name of a famous hero of the 
 town of Marpessa. The fact, implied by the myth and 
 confirmed by other evidence, is, that colonists started 
 
 l Kanne's Mythology, 10, p. xxxii.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 69 
 
 from the river Evenos, and founded Marpessa in Mes- 
 sina. And here again, the myth adds, that Evenos, 
 after trying in vain to reconquer his daughter from Idas, 
 was changed by sorrow into a river, like Byblos, the 
 sister of Miletos. 
 
 If the Hellenes call themselves aurox^oves, we fancy 
 we understand what is meant by this expression. But, 
 if we are informed that Truppa, the red, was the oldest 
 name of Thessaly, and that Hellen was the son of 
 Pyrrha, Mr. Grote would say that we have here to 
 deal with a myth, and that the Greeks, at least, never 
 doubted that there really was one individual called 
 Pyrrha, and another called Hellen. Now, this may be 
 true with regard to the later Greeks, such as Homer 
 and Hesiod; but was it so could it have been so 
 originally? Language is always language, it always 
 meant something originally, and he, whoever it was, 
 who first, instead of calling the Hellenes born of the 
 soil, spoke of Pyrrha, the mother of Hellen, must have 
 meant something intelligible and rational ; he could not 
 have meant a friend of his whom he knew by the 
 name of Hellen, and an old lady called Pyrrha ; he 
 meant what we mean if we speak of Italy as the mother 
 of Art. 
 
 Even in more modern times than those of which Ot- 
 fried Muller speaks, we find that "to speak mytho- 
 logically," was the fashion among poets and philoso- 
 phers. Pausanias complains of those " who genealogize 
 everything, and make Pythis the son of Delphos." 
 The story of Eros in the " Phaedros " is called a myth 
 (/iu5os, 254 D ; Aoyos, 257 B) ; yet Sokrates says iron- 
 ically, " that is one of those which you may believe or 
 lot " (TOUT-CIS 8^ e^eort /xi/ 7m'0cr0<u, le<rn Sf <0 Again,
 
 70 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 when he tells the story of the Egyptian god Theuth, 
 he calls it a "tradition of old " (d/co^i/ y e^w Xlytiv 
 TUV TrporeptDv), but Phsedros knows at once that it is 
 one of Sokrates' own making, and he says to him, 
 " Sokrates, thou makest easily Egyptian or any other 
 stones " (Xo'yot). When Pindar calls Apophasis the 
 daughter of Epimetheus, every Greek understood this 
 mythological language as well as if he had said "an 
 after-thought leads to an excuse." * Nay, even in Ho- 
 mer, when the lame Litee (Prayers) are said to follow 
 Ate" (Mischief), trying to appease her, a Greek under- 
 stood this language as well as we do, when we say that 
 " Hell is paved with good intentions." 
 
 When Prayers are called the daughters of Zeus, wo 
 are hardly as yet within the sphere of pure mythology. 
 For Zeus was to the Greeks the protector of the sup- 
 pliants, Zeus iKTnos, and hence Prayers are called 
 his daughters, as we might call Liberty the daughter of 
 England, or Prayer the offspring of the soul. 
 
 All these sayings, however, though mythical, are 
 not yet myths. It is the essential character of a true 
 myth that it should no longer be intelligible by a ref- 
 erence to the spoken language. The plastic character 
 of ancient language, which we have traced in the for- 
 mation of nouns and verbs, is not sufficient to explain 
 
 1 O Muller has pointed out how the different parents given to the " Erin- 
 yes " by different poets were suggested by the character which each poet 
 ascribed to them. " Evidently," he says, in his Essay on the Enmenides, 
 p. 184, " this genealogy answered better to the views and poetical objects 
 of Jscliylos than one of the current genealogies by which the Erinyes are 
 ieri red from Skotos and Ga^a (Sophokles), Kronos and Eurynome (in a 
 work ascribed to Epimenides), Phorkys (Euphorion), Gsea Etirynome (Is- 
 tron), Adieron and Night (Eudemos), Hades and Persephone (Orphic 
 hymns). Hades and Styx (Athenodoros and Mnaseas). See, however 
 Ares, by H. D. Muller, p. 67.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 71 
 
 how a myth could have lost its expressive power or its 
 life and consciousness. Making due allowance for the 
 difficulty of forming abstract nouns and abstract verbs, 
 we should vet be unable to account for anything beyond 
 
 v i/ O * 
 
 allegorical poetry among the nations of antiquity ; 
 mythology would still remain a riddle. Here, then, we 
 must call to our aid another powerful ingredient in the 
 formation of ancient speech, for which I find no better 
 name than Polyonymy and Synonymy. 1 Most nouns, as 
 v/e have seen before, were originally appellatives or 
 predicates, expressive of what seemed at the time the 
 most characteristic attribute of an object. But as most 
 objects have more than one attribute, and as, under dif- 
 ferent aspects, one or the other attribute might seem 
 more appropriate to form the name, it happened by ne- 
 cessity that most objects, during the early period of lan- 
 guage, had more than one name. In the course of time, 
 the greater portion of these names became useless, and 
 they were mostly replaced in literary dialects by one 
 fixed name, which might be called the proper name of 
 such objects. The more ancient a language, the richer 
 it is in synonyms. 
 
 Synonyms, again, if used constantly, must naturally 
 give rise to a number of homonyms. If we may call 
 the sun by fifty names expressive of different qualities, 
 some of these names will be applicable to other objects 
 also, which happen to possess the same quality. These 
 different objects would then be called by the same 
 name they would become homonyms. 
 
 In the Veda, the earth is called " urvi " (wide), 
 w prithvi" (broad), " main " (great), and many more 
 
 1 See the A uthor's letter to Chevalier Bunsen On the Turanian Lan- 
 yuat,et, p. 35
 
 72 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 names, of which the Nighantu mentions twenty-one. 
 These twenty-one words would be synonyms. But 
 " urvi " (wide) is not only given as a name of the 
 earth, but also means a river. " Prithvi " (broad) 
 means not only earth, but sky and dawn. " Main " 
 (great, strong) is used for cow and speech, as well as 
 for earth. Hence, earth, river, sky, dawn, cow, and 
 speech, would become homonyms. All these names, 
 however, are simple and intelligible. But most of the 
 old terms, thrown out by language at the first burst of 
 youthful poetry, are based on bold metaphors. These 
 metaphors once forgotten, or the meaning of the roots 
 whence the words were derived once dimmed and 
 changed, many of these words would naturally lose 
 their radical as well as their poetical meaning. They 
 would become mere names handed down in the con- 
 versation of a family ; understood, perhaps, by the 
 grandfather, familiar to the father, but strange to the 
 son, and misunderstood by the grandson. This misun- 
 derstanding may arise in various manners. Either the 
 radical meaning of the word is forgotten, and thus what 
 was originally an appellative, or a name, in the etymo- 
 logical sense of the word (nomen stands for gnomen, 
 " quo gnoscimus res," like natus for gnatus), dwindled 
 down into a mere sound a name in the modern sense 
 of the word. Thus ^'s, being originally a name of the 
 sky, like the Sanskrit " dyaus," became gradually a 
 proper name, which betrayed its appellative meaning 
 only in a few proverbial expressions, such as Zevs t/ct, 
 or " sub Jove frigido." 
 
 Frequently it happened that after the true etymolog- 
 ical meaning of the word had been forgotten, a new 
 meaning was attached to it by a kind of etymological
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 73 
 
 instinct which exists even in modern languages. Thus, 
 Awjojyei/Tjs, the son of light Apollo, was changed into 
 a son of Lycia ; AiyXtos, the bright one, gave rise to the 
 myth of the birth of Apollo in Delos. 
 
 Again, where two names existed for the same object, 
 two persons would spring up out of the two names, and 
 as the same stories could be told of either, they would 
 naturally be represented as brothers and sisters, as pa- 
 rent and child. Thus we find Selene, the moon, side 
 by side with Mene, the moon ; Helios (Surya), the Sun, 
 and Phcebos (Bhava, a different form of Rudra) ; and 
 in most of the Greek heroes we can discover human- 
 ized forms of Greek gods, with names which, in many 
 instances, were epithets of their divine prototypes. 
 Still more frequently it happened that adjectives con- 
 nected with a word as applied to one object, were used 
 with the same word even though applied to a different 
 object. What was told of the sea was told of the sky, 
 and the sun once being called a lion or a wolf, was 
 soon endowed with claws and mane, even where the 
 animal metaphor Avas forgotten. Thus the Sun with 
 his golden rays might be called " golden-handed," hand 
 being expressed by the same word as ray. But when 
 the same epithet was applied to Apollo or Indra, a 
 myth would spring up, as we find it in German and 
 Sanskrit mythology, telling us that Indra lost his hand, 
 and that it was replaced by a hand made of gold. 
 
 Here we have some of the keys to mythology, but 
 the manner of handling them can only be learnt from 
 comparative philology. As in French it is difficult to 
 find the radical meaning of many a word, unless we 
 compare it with its corresponding forms in Italian, 
 Spanish, or Provencal ; we should find it impossible to
 
 74 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 discover the origin of many a Greek word, without 
 comparing it with its more or less corrupt relatives in 
 German, Latin, Slavonic, and Sanskrit. Unfortunately 
 we have in this ancient circle of languages nothing 
 corresponding to Latin, by which we can test the more 
 or less original form of a word in French, Italian, and 
 Spanish. Sanskrit is not the mother of Latin and 
 Greek, as Latin is the mother of French and Italian. 
 But although Sanskrit is but one among many sisters, 
 it is, no doubt, the eldest, in so far as it has preserved 
 its words in their most primitive state ; and if we once 
 succeed in tracing a Latin and Greek word to its cor- 
 responding form in Sanskrit, we are generally able at 
 the same time to account for its formation, and to fix 
 its radical meaning. What should we know of the 
 original meaning of Trcm/p, p.^rrjp^ and 6vya.Ti]p, 1 if we 
 were reduced to the knowledge of one language like 
 Greek ? But as soon as we trace these words to San- 
 skrit, their primitive power is clearly indicated. O. 
 Miiller was one of the first to see and acknowledge 
 that classical philology must surrender all etymological 
 research to comparative philology, and that the origin 
 of Greek words cannot be settled by a mere reference 
 to Greek. This applies with particular force to mytho- 
 logical names. In order to become mythological, it 
 was necessary that the radical meaning of certain names 
 should have been obscured and forgotten in the Ian- 
 
 O 
 
 gitage to which they belong. Thus what is mytholog- 
 ical in .one language, is frequently natural and intelli- 
 gible in another. We say, " the sun sets," but in our 
 
 1 Here is a specimen of Greek etymology, from tl e Etymokgicum Mag' 
 
 turn : vyarTip napa. TO Ovfiv Kdl bpjj.o.v KO.TO. yaorptfs' eic rov 6v<a icai 7oG yaaTijp* 
 Mytrai yap ra SijXca rax* 01 ' Kiwurflat iv
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. V5 
 
 own Teutonic mythology, a seat or throne is given to 
 the sun on which he sits down, as in Greek " Eos " is 
 called xpvcroOpovos, or as the modern Greek speaks of the 
 setting sun as 17X105 /JacnAem. We doubt about " He- 
 kate," but we understand at once "EKCM-OS and 'EKar?/3o- 
 Xos. We hesitate about Lucina, but we accept imme 
 diately what is a mere contraction of Lucna, the Latin 
 Luna. 
 
 What is commonly called Hindu mythology is of lit- 
 tle or no avail for comparative purposes. The stones of 
 xS'iva, Vislmu, Mahadeva, Parvati, Kali, Krishna, etc., 
 are of late growth, indigenous to India, and full of 
 wild and fanciful conceptions. But while this late my- 
 thology of the Purawas and even of the Epic poems, 
 offers no assistance to the comparative mythologist, a 
 whole world of primitive, natural, and intelligible my- 
 ihology has been preserved to us in the Veda. The 
 mythology of the Veda is to comparative mythology 
 what Sanskrit has been to comparative grammar. 
 There is, fortunately, no system of religion or mythol- 
 ogy in the Veda. Names are used in one hymn as 
 appellatives, in another as names of gods. The same 
 god is sometimes represented as supreme, sometimes as 
 equal, sometimes as inferior to others. The whole 
 nature of these so-called gods is still transparent ; their 
 first conception, in many cases, clearly perceptible. 
 There are as yet no genealogies, no settled marriages 
 between gods and goddesses. The father is sometimes 
 the son, the brother is the husband, and she who in one 
 hymn is the mother, is in another the wife. As the 
 conceptions of the poet varied, so varied the nature of 
 these gods. Nowhere is the wide distance which sep- 
 arates the ancient poems of India from the most ancient
 
 76 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGT. 
 
 literature of Greece more clearly felt than when we 
 compare the growing myths of the Veda with the full- 
 grown and decayed myths on which the poetry of 
 Homer is founded. The Veda is the real Theogony 
 of the Aryan races, while that of Hesiod is a distorted 
 caricature of the original image. If we want to know 
 whither the human mind, though endowed with the 
 natural consciousness of a divine power, is driven 
 necessarily and inevitably by the irresistible force of 
 language as applied to supernatural and abstract ideas, 
 we must read the Veda ; and if we want to tell the 
 Hindus what they are worshipping, mere names of 
 natural phenomena, gradually obscured, personified, 
 and deified, we must make them read the Veda. 
 It was a mistake of the early Fathers to treat the 
 heathen gods l as demons or evil spirits, and we must 
 take care not to commit the same error with regard to 
 the Hindu gods. Their gods have no more right to 
 any substantive existence than Eos or Hemera, than 
 Nyx or Apate. They are masks without an actor, 
 the creations of man, not his creators ; they are 
 nomina, not numina ; names without being, not beings 
 without names. 
 
 In some instances, no doubt, it happens that a Greek, 
 or a Latin, or a Teutonic myth, may be explained from 
 the resources which each of these languages still pos- 
 sesses, as there are many words in Greek which can be 
 explained etymologically without any reference to San- 
 
 l Aristotle has given an opinion of the Greek gods in a passage of the 
 Mettpliysics. He is attacking the Platonic ideas, and tries to show theil 
 contradictory character, calling them aur07rra dKia, eternal uneternals, '. e. 
 things that cannot have any real existence; as men, he cont nues, maintain 
 that there are gods, but give them a human form, thus making them really 
 " immortal mortals," i, e. nonentities.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 77 
 
 skrit or Gothic. We shall begin with some of these 
 myths, and then proceed to the more difficult, which 
 must receive light from more distant regions, whether 
 from the snowy rocks of Iceland and the songs of the 
 " Edda," or from the borders of the " Seven Rivers," 
 and the hymns of the Veda. 
 
 The rich imagination, the quick perception, tre in- 
 tellectual vivacity, and ever- varying fancy of the Greek 
 nation, make it easy to understand that, after the sep- 
 aration of the Aryan race, no language was richer, no 
 mythology more varied, than that of the Greeks. 
 Words were created ^vith wonderful facility, and were 
 forgotten again with that carelessness which the con- 
 sciousness of inexhaustible power imparts to men of 
 genius. The creation of every word was originally a 
 poem, embodying a bold metaphor or a bright concep- 
 tion. But like the popular poetry of Greece, these 
 words, if they were adopted by tradition, and lived on 
 in the language of a family, of a city, of a tribe, in the 
 dialects, or in the national speech of Greece, soon forgot 
 the father that had given them birth, or the poet to 
 whom they owed their existence. Their genealogical 
 descent and native character were unknown to the 
 Greeks themselves, and their etymological meaning 
 would have baffled the most ingenious antiquarian. 
 The Greeks, however, cared as little about the etymo- 
 logica. individuality of their words as they cared to 
 know the name of every bard that had first sung the 
 " Aristeia " of Menelaos or Diomedes. One Homer was 
 enough to satisfy their curiosity, and any etymology 
 that explained any part of the meaning of a word was 
 welcome, no historical considerations being ever al- 
 lowed to interfere with ingenious guesses. It is known
 
 78 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 how Sokrates changes, on the spur of the moment, 
 Eros into a god of wings, but Homer is quite as ready 
 with etymologies, and they are useful, at least so far as 
 they prove that the real etymology of the names of the 
 gods had been forgotten long before -Homer. 
 
 We can best enter into the original meaning of a 
 Greek myth when some of the persons who act in it 
 have preserved names intelligible in Greek. When 
 we find the names of Eos, Selene, Helios, or Herse, we 
 have words which tell their own story, and we have a 
 TTOV o-rta for the rest of the myth. Let us take the 
 beautiful myth of Selene and Endymion. Endymion 
 is the son of Zeus and Kalyke, but he is also the son of 
 JEthlios, a king of Elis, who is himself called a son of 
 Zeus, and whom Endymion is said to have succeeded 
 as king of Elis. This localizes our myth, and shows, 
 at least, that Elis is its birthplace, and that, according 
 to Greek custom, the reigning race of Elis derived its 
 origin from Zeus. The same custom prevailed in 
 India, and gave rise to the two great royal families of 
 ancient India, the so-called Solar and the Lunar 
 races : and Pururavas, of whom more by and by, says 
 
 of himself, 
 
 ' The great king of day 
 
 And monarch of the night are my progenitors; 
 Their grandson I." .... 
 
 There may, then, have been a king of Elis, JEthlios, 
 and he may have had a son, Endymion ; but what the 
 mjth tells of Endymion could not have happened to 
 the king of Elis. The myth transfers Endymion to 
 Karia. to Mount Latmos, because it was in the Lat- 
 mian cave that Selene saw the beautiful sleeper, loved 
 him and lost him. Now about the meaning of Selene,
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 79 
 
 there can be no doubt ; but even if tradition had only 
 preserved her other name, Asterodia, we should have 
 had to translate this synonym, as Moon, as " Wan- 
 derer among the stars." But who is Endymion ? It 
 is one of the many names of the sun, but with special 
 reference to the setting or dying sun. It is derived 
 from evSuw, a verb which, in classical Greek, is never 
 used for setting, because the simple verb Svo> had be- 
 come the technical term for sunset. Avowal fjXwv, the 
 setting of the sun, is opposed to di^aroAat, the rising. 
 Now, Su'w meant originally, to dive into ; and expres- 
 sions like ^eXtos S' ap' e'Sv, the sun dived, presuppose an 
 earlier conception of ISv TroVrov, he dived into the 
 sea. Thus Thetis addresses her companions (" II." 
 xviii. 140) : 
 
 ' Yjieis fjiev vvv Svre 0aAa<rcn(; evpe'a K^An-ov. 
 
 " You may now dive into the broad bosom of the sea." 
 
 Other dialects, particularly of maritime nations, have 
 the same expression. In Latin we find, 1 " Cur mer- 
 gat seras saquore flammas." In Old Norse, " Sol 
 gengr i segi." Slavonic nations represent the sun as a 
 woman stepping into her bath in the evening, and 
 rising refreshed and purified in the morning ; or they 
 speak of the Sea as the mother of the Sun (the " apam 
 napat"), and of the Sun as sinking into her mother's 
 arms at night. We may suppose, therefore, that in 
 some Greek dialect &8wa was used in the same sense ; 
 and that from ev&via, evSu/m was formed to express sun- 
 set. From this was formed e^Su/uW, 2 like abpavttav from 
 o's, and like most of Ine names of the Greek 
 
 1 Grimm's Deutsche ^[ythologie, p 704. 
 
 a Lauer, in his System of Greek Mythology, explains Endymion as the 
 Diver. Gerhard, in his Greek Mythology, gives, 'EySwfuW as 6 iv 8u>jj <'.
 
 80 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 months. If li'Su/m had become the commonly re- 
 ceived name for sunset, the myth of Endytnion could 
 never have arisen. But the original meaning of Endy- 
 mion being once forgotten, what was told originally of 
 the setting sun was now told of a name, which, in 
 order to have any meaning, had to be changed into a 
 god or a hero. The setting sun once slept in the Lat- 
 mian cave, the cave of night " Latmos " being 
 derived from the same root as " Leto," " Latona," 
 .the night ; but now he sleeps on Mount Latmos, in 
 Karia. Endymion, sinking into eternal sleep after a 
 life of but one day, was once the setting sun, the son 
 of Zeus, the brilliant Sky, and of Kalyke, the cover- 
 ing Night (from KuAvVra)) ; or, according to another 
 saying, of Zeus and Protogeneia, the first-born god- 
 dess, or the Dawn, who is always represented, either 
 as the mother, the sister, or the forsaken wife of the 
 Sun. Now he is the son of a king of Elis, probably 
 for no other reason except that it was usual for kings 
 to take names of good omen, connected with the sun, 
 or the moon, or the stars, in which case a myth, 
 connected with a solar name, would naturally be trans- 
 ferred to its human namesake. In the ancient poetical 
 and proverbial language of Elis, people said "Selene 
 loves and watches Endymion," instead of " it is getting 
 late ; " " Selene embraces Endymion," instead of " the 
 sun is setting and the moon is rising ; " " Selene kisses 
 Endymion into sleep," instead of " it is night." These 
 expressions remained long after their meaning had 
 ceased to be understood ; and as the human mind is 
 generally as anxious for a reason as ready to invent 
 one, a story arose by common consent, and without any 
 personal effort, that Endymion must have been a young
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 81 
 
 lad loved by a young lady, Selene ; and, if children 
 were anxious to know still more, there would always 
 be a grandmother happy to tell them that this young 
 Endymion was the son of the Protogeneia, she half 
 meaning and half not meaning by that name the dawn 
 who gave birth to the sun ; or of Kalyke, the dark and 
 covering Night. This name, once touched, would set 
 many chords vibrating ; three or four different reasons 
 might be given (as they really were given by ancient 
 poets) why Endymion fell into this everlasting sleep, 
 and if any one of these was alluded to by a popular 
 poet, it became a mythological fact, i-epeated by later 
 poets ; so that Endymion grew at last almost into a type, 
 no longer of the setting sun, but of a handsome boy be- 
 loved of a chaste maiden, and therefore a most likely 
 name for a young prince. Many myths have thus been 
 transferred to real persons, by a mere similarity of 
 name, though it must be admitted that there is no his- 
 torical evidence whatsoever that there ever was a 
 prince of Elis, called by the name of Endymion. 
 
 Such is the growth of a legend, originally a mere 
 word, a /j.S0os, probably one of those many words which 
 have but a local currency, and lose their value if they 
 are taken to distant places, words useless for the daily 
 interchange of thought, spurious coins in the hands of 
 the many, yet not thrown away, but preserved as 
 curiosities and ornaments, and deciphered at last by the 
 antiquarian, after the lapse of many centuries. Un- 
 fortunately, we do not possess these legends as they 
 passed originally from mouth to mouth in villages or 
 mountain castles, legends such as Grimm has col- 
 lected in his " Mythology," from the language of the 
 poor people in Germany. We do not know them, as
 
 82 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 they were told by the older members of a family, who 
 spoke a language half intelligible to themselves and 
 strange to their children, or as the poet of a rising city 
 embodied the traditions of his neighborhood in a con- 
 tinuous poem, and gave to them their first form and per- 
 manence. Unless where Homer has preserved a local 
 myth, all is arranged as a system ; with the " Theog- 
 ony " as its beginning, the " Siege of Troy " as its 
 centre, and the " Return of the Heroes " as its end. 
 But how many parts of Greek mythology are never 
 mentioned by Homer ! We then come to Hesiod 
 a moralist and theologian, and again we find but a 
 small segment of the mythological language of Greece. 
 Thus our chief sources are the ancient chroniclers, who 
 took mythology for history, and used of it only so much 
 as answered their purpose. And not even these are 
 preserved to us, but we only believe that they formed 
 the sources from which later writers, such as Apollo- 
 doros and the scholiasts, borrowed their information. 
 The first duty of the mythologist is, therefore, to dis- 
 entangle this cluster, to remove all that is systematic, 
 and to reduce each myth to its primitive unsystematic 
 form. Much that is unessential has to be cut away al- 
 together, and after the rust is removed, we have to de- 
 termine first of all, as with ancient coins, the locality, 
 and, if possible, the age, of each myth, by the charac- 
 ter of its workmanship ; and as we arrange ancient 
 medals into gold, silver, and copper coins, we have to 
 distinguish most carefully between the legends of gods, 
 heroes, and men. If, then, we succeed in deciphering 
 the ancient namos and legends of Greek or any other 
 mythology, we learn that the past which stands before 
 our eyes in Greek mythology, has had its present, that
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 83 
 
 there are traces of organic thought in these petrified 
 relics, and that they once formed the surface of the 
 Greek language. The legend of Endymion was pres- 
 ent at the time when the people of Elis understood 
 the old saying of the Moon (or Selene) rising under 
 the cover of Night (or in the Latmian cave), to see and 
 admire, in silent love, the beauty of the setting Sun, 
 the sleeper Endymion, the son of Zeus, who had 
 gi'anted to him the double boon of eternal sleep and 
 everlasting youth. 
 
 Endymion is not the Sun in the divine character of 
 Phoibos Apollon, but a conception of the Sun in his 
 daily course, as rising early from the womb of Dawn, 
 and after a short and brilliant career, setting in the 
 evening, never to return again to this mortal life. 
 Similar conceptions occur in most mythologies. In 
 Betshuana, an Afiican dialect, " the sun sets " is ex- 
 pressed by "the sun dies." 1 In Aryan mythology the 
 Sun viewed in this light is sometimes represented as 
 divine, yet not immortal ; sometimes as living, but 
 sleeping ; sometimes as a mortal beloved by a goddess, 
 yet tainted by the fate of humanity. Thus, " Titho- 
 nos," a name that has been identified with the Sanskrit 
 u didhyftnaA," a brilliant, expressed originally the idea 
 of the Sun in his daily or yearly character. He also, 
 like Endymion, does not enjoy the full immortality of 
 Zeus and Apollon. Endymion retains his youth, but 
 is doomed to sleep. Tithonos is made immortal, but 
 as Eos forgot to ask for his eternal youth, he pines 
 away as a decrepit old man, in the arms of his ever 
 youthful wife, who loved him when he was young, and 
 
 1 See Pott, Kuhn's Zeitschrifi, vol. ii. p. 109. 
 
 2 See Sonne, " On Charis," in Kuhn's Zeitschrlft, vol. x. p. 178.
 
 84 COMPAEATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 is kind to him in his old age. Other traditions, care- 
 less about contradictions, or ready to solve them some- 
 times by the most atrocious expedients, call Tithonos 
 the son of Eos and Kephalos, as Endymion was the 
 son of Protogeneia, the Dawn ; and this very freedom 
 in handling a myth seems to show, that at first, a 
 Greek knew what it meant if Eos was said to leave 
 every morning the bed of Tithonos. As long as this 
 expression was understood, I should say that the myth 
 was present; it was passed when Tithonos had been 
 changed into a son of Laomedon, a brother of Pria- 
 mos, a prince of Troy. Then the saying, that Eos 
 left his bed in the morning, became mythical, and had 
 none but a conventional or traditional meaning. Then, 
 as Tithonos was a prince of Troy, his son, the Ethio- 
 pian Memnon, had to take part in the Trojan war. 
 And yet how strange ! even then the old myth 
 seems to float through the dim memory of the poet ! 
 for when Eos weeps for her son, the beautiful Mem- 
 non, her tears are called "morning-dew," so that 
 the past may be said to have been still half-present. 
 
 As we have mentioned Kephalos as the beloved of 
 Eos, and the father of Tithonos, we may add, that 
 Kephalos also, like Tithonos and Endymion, was one 
 of the many names of the Sun. Kephalos, however, 
 was the rising sun the head of light, an expression 
 frequently used of the sun in different mythologies. 
 In the Veda, where the sun is addressed as a horse, 
 the head of th^ horse is an expression meaning the 
 risin'g sun. Inus, the poet says (Rv. I. 163, 6), "I 
 have known through my mind thyself when it was 
 still far thee, the bird flying up from below the sky ; 
 I saw a head with wings, toiling on smooth and dust-
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 85 
 
 less paths." The Teutonic nations speak of the sun 
 as the eye of Wuotan, as Hesiod speaks of 
 
 HO.VTO. [Slav Albs btjiOa.\nbs Kai TCO.VTO. voijtras ; 
 
 and they also call the sun the face of their god. 1 In 
 the Veda, again, the sun is called (I. 115, 1) "the 
 face of the gods," or " the face of Aditi " (I. 113, 
 19) ; and it is said that the winds obscure the eye of 
 the sun by showers of rain (V. 59, 5). 
 
 A similar idea led the Greeks to form the name of 
 Kephalos ; and if Kephalos is called the son of Herse 
 the Dew, this patronymic meant the same in 
 mythological language that we should express by the 
 sun rising over dewy fields. What is told of Kepha- 
 los is, that he was the husband of Prokris, that he 
 loved her, and that they vowed to be faithful to one 
 another. But Eos also loves Kephalos ; she tells her 
 love, and Kephalos, true to Prokris, does not accept 
 it. Eos, M'ho knows her rival, replies, that he might 
 remain faithful to Prokris, till Prokris had broken her 
 vo\v. Kephalos accepts the challenge, approaches his 
 wife disguised as a stranger, and gains her love. Pro- 
 kris, discovering her shame, flies to Kreta. Here 
 Diana gives her a dog and a spear, that never miss 
 their aim, and Prokris returns to Kephalos disguised 
 as a huntsman. While hunting with Kephalos, she is 
 asked by him to give him the dog and the spear. She 
 promises to do so only in return for his love, and when 
 he has assented, she discloses herself, and is again 
 accepted by Kephalos. Yet Prokris fears the charms 
 of Eos ; and while jealously watching her husband, 
 she is killed by him unintentionally, by the spear that 
 never misses its aim. 
 
 1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 666.
 
 86 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Before we can explain this myth, which, however, 
 is told with many variations by Greek and Latin poets, 
 we must dissect it, and reduce it to its constituent 
 elements. 
 
 The first is " Kephalos loves Prokris." Prokris we 
 must explain by a reference to Sanskrit, where " prush " 
 and "prish" mean to sprinkle, and are used chiefly 
 with reference to rain-drops. For instance (Rv. I. 
 168, 8) : " The lightnings laugh down upon the earth, 
 when the winds shower forth the rain." 
 
 The same root in the Teutonic languages has taken 
 the sense of " frost ;" and Bopp identifies " prush " 
 with O. H. G. " frus," " frigere." In Greek we must 
 refer to the same root TT/)O>, irpwKos, a dew-drop, and 
 also " Prfikris," the dew. 1 Tims, the wife of Kephalos 
 is only a repetition of Herse, her mother, " Herse," 
 dew, being derived from Sanskrit " vrish," 2 to sprinkle ; 
 
 1 1 see no reason to modify this etymology of " Prokris." " Prish " in 
 Sanskrit means to sprinkle, and '' prishita" occurs in the sense of shower, 
 in " vidyut-stanayitnu-prishiteshu," " during lightning, thunder, and 
 rain," Gobh. 3, 3, 15, where Professor Roth ingeniously, but without ne- 
 cessity, suspects the original reading to have been " prushita." " Prishat," 
 fern. " prishati," means sprinkled, and is applied to a speckled deer, a 
 speckled cow, a speckled horse. "Prishata," too, has the same meaning, 
 but is likewise used in the sense of drops. "Prush," a cognate root, 
 means in Sanskrit to sprinkle, and from it we have " prushva," the rainy 
 season, and " prushva," a drop, but more particularly a frozen drop, or 
 frost. Now, it is perfectly true, that the final sh of "prish" or "prush" 
 is not regularly represented in Greek by a guttural consonant. But we 
 find that in Sanskrit itself the lingual sh of this root varies with the pala- 
 tal s, for instance, in " pris-ni," speckled ; and Professor Curtius has rightly 
 traced the Greek n-epx-vd*, spotted, back to the same root as the Sanskrit 
 " pris-ni," and has clearly established for irpo' and wpoicas, the original 
 meaning of a speckled deer. From the same root, therefore, not only 
 TrpuSf, a dew-drop, but npoie-pis also may be derived, in the sense of dew or 
 hoar-frost, the derivative syllable being the same as in vejS-pi'i, or U-piy, 
 gen. ios or iSos. 
 
 2 This derivation of ep<n), dew, from the Sanskrit root "vrish" has been 
 questioned, because Sanskrit is generally represented in Greek by the
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 87 
 
 " Prokris," dew, from a Sanskrit root " prush," having 
 the same sense. The first part of our myth, therefore, 
 means simply, " the Sun kisses the Morning Dew." 
 
 The second saying is " Eos loves Kephalos." This 
 requires no explanation ; it is the old story, repeated 
 a hundred times in Aryan mythology, " The Dawn 
 loves the Sun." 
 
 The third saying was, " Prokris is faithless ; yet 
 her new lover, though in a different guise, is still the 
 same Kephalos." This we may interpret as a poetical 
 expression for the rays of the sun being reflected in 
 various colors from the dew-drops, so that Prokris 
 may be said to be kissed by many lovers ; yet they 
 are all the same Kephalos, disguised, but at last recog- 
 nized. 
 
 The last saying was, " Prokris is killed by Kepha- 
 los," i. e. the dew is absorbed by the sun. Prokris 
 dies for her love to Kephalos, and he must kill her 
 because he loves her. It is the gradual and inevitable 
 absorption of the dew by the glowing rays of the sun 
 which is expressed, with so much truth, by the uner- 
 ring shaft of Kephalos thrown unintentionally at Pro- 
 kris hidden in the thicket of the forest. 1 
 
 We have only to put these four sayings together, 
 and every poet will at once tell us the story of the 
 love and jealousy of Kephalos, Prokris, and Eos. If 
 
 digamma, or the spiritus lenis. But in Greek we find both tpa-ti and tp<r>) 
 a chancre of frequent occurrence, though difficult to explain. In the same 
 manner the G^eek has la-nap and to-nop, from the root " vid," eo-ria troni a 
 root "vas"; and the AHic peculiarity of aspirating unaspirated initial 
 vowels was well kno'-m even to ancient grammarians (Curtius, Grund- 
 tiige, p 617). Forms like e'p<rrj and depo-a clearly prove the former pres 
 ince of a digamma (Curtius, Grundziiye, p. 509). 
 
 "La rngiada 
 Pugna col sole." Dante, Purgcctorio, i. 121.
 
 88 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 anything was wanted to eoi.f.rm the solar nature of 
 Kephalos, we might point out how the first meeting 
 of Kephalos and Prokris takes place on Mount Hy- 
 mettos, and how Kephalos throws himself afterwards, 
 in despair, into the sea, from the Leukadian mountains. 
 Now, the whole myth belongs to Attika, and here the 
 sun would rise, during the greater part of the year, 
 over Mount Hymettos like a brilliant head. A straight 
 line from this, the most eastern point, to the most 
 western headland of Greece, carries us to the Leuka- 
 dian promontory, and here Kephalos might well be 
 said to have drowned his sorrows in the waves of the 
 ocean. 
 
 Another magnificent sunset looms in the myth of the 
 death of Herakles. His twofold character as a god and 
 as a hero is acknowledged even by Herodotos ; and 
 some of his epithets are sufficient to indicate his solar 
 character, though, perhaps, no name has been made tho 
 vehicle of so many mythological and historical, physical 
 and moral stories, as that of Herakles. Names which 
 he shares with Apollo and Zeus are Aa<v77</>opos, 'AAei- 
 KO.KOS, Mai/Tts, Idaios, 'OAiyMrios, Ilayyet/eTcap. 
 
 Now, in his last journey, Herakles also, like Kepha- 
 los, proceeds from east to west. He is performing his 
 sacrifice to Zeus, on the Kenason promontory of Euboea, 
 when Deianeira (" dasya-nari "= " dasa-patni ") sends 
 him the fatal garment. He then throws Lichas into 
 the sea, who is transformed into the Lichadian islands. 
 From thence Herakles crosses over to Trachys, and 
 then to Mount Oeta, where his pile is raised, and the 
 hero is burnt, rising through the clouds to the seat of 
 the immortal gods himself henceforth immortal and 
 wedded to Hebe, the goddess of youth. The coat
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 89 
 
 which Deianeira sends to the solar hero is an expres- 
 sion frequently used in other mythologies ; it is the coat 
 which in the Veda, "the mothers weave for their 
 bright son," the clouds which rise from the waters and 
 surround the sun like a dark raiment. Herakles tries 
 to tear it off; his fierce splendor breaks through the 
 thickening gloom, but fiery mists embrace him, and 
 are mingled with the parting rays of the sun, and the 
 dying hero is seen through the scattered clouds of the 
 sky, tearing his own body to pieces, till at last his 
 bright form is consumed in a general conflagration, his 
 last-beloved being lole, perhaps the violet-colored 
 evening clouds, a word which, as it reminds us also 
 of ID'S, poison (though the t is long), may perhaps have 
 originated the myth of a poisoned garment. 
 
 In these legends the Greek language supplies almost 
 all that is necessary in order to render these strange 
 stories intelligible and rational, though the later Greeks 
 I mean Homer and Hesiod had certainly in most 
 cases no suspicion of the original import of their own 
 traditions. But as there are Greek words which find 
 no explanation in Greek, and which, without a refer- 
 ence to Sanskrit and the other cognate dialects, would 
 have forever remained to the philologist mere sounds 
 with a conventional meaning, there are also names of 
 gods and heroes inexplicable from a Greek point of 
 view, and which cannot be made to disclose their prim- 
 itive character, unless confronted with contemporary 
 witnesses from India, Persia, Italy, or Germany. An- 
 other myth of the dawn will best explain this : 
 
 " Ahan " in Sanskrit is a name of the day, and is 
 said to stand for " dahan," like " asm," tear, for 
 "dasru," Greek SaK/>v. Whether we have to admit
 
 90 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 an actual loss of this initial d, or whether the d is to 
 oe considered rather as a secondaiy letter, by which 
 the root " ah " was individualized to " dah," is a ques- 
 tion which does not concern us at present. In San- 
 skrit we have the root " dah," which means to burn, 
 and from which a name of the day might have been 
 formed in the same manner as " dyu," day, is formed 
 from " dyu," to be brilliant. Nor does it concern us 
 here, whether the Gothic " daga," nom. " dag-s," day, 
 is the same word or not. According to Grimm's law, 
 "daha," in Sanskrit should in Gothic appear as "taga," 
 and not as " daga." However, there are several roots 
 in which the aspiration aifects either the first or the 
 last letter or both. This would give us " dhah " as a 
 secondary type of " dah," and thus remove the appa- 
 rent irregularity of the Gothic " daga." 1 Bopp seems 
 inclined to consider " daga " and " daha " identical in 
 origin. Certain it is that the same root from which 
 the Teutonic words for day are formed, has also given 
 rise to the name for dawn. In German we say, " der 
 Morgen tagt ; " and in Old English day was " dawe ; " 
 while to dawn was in Anglo-Saxon " dagian." Now, 
 in the Veda, one of the names of the dawn is "AhanaV 
 It occurs only once (Rv. I. 123, 4) : 
 
 " Griham griham A liana yati sJckha, 
 l)\\-f' dive i'ulhi nama dadhana 
 Sfsasanti Dyotana sasvat a agat 
 A'gram agram ft bha^ate vasunam." 
 
 " Ahana (the dawn) comes near to every house, 
 sli 3 who makes every day to be known. 
 
 "Dyotana (the dawn), the active maiden, comes 
 
 1 This change of aspiration has been fully illustrated, and well explained 
 by Grassmann, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. xii. p. 110.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 91 
 
 back for evermore, she enjoys always the first of all 
 goods." 
 
 We have already seen the Dawn in various rela- 
 tions to the Sun, but not yet as the beloved of the Sun, 
 flying before her lover, and destroyed by his embrace. 
 This, however, was a very familiar expression in the 
 old mythological language of the Aryans. The Dawn 
 has died in the arms of the Sun, or the Dawn is fly- 
 ing before the Sun, or the Sun has shattered the car 
 of the Dawn, were expressions meaning simply, the sun 
 has risen, the dawn is gone. Thus, we read in the Rv. 
 IV. 30, in a hymn celebrating the achievements of In- 
 dra, the chief solar deity of the Veda : 
 
 " And this strong and manly deed also thou hast 
 performed, O Indra, that thou struckest the daughter 
 of Dyaus (the Dawn), a woman difficult to vanquish. 
 
 " Yes, even the daughter of Dyaus, the magnified, 
 the Dawn, thou, O Indra, a great hero, hast ground to 
 pieces. 
 
 " The Dawn rushed off from her crushed car, fear- 
 ing that Indra, the bull, might strike her. 
 
 " This her car lay there well ground to pieces ; she 
 went far away." 
 
 In this case, Indra behaves rather unceremoniously 
 to the daughter of the sky ; but, in other places, she is 
 loved by all the bright gods of heaven, not excluding 
 her own father. The Sun, it is said (Rv. I. 115, 2), 
 follows her from behind, as a man follows a woman. 
 " She, the Dawn, whose cart is drawn by white horses, 
 is earned away in triumph by the two Asvins," as the 
 Leukippides are carried off by the Dioskuroi.
 
 92 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 If now we translate, or rather transliterate, " Da- 
 liana " into Greek, Daphne stands before us, and her 
 whole history is intelligible. Daphne is young and 
 beautiful, Apollo loves her, she flies before nim, 
 and dies as he embraces her with his brilliant rays. 
 Or, as another poet of the Veda (X. 189) expresses it, 
 " The Dawn comes near to him, she expires as soon 
 as he begins to breathe, the mighty one irradiates 
 the sky." Any one who has eyes to see and a heart to 
 feel with nature like the poets of old, may still see 
 Dahne and Apollo, the dawn rushing and trembling 
 through the sky, and fading away at the sudden ap- 
 proach of the bright sun. Thus even in so modern a 
 poet as Swift, the old poetry of nature breaks through 
 when, in his address to Lord Harley on his marriage, 
 he writes : 
 
 " So the bright Empress of the Mora 
 Chose for her spouse a mortal born: 
 The Goddess made advances first, 
 Else what aspiring hero durst? 
 Though like a maiden of fifteen 
 She blushes when by mortals seen: 
 Still blushes, and with haste retires 
 When Sol pursues her with his fires." 
 
 The metamorphosis of Daphne into a laurel-tree is a 
 continuation of the myth of peculiarly Greek growth. 
 Daphne, in Greek, meant no longer the dawn, but 
 it had become the name of the laurel. 1 Hence the 
 
 i Professor Curtius admits my explanation of the myth of Daphne as the 
 dawn, but he says, " If we could but see why the dawn is changed into a 
 laurel ! " I have explained before the influence of homonymy in the growth 
 of early myths, and this is only another instance of this influence. The 
 dawn was called Sa^vy, the burning, so was the laurel, as wood that burns 
 easily. Afterward the two, as usual, were supposed to be one, or to have 
 some connection with each other, for how, the people would say, could they 
 have the same name? See Etym. M. p. 250, 20, Sa.v X n6y e^a. CTT o V fuAov; 
 
 Hesych. S*v X uoV eVavoTOi> (-;\ov Sa<j>vr,t (1. evKavvrov $v\ov U'pvyv, Ahrens 
 
 Dial. Grate, ii. 532). Legerlotz, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. vii. p. 292, 
 Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series, p. 602.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 93 
 
 tree Daphne was considered sacred to the lover of 
 Daphne, the dawn, and Daphne herself was fabled to 
 have been changed into a tree when praying to her 
 mother to protect her from the violence of Apollo. 
 
 Without the help of the Veda, the name of Daphne 
 and the legend attached to her, would have remained 
 unintelligible, for the later Sanskrit supplies no key to 
 this name. This shows the value of the Veda for the 
 purpose of comparative mythology, a science which, 
 without the Veda, would have remained mere guess- 
 work, without fixed principles and without a safe 
 basis. 1 
 
 In order to show in how many different ways the same 
 idea may be expressed mythologically, I have confined 
 myself to the names of the dawn. The dawn is really 
 one of the richest sources of Aryan mythology ; and 
 another class of legends, embodying the strife between 
 winter and summer, the return of spring, the revival of 
 nature, is in most languages but a reflection and am- 
 plification of the more ancient stories telling of the strife 
 between night and day, the return of the morn, the 
 revival of the whole world. The stories, again, of solar 
 heroes fighting through a thunder-storm against the 
 powers of darkness, are borrowed from the same 
 source ; and the cows, so frequently alluded to in the 
 Veda, as carried off by Vritra and brought back by 
 Indra, are in reality the same bright cows which the 
 Dawn drives out every morning to their pasture 
 ground ; sometimes the clouds, which, from their heavy 
 udders, send down refreshing and fertilizing rain or 
 
 1 For another development of the same word "Ahana," leading ulti- 
 mately to the myth of Athene, se Lectures on the Science of Language, 
 Second Series, p. 502.
 
 94 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 dew upon the parched eartli ; sometimes the bright 
 days themselves, that seem to step out one by one from 
 the dark stable of the night, and to be carried off from 
 their wide pasture by the dark powers of the West. 
 There is no sight in nature more elevating than the 
 dawn even to us, whom philosophy would wish to teach 
 that nil admirari is the highest wisdom. Yet in ancient 
 times the power of admiring was the greatest blessing 
 bestowed on mankind ; and when could man have ad- 
 mired more intensely, when could his heart have been 
 more gladdened and overpowered with joy, than at the 
 
 approach of 
 
 " the Lord of light, 
 Of life, of love, and gladness ! " 
 
 The darkness of night fills the human heart with 
 despondency and awe, and a feeling of fear and anguish 
 sets every nerve trembling. There is man like a forlorn 
 child, fixing his eye with breathless anxiety upon the 
 East, the womb of day, where the light of the world 
 has flamed up so many times before. As the father 
 waits the birth of his child, so the poet watches the 
 dark heaving Night who is to bring forth her bright son, 
 the sun of the day. The doors of heaven seem slowly to 
 open, and what are called the bright flocks of the Dawn 
 step out of the dark stable, returning to their wonted 
 pastures. Who has not seen the gradual advance of 
 this radiant procession, the heaven like a distant sea 
 tossing its golden waves, when the first rays shoot 
 forth like brilliant horses racing round the whole course 
 of the horizon, when the clouds begin to color up, 
 each shedding her own radiance over her more distant 
 sisters! Not only the east, but the west, and the 
 south, and the north, the whole temple of heaven ia
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 95 
 
 illuminated, and the pious worshipper lights in response 
 his own small light on the altar of his hearth, and stam- 
 mers words which express but faintly the joy that is in 
 nature and in his own throbbing heart : 
 
 *' Rise ! Our life, our spirit has come back ! the dark- 
 ness is gone, the light approaches ! " 
 
 If the people of antiquity called these eternai lights 
 of heaven their gods, their bright ones (" deva "), the 
 Dawn was the first-born among all the gods, Proto- 
 geneia, dearest to man, and always young and fresh. 
 But if not raised to an immortal state, if only admired 
 as a kind being, awakening every morning the children 
 of man, her life would seem to be short. She soon 
 fades away, and dies when the fountain-head of light 
 rises in naked splendor, and sends his first swift glance 
 through the vault of heaven. We cannot realize thai 
 sentiment with which the eye of antiquity dwelt on 
 these sights of nature. To us all is law, order, neces- 
 sity. We calculate the refractory power of the atmos- 
 phere, we measure the possible length of the dawn in 
 every climate, and the rising of the sun is to us nc 
 greater surprise than the birth of a child. But if we 
 could believe again, that there was in the sun a being 
 like our own, that in the dawn there was a soul open 
 to human sympathy, if we could bring ourselves to 
 look for a moment upon these powers as personal, free, 
 and adorable, how different would be our feelings at 
 the blush of day ! That Titanic assurance with which 
 we say, the sun must rise, was unknown to the early 
 worshippers of nature, or if they also began to feel the 
 regularity with which the sun and the other stars per- 
 form their daily labor, they still thought of free beings 
 kept in temporary servitude, chained for a time, and
 
 96 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 bound to obey a higher will, but sure to rise, like 
 Herakles, to a higher glory at the end of their labors. 
 It seems to us childish when we read in the Veda such 
 expressions as, " Will the Sun rise ? " " Will our old 
 friend, the Dawn, come back again ? " " Will tue pow- 
 ers of darkness be conquered by the God of light ? " 
 And when the Sun rose, they wondered how, but just 
 born, he was so mighty, and strangled, as it were, in 
 his cradle, the serpents of the night. They asked how 
 he could walk along the sky ? why there was no dust 
 on his road ? why he did not fall backward ? But at 
 last they greeted him like the poet of our own time, 
 
 " Hail, orient Conqueror of gloomy Night ! " 
 
 and the human eye felt that it could not bear the bril- 
 liant majesty of him whom they call " the Life, the 
 Breath, the brilliant Lord and Father." 
 
 Thus sunrise was the revelation of nature, awaken- 
 ing in the human mind that feeling of dependence, of 
 helplessness, of hope, of joy and faith in higher pow- 
 ers, which is the source of all wisdom, the spring of all 
 religion. But if sunrise inspired the first prayers, 
 called forth the first sacrificial flames, sunset was the 
 other time when, again, the heart of man would trem- 
 ble, and his mind be filled with awful thoughts. The 
 shadows of night approach, the irresistible power of 
 sleep grasps man in the midst of his pleasures, his 
 friends depart, and in his loneliness his thoughts turn 
 avt\\n to higher powers. When the day departs, the 
 poet bewails the untimely death of his bright friend, 
 nay, he sees in his short career the likeness of his own 
 life. Perhaps, when he has fallen asleep, his sun may 
 never rise again, and thus the place to which the set- 
 ting sun withdraws in the far West rises before his
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 97 
 
 mind as the abode where he himself would go after 
 death, where " his fathers went before him," and where 
 all the wise and the pious rejoice in a " new life with 
 Yama and Varuwa." Or he might look upon the sun, 
 not as a short-lived hero, but as young, unchanging, 
 and always the same, while generations after genera- 
 tions of mortal men were passing away. And hence, 
 by the mere force of contrast, the first intimation of 
 beings which do not wither and decay of immortals, 
 of immortality ! Then the poet would implore the 
 immortal sun to come again, to vouchsafe to the sleeper 
 a new morning. The god of day would become the 
 god of time, of life and death. Again, the evening 
 twilight, the sister of the dawn, repeating, though with 
 a more sombre light, the wonders of the morning, how 
 many feelings must it have roused in the musing poet 
 how many poems must it have elicited in the living 
 language of ancient times ! Was it the Dawn that 
 
 O T> 
 
 came again to give a last embrace to him who had 
 parted from her in the morning ? Was she the im- 
 mortal, the always returning goddess, and he the mor- 
 tal, the daily dying sun ? Or was she the mortal, 
 bidding a last farewell to her immortal lover, burnt, as 
 it were, on the same pile which would consume her, 
 while he would rise to the seat of the gods ? 
 
 Let us express these simple scenes in ancient lan- 
 guage, and we shall find ourselves surrounded on every 
 side by mythology full of contradictions and incongru- 
 ities, the same being represented as mortal or immortal, 
 as man or woman, as the poetical eye of man shifts its 
 ,oint of view, and gives its own color to the mysterious 
 play of nature. 
 
 One of the myths of the Veda which expresses this
 
 98 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 correlation of the Dawn and the Sun, this love between 
 the immortal and the mortal, and the identity of the 
 Morning Dawn and the Evening Twilight, is the story 
 of Urvasi and Pururavas. The two names " Urvasi " 
 and " Pururavas," are to the Hindu mere proper names, 
 and even in the Veda their original meaning has almost 
 entirely faded away. There is a dialogue in the Rig- 
 veda between Urvasi and Pururavas, where both ap- 
 pear personified in the same manner as in the play of 
 " Kalidasa." The first point, therefore, which we have 
 to prove is that " Urvasi " was originally an appella- 
 tion, and meant dawn. 
 
 The etymology of " Urvasi " is difficult. It cannot 
 be derived from " urva " by means of the suffix " sa, 1 " 
 because there is no such word as " urva," and because 
 derivatives in " sa," like " romasa," " yuvasa," etc., 
 have the accent on the last syllable. 2 I therefore accept 
 the common Indian explanation by which this name is 
 derived from " uru," wide (eupu), and a root " as," to 
 pervade, and thus compare " uru-asi" with another 
 frequent epithet of the Dawn, " uru&i," the feminine of 
 " uru-a&," far-going. It was certainly one of the most 
 sticking features, and one by which the Dawn was dis- 
 tinguished from all the other dwellers in the heavens, 
 that she occupies the wide expanse of the sky, and that 
 her horses ride, as it were, with the swiftness of thought 
 round the whole horizon. Hence we find that names be- 
 ginning with "uru" in Sanskrit, and with evpv in Greek, 
 are almost invariably old mythological names of the 
 Dawn or the Twilight. The earth also, it is true, 
 
 1 Panini, V. 2, 100. 
 
 2 Other explanations of " Urvai " may be neen in Professor Roth's edition 
 of the Nirukta, and in the Sanskrit Dictionary published by him and Pro- 
 fessor Boehtlingk.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 9$ 
 
 claims this epithet, but in different combinations from 
 those which apply to the bright goddess. Names of 
 the Dawn are Euryphuessa, the mother of Helios ; 
 Eurykyde or Eurypyle, the daughter of Endymion ; 
 Eurymede, the wife of Glaukos ; Eurynome, the mother 
 of the Cliarites ; and Eurydike, the wile of Orpheus, 
 whose character as an ancient god will be discussed 
 hereafter. In the Veda the name of Ushas or Eos is 
 hardly ever mentioned without some allusion to her 
 far and wide-spreading splendor ; such as " urviyS, 
 vibhati," she shines wide ; " urviya vi&kkshe," looking 
 far and wide ; " variyasi," the widest 1 , whereas the light 
 of the Sun is not represented as wide-stretching, but 
 rather as far-darting. 
 
 But there are other indications beside the mere name 
 of Urvasi, which lead ns to suppose that she was orig- 
 inally the goddess of the dawn. " Vasishdia," though 
 best known as the name of one of the chief poets of 
 the Veda, is the superlative of " vasu," bright ; and as 
 such also a name of the Sun. Thus it happens that 
 expressions which apply properly to the sun only, 
 were transferred to the ancient poet. He is called the 
 son of Mitra and Varuwa, night and day, an expression 
 which has a meaning only with regard to Vasishha, 
 the sun ; and as the sun is frequently called the off- 
 
 l The name which approaches nearest to " Urvasi " in Greek might seem 
 tc be "Europe," because the palatal s is occasionally represented by a 
 Greek IT, :is a.sva.='imro<;. The only difficulty is the long <a in Greek; other- 
 wise Europe, carried away by the white bull (" vrishan," man, bull, stal- 
 lion, in the Veda a frequent appellation of the sun, and " sveta." white, 
 applied to the same deity), earned away on his back (the sun being fre- 
 quently represented as behind or below the dawn, see p. U2 and the myth of 
 Eurydike on p. 127); again carried to a distant cave (the gloaming of the 
 evening); and mother of Apollo, the god of daylight, or of Minos (Manu, 
 a mortal Zeus), all this would well agree with the goddess of the dawn.
 
 100 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 spring of the dawn, Vasishdia, the poet, is said to owe 
 his birth to Urvasi (Rv. VII. 33, 11). The pecul- 
 iarity of his birth reminds us strongly of the birth of 
 Aphrodite, as told by Hesiod. 
 
 Again, we find that in the few passages where the 
 name of Urvasi occurs in the Rig-veda, the same attri- 
 butes and actions are ascribed to her which usually be- 
 long to Ushas, the Dawn. 
 
 It is frequently said of Ushas, that she prolongs the 
 life of man, and the same is said of Urvasi (V. 41, 19 ; 
 X. 95, 10). In one passage (Rv. IV. 2, 18) Urvasi is 
 even used as a plural, in the sense of many dawns or 
 days increasing the life of man, which shows that the 
 appellative power of the word was not yet quite for- 
 gotten. Again, she is called " antarikshapra," filling 
 the air, a usual epithet of the sun, ' brihaddiva," with 
 mighty splendor, all indicating the bright presence of 
 the dawn. However, the best proof that " Urvasi " 
 was the dawn is the legend told of her and of her 
 love to Pururavas, a story that is true only of the Sun 
 and the Dawn. That " Pururavas " is an appropriate 
 name of a solar hero requires hardly any proof. " Puru- 
 ravas " meant the same as TroXuSev*?/?, endowed with 
 much light ; for though " rava " is generally used of 
 sound, yet the root " ru," which means originally to 
 cry, is also applied to color, 1 in the sense of a loud or 
 crying color, i. e. red (cf. ruler, rufus, Lith. " rauda," 
 
 i Thus it is said (Rv. VI. 3,6) the fire cries with light, "sofcisha rarapiti;" 
 the two Spartan Charites are called KX,,Td (icArjTa, indutn) and Qaewa, f. t. 
 Clara, clear shining (see Sonne, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. x. p. 363). 
 In the Veda the rising sun is said to cry like a new-born child (Rv. IX. 74 ? 
 1). Professor Kuhn himself has evidently misunderstood my argument. I 
 do not derive " ravas " from "ran," but I only quote "rap" as illustrifc 
 ing the close connection between loudness of sound and brightness of 
 light See also Justi, Orient und Occident, vol. ii. p. 69.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 101 
 
 O. H. G. "rot," "rudhira," e >#pos; also Sanskrit 
 " ravi," sun). Besides, Pururavas calls himself 
 " Vasishdia," which, as we know, is a name of the 
 Sun ; and if he is called " Aida," the son of " Ida," 
 the same name is elsewhere (Rv. III. 29, 3) given to 
 " Agni,'' the fire. 
 
 Now the story, in its most ancient form, is found in 
 the Brahmana of the Ya^ur-veda. There we read : 
 
 " Urvasi, a kind of fairy, fell in love with Pururavas, 
 the son of Irfa, and when she met him, she said : 
 ' Embrace me three times a day, but never against 
 my will, and let me never see you without your royal 
 garments, for this is the manner of women.' In this 
 manner she lived with him a long time, and she was 
 with child. Then her former friends, the Gandhar- 
 vas, said : ' This Urvasi has now dwelt a long time 
 among mortals : let us see that she come back.' Now, 
 
 O ' ' 
 
 there was a ewe, with two lambs, tied to the couch of 
 Urvasi and Pururavas, and the Gandharvas stole one 
 of them. Urvasi said : ' They take away my darling, 
 as if I lived in a land where there is no hero and no 
 man.' They stole the second, and she upbraided her 
 husband again. Then Pururavas looked and said : 
 ' How can that be a land without heroes or men where 
 I am ? ' And naktd, he sprang up ; he thought it too 
 long to put on his dress. Then the Gandharvas sent a 
 flash of lightning, and Urvasi saw her husband naked 
 as by daylight. Then she vanished ; ' I come back,' 
 she said and went. Then he bewailed his vanished 
 love in bitter grief ; and went near Kurukshetra. 
 There is a lake there, called " AnyataAplaksha," full 
 of lotus flowers, and while the king walked along its 
 border, the fairies were playing there in the water, in
 
 102 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 the shape of birds. And Urvasi discovered him, and 
 said : 
 
 " ' That is the man with whom I dwelt so long.' 
 Then her friends said : ' Let us appear to him.' She 
 agreed, and they appeared before him. Then the king 
 recognized her and said : 
 
 " ' Lo ! my wife ! stay, thou cruel in mind ! let us 
 now exchange some words ! Our secrets, if they are 
 not told now, will not bring us luck on any later day.' 
 
 " She replied : ' What shall I do with thy speech ? 
 I am gone like the first of the dawns. Pururavas, go 
 home again ! I am hard to be caught, like the wind.' 
 
 " He said, in despair : ' Then may thy former friend 
 now fall down, never to rise again ; may he go far, far 
 away ! May he lie down on the threshold of death, 
 and may rabid wolves there devour him ! ' 
 
 " She replied : ' Pururavas, do not die ! do not fall 
 down ! let not evil wolves devour thee ! there is no 
 friendship with women, their hearts are the hearts of 
 wolves. When I walked among mortals under a clif- 
 
 O 
 
 f'erent form when I dwelt with thee, four nights of 
 the autumn, I ate once a day a small piece of butter 
 and even now I feel pleasure from it.' 
 
 " Thus, at last, her heart melted, and she said : 
 ' Come to me the last night of the year, and thou shalt 
 be with me for one night, and a son will be born to 
 thee.' He went the last night of the year to the 
 golden seats, and while he was alone, he was told to 
 go up, and then they sent Urvast to him. Then she 
 saii: 'The Gandharvas will to-morrow grant thee a 
 wish ; choose! ' He said: ' Choose thou for me.' She 
 replied : ' Say to them, let me be one of you.' Early 
 the next morn, the Gandharvas gave him his choice :
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 103 
 
 but when he said ' Let me be one of you,' they said : 
 ' That kind of sacred fire is not yet known among men, 
 by which lie could perform a sacrifice, and become one 
 of ourselves.' They then initiated Pururavas in the 
 mysteries of a certain sacrifice, and when he had per- 
 formed it, he became himself one of the Gandharvas." 
 This is the simple story, told in the Brahmarm, and 
 it is told there in order to show the importance of a 
 peculiar rite, the rite of kindling the fire by friction, 
 whicn is represented as the one by which Pururavas 
 obtained immortality. 1 The verses quoted in the story 
 are taken from the Rig-veda, where we find, in the 
 last book, together with many strange relics of popular 
 poetry, a dialogue between the two celestial lovers. 
 It consists of seventeen verses, while the author of the 
 Brahmawa knew only fifteen. In one of the verses 
 which he quotes, Urvasi says, " I am gone forever, 
 like the first of the dawns," which shows a strange 
 glimmering of the old myth in the mind of the poet, 
 and reminds us of the tears which the mother of Mem- 
 non shed over the corpse of her son, and which even 
 by later poets are called morning dew. Again, in the 
 fourth verse, Urvasi addressing herself, says : " This 
 person (that is to say I), when she was wedded to 
 him, O Dawn ! she went to his house, and was em- 
 braced by him day and night." Again, she tells Puru- 
 ravas that he was created by the gods in order to slay 
 the powers of darkness (" dasyuhatyaya"), a task in- 
 variably ascribed to Indra and other solar beings. 
 
 1 A most interesting and ingenious explanation of this ceremony is given 
 by Professor Kuhn, in his Essay, Die Hernbknnft, dt-s Feuers, p. 79. The 
 application of that ceremony to the old myth of Urvasi and Puriiiavas be- 
 longs clearly to a later age: it is an after-thought that could only arise with 
 people who wished to find a symbolical significance in every act of their 
 traditional ritual.
 
 104 COlrfPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Even the names of the companions of Urvasi point to 
 the dawn, and Pururavas says : 
 
 " When I, the mortal, threw my arms around those 
 flighty immortals, they trembled away from me like a 
 trembling doe, like horses that kick against the cart." 
 
 No goddess is so frequently called the friend of man 
 as the Dawn. " She goes to every house " (I. 123, 
 4) ; " she thinks of the dwelling of man " (I. 123, 
 1) ; " she does not despise the small or the great " (I. 
 124, 6) ; " she brings wealth " (I. 48, 1) ; " she is 
 always the same, immortal, divine " (I. 124, 4; 1. 123, 
 8) ; " she does not grow old " (I. 113, 15) ; " she is 
 the young goddess, but she makes man grow old " (I. 
 92, 11). Thus Pururavas called Urvasi "the im- 
 mortal among the mortals ; " and, in his last verse, he 
 addressed his beloved in the following words : 
 
 O 
 
 " I, the brightest Sun, I hold Urvasi, her who fills 
 the air (with light), who spreads the sky. May the 
 blessing of thy kind deed be upon thee ! Come back, 
 the heart burns me." 
 
 Then the poet says : 
 
 "Thus the gods spake to thee, O son of Idsi; in 
 order that thou, bound to death, mayest grow to be 
 this (immortal), thy race should worship the gods with 
 oblations ! Then thou also wilt rejoice in heaven." 
 
 We must certainly admit, that even in the Veda, 
 the poets were as ignorant of the original meaning r>f 
 Urvasi and Pururavas as Homer was of Tithoncs, if 
 not of Eos. To them they were heroes, indefinite be- 
 jngs, men yet not men, gods yet not gods. But to us, 
 though placed at a much greater distance, they disclose 
 their true meaning. As Wordsworth says : 
 
 " Not unrejoiced, I see thee climb the sky 
 In naked splendor, clear from mist and haze **
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 105 
 
 Antiquity spoke of the naked Sun, and of the chaste 
 Dawn hiding her face when she had seen her husband. 
 Yet she says she will come again. And after the Sim 
 has travelled through the world in search of his be- 
 
 O 
 
 loved, when becomes to the threshold of death, and ?a 
 going to end his solitary life, she appears again in the 
 gloaming, the same as the dawn, as Eos in Homer 
 begins and ends the day, and she carries him away 
 to the golden seats of the immortals. 1 
 
 I have selected this myth chiefly in order to show 
 how ancient poetry is only the faint echo of ancient 
 language, and how it was the simple story of nature 
 which inspired the early poet, and held before his mind 
 that deep mirror in which he might see reflected the 
 passions of his own soul. For the heart of man, as 
 long as it knows but, its own bitterness, is silent and 
 sullen. It does not tell its love and its loss. There 
 may be a mute poetry in solitary grief, but " Mnemos- 
 yne," the musing goddess of recollection, is not a 
 muse herself, though she is the mother of the Muses. 
 It is the sympathy with the grief of others which first 
 gives utterance to the poet's grief, and opens the lips of 
 a silent despair. And if his pain was too deep and 
 too sacred, if he could not compare it to the suffering 
 of any other human heart, the ancient poet had still 
 the heart of nature to commune with, and in her silent 
 suffering he saw a noble likeness of what he felt and 
 
 O 
 
 suffered within himself. When, after a dark night, 
 the light of the day returned, he thought of his own 
 light that would never rise again. When he saw the 
 
 1 Od. V. 390. dAX' ore JT) rpirOv )?M a P euwAdicojxo? Te'Aecr' 'H<i?. For different 
 
 explanations of this and similar verses, see Volcker, ijbtr komeritche Geo- 
 graphic und Weltkundt, Hannover, 1830, p. 31.
 
 106 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Sun kissing the Dawn, he dreamt of days and joys 
 gone forever. And when the Dawn trembled, and 
 grew pale, and departed, and when the Sun seemed to 
 look for her, and to lose her the more his brilliant eye 
 sought her. an image would rise in his mind, and lie 
 would remember his own fate and yet forget it, while 
 tellino 1 in measured words the love and loss of the Sun. 
 
 ~ 
 
 Such was the origin of poetry. Nor was the evening 
 without its charms. And when, at the end of a dreary 
 day, the Sun seemed to die away in the far West, still 
 looking for his Eastern bride, and suddenly the heavens 
 opened, and the glorious image of the Dawn rose again, 
 her beauty deepened by a gloaming sadness would 
 not the poet gaze till the last ray had vanished, and 
 would not the last vanishing ray linger in his heart, 
 and kindle there a hope of another life, where he would 
 find again what he had loved and lost on earth ? 
 
 " There is a radiant, though a short-lived flame, 
 
 That burns i'or poets in the dawning east; 
 And oft my soul has kindled at the same, 
 When the captivity of sleep had ceased." 
 
 There is much suffering in nature to those who have 
 eyes for silent grief, and it is this tragedy the tragedy 
 of nature which is the life-spring of all the tragedies 
 of the ancient world. The idea of a young hero, 
 whether he is called " Baldr," or " Sigurd." or 
 "Sifrit," or "Achilles," or " Meleager," or " Kepha- 
 los," dying in the fullness of youth, a story so fre- 
 quently told, localized, and individualized, was first 
 suggested by the Sun, dying in all his youthful vigor, 
 either at the end of a day, conquered by the powers 
 of darkness, or at the end of the sunny season, stung 
 by the thorn of Winter. Again, that fatal spell by
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 107 
 
 which these sunny heroes must leave their first love, 
 become unfaithful to her or she to them, was borrowed 
 from nature. The fate of these solar heroes was inevi- 
 table, and it was their lot to die by the hand or by the 
 unwilling treachery of their nearest friends or relatives. 
 The Sun forsakes the Dawn, and dies at the end of the 
 day according to an inexorable fate, and bewailed oy 
 the whole of nature. Or the Sun is the Sun of Spring, 
 who woos the Earth, and then forsakes his bride and 
 grows cold, and is killed at last by the thorn of Winter. 
 It is an old story, but it is forever new in the mythol- 
 ogy and the legends of the ancient world. Thus 
 
 O/ O 
 
 Baldr, in the Scandinavian " Edda," the divine proto- 
 type of Sigurd and Sifrit, is beloved by the whole world. 
 Gods and men, the whole of nature, all that grows and 
 lives, had sworn to his mother not to hurt the bright 
 hero. The mistletoe alone, that does not grow on the 
 earth, but on trees, had been forgotten, and with it 
 Baldr is killed at the winter solstice : 
 
 " So on the floor lay Balder, dead; and round 
 Lay thickly strewn, swords, axes, darts, and spears, 
 Which all the gods in sport had idly thrown 
 At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clove : 
 But in his breast stood fixt the fatal bough 
 Of mistletoe, which Lok, the accuser, gave 
 To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw: 
 'Gainst that alone had Balder's life no charm." 
 
 Thus Isfendiyar, in the Persian epic, cannot be 
 wounded by any weapon, yet it is his fate to be killed 
 by a thorn, which, as an arrow, is thrown into his eye 
 by Rustem. Rustem, again, can only be killed by his 
 brother ; Herakles, by the mistaken kindness of his 
 wife ; Sifrit, by the anxious solicitude of Kriemhilt, or 
 by the jealousy of Brunhilt, whom he had forsaken. 
 He is vulnerable in one spot only, like AcluTes, and it
 
 108 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 is there where Hagene (the thorn) strikes him. All 
 these are fragments of solar myths. The whole of 
 nature was divided into two realms the one dark, 
 cold, wintry, and deathlike, the other bright, warm, 
 vernal, and full of life. Sigurd, as the solar hero is 
 called in the " Edda," the descendant of Odin, slays 
 the serpent Fafhir, and conquers the treasure on which 
 Andvari, the dwarf, had pronounced his curse. This 
 is the treasure of the Niflungs or Nibelungs, the treas- 
 ure of the earth, which the nebulous powers of winter 
 and darkness had carried away like robbers. The ver- 
 nal sun wins it back, and like Demeter, rich in the 
 possession of her restored daughter, the earth becomes 
 for a time rich with all the treasures of spring. 1 He 
 then, according to the " Edda," delivers Brynhild, who 
 had been doomed to a magic sleep after being wounded 
 with a thorn by Odin, but who is now, like the spring 
 after the sleep of winter, brought back to new life by 
 the love of Sigurd. But he, the lord of the treasure 
 (" vasupati"), is driven onward by his fate. He 
 plights his troth to Brynhild, and gives her the fatal 
 ring he had taken from the treasure. But he must 
 leave her, and when he arrives at the castle of Gunnar, 
 Gunnar's wife, Grimhild, makes him forget Brynhild, 
 and he marries her daughter, Gudrun. Already his 
 course begins to decline. He is bound to Gunnar, 
 nay, he must conquer for him his own former bride, 
 Brynhild, whom Gunnar now marries. Gunnar Gju- 
 kason seems to signify darkness, and thus we see that 
 
 1 Cf. Rig-veda V. 47, 1: " Prayuiitfatf divaA eti bruvana mahi matft 
 Juhitu/t bodhayanti, avivasanti yuvati/j manislia pitribbyaA a ?adane 
 yoliuvana." On "mahi ma.t&"=Afagna Mater, see Grassmann, in Kuhn's 
 Zeitsctirift, vol. xvi. p. 169. " Duhitur bodhayanti," inquiring for or find- 
 ing her daughter
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 109 
 
 the awakening and budding spring is gone, carried 
 away by Gunnar, like Proserpina by Pluto ; like SitS 
 by Ravarca. Gudrun, the daughter of Grimhild, and 
 sometimes herself called Grimhild, whether the latter 
 name meant summer (cf. " gharma " in Sanskrit) or, 
 the earth and nature in the latter part of the year, is a 
 sister of the dark Gunnar, and though now married to 
 the bright Sigurd, she belongs herself to the nebulous 
 regions. Gunnar, who has forced Sigurd to yield him 
 Brynhild, is now planning the death of his kinsman, 
 because Brynhild has discovered in Sigurd her former 
 lover, and must have her revenge. Hogni dissuades 
 his brother Gunnar from the murder ; but at last the 
 third brother Hodr, stabs Sigurd while he is asleep at 
 the winter solstice. Brynhild has always loved him, 
 and when her hero is killed she distributes the treasure, 
 and is burnt, like Nanna, on the same pile with Sigurd, 
 a sword being placed between the two lovers. Gu- 
 drun also bewails the death of her husband, but she 
 forgets him, and marries Atli, the brother of Brynhild. 
 Atli now claims the treasure from Gunnar and Hogni, 
 by right of his wife, and when they refuse to give it 
 up, he invites them to his house, and makes them pris- 
 oners. Gunnar still refuses to reveal the spot where 
 the treasure is buried till he sees the heart of Hogni, 
 his brother. A heart is brought him, but it quivers, 
 and he says, " This is not the heart of my brother." 
 The real heart of Hogni is brought at last, and Gunnar 
 says, " Now I alone know where the treasure lies, and 
 *-he Rhine shall rather have it than I will give it up to 
 thee." He is then bound by Atli, and thrown among 
 serpents. But even the serpents he charms by play- 
 ing on the harp with his teeth, till at last one viper 
 crawls up to him, an4 kills him.
 
 110 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 How much has this myth been changed, when we 
 find it again in the poem of the " Nibelunge " as it was 
 written down at the end of the twelfth century in Ger- 
 many ! All the heroes are Christians, and have been 
 mixed up with historical persons of the fourth, fifth, 
 and sixth centuries. Gunther is localized in Burgundy, 
 where we know that, in 435, a Gundicarius or Gun- 
 dalmrius happened to be a real king, the same who, ac- 
 cording to Cassiodorus, was vanquished first by Aetius, 
 and afterwards by the Huns of Attila. Hence Atli, 
 the brother of Brynhild, and the second husband of 
 Gudrun (or Kriemhilt), is identified with Attila, the 
 king of the Huns (453) ; nay, even the brother of At- 
 tila, Bleda, is brought in as Blodelin, the first who 
 attacked the Burgundians, and was killed by Dankwart. 
 Other historical persons were drawn into the vortex of 
 the popular story, persons for whom there is no prece- 
 dent at all in the " Edda." Thus we find in the " Ni- 
 belunge " Dietrich von Bern, who is no other but The- 
 odoric the Great (455525), who conquered Odoacer 
 in the battle of Ravenna (the famous Rabenschlacht), 
 and lived at Verona, in German, Bern. Irenfried, 
 again, introduced in the poem as the Landgrave of 
 Thuringia, has been discovered to be Hermanfried, 
 the king of Thuringia, married to Amalaberg, the 
 niece of Theodoric. The most extraordinary coinci- 
 dence, however, is that by which Sigurd, the lover of 
 Brynhild, has been identified with Siegbert, king of 
 Austrasia from 561 to 575, who was actually married 
 to the famous Brunehault. who actually defeated the 
 Huns, and was actual lv murdered under the most trao- 
 
 O 
 
 ical circumstances by Fredegond, the mistress of his 
 brother Chilperic. This coincidence between myth
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. Ill 
 
 and history is so great, that it has induced some euh em- 
 eristic critics to derive the whole legend of the " Ni- 
 
 O 
 
 belunge " from Austrasian history, and to make the 
 murder of Siegbert by Brunehault the basis of the 
 murder of Sifrit or Sigurd by Brynhild. Fortunately, 
 it is easier to answer these German than the old Greek 
 euhemerists, for we find in contemporary history that 
 Jorriandes, who wrote his history at least twenty years 
 before the death of the Austrasian Siegbert, knew 
 already the daughter of the mythic Sigurd, Swanhild, 
 who was born, according to the " Edda," after the 
 murder of his father, and afterwards killed by Jormun- 
 rek, whom the poem has again historicized in Herman- 
 ricus, a Gothic king of the fourth century. 
 
 Let us now apply to the Greek myths what we have 
 learned from the gradual growth of the German myth. 
 There are evidently historical facts round which the 
 myth of Herakles has crystallized, only we cannot sub- 
 stantiate them so clearly as in the myth of the " Nibe- 
 lunge," because we have there no contemporaneous 
 historical documents. Yet as the chief Herakles is 
 represented as belonging to the royal family of Argos, 
 there may have been a Herakles, perhaps the son of a 
 king called Amphitryo, whose descendants, after a tem- 
 porary exile, reconquered that part of Greece which 
 had formerly been under the sway of Herakles. The 
 traditions of the miraculous birth, of many of his heroic 
 adventures, and of his death, were as little based on 
 historical facts as the legends of Sifrit. In Herakles 
 killing the Chimaera and similar monsters, we see the 
 reflected image of the Delphian Apollo killing the 
 worm, or of Zeus, the god of the brilliant sky, with 
 whom Herakles shares in common the names of Idteos,
 
 112 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Olympics, and Pangenetor. As the myth of Sigurd 
 and Gunnar throws its last broken rays on the kings 
 of Burgundy, and on Attila and Theodoric, the myth 
 of the solar Herakles was realized in some semi-his- 
 torical prince of Argos and Mykenae. Herakles may 
 have been the name of the national god of the Hera- 
 klidas, and this would explain the enmity of Here, 
 whose worship flourished in Argos before the Dorian 
 immigration. What was formerly told of a god was 
 transferred to Herakles, the leader of the Heraklidae, 
 the worshippers or sons of Herakles, while, at the same 
 time, many local and historical facts connected with the 
 Heraklida3 and their leaders may have been worked up 
 with the myth of the divine hero. The idea of Hera- 
 kles being, as it were, the bond-servant of Eurystheus, 
 is of solar origin it is the idea of the sun fettered to 
 his work, and toiling for men, his inferiors in strength 
 and virtue. 1 Thus Sifrit is toiling for Gunther, and 
 even Apollo is for one year the slave of Laomedon 
 pregnant expressions, necessitated by the absence of 
 more abstract verbs, and familiar even to modern 
 poets : 
 
 " As aptly suits therewith that modest pace 
 
 Submitted to the chains 
 That bind thee to the path which God ordaina 
 
 That thou shouldst trace." 
 
 
 
 The later growth of epic and tragical poetry may 
 be Greek, or Indian, or Teutonic ; it may take the dif- 
 
 1 The Peruvian Inca, Yupanqui, denied the pretension of the sun to Se 
 tne doer of all things, for if he were free, he would go and visit other parts 
 of the heavens where he had never been. " He is," said the Inca, " like a tied 
 beast who goes ever round and round in the same track." Gdrciltso de la 
 Vega, part I. viii. 8. Acosta, Historia del Nuevo Oibe, cap.v. Tylor, Early 
 History of Mankind, p. 343. Brinton, The Myths of tiie New World, p. 
 55.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 113 
 
 fereut colors of the different skies, the different warmth 
 of the different climes ; nay, it may attract and absorb 
 much that is accidental and historical. But if we cut 
 into it and analyze it, the blood that runs through all 
 the ancient poetry is the same blood ; it is the ancient 
 mythical speech. The atmosphere in which the early 
 poetry of the Aryans grew up was mythological, it wa. 
 impregnated with something that could not be resisted 
 by those who breathed in it. It was like the siren 
 voice of the modern rhyme, which has suggested so 
 many common ideas to poets writing in a common 
 language. 
 
 We know what Greek and Teutonic poets have made 
 of their epic heroes ; let us see now whether the 
 swarthy Hindu has been able to throw an equally beau 
 tiful haze around the names of his mythical traditions. 
 
 The story of the loves of Pururavas and Urvasi has 
 frequently been told by Hindu poets. We find it in 
 their epic poems, in their Purawas, and in the Brihat- 
 katha, the " Great Story," a collection of the popular 
 legends of India. It has suffered many changes, yet 
 even in Kalidasa's 1 play, of which I shall give a 
 short abstract, we recognize the distant background, 
 and we may admire the skill with which this poet has 
 breathed new life and human feeling into the withered 
 names of a language long forgotten. 
 
 The first act opens with a scene in the Himalaya 
 mountains. The nymphs of heaven, on returning from 
 an assembly of the gods, have been attacked, and are 
 
 1 Professor Wilson has given the first and really beautiful translation of 
 this play in his Hindu Theatre. The original was published first at Cal- 
 cutta, and has since been reprinted several times. The best edition is that 
 published by Professor Bollensen. 
 VQt H
 
 114 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 mourning over the loss of Urvasi, who has been carried 
 
 O 7 
 
 off by a demon. King Pururavas enters on his chariot, 
 and on hearing the cause of their grief, hastens to the 
 rescue of the nymph. He soon returns, after having 
 vanquished the robber, and restores Urvasi to her 
 heavenly companions. But while he is carrying the 
 nymph back to her friends in his chariot, he falls in 
 love with her and she with him. He describes how he 
 saw her slowly recovering from her terror : 
 
 " She recovers, though but faintly. 
 So gently steals the moon upon the night, 
 Retiring tardily; so peeps the flame 
 Of coming fires through smoky wreaths; and thus 
 The Ganges slowly clears her troubled wave, 
 Engulfs the ruin that the crumbling bank 
 Has hurled across her agitated course, 
 And flows a clear and stately stream again." 
 
 When they part, Urvasi wishes to turn round once 
 more to see Pururavas. She pretends that " a strag- 
 gling vine has caught her garland," and while feigning 
 to disengage herself, she calls one of her friends to help 
 her. Her friend replies, 
 
 " No easy task, I fear: you seem entangled 
 Too fast to be set free : but, come what may, 
 Depend upon my friendship." 
 
 The eye of the king then meets that of Urvasi, and he 
 exclaims, 
 
 " A thousand thanks, dear plant, to whose kind aid 
 I owe another instant, and behold 
 But for a moment, and imperfectly, 
 Those half-averted charms." 
 
 In the second act we meet the king at Allahabad, 
 
 o * 
 
 his residence. He walks in the garden of the palace, 
 accompanied by a Brahman, who acts the part of the 
 gracioso in the Indian drama. He is the confidential
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 115 
 
 companion of the king, and knows his love for Urvasi. 
 But lie is so afraid of betraying what must remain a 
 secret to everybody at court, and in particular to the 
 queen, that he hides himself in a retired temple. 
 There a female servant of the queen discovers him, 
 and u as a secret can no more rest in his breast than 
 morning dew upon the grass," she soon finds out from 
 him why the king is so changed since his return from 
 the battle with the demon, and carries the tale to the 
 queen. In the mean time, the king is in despair, and 
 pours out his grief, 
 
 " Like one contending with the stream, 
 And still borne backwards by the current's force." 
 
 But Urvasi also is sighing for Pururavas, and we sud- 
 denly see her, with her friend, descending through the 
 air to meet the king. Both are at first invisible to 
 him, and listen to the confession of his love. Then 
 Urvasi writes a verse on a birch-leaf, and lets it fall 
 near the bower where her beloved reclines. Next, 
 her friend becomes visible ; and, at last, Urvasi her- 
 self is introduced to the king. After a few moments, 
 however, both Urvasi and her friend are called back 
 by a messenger of the gods, and Pururavas is left 
 alone with his jester. He looks for the leaf on which 
 Urvasi had first disclosed her love, but it is lost, car- 
 ried away by the wind : 
 
 " Bree/.e of the south, the friend of love and spring, 
 Though from the flower you steal the fragrant down 
 To scatter perfume, yet wh_v plunder me 
 Of these dear characters, her own fair hand, 
 In proof of her affection, traced ? Thou knowest, 
 The lonely lover that in absence pines, 
 Lives on such fond memorials-" 
 
 But worse than this, the leaf is picked up by the
 
 116 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 queen, who comes to look for the king in the garden. 
 There is a scene of matrimonial upbraiding, and, after 
 a while, her majesty goes off in a hurry, like a river in 
 the rainy season. The king is doubly miserable, for 
 though he loves Urvasi, he acknowledges a respectful 
 deference for his queen. At last he retires : 
 
 " 'Tis past midday: exhausted by the heat, 
 The peacock plunges in the scanty pool 
 That feeds the tall tree's root; the drowsy bee 
 Sleeps in the hollow chamber of the lotus, 
 Darkened with closing petals; on the brink 
 Of the now tepid lake the wild duck lurks 
 Amongst the sedgy shades ; and, even here, 
 The parrot from his wiry bower complains, 
 And calls for water to allay his thirst." 
 
 At the beginning of the third act we are first in- 
 formed of what befell Urvasi, when she was recalled 
 to Indra's heaven. She had to act before Indra hei 
 part was that of the goddess of beauty, who selects 
 Vislmu for her husband. One of the names of Vishnu 
 is Purushottama, and poor Urvasi, when called upon 
 to confess whom she loves, forgetting the part she has 
 to act, says, " I love Pururavas," instead of " I love 
 Purushottama." The author of the play was so much 
 exasperated by this mistake, that he pronounced a 
 curse upon Urvasi, that she should lose her divine 
 knowledge. But when the performance was over, 
 Indra observing her as she stood apart, ashamed and 
 disconsolate, called her. The mortal who engrossed 
 her thoughts, he said, had been his friend in the hours 
 of peril ; he had aided him in conflict with the enemies 
 of the gods, and was entitled to his acknowledgments. 
 She must, accordingly, repair to the monarch, and re- 
 main with him " till he beholds the offspring she shall 
 bear him."
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 117 
 
 A second scene opens, in the garden of the palace. 
 The king has been engaged in the business of the 
 state, and retires as the evening approaches : 
 
 " So ends the day, the anxious cares of state 
 Have left no interval for private sorrow. 
 But how to pass the night? its dreary length 
 Affords no promise of relief." 
 
 A messenger arrives from the queen, apprising his 
 majesty that she desires to see him on the terrace of 
 the pavilion. The king obeys and ascends the crys- 
 tal steps while the moon is just about to rise, and the 
 east is tinged with red. 
 
 "King. 'Tis even so; illumined by the rays 
 
 Of his yet unseen orb, the evening gloom 
 On either hand retires, and in the midst 
 The horizon glows, like a fair face that smiles 
 Betwixt the jetty curls on either brow 
 In clusters pendulous. I could gaze forever." 
 
 As he is waiting for the queen, his desire for Urvai is 
 awakened again : 
 
 " In truth, my fond desire 
 Becomes more fervid as enjoyment seems 
 Remote, and fresh impediments obstruct 
 My happiness like an impetuous torrent, 
 That, checked by adverse rocks, awhile delays 
 Its course, till high with chafing waters swollen 
 It rushes past with aggravated fury. 
 As spreads the moon its lustre, so my love 
 Grows with advancing night." 
 
 On a sudden Urvasi enters on a heavenly car, accom- 
 panied by her friend. They are invisible again, and 
 listen to the king; but the moment that Urvasi is 
 about to withdraw her veil, the queen appears. She 
 is dressed in white, without any ornaments ; and comes 
 to propitiate her husband, by taking a vow. 
 
 " King. In truth she pleases me. Thus chastely robed 
 In modest white, her clustering tresses decked
 
 118 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 With sacred flowers alone, her haughty mien 
 Exchanged for meek devotion: thus arrayed 
 She moves with heightened charms. 
 
 " Queen. My gracious lord, I would perform a rite, 
 
 Of which you are the object, and must beg yon 
 Bear with the inconvenience that my presence 
 May for brief time occasion you. 
 
 " King. You do me wrong ; your presence is a favor, 
 . . . . Yet trust me, it is needless 
 To wear this tender form, as slight and delicate 
 As the lithe lot us stem, with rude austerity. 
 In me behold your slave, whom to propitiate 
 Claims not your care, your favor is his happiness. 
 
 ' Queen. Not vain my vow, since it already wins me 
 My lord's complacent speech." 
 
 Then the queen performs her solemn vow ; she calls 
 upon the god of the moon 
 
 " Hear, and attest 
 
 The sacred promise that I make my husband! 
 Whatever nymph attract my lord's regard, 
 And shaie with him the mutual bonds of love, 
 I henceforth treat with kindness and complacency." 
 
 "JTie Brahman, the confidential friend of the king, (apart to Purftravas). 
 The culprit that escapes before his hand is cut off determines never to 
 run such a risk again. (Aloud.) What then; is his majesty indifferent to 
 rour grace ? 
 
 " Queen. Wise sir, how think you, to promote his happiness 
 I have resigned my own. Does such a purpose 
 Prove him no longer dear to me? 
 
 " King. I am not what you doubt me ; but the power 
 Abides with you; do with me as you will. 
 Give me to whom you please, or if you please, 
 Retain me still your slave. 
 
 * Queen. Be what you list; 
 
 My vow is plighted nor in vain the rite, 
 If it afford you satisfaction. Come 
 Hence, girls ; 'tis time we take our leave. 
 
 " King. Not so : 
 
 So soon to leave me is no mark of favor. 
 
 '* Queen. You must excuse me; I may not forego 
 The duties I have solemnlv incurred."
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 119 
 
 It does not bring out the character of the kino; under 
 a very favorable light, that this scene of matrimonial 
 reconciliation, when the queen acts a part which we 
 should hardly expect on an oriental stage, should be 
 followed immediately by the apparition of Urvasi. 
 She has been present, though invisible, during the pre- 
 ceding conversation between him and his queen, and 
 she now advances behind the king, and covers his eyes 
 with her hands. 
 
 " It must be Urvasi (the king says); 
 No other hand could shed such ecstasy 
 Through this emaciate frame. The solar ray 
 Wakes not the night's fair blossom; that alone 
 Expands when conscious of the moon's dear presence." J 
 
 Urvasi takes the resignation of the queen in good 
 earnest, and claims the king as granted her by right. 
 Her friend takes leave, and she now remains with 
 Pururavas as his beloved wife. 
 
 " Urvasi. I lament 
 
 I caused my lord to suffer pain so long. 
 
 " King. Nay, say not so ! The joy that follows grief 
 Gains richer zest from agony foregone. 
 The traveller who, faint, pursues his track 
 In the fierce day alone can tell how sweet 
 The grateful shelter of the friendly tree." 
 
 The next act .is the gem of the whole play, though 
 it is very difficult to imagine how it was performed 
 without a mise en scene such as our modern theatres 
 would hardly be able to afford. It is a melo-dramatic 
 intermezzo, very different in style from the rest of the 
 play. It is all in poetry, and in the most perfect and 
 
 1 This refers to a very well-known legend. There, is one lofus which 
 expands its flower at the approach of the sun and closes them during night: 
 while another, the beloved of the moon, expands them during night and 
 closes them during day-time. We have a similar myth of the daisy, the 
 Anglo-Saxon "dseges cage," day's eye, Wordsworth's darling.
 
 120 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 highly elaborate metres. Besides, it is not written in 
 Sanskrit, but in Prakrit, the lingua vulgaris of India, 
 poorer in form, but more melodious in sound than 
 Sanskrit. Some of the verses are like airs to be per- 
 formed by a chorus, but the stage directions which are 
 given in the MSS. are so technical as to make their 
 exact interpretation extremely difficult. 
 
 We first have a chorus of nymphs, deploring the 
 fate of Urvasi. She had been living with the king in 
 the groves of a forest, in undisturbed happiness. 
 
 " Whilst wandering pleasantly along the brink 
 Of the Mandakinf, a nymph of air, 
 Who gamboled on its sandy shore, attracted 
 The monarch's momentary glance, and this 
 Aroused the jealous wrath of Urvasi. 
 Thus incensed 
 
 She heedlessly forgot the law that bars 
 All female access from the hateful groves 
 Of Kartikeya. Trespassing the bounds 
 Proscribed, she suffers now the penalty 
 Of her transgression, and, to a slender vine 
 Transformed, there pines till time shall set her free.' 
 
 Mournful strains are heard in the air 
 
 " Soft voices low sound in the sky, 
 
 Where the nymphs a companion deplore, 
 And lament, as together they fly, 
 The friend they encounter no more. 
 
 " So sad and melodious awakes 
 
 The plaint of the swan o'er the stream 
 Where the red lotus blossoms, as breaks 
 On the wave the day's orient beam. 
 
 11 Amidst the lake where the lotus, shining, 
 
 Its flowers unfold to the sunny beam. 
 The swan, for her lost companion pining, 
 Swims sad and slow o'er the lonely stream." 
 
 The king now enters, his features expressing insanity 
 his dress disordered. The scene represents a wild 
 forest, clouds gathering overhead, elephants, deer, pea-
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 121 
 
 cocks, and swans are seen. Here are rocks and water- 
 falls, lightning and rain. The king first rushes fran- 
 tically after a cloud which he mistakes for a demon 
 that carried away his bride. 
 
 " Hold, treacherous fiend; suspend thy flight forbear: 
 Ah! whither wouldst thou bear my beauteous bride? 
 'And now his arrows sting me; thick as hail, 
 From yonder peak, whose sharp top pierces heaven, 
 They shower upon me. 
 
 [Rushes forward as to the attack, then pauses, and lookt 
 upwards. 
 
 It is DO demon, but a friendly cloud, 
 
 No hostile quiver, but the bow of Indra; 
 
 The cooling rain-drops fall, not barbed shafts, 
 
 And I mistake the lightning for my love." 
 
 These raving strains are interrupted by airs, bewail 
 ing the fate of the separated lovers ; but it is impossi- 
 ble to give an id^a of the real beauty of the whole, 
 without much fuller extracts than we are able to give. 
 The following passages may suffice : 
 
 " Ah me ! whatever I behold but aggravates 
 My woe. These bright and pendulous flowers, 
 Surcharged with dew, resemble those dear eyes, 
 Glistening with starting tears. How shall I leara 
 If she have passed this way ? " 
 
 He addresses various birds, and asks them whether 
 they have seen his love : the peacock, " the bird of 
 the dark blue throat and eye of jet," the cuckoo, 
 " whom lovers deem Love's messenger," the swans, 
 " who are sailing northward, and whose elegant gait 
 betrays that they have seen her," the " tfakravaka," 
 " a bird who, during the night, is himself separated from 
 his mate," but none give answer. Neither he, nor 
 the bees who murmur amidst the petals of the lotus, 
 nor the royal elephant, that reclines with his mate ui) 
 der the kadamba-tree, has seen the lost one.
 
 122 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 u King. From his companion he accepts the hough 
 
 Her trunk has snapped from the balm-breathing hee- 
 How rich with teeming shoots and juicy fragrance. 
 He crushes it. 
 
 Deep on the mountain's breast 
 A yawning chasm appears such shades are ever 
 Haunts of the nymphs of air and earth. Perchance, 
 My Urvasl now lurks within the grotto, 
 In cool seclusion. I will enter. All 
 Is utter darkness. Would the lightning's flash ' 
 Now blaze to guide me No, the cloud disdains 
 Such is my fate perverse to shed for me 
 Its many-channeled radiance. Be it so. 
 I will retire but first the rock address. 
 
 " With horny hoofs and a resolute breast, 
 The boar through the thicket stalks; 
 
 He ploughs up the ground, as he plies his quest 
 In the forest's gloomiest walks. 
 
 Say, mountain, whose expansive slope confines 
 The forest verge, O tell me, hast thou seen 
 A nymph, as beauteous as the bride of love, 
 Mounting, with slender frame, thy steep ascent, 
 Or, wearied, resting in thy crowning woods? 
 How ! no reply 't remote, he hears me not, 
 I will approach him nearer. 
 
 Air. 
 
 " From the crystal summits the glistening spring* 
 
 Rush down the flowery sides, 
 And the spirit of heaven delightedly sings, 
 
 As among the peaks he hides. 
 Say, mountain so favored, have the feet 
 Of my fair one pressed this calm retreat? 
 
 * Now, by my hopes, he answers ! He has seen her: 
 Where is she ? say. Alas ! again deceived. 
 Alone I hear the echo of my words, 
 As round the cavern's hollow mouth they roll, 
 And multiplied return. Ah, Urvasi ! 
 Fatigue has overcome me. I will rest 
 Upon the borders of this mountain torrent, 
 And gather vigor from the breeze that gleans 
 Refreshing coolness from its gelid waves. 

 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 123 
 
 Whilst gazing on the stream whose new swoln waters 
 
 Yet turbid flow, what strange imaginings 
 
 Possess my soul, and fill it with delight. 
 
 The rippling wave is like her arching brow; 
 
 The fluttering line of storks, her timid tongue; 
 
 The foamy spray, her white loose floating robe; 
 
 And this meandering course the current tracks, 
 
 Her undulating gait. All these recall 
 
 My soon-offended love. I must appease her .... 
 
 I'll back to where my love first disappeared. 
 
 Yonder the black deer couchant lies; of him 
 
 I will inquire. 0, antelope, behold .... 
 
 How ! he averts his gaze, as if disdaining 
 
 To hear my suit ! Ah no, he, anxious, marks 
 
 His doe approach him ; tardily she comes, 
 
 Her frolic fawn impeding her advance." 
 
 At last the king finds a gem, of ruddy radiance ; it 
 is the gem of union, which, by its mighty spell, should 
 restore Urvasi to her lover. He holds it in his hands, 
 and embraces the vine, which is now transformed into 
 Urvasi. The gem is placed on Urvasi's forehead, and 
 the king and his heavenly queen return to Allahabad. 
 
 " Yonder cloud 
 
 Shall be onr downy car, to waft us swift 
 And lightly on our way; the lightning's wave 
 Its glittering banners; and the bow of Indra (the rainbow) 
 Hangs as its overarching canopy 
 Of variegated and resplendent hues." 
 
 [Exeunt on the cloud. Music. 
 
 The fifth and last act begins with an unlucky inci- 
 dent. A hawk has borne away the ruby of reunion. 
 Orders are sent to shoot the thief, and, after a short 
 pause, a forester brings the jewel and the arrow by 
 which the hawk was killed. An inscription is discov- 
 ered on the shaft, which states that it belonged to 
 Ayus, the son of Urvasi and Pururavas. The king is 
 not aware that Urvasi has ever borne him a son ; but 
 while he is still wondering, a female ascetic enters,
 
 124 COMPARATIVE B1YTHOLOGY. 
 
 leading a boy with a bow in his hand. It is Ayus, the 
 son of Urvasi, whom his mother confided to the pious 
 Tfyavana, who educated him in the forest, and now 
 sends him back to his mother. The king soon recog- 
 nizes Ayus as his son. Urvasi also comes to embrace 
 him : 
 
 " Her gaze intent 
 
 Is fixed upon him, and her heaving bosom 
 Has rent its veiling scarf." 
 
 But why has she concealed the birth of this child ? 
 and why is she now suddenly bursting into tears? 
 She tells the king herself, 
 
 " When for your love I gladly left the courts 
 Of heaven, the monarch thus declared his will: 
 ' Go, and be happy with the prince, my friend; 
 But when he views the son that thou shall bear him, 
 Then hitherward direct thy prompt return.' . . . 
 The. fated term expires, and to console 
 His father for my loss, he is restored. 
 I may no longer tarry. 
 
 "King. The tree that languished in the summer's blaze 
 Puts forth, reviving, as young rain descends, 
 Its leafy shoots, when lo! the lightning bursts 
 Fierce on its top, and fells it to the ground. 
 
 " Urvasi. But what remains for me ? my task on earth 
 
 Fulfilled. Once gone, the king will soon forget me. 
 
 "King. Dearest, not so. It is no grateful task 
 
 To tear our memory from those we love. 
 
 But we must bow to power supreme ; do you 
 
 Obey your lord; for me, I will resign 
 
 My throne to this my son, and with the deer 
 
 Will henceforth mourn amidst the lonely woods." 
 
 Preparations are made for the inauguration of the 
 young king, when a new deus ex machina appears 
 Narada, the messenger of Indra. 
 
 "Meuenger. May your days be many ! King, attend : 
 The mighty Indra, to whom all is known, 
 By me thus intimates his high commands.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 125 
 
 Forego your purpose of ascetic sorrow, 
 And Urvasi shall be through life united 
 With thee in holy bonds." 
 
 After this all concludes happily. Nymphs descend 
 from heaven with a golden vase containing the water 
 of the heavenly Ganges, a throne, and other parapher- 
 nalia, which they arrange. The prince is inaugurated 
 as partner of the empire, and all go together to pay 
 their homage to the queen, who had so generously 
 resigned her rights in favor of Urvasi, the heavenly 
 nymph. 
 
 Here, then, we have the full flower whose stem we 
 trace through the Puranas and the Mahabharatatothe 
 Brali ma Has and the Veda, while the seed lies buried 
 deep in that fertile stratum of language from which all 
 the Aryan dialects draw their strength and nourish- 
 ment. Mr. Carlyle had seen deep into the very heart 
 of mythology when he said, " Thus, though tradition 
 may have but one root, it grows, like a banian, into a 
 whole overarching labyrinth of trees." The root of 
 all the stories of Pururavas and Urvasi were short 
 proverbial expressions, of which ancient dialects are 
 so fond. Thus : " Urvasi loves Pururavas," meant 
 c ' the sun rises ; " " Urvasi sees Pururavas naked," 
 meant " the dawn is gone ; " " Urvasi finds Pururavas 
 again," meant " the sun is setting." The names of 
 Pururavas and Urvasi are of Indian growth, and we 
 cannot expect to find them identically the same in 
 other Aryan dialects. But the same ideas pervade 
 the mythological language of Greece. There one of 
 the many names of the dawn was Euiydike (p. 102). 
 The name of her husband is, like many Greek words, 
 inexplicable, but Orpheus is the same word as the
 
 126 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 Sanskrit "Zfcbhu" or "Arbliu," which, though it x 
 best known as the name of the three Tfibhus, was used 
 in the Veda as an epithet of Indra, and a name of the 
 sun. The old story then, was this : " TSurydike is 
 bitten by a serpent (i. e. by the night), she dies, and 
 descends into the lower regions. Orpheus follows her, 
 and obtains from the gods that his wife should follow 
 him if he promised not to look back. Orpheus prom- 
 ises, ascends from the dark world below ; Eurydike 
 is behind him as he rises, but, drawn by doubt or by 
 love, he looks round ; the first ray of the sun glances 
 at the dawn, and the dawn fades away." There 
 may have been an old poet of the name of Orpheus, 
 for old poets delight in solar names ; but, whether 
 he existed or not, certain it is, that the story of Or- 
 pheus and Eurydike was neither borrowed from a real 
 event, nor invented without provocation. In India 
 also, the myth of the Tftbhus has taken a local and 
 historical coloring by a mere similarity of names. A 
 man, or a tribe of the name of Bribu (Rv. VI. 45, 
 31-33). * was admitted into the Brahmanic community. 
 They were carpenters, and had evidently rendered 
 material assistance to the family of a Vedic chief, 
 Bharadvax/a. As they had no Vaidik gods, the JsJib- 
 hus were made over to them, and many things were 
 ascribed to these gods which originally applied only to 
 the mortal Bribus. These historical realities will never 
 yield to a mythological analysis, while the truly myth- 
 ological answers at once if we only know how to test 
 it. There is a grammar by which that ancient dialect 
 can be retranslated into the common language of the 
 Aryans. 
 
 1 This explains the passage in Manu X. 107, and shows how it ought to 
 be corrected.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 127 
 
 J must come to a close ; but it is difficult to leaA 3 a 
 subject in which, as in an arch, each stone by itself 
 threatens to fall, while the whole arch would stand the 
 strongest pressure. One myth more. We have seen 
 how the sun and the dawn have suggested so many 
 expressions of love, that we may well ask, did the 
 Aryan nations, previous to their separation, know the 
 most ancient of the gods, the god of love ? Was Eros 
 known at that distant period of awakening history, and 
 what was meant by the name by which the Aryans 
 called him ? The common etymology derives " Eros " 
 from a Sanskrit root, " vri " or " var," which means to 
 choose, to select, 
 
 Now, if the name of love had first been coined in 
 our ball-rooms, such an etymology might be defensible, 
 but surely the idea of weighing, comparing, and pru- 
 dently choosing could not have struck a strong and 
 genuine heart as the most prominent feature of love. 
 Let us imagine, as well as we can, the healthy and 
 strong feelings of a youthful race of men, free to fol- 
 low the call of their hearts, unfettered by the rules 
 and prejudices of a refined society, and controlled only 
 by those laws which Nature and the Graces have en- 
 graved on every human heart. Let us imagine such 
 hearts suddenly lighted up by love, by a feeling of 
 which they knew not either whence it came and 
 whither it would carry them ; an impulse they did 
 . ot even know how to name. If they wanted a name 
 for it, where could they look ? Was not love to them 
 like an awakening from sle^p ? Was it not like a 
 morn radiating with heavenly splendor over their souls, 
 pervading their hearts with a glowing warmth, purify- 
 ing their whole being like a fresh breeze, and illuminat-
 
 128 COMPARATIVE MYTIIOLOGY. 
 
 ing the whole world around them with a new light ? 
 If it was so, there was but one name by which they 
 could express love, there was but one similitude for 
 the roseate bloom that betrays the dawn of love it 
 was the blush of the day, the rising of the sun. " The 
 sun has risen," they said, where we say, " I love ; " 
 " The sun has set," they said, where we say, " I have 
 loved." 
 
 And this, which we might have guessed, if we could 
 but throw off the fetters of our own language, is fully 
 confirmed by an analysis of ancient speech. The name 
 of the dawn in Sanskrit is " ushas," the Greek "Eu>?, 
 both feminine. But the Veda knows also a masculine 
 dawn, or rather a dawning sun (" Agni aushasya," 
 'Ewo;) an d m this sense Ushas might be supposed to 
 have taken in Greek the form ofEpws. S is frequently 
 changed into r. In Sanskrit it is a general rule that * 
 followed by a media becomes r. In Greek we have 
 the Lakonic forms in np instead of os (Ahrens, " D. D." 
 8) ; in Latin an r between two vowels often exists in 
 ancient inscriptions under the more original form of 8 
 (,/sa = ara). The very word " ushas " has in Latin 
 taken the form of aurora, which is derived from an 
 intermediate auros, auroris, like^ora, from flos, floris. 
 
 But, however plausible such analogies may seem, it 
 is only throwing dust in our eyes if comparative philol- 
 ogists imagine they can establish in this manner the 
 transition of a Sanskrit sh into a Greek r. No, what- 
 ever analogies other dialects may exhibit, no Sanskrit 
 sh between two vowels has ever as yet been proved 
 to be represented by a Greek r. Therefore Eros 
 cannot be Ushas. 
 
 And yet the name of Eros was originally that of the
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 129 
 
 dawning sun. The Sun in the Veda is frequently 
 called the runner, the quick racer, or simply the horse, 
 while in the more humanized mythology of Greece, and 
 also in many parts of the Veda, he is represented as 
 standing on his cart, which in the Veda is drawn by 
 two, seven, or ten horses, while in Greek we also have 
 the quadriga : 
 
 "tiplia.ro. (lev ra.Se Xo/xwpa TfOpiirtriav 
 'HXtof rj5j Xa/x7rei card yr^v 
 
 These horses are called " haritas ; " they are al- 
 ways feminine. They are called " bhadras," happy or 
 joyful (I. 115, 3) ; " Aritras," many-colored (I. 115, 
 8) ; " ghrita&is " and " ghritasn&s," bathed in dew (IV. 
 6, 9) ; " svan&as," with beautiful steps ; " vitaprish- 
 <7ias," with lovely backs (V. 45, 10). Thus we read : 
 
 Rv. IX. 63, 9. " The Sun has yoked the ten Harits 
 for his journey." 
 
 Rv. I. 50, 8. " The seven Harits bring thee, O 
 bright Sun, on thy cart." 
 
 Rv. IV. 13, 3. " The seven Harits bring him, the 
 Sun, the spy of the world." 
 
 In other passages, however, they take a more human 
 form, and as the Dawn which is sometimes called sim- 
 ply " asva," the mare, is well known by the name of 
 the sister, these Harits also are called the Seven Sisters 
 (VII. 66, 15) ; and in one passage (IX. 86, 37) they 
 appear as " the Harits with beautiful wings." After 
 this I need hardly say that we have here the prototype 
 of the Grecian " Charites." 1 
 
 I should like to follow the track which this recogni- 
 tion of the Charites, as the Sanskrit " Haritas," opens 
 
 1 This point has been more fully discussed in the Second Series of my 
 Lectures on the Science of Language, p. 368. 
 VOL. ii. 9
 
 130 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 to comparative mythology ; but I must return to Eros, 
 in whose company they so frequently appear. If, ac- 
 cording to the laws which regulate the metamorphosis 
 of common Aryan words adopted in Greek or Sanskrit, 
 we try to transliterate ^ows into Sanskrit, we find that 
 its derivative suffix cos, wros, is the same as the termina- 
 tion of the participle of the perfect. This termination 
 is commonly represented in Sanskrit by " vas," nom. 
 masc. "van," fern, "ushi," neut. "vat," and this, though 
 very different grammatically, may etymologically bo 
 considered as a modified form of the originally possessive 
 suffix " vat," nom. masc. " van," fern. " vati," neut. 
 " vat." There being no short e in Sanskrit, and a Greek 
 p corresponding to a Sanskrit r, Ipws, Ipwros, if it existed 
 at all in Sanskrit, would have had the form of " ar-vas," 
 nom. " arvan," gen. " arushas." Now it is true that we 
 do not find in Sanskrit " ar-van," gen. " ar-ushas," with 
 any meaning that approaches the Greek epeo?. But we 
 find " ar-vat," gen. " ar-vatas," which in the later 
 Sanskrit means a horse, and which in the Veda has re- 
 tained traces of its radical power, and still displays the 
 sense of quick, running, vehement. This very word 
 is applied to the Sun, so that in some passages it stands 
 as the name of the Sun, while in others it is used as a 
 substantive, meaning horse or rider. Thus, through 
 the irresistible influence of the synonymous character 
 of ancient language, and without any poetical effort on 
 the part of the speaker, those who spoke of the sun as 
 " arvat," spoke and thought at the same time of a horse 
 or rider. The word " arvat," though intended only to 
 express the rapid sun, set other ideas vibrating which 
 gradually changed the sun into a horse or a horseman.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 131 
 
 " Arvat " means simply horse in passages like I. 91, 
 20: 
 
 " Tlie god Soma gives us the cow ; Soma gives us 
 the quick horse ; Soma gives a strong son." 
 
 It means horseman or runner (Rv. I. 152, 5) : 
 
 " The rider is born without a horse, without a 
 bridle." 
 
 The rider who is meant here is the rising sun, and 
 there is a whole hymn addressed to the sun as a horse. 
 Nay, the growth of language and thought is so quick 
 that in the Veda the myth turns, so to speak, back 
 upon itself; and one of the poets (I. 163, 2) praises 
 the bright Vasus, because " out of the sun they have 
 wrought a horse." Thus " arvat " becomes by itself, 
 without any adjective or explanation, the name for sun, 
 like " surya," " aditya," or any other of his old titles. 
 Rv. I. 163, 3, the poet tells the sun, " Thou, O Arvat 
 (horse), art Aditya " (the sun) ; and (VI. 12, 6), 
 Agni, or the fire of the sun, is invoked by the same 
 name : " Thou, O Arvat, keep us from evil report ! O 
 Agni, lighted with all the fires ! thou givest treasures, 
 thou sendest away all evils ; let us live happy for hun- 
 dred winters ; let us have good offspring." 
 
 Before we can show how the threads of this name of 
 the sun in India enter into the first woof of the god of 
 love in Greece, we have still to observe that sometimes 
 the horses, i. e. the rays of the sun, are called not only 
 " haritas," but " rohitas " (or " rohitas ") and " aru- 
 shis" (or "arusha's"). Rv. I. 14, 12: " Yoke the 
 A'rushis to thy cart, O bright Agni ! the Harfts, the 
 Roh its ! with them bring the gods to us ! " These 
 
 O O 
 
 names may have been originally mere adjectives,
 
 132 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 meaning red, bright, or brown, 1 but they soon grew 
 into names of certain animals belonging to certain 
 gods, according to their different color and character. 
 Thus we read : 
 
 Rv. II. 10, 2. " He?r thou, the brilliant Agni, my 
 prayer ; whether the two black horses (* syava. ') 
 bring thy cart, or the two ruddy (' rohita '), or the 
 two red horses (' arusha ')." 
 
 And again : 
 
 Rv. VII. 42, 2. " Yoke the Harits and the Rohits, 
 or the Arushas which are in thy stable." 
 
 " A'rushi," by itself, is also used for cow ; for in- 
 stance (VIII. 55, 3), where a poet says that lie has re- 
 ceived four hundred cows (" arushmam &atuA-satrn "). 
 These " arushis," or bright cows, belong more particu- 
 larly to the Dawn, and instead of saying " the day 
 dawns," the old poets of the Veda say frequently, " the 
 bright cows return " (Rv. I. 92, 1). We found that 
 the Harits were sometimes changed into seven sisters, 
 and thus the A'ruslns also, originally the bright cows, 
 underwent the same metamorphosis : 
 
 Rv. X. 5, 5. " He brought the Seven Sisters, the 
 A'rushis (the bright cows) ; " or (X. 8, 3), " When 
 the sun flew up, the A'rushis refreshed their bodies in 
 the water." 
 
 Sanskrit scholars need hardly be told that this " aru- 
 sln " is in reality the feminine of a form " arvas," nom. 
 " arvan," gen. " arushas," while " arvati " is the fem- 
 inine of " ar-vat," nom. " aiva," gen. " arvatas." A"! 
 
 1 " Po ; ch6 1'altro mattin la bella Aurora 
 
 L'aer seren fe bianco e rosso e giallo." Ariosto, xxi : i. 52. 
 " SI, che le bianche e le vermiglie guance, 
 La dove io era, della bella Aurora, 
 Per troppa etate divenivan ranee." Dante, Purgatorio, iL 7.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 133 
 
 " vidva'n," knowing, forms its feminine " vidiishi " 
 (" &ikitva'n," " &ikitushi "), so " arva(w) " leads to 
 " arushi," a form which fully explains the formation of 
 the feminine of the past participle in Greek. This may 
 be shown by the following equation : vidva'n : vidushi= 
 etSws : ddvla. This feminine a arushi " is important for 
 our purpose, because it throws new light on the forma- 
 tion of another word, namely, "arusha," a masculine, 
 meaning bright or red, and in the Veda a frequent 
 epithet of the sun. " Arusha," gen. " asya," follows 
 the weak declension, and " arushi " is by Sanskrit 
 grammarians considered as the regular feminine of 
 " arusha." " Arusha," as compared with the parti- 
 cipial form " ar-vas," is formed like Sta/cropys, ou, instead 
 of StaKTwp, opos; like Latin vasum, i, instead of vas, 
 vasis; like Prakrit " &aranteshu," instead of " &arat- 
 su ; " like Modern Greek -f/ VVKTOL, instead of ^ vv. 
 
 This " arusha," as applied in the Veda to bright and 
 solar deities, brings us as near to the Greek Eros as 
 we can expect. It is used in the sense of bright : 
 
 Rv. VII. 75, 6. " The red bright horses are seen 
 brino-ing to us the brilliant Dawn." 
 
 O O 
 
 The horses 1 of Indra, of Agni, of Brihaspati, as quick 
 as the wind, and as bright as suns, who lick the udder 
 of the dark cow, the Night, are called " arusha ; " the 
 smoke which rises from the burning sun at daybreak, 
 the limbs of the Sun with which he climbs the sky, the 
 thunderbolt which Indra throws, the fire which is seen 
 by day and by night, all are called " arusha." " He 
 who fills heaven and earth with light, who runs across 
 
 1 " Arusha, si voisin d'Aruwa (cocher du soleil), et d'Arus (le soleil), st 
 retrouve en Zend sous la forme d'Aurusha (dont Anquetil fait Eorosh, 
 1'oiseau). les che\ aux qui trament Serosh." Burnouf, Bhagavata-Purana 
 p. LXXIX.
 
 J34 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 the darkness along the sky, who is seen aniuiig the 
 black cows of the night," he is called " arusha" or the 
 bright hero ("arusho vrisha"). 
 
 But this bright solar hero, whether Agni 1 or Surya, 
 is in the Veda, as in Greek mythology, represented 'as 
 a child. 
 
 Rv. III. 1, 4. " The Seven Sisters have nursed him, 
 the joyful, the white one, as he was born, the red one 
 (Arusha), by growth ; the horses came as to a foal that 
 is born ; the gods brought up Agni when he was 
 born." 
 
 " Arusha " is applied to the young sun in the Veda ; 
 the sun who drives away the dark night, and sends his 
 first ray to awaken the world : 
 
 Rv. VII. 71, 1. " Night goes away from her sister, 
 the Dawn ; the dark one opens the path for Arusha." 
 
 Though in some of his names there is an uninten- 
 tional allusion to his animal character, he soon takes a 
 purely human form. He is called " Nri&akshas " (III. 
 15, 3), " having the eyes of a man ; '\ and even his 
 wings, as Grimm 2 will be glad to learn, have begun 
 to grow in the Veda, where once, at least (V. 47, 3), 
 he is called "ArushaA suparwas," " the bright sun with 
 beautiful wings : " 
 
 Tov 8' TJTOt 6vr\ro\ ijsv 'Epiara KaXoOffi TOTr)i>OK> 
 'Audcaroi 8e Uripiara, Sia. nrepiyjiVTOp dvaymjv. 
 
 As Eros is the child of Zeus, Arusha is called th 
 child of Dyaus (" Diva^ sisus "). 
 
 Rv. IV. 15, 6. " Him, the god Agni, they adorn 
 and purify every day . like a strong horse, like Ar- 
 usha (the bright sun), the child of Dyaus (heaven)." 
 
 1 How the god Kama was grafted on Agni, may be seen from later pas- 
 sages in the Atharva-veda, the Taittiriya-sanhita, and some of the Grihyir 
 B&tras. Indische Studien, vol. v. pp. 224-226. 
 
 a See Jacob Grimm's Essay on the God of Love.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 135 
 
 Rv. VI. 49, 2. " Let us worship Agni, the child of 
 Dyaus, the son of strength, Arusha, the bright light of 
 the sacrifice." 
 
 This deity is the first of the gods, for he comes (V. 
 1, 5) " agre ahnam," " at the point of the days ; " 
 " ushasam agre " (VII. 8, 1 ; X. 45, 5) " at the be- 
 ginning of the dawns ; " but in one passage two daugh- 
 ters are ascribed to him, different in appearance, the 
 one decked with the stars, the other brilliant by the 
 light of the sun, Day and Night, who are elsewhere 
 called the daughters of the Sun. As the god of love, 
 in the Greek sense of the word, Arusha does not oc- 
 cur, neither has love, as a mere feeling, been deified in 
 the Veda under any name. Kama, who is the god of 
 love in the later Sanskrit, never occurs in the Veda 
 with personal or divine attributes, except in one pas- 
 sage of the tenth book, and here love is rather repre- 
 sented as a power of creation than as a personal being. 
 But there is one other passage in the Veda, where 
 " Kama," love, is clearly applied to the rising sun. The 
 whole hymn (II. 38, 6) is addressed to Savitar, the 
 sun. It is said, " He rises as a mighty flame, he 
 stretches out his wide arms, he is even like the wind. 
 When he stops his horses, all activity ceases, and the 
 night follows in his track. But before the Night 
 has half finished her weaving, the sun rises again. 
 Then Agni goes to all men and to all houses ; his 
 light is powerful, and his mother, the Dawn, gives 
 him the best share, the first worship among men.' 
 Then the poet goes on : 
 
 He came back with wide strides, longing for vic- 
 tory ; the love of all men came near. The eternal ap- 
 proached, leaving the work (of Night) half-done ; he 
 followed the command of the heavenly Savitar."
 
 136 COMPAKATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 " The love of all men," may mean he who is loved 
 by all men, or who grants their wishes to all men ; yet 
 I do not ihink it is hy accident that "Kama," love, is 
 thus applied to the rising sun. 
 
 Even in the latest traditions of the Puranas, the 
 original solar character of the god of love, the beloved 
 of the Dawn, was not quite forgotten. For we find 
 that one of the names given to the son of Kama, to 
 Aniruddha, the irresistible (dviKaros /xaxav),is Ushapati, 
 the lord of the Dawn. 
 
 If we place clearly before our mind all the ideas and 
 allusions which have clustered round the names of "Ar- 
 vat " and "Arusha " in the Veda, the various myths told 
 of Eros, which at first seem so contradictory, become 
 perfectly intelligible. He is in Hesiod the oldest of the 
 gods, born when there exist as yet only Chaos and Earth. 
 Here we have " Arusha born at the beginning of all 
 the days." He is the youngest of the gods, the son of 
 Zeus, the friend of the Charites, also the son of the 
 chief Charis, Aphrodite, in whom we can hardly fail to 
 discover a female Eros (an " Usha " instead of an 
 "Agni aushasya "). Every one of these myths finds its 
 key in the Veda. Eros or Arusha is the rising sun, 
 and hence the child, the son of Dyaus ; he yokes the 
 Hants, and is, if not the son, 1 at least the beloved of 
 the dawn. Besides, in Greek mythology also, Eros 
 has many fathers and many mothers ; and one j air of 
 parents given him by Sappho, Heaven and Earth, 
 is identical with his Vaidik parents, Dyaus and Ida". 2 
 
 1 Cf. Maxim. Tyr, XXIV. rbv "Epwra tf>7jeriv >} Aiort'iua rw ~S.iaKpa.rei ov 
 
 naiSa, <iXX' dK6\o'>6cv T>)J 'Ar/ipoJmjs, al OepdirovTa flvat. See Preller, Greek 
 Mythology, p. 238. 
 
 2 The objections raised by Professor Curtius ( GrtmcMge der Griechi* 
 chen Etymologie, p. 114) against the common origin of pu>? and " arvat "
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 137 
 
 India, however, is not Greece ; and though we may 
 trace the germs and roots of Greek words and Greek 
 
 deserve careful attention. " How can we separate "Epws," he says, " from 
 epo?, epa/uoi, epa<i, eparos, epa-reivo?, and other words, all of ancient date, an<? 
 even Homeric? They cannot have sprung from the name efpws, and if w 
 suppose that they sprang from the same root r, to which we have to assign 
 the sense of going, running, striving, epo? would mean striving, or desire 
 and it would be difficult to prove that the cognate "Epu? started from the 
 mean ing of horse, or solar horse, which in Sanskrit was assigned to ' arvat.'" 
 Professor Curtius then proceeds to urge the same objections against the ety- 
 mology of Charis: "'For what shall we do," he says, "with x a P> x a 'P a> 
 X<ipi'<foiu<u, xapi'eis? " With regard to Charis, I may refer to the explanations 
 which I have given in the Second Series of my Lectures, page 368, where 
 I hope I have proved that Charis cannot be placed, as Professor Curtius 
 proposes, in the same category of deities as AeiAib? or *ojSos; arid that there is 
 nothing in the least improbable in certain derivatives of an ancient Aryan 
 root taking a mythological character, while others retain an analogous ap- 
 pellative meaning. From the root " dyu," to shine, we have Dyaus and 
 Zevi: but we also have in Sanskrit "diva" and " dina.'' day; and in 
 Greek eVJios, at noon-day, SijAoj, bright. From the root " vas" or "ush," 
 to glow, to burn, we have 'E<m'a, Vesta, Ushas, Eos, Aurora: but likewise 
 Sanskrit "usra," early, " ushna," hot; Latin uro, aurum ; (Jreek auu>, o5- 
 pu', rjpi. Unless we suppose that roots, after having given rise to a single 
 mythological name, were struck by instantaneous sterility, or that Greek 
 mythological names can only be derived from roots actually employed in 
 that language, what we observe in the case of Eros and Charis is the nat- 
 ural and almost inevitable result of the growth of language and myth, 
 such as we now understand it. Greek scholars have asked, " how can 
 we separate ep/j.r)vcv<a from 'EPM^S (Grundziiye, p. 312), or epiwvtiv from 
 'Epuw's (Welcker)?" Yet few have questioned Kuhn's etymology of 
 'Epurj? and 'Epiwv*, whatever difference of opinion may prevail as to the 
 exact process by which these two deities came to be what they are. But, 
 on the other hand, I cannot protest too strongly against the opinion which 
 has been ascribed to me, that the Greeks were in any way conscious of the 
 secondary or idiomatic meaning which " arvat " and " harit," had assumed 
 in India. In India both "arvat," running, and "harit," bright, became 
 recognized names for horse. As " arvat" was also applied to the sun, the 
 heavenly runner, the conception of the sun as a horse became almost inev- 
 itable, and required no poetical effort on the part of people speaking San- 
 skrit. Nothing of the kind happened in Greek. In Greek p<oy was never 
 used as an appellative in the sense of horse, as little as ev was used, ex- 
 cept in later times, to signify the material sky. But unless we are prepared 
 to look upon Eros, " the oldest of the Greek gods," as a mere abstraction, 
 as, in fact, a kind of Cupid, I thought, and I still think, that we have to 
 tdmit among the earliest worshippers of Eros, even on Greek soil, a fainl
 
 1<58 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 ideas to the rich soil of India, the full flower of Aryan 
 language, of Aryan poetry and mythology, belongs to 
 Hellas, where Plato has told us what Eros is, and 
 where Sophokles sang his 
 
 'Eptos drucarc /na^af, 
 'Epwt, os ev KTTjjuao-i niirrevty 
 
 6? ev na.\aica.is irapctai? 
 
 vfaviSos evvi>xtvfis' 
 
 $oiTas &' ti7rep7roPTios ev r' 
 
 dypovojttoi? auXaif 
 
 KOLL <r OUT' ii6a.va.riav $ufi/ios ouficc's, 
 
 oufl" apepiiav ir" ai'- 
 
 BpiaTTtav' o &' f\<av ij.ffiijt>tv.^ 
 
 recollection of the ancient Aryan mythology in which the same word as 
 Eros had been applied to the sun, and especially the rising sun. All the 
 rest is simple and easy. The root ar, no doubt, had the sense of running or 
 rushing, and might have yielded, therefore, names expressive of quick mo- 
 tion as well as of strong desire. Not even- shoot, however, that springs 
 from such a seed, lives on, when transferred to a different soil. " Eros" 
 might have been the name for horse in Greece as " arvat " was in India, 
 but it was not: "arvat," or some other derivative like " artha," might have 
 expressed desire in Sanskrit as it did in Greek, but this, too, was not the 
 case. Why certain words die, and others live on, why certain meanings 
 of words become prominent so as to cause the absorption of all other mean- 
 ings, we have no chance of explaining. We must take the work of lan- 
 guage as we find it, and in disentangling the curious skein, we must not 
 expect to find one continuous thread, but rest satisfied if we can separate 
 the broken ends, and place them side by side in something like an intelligi- 
 ble order. Greek mythology was not borrowed from Vrdic mythology any 
 more than Greek words were taken from a Sanskrit dictionary. This being 
 once understood and generally admitted, offense should not be taken if 
 here and there a Veilic deity or a Sanskrit word is called a prototype. The 
 expression, I know, is not quite correct, and cannot be defended, except on 
 the plea that almost everybody knows what is meant by it. The Greek 
 Charites are certainly not a mere modification of the Vedic Haritas, nor 
 the Greek Kros of the Vedic Arvat. There was no recollection of an equine 
 character in the Greek Kros or the Charites, just as, from a purely Greek 
 "point of view, no traces of a canine character could be discovered in 'EXevij 
 =Sarama. or 'Ep/uetas=Saranieya. Arvat and Eros are radii starting from 
 a common central thought, and the angle of the Vedic radius is less obtusn 
 than that of the Greek. This is all that could be meant, and I believe this 
 is the sense in which my words have been understood by the majority of 
 tty readers. 
 
 l Antigone, ed. Dindorf, Oxford 1859, v. 781.
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 139 
 
 If Hegel calls the discover) 1 of the common origin 
 of Greek and Sanskrit the discovery of a new world, 
 the same may be said with regard to the common origin 
 of Greek and Sanskrit mythology. The discovery is 
 made, and the science of comparative mythology will 
 soon rise to the same importance as that of comparative 
 philology. I have here explained but a fewvnyths, 
 but they all belong to one small cycle, and many 
 more names might have been added. I may refer 
 those who take an interest in this geology of language 
 to the "Journal of Comparative Philology," published 
 by my learned friend, Dr. Kuhn, at Berlin, who, in 
 his periodical, has very properly admitted comparative 
 mythology as an integral part of comparative phi- 
 lology, and who has himself discovered some of the 
 most striking parallelisms between the traditions of 
 the Veda and the mythological names of other Aryan 
 nations. The very " Hippokentaurs and the Chimasra, 
 the Gorgons and Pegasos, and other monstrous crea- 
 tures," have apparently been set right ; and though I 
 differ from Dr. Kuhn on several points, and more par- 
 ticularly with regard to the elementary character of 
 the gods, which he, like Lauer, the lamented author of 
 the " System of Greek Mythology," seems to me to 
 connect too exclusively with the fleeting phenomena 
 of clouds, and storms, and thunder, while I believe 
 their original conception to have been almost always 
 solar, yet there is much to be learnt from both. Much, 
 no doubt, remains to be done, and even with the assist- 
 ance of the Veda, the whole of Greek mythology will 
 never be deciphered and translated. But can this be 
 urged as an objection ? There are many Greek words 
 of which we cannot find a satisfactory etymology, evo.n
 
 140 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 by the help of Sanskrit. Are we therefore to say thai 
 the whole Greek language has no etymological or- 
 ganization ? If we find a rational principle in the for- 
 mation of but a small portion of Greek. words, we are 
 justified in inferring that the same principle which 
 manifests itself in part, governed the organic growth 
 of the whole; and though we cannot explain the ety- 
 mological origin of all words, we should never say that 
 language had no etymological origin, or that otymology 
 " treats of a past which was never present." That the 
 later Greeks, such as Homer and Hesiod, ignored the 
 origin and purport of their myths, I fully admit, but 
 they equally ignored the origin and purport of their 
 words. What applies to etymology, therefore, ap- 
 plies with equal force to mythology. It has been 
 proved by comparative philology that there is nothing 
 irregular in language, and what was formerly con- 
 sidered as irregular in declension and conjugation is 
 now recognized as the most regular and primitive 
 stratum in the formation of grammar. The same, we 
 hope, may be accomplished in mythology, and instead 
 of deriving it, as heretofore, "ab ingenii humani im- 
 becillitate et a dictionis egestate," it will obtain its 
 truer solution, " ab ingenii humani sapientia et a dic- 
 tionis abundantia." Mythology is only a dialect, an 
 Ancient form of language. Mythology, though chiefly 
 concerned with nature, and here again mostly with those 
 manifestations which bear the character of law, order, 
 power, and wisdom impressed on them, was applicable 
 to all things. Nothing is excluded from mythological 
 expression ; neither morals nor philosophy, neither his- 
 tory nor religion, have escaped the spell of that ancient 
 sibyl. But mythology is neither philosophy, nor his-
 
 COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 141 
 
 toiy, nor religion, nor ethics. It is, if we may use a 
 scholastic expression, a quale, no^ a quid something 
 formal, not something substantial, and, like poetry, 
 sculpture, and painting, applicable to nearly all that 
 the ancient world could admire or adore. 
 
 April, 1866.
 
 XVII. 
 GREEK MYTHOLOGY.' 
 
 IT does not happen very often that we take up a 
 German book of more than eight hundred pages, closely 
 printed, and bristling with notes and quotations, and 
 feel unwilling to put it down again before having fin- 
 ished the whole of it. However, this is what has hap- 
 pened to us, and will happen to many a reader of Pro- 
 fessor Welcker's " Greek Mythology," if he is capable 
 of enterino; with a real and human interest into the life, 
 
 ~ 
 
 and thoughts, and feelings of the ancient Greeks, and 
 more particularly into the spirit of their religion, their 
 worship, and sacred traditions. To those who require 
 any preliminary information respecting the author, we 
 may say, first of all, that Welcker is a very old man, 
 a man belonging almost to an age gone by, one of the 
 few men remaining of the heroic age of German schol- 
 arship. The present generation, a race not quite con- 
 temptible in itself, looks up to him as the Greeks looked 
 up to Nestor. He knew old Voss, the translator of 
 Homer, when he was a young man fighting the battle 
 of rational mythology against the symbolic school of 
 Creuzer. He was the friend of Zoe'ga. He speaks of 
 
 i GriecMsche Gotterlehre. Von F. G. Welcker. E-ster Band. Gottin- 
 <en, 1857.
 
 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 143 
 
 Buttmann, of Lexilogus Buttmann, as a scholar who 
 had felt the influence of his teaching ; and he looks 
 upon Otfried Miiller, the Dorian Miiller, as belonging 
 originally to his school, though afterwards carrying out 
 the views of his master in an independent, and some- 
 times too independent spirit. Welcker has been lectur- 
 ing and writing on mythology for many years, and he 
 finds, not without satisfaction, that many of the views 
 which he first propounded in his lectures, lectures open 
 to any one who liked to listen, have become current, 
 and, as it were, public propert}', long before his book 
 was published. He is not a man to put forward any 
 claims of priority ; and if he dwells at all on the sub- 
 ject, it is rather in self-defense. He wishes to remind 
 his readers that if he propounds certain views with the 
 warmth of a discoverer, if he defends them strenuously 
 against all possible objections, it is because he has been 
 accustomed to do so for years, and because it was 
 necessary for him to do so, at the time when he first 
 elaborated his system, and explained it in his lectures. 
 Welcker's " Mythology " has been expected for many 
 years. It has been discussed long before it appeared. 
 " It is to my great regret, and certainly without my 
 fault," the author says, " that so great expectations 
 have been raised." However, if the expectations have 
 been great among the professors in Germany, they will 
 admit that they have not been disappointed, and that 
 the promise given by young Welcker has been fulfilled 
 by the veteran. 
 
 " The Science of the Greek Gods " (" die Grie- 
 chische Gotterlehre "), which is the title of the book, 
 though it carries the reader along most rapidly, exciting 
 curiosity at every page, and opening nsw views in every
 
 144 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 chapter, is nevertheless a book which requires more 
 than one perusal. It may be read, witli the exception 
 of some less finished chapters, for pleasure ; but it de- 
 serves to be studied, to be thought over, examined, and 
 criticized, and it is then only that its real value is dis- 
 covered. There have been many books published 
 lately on mythology. Preljer, Gerhard, Schelling, 
 Maury, have followed each other in rapid succession. 
 Preller's " Greek Mythology " is a useful and careful 
 compendium. Gerhard's " Greek Mythology " is a 
 storehouse, only sometimes rather a labyrinth, of my- 
 thological lore. On Schelling's " Philosophy of My- 
 thology," published in his posthumous works, we hardly 
 dare to pronounce an opinion. And yet, with all due 
 respect for his great name, with a sincere appreciation 
 of some deep thoughts on the subject of mythology 
 too, and more particularly with a full acknowledgment 
 of his merits in having pointed out more strongly than 
 anybody else the inevitable character of mythological 
 thought and language in the widest sense of the word, 
 we must say, as critics, that his facts and theories defy 
 all rules of sound scholarship, and that his language is 
 so diffuse and vague, as to be unworthy of the century 
 we live in. To one who knows how powerful and im- 
 portant an influence Schelling's mind exercised on Ger- 
 many at the beginning of this century, it is hard to say 
 this. But if we could not read his posthumous vol- 
 umes without sadness, and without a strong feeling of 
 the mortality of all human knowledge, we cannot men- 
 tion them, when they must be mentioned, without ex- 
 pressing our conviction that though they are interesting 
 on account of their author, they are disappointing in 
 every other respect. Maury's " Histoire dcs Religions
 
 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 145 
 
 de la Gresce Antique " is, like all the works of that in- 
 dustrious writer, lucid and pleasing. It does not pro- 
 fess to add many results of independent research to 
 what was known before on the various subjects on 
 which he writes. Thus the gifted author escapes criti- 
 cism, and only carries away the thanks of all who read 
 his careful manuals. 
 
 What distinguishes Welcker from all his predecessors 
 is this, that with him mythology is not only a collec- 
 tion of fables, to be described, sifted, and arranged, but 
 a problem to be solved, and a problem as important as 
 any in the history of the world. His whole heart is in 
 his work. He wants to know, and wants to explain 
 what mythology means, how such a thing as Greek 
 mythology could ever have existed. It is the origin of 
 every god which he tries to discover, leaving every- 
 thing else to flow naturally from the source once opened 
 and cleared. 
 
 A second feature, which is peculiar to his treatment 
 of mythology, is that he never looks on the Greek 
 fables as a system. There were myths before there 
 was a mythology, and it is in this, their original and 
 unsystematic form alone, that we may hope to dis- 
 cover the genuine and primitive meaning of every 
 myth. 
 
 A third distinguishing feature of Welcker's book 
 consists in the many things he leaves out. If a myth 
 nad once been started, poets, artists, philosophers, and 
 old women might do with it whatever they pleased. 
 If there was once a Herakles travelling all over the 
 
 o 
 
 earth, killing monsters, punishing wickedness, and do- 
 ing what no one else could do, the natural result would 
 
 be that, in every town and village, whatever no one 
 vov ii. 10
 
 146 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 else could have done would be ascribed to Herakles. 
 The little stories invented to account for all these Her- 
 aklean doings may be very interesting to the people of 
 the village, but they have as little right to a place in 
 Greek mythology as the Swiss legends of the Devil's 
 bridges have to a place in a work on Swiss theology or 
 history. To be able to distinguish between what is es- 
 sential and what is not, requires a peculiar talent, and 
 Professor Welcker possesses it. 
 
 A fourth point which is of characteristic importance 
 in Welcker's manner of handling Greek mythology, is 
 the skill with which he takes every single myth to 
 pieces. When he treats of Apollo, he does not treat of 
 him as one person, beginning with his birth, detailing 
 his various exploits, accounting for his numerous epi- 
 thets, and removing the contradictory character of 
 many of his good or bad qualities. The birth of the 
 god is one myth, his association with a twin sister 
 another, his quarrel with Hermes a third, each intel- 
 ligible in itself, though perplexing when gathered up 
 into one large web of Apollonic theology. 
 
 Nowhere, again, have we seen the original character 
 of the worship of Zeus, as the God, or, as he is called 
 in later times, as the Father of the gods, as the God of 
 gods, drawn with so sure and powerful a hand as in 
 Welcker's " Mythology." When we ascend with him 
 to the most distant heights of Greek history the idea of 
 God, as the supreme Being, stands before us as a simple 
 fact. Next to this adoration of One God, the father of 
 heaven, the father of men, we find in Greece a wor- 
 ship of nature. The powers of nature, originally wor- 
 shipped as such, were afterwards changed into a family 
 of gods, of which Zeus became the king and iather.
 
 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 147 
 
 This third phase is what is generally called Greek my- 
 thology ; but it was preceded in time, or at least ren- 
 dered possible in thought, by the two prior conceptions, 
 a belief in a supreme God, and a worship of the powers 
 of nature. The Greek religions, says Welcker, if they 
 are analyzed and reduced to their original form, are far 
 more simple than we think. It is so in all great things. 
 And the better we are acquainted with the variety and 
 complications of all that has grown up around them, the 
 more we feel surprised at the smallness of the first 
 seeds, the simplicity of the fundamental ideas. The 
 divine character of Zeus, as distinct from his mytholog- 
 ical character, is most carefully brought out by Welc- 
 ker. He avails himself of all the discoveries of com- 
 parative philology in order to show more clearly how 
 the same idea which found expression in the ancient 
 religions of the Brahmans, the Slaves, and the Ger- 
 mans, had been preserved under the same simple, 
 clear, and sublime name by the original settlers of 
 Hellas. We are not inclined to be too critical when 
 we meet with a classical scholar who avails himself of 
 the works of Sanskrit philologists. It does him credit 
 if he only acknowledges that the beginnings of Greek 
 language, Greek thought and tradition, lie beyond the 
 horizon of the so-called classical world. It is surprising 
 to find, even at the present day, men of the highest 
 attainments in Greek and Latin scholarship, intention- 
 ally shutting their eyes to what they know to be the 
 light of a new day. Unwilling to study a new subject, 
 and unable to confess their ignorance on any subject, 
 they try to dispose of the works of a Humboldt, Bopp, 
 or Bunsen, by pointing out a few mistakes, perhaps a 
 wrong accent or a false quantity, which " any
 
 143 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 schoolboy would be ashamed of." They might as well 
 scoff at Wyld's Globe because it has not the accuracy 
 of an Ordnance survey. So, if we find in a work like 
 Welcker's little slips, such as " devas," sky, instead of 
 god, "dyavi," a Sanskrit dative, instead of "dive," 
 the dative, or " dyavi," the locative, we just mark 
 them on the margin, but we do not crow over them 
 like schoolmasters, or rather schoolboys. We should 
 sometimes like to ask a question : for instance, how Pro- 
 fessor Welcker could prove that the German word God 
 has the same meaning as good? He quotes Grimm's 
 " History of the German Language," p. 571, in sup- 
 port of this assertion, but we have looked in vain for 
 any passage where Grimm gives up his former opinion, 
 that the two words Cf-od and good, run parallel in all 
 the Teutonic dialects, but never converge towards a 
 common origin. However, Welcker's example, we 
 hope, will have its good effect among classical scholars. 
 What could have been a greater triumph for all who 
 take an interest in comparative philology and in a more 
 comprehensive study of ancient humanity, than to find 
 in a work on Greek mythology, written by one of the 
 most famous classical scholars, the fundamental chapter, 
 the chapter containing the key to the whole system, 
 headed, " The Vedas ? " 
 
 But even Welcker is not without his backslidino-s. 
 In some parts of his work, and particularly in his chap- 
 ter on Zeus, he admits implicitly the whole argument 
 of comparative mythology. He admits that the first 
 beginnings of Zeus, the God of gods, must be studied 
 in the ancient songs of the Veda, and in the ancient 
 traditions of the chief members of the Aryan family. 
 But afterwai-da he would like to make his reserves.
 
 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 149 
 
 He has been studying the Greek gods all his life, and 
 the names and natures of many of them had become 
 clear and intelligible to him without the help of San- 
 skrit or the Veda. Why should they be handed over 
 to the Aryan crucible ? This is a natural feeling. It 
 is the same in Greek etymology. If we can fully ex- 
 plain a Greek word from the resources of the Greek 
 language, why should we go beyond ? And yet it 
 cannot be avoided. Some of the most plausible Greek 
 etymologies have had to give way before the most 
 unlikely, and yet irrefragable derivations from San- 
 skrit. 
 
 Many a Greek scholar may very naturally say, why, 
 if we can derive 0eo's from $e'eir, or from nOlvai, should 
 we go out of our way and derive it from any other 
 root ? 1 Any one acquainted with the true principles 
 of etymology will answer this question ; and Welcker 
 himself would be the first to admit, that, from whatever 
 source it may be derived, it cannot be derived from 
 Oeeiv or TiOfvai. But the same argument holds good 
 with regard to the names of the gods. Zij?, the old 
 nominative, of which we have the accusative Zfjv 
 ("Iliad," viii. 206, formerly Z^'), and Zqv, of which 
 we have the accusative Zrji/a, might well have been de- 
 rived by former Greek etymologists from Jp, to live. 
 But Professor Welcker knows that, after etymology 
 has once assumed an historical and scientific character, 
 a derivation, inapplicable to the cognate forms of Ze>'s 
 in Sanskrit, is inapplicable to the word itself in Greek. 
 There are, no doubt, words and mythological names 
 
 1 The latest defense of the etymology of fleo? as not to be separated from 
 the cluster of words which spring from the root " div," may be seen in Ascoli, 
 Frammtiti Linguistic!, Remliconti, i. (1864), pp. 185-200.
 
 150 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 peculiar to Greece, and framed in Greece after the 
 separation of the Aryan tribes. KponW, for instance, 
 is a Greek word, and a Greek idea, and Professor 
 Welcker was right in explaining it from Greek sources 
 only. But wherever the same mythological name 
 exists in Greek and Sanskrit, no etymology can be ad- 
 mitted which would be applicable to the Greek only, 
 without being applicable to the Sanskrit word. There 
 is no such being as Kpovos in Sanskrit. Kpoi/os did not 
 exist till long after Zeus in Greece. Zeus was called by 
 the Greeks the son of time. This is a simple and very 
 common form of mythological expression. It meant 
 originally, not that time was the origin or the source of 
 Zeus, but KpovtW or Kpoia'S^s was used in the sense of 
 " connected with time, representing time, existing 
 through all time." Derivatives in nov and 18775 took, in 
 later times, the more exclusive meaning of patronym- 
 ics, but originally they had a more general qualifying 
 sense, such as we find still in our own, originally Semit- 
 ic, expressions, " son of pride^" " sons of light," " son 
 of Belial." KpoviW is the most frequent epithet of Zeus 
 in Homer ; it frequently stands by itself instead of Zeus. 
 It was a name fully applicable to the supreme God, 
 the God of time, the eternal God. Who does not 
 think of the Ancient of Days ? When this ceased to 
 be understood, particularly as in the current word for 
 time the * had become aspirated (/cpovos had become 
 Xpovos), people asked themselves the question, why is 
 Zeus called KpovioTjs ? And the natural and almost in- 
 evitable answer was, because he is the son, the off- 
 spring of a more ancient god, Kporos. This may be a 
 very old myth in Greece ; but the misunderstanding 
 which gave rise to it, could have happened in Greece
 
 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 151 
 
 only. We cannot expect, therefore, a god KpoVos in 
 the Veda. When this myth of KpoVos had once been 
 started, it would roll on irresistibly. If Zeus had cnce 
 a father called Kp<W, Kpdi/os must have a wife. Yet 
 it should be remembered as a significant fact, that in 
 Homer Zeus is not yet called the son of Rhea, and that 
 the name of Kpcw'S^s belongs originally to Zeus only, and 
 not to his later brothers, Poseidon and Hades. Myths 
 of this kind can be analyzed by Greek mythologists, as 
 all the verbs in eo>, ow, and <xo can be explained by- 
 Greek etymologists. But most other names, such as 
 Hermes, Eos, Eros, Erinys require more powerful 
 tests ; and Professor Welcker has frequently failed to 
 discover their primitive character, because he was 
 satisfied with a merely Greek etymology. He de- 
 rives Erinys, or Erinnys, from a verb epivvvw, to be 
 angry, and gives to her the original meaning of Con- 
 science. Others have derived it from the same root 
 as Ipts, strife ; others again from e'peeiVco, to ask. But 
 Erinys is too old a god- for so modern a conception. 
 Erinys is the Vedic Sarawyii, the dawn ; and even in 
 GreeK she is still called ^epo^otns, hovering in the 
 gloom. There is no word expressive of any abstract 
 quality, which had not originally a material meaning ; 
 nor is there in the ancient language of mythology any 
 abstract deity which does not cling with its roots to the 
 soil of nature. Professor Welcker is not the man to 
 whom we need address this remark. He knows the 
 German proverb : 
 
 " Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen 
 Er koiiunt doch endlich an der Sonnen." 
 
 He also knows how the sun is frequently represented 
 as the avenger of dark crimes. The same idea is ex-
 
 152 GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 pressed by the myth of Erinys. Instead of our lifeless 
 and abstract expression, " a crime is sure to be discov- 
 ered," the old proverbial and poetical expression was, 
 the Dawn, the Erinys, will bring it to light. Crime 
 itself was called, in the later mythologizing language, 
 the daughter of Night, and her avenger, therefore, 
 could only be the Dawn. Was not the same Dawn 
 called the bloodhound ? Could she not find the track 
 of the cattle stolen from the gods ? She had a thou- 
 sand names in ancient language, because she called 
 forth a thousand different feelings in ancient hearts. 
 A few only of these names became current appella- 
 tives ; others remained as proper names, unintelligible 
 in their etymological meaning and their poetical con- 
 ception. The Greeks knew as little that Erinys meant 
 the Dawn, as Shakespeare knew the meaning of the 
 Weird Sisters. Weird, however, was originally one 
 of the three Nornes, the German Parcas. They were 
 called " Vurdh," "Verdhandi," and "Skuld," Past, 
 Present, and Future ; and the same idea is expressed 
 more graphically by the thread that is spun, the thread 
 passing through the finger, and the thread which is 
 still on the distaff; or by Lachesis singing the past 
 (TO. yeyovoYa), Klotho singing the present ( T a eWa), and 
 Atropos singing the future ( T a /xe/XAovra). The most 
 natural expression for to-morrow was the morn ; for 
 the future, the dawn. Thus Sarawyu, as one of the 
 names of the dawn, became the name of the future, 
 more especially of the coming avenger, the inevitable 
 light. Homer speaks of the Erinys in the plural, and 
 so do the poets of the Veda. Neither of them, how- 
 ever, know as yet their names and parentage. Hesiod 
 calls them the daughters of the Earth, conceived of
 
 GRKKK MYTHOLOGY. 153 
 
 the drops of the hlood of Ouranos. Sophokles claima 
 the same freedom as Hesiod ; he calls them the daugh- 
 ters of Skotos. or Darkness. Thus a mere proverb 
 would supply in time a whole chapter of mythology, 
 and furnish an ^Eschylus and Plato with subjects for 
 the deepest thought and the most powerful poetry. 
 
 Into these, the earliest strata of mythological lan- 
 guage and thought, no shaft can reach from the sur- 
 face of Greece or Italy, and we cannot blame Pro- 
 fessor Welcker for having failed in extricating the last 
 roots and fibres of every mythological name. He has 
 done his work ; he has opened a mine, and, after 
 bringing to light the treasures he was in search of, he 
 has pointed out the direction in which that mine may 
 be worked with safety. If new light is to be thrown 
 on the most ancient and the most interesting period in 
 the history of the human mind, the period in which 
 names were given and myths were formed, that light 
 must come from the Vedas ;. and we trust that Pro- 
 fessor Welcker's book, by its weak as well as by its 
 strong points, will impress on every classical scholar 
 what Otfried Muller perceived many years ago, " that 
 matters have come to such a point that classical philol- 
 ogy must either resign altogether the historical under- 
 standing of the growth of language, as well as all 
 etymological researches into the shape of roots and the 
 organism of grammatical forms, or trust itself on these 
 points entirely to the guidance and counsel of compar- 
 ative philology." 
 
 January, 1&58.
 
 XVIII. 
 GREEK LEGENDS. 1 
 
 IF the stories of the Greek gods and heroes, as told 
 by Mr. Cox in his " Tales from Greek Mythology," the 
 " Tales of Gods and Heroes," and the " Tales of Thebes 
 and Argos," do not quite possess in the eyes of our chil- 
 dren the homely charm of Grimm's "Mahrchen " or 
 Dasent's " Norse Tales," we must bear in mind that at 
 heart our children are all Goths or Northmen, not Greeks 
 or Romans; and that, however far we may be removed 
 from the times which gave birth to the stories of Dorn- 
 roschen, Sneewittchen, and Rumpelstilzchen, there is a 
 chord within us that answers spontaneously to the pa- 
 thos and humor of those tales, while our sympathy for 
 Hecuba is acquired, and more or less artificial. If the 
 choice were left to children whether they would rather 
 have a story about the Norse trolls read out to them, or 
 the tale of the Trojan War as told by Mr. Cox, we fully 
 believe in fact we know that they would all clamor 
 for Dasent or Grimm. But if children are told that they 
 cannot always be treated to trolls and fairies, and tha 
 they must learn something about the Greek gods and 
 goddesses, we likewise know that they will rather listen 
 to Mr. Cox's tales from Greek fairyland than to any 
 other book that is used at lessons. 
 
 1 A Manual of Mythology, in the Form of Question and Answer. By the 
 Rev. G. W. Cox. London: Longmans & Co. 1867.
 
 GREEK LEGENDS. 15v> 
 
 The " Manual of Mythology " which Mr. Cox has 
 just published is meant as a lesson-book, more so than 
 any of his former publications. If we add that the 
 whole of Greek and Roman mythology is told in two 
 hundred pages, in the somewhat cumbrous form of 
 question and answer, we need not say that we have 
 only a meagre abstract of classical mythology, a mini- 
 mum, a stepping-stone, a primer, a skeleton, or what- 
 ever unpleasant name we like to apply to it. We wish 
 indeed that Mr. Cox had allowed himself more ample 
 scope, yet we feel bound to acknowledge that, having 
 undertaken to tell what can be told, in two hundred 
 pages, of classical mythology, he has chosen the most 
 important, the most instructive, and the most attractive 
 portions of his subject. Though necessarily leaving 
 large pieces of his canvas mere blanks or covered with 
 the faintest outlines, he has given to some of his 
 sketches more life and expression than can be found in 
 many a lengthy article contributed to cyclopaedias and 
 other works of reference. 
 
 But while Mr. Cox has thus stinted himself in telling 
 the tales of Greek and Roman mythology, he has made 
 room for what is an entirely new feature in his Man- 
 ual, namely, the explanations of Greek and Roman 
 myths, supplied by the researches of comparative my- 
 thologists. From the earliest philosophers of Greece 
 down to Creuzer, Schelling, and Welcker, everybody 
 who has ever thought or written on mythology has 
 freely admitted that mythology requires an explana- 
 tion. All are agreed that a myth does not mean what 
 it seems to mean ; and this agreement is at all events 
 important, in spite of the divergent explanations which 
 have been proposed by different scholars and philoso-
 
 156 GREEK LEGENDS. 
 
 phers in their endeavors to find sense either in single 
 myths or in the whole system of ancient mythology. 
 
 There is also one other point on which of late years 
 a general agreement has been arrived at among most 
 students of mythology, and this is that all mythological 
 explanations must rest on a sound etymological basis. 
 Comparative philology, after working a complete reform 
 in the grammar and etymology of the classical lan- 
 guages, has supplied this new foundation for the proper 
 study of classical mythology, and no explanation of any 
 myth can henceforth be taken into account which is not 
 based on an accurate analysis of the names of the prin- 
 cipal actors. If we read in Greek mythology that 
 Helios was the brother of Eos and Selene, this needs 
 no commentary. Helios means the sun, Eos the dawn, 
 Selene the moon ; nor does it require any great stretch 
 of poetical imagination to understand how these three 
 heavenly apparitions came to called brothers and sis- 
 ters. 
 
 But if we read that Apollo loved Daphne, that 
 Daphne fled before him and was changed into a laurel- 
 tree, we have here a legend before us which yields no 
 sense till we know the original meaning of Apollo and 
 Daphne. Now Apollo was a solar deity, and although 
 comparative philologists have not yet succeeded in find- 
 ing the true etymology of Apollo, no doubt can exist 
 as to his original character. The name of Daphne, 
 however, could not have been interpreted without the 
 aid of comparative philology, and it is not till we know 
 that Daphne was originally a name of the dawn, that 
 we begin to understand the meaning of her story. 
 It was by taking myths which were still half intelli- 
 gible, like those of Apollo and Daphne, Selene and
 
 GREEK LEGENDS. 157 
 
 Endymion, Eos and Tithonos, that the first advance 
 was made towards a right interpretation of Greek and 
 Homan legends. If we read that Pan was wooing 
 Pitys and that Boreas, jealous of Pan, cast Pitys 
 from a rock, and that in her fall she was changed 
 into a pine-tree, we need but walk with our eyea 
 open along the cliffs of Bournemouth in order to 
 see the meaning of that legend. Boreas is the Greek 
 for north wind, Pitys for pine-tree. But what is Pan ? 
 Clearly another deity representing the wind in its less 
 destructive character. The same Pan is called the 
 lover of the nymph Echo, and of Syrinx. Why Pan, 
 the wind, should be called the lover of Echo, requires 
 no explanation. As to the nymph Syrinx, a name 
 which means, in Greek, the shepherd's pipe, she is 
 further fabled to have thrown herself into the river 
 Ladon in order to escape from Pan, and to have been 
 changed into a reed. Here mythology has simply in- 
 verted history ; and while, in an account of the inven- 
 tion of musical instruments, we should probably be told 
 that the wind whistling through the river reeds led to 
 the invention of the shepherd's pipe, the poet tells us 
 that Pan, the wind, played with Syrinx, and that Syrinx 
 was changed into a reed. The name of Pan is con- 
 nected with the Sanskrit name for wind, namely, 
 " pavana." The root from which it is derived means, 
 in Sanskrit, to purify ; and as from the root " dyu," to 
 shine, we have in Greek " Zen," " Zenos," correspond- 
 ing to a supposed Sanskrit derivative, " dyav-an," the 
 bright god, we have frcm " pu," to purify, the Greek 
 " Pan," " Panos," the purifying or sweeping wind, 
 strictly corresponding to a possible Sanskrit form 
 " pav-an." If there was anywhere in Greece a sea-
 
 158 GBEEK LEGENDS. 
 
 shore covered with pine-forests, like the coast of Dor- 
 set, any Greek poet who had ears to hear the sweet 
 and plaintive converse of the wind and the trembling 
 pine-trees, and eyes to see the havoc wrought by a 
 fierce northeaster, would tell his children of the won- 
 ders of the forest, and of poor Pitys, the pine-tree 
 wooed bv Pan, die gentle wind, and struck down by 
 jealous Boreas, the north wind. 
 
 It is thus that mythology arose, and thus that it 
 must be interpreted if it is to be more than a mere 
 conglomerate of meaningless or absurd stories. This 
 has been felt by Mr. Cox ; and feeling convinced that, 
 particularly for educational purposes, mythology would 
 be useless nay, worse than useless unless it were 
 possible to impart to it some kind of rational meaning, 
 he has endeavored to supply for nearly every impor- 
 tant name of the Greek and Roman pantheon an 
 etymological explanation and a rational interpretation. 
 In this manner, as he says in his preface, mythology 
 can be proved to be " simply a collection of the sayings 
 by which men once upon a time described whatever 
 they saw an I heard in countries where they lived. 
 These sayings were all perfectly natural, and marvel- 
 ously beautiful and true. We see the lovely evening 
 twilight die out before the coming night, but when they 
 saw this, they said that the beautiful Eurydike had 
 been stung by the serpent of darkness, and that Or- 
 pheus was gone to fetch her back from the land of the 
 dead. We see the light which had vanished in the 
 west reappear in the east ; but they said that Eurydike 
 was now returning to the earth. And as this tender 
 light is seen no more when the sun himself is risen, 
 they said that Orpheus had turned round too soon to
 
 GREEK LEGENDS. 159 
 
 look at her, and so was parted from the wife whom he 
 loved so dearly." And not only do meaningless legends 
 recei/e by this process a meaning and a beauty of 
 their own, but some of the most revolting features 
 oi classical mythology are removed, and their true 
 purport discovered. Thus Mr. Cox remarks : 
 
 "And as it is with this sad and beautiful tale of 
 Orpheus and Eurydike, so it is with all those which 
 may seem to you coarse, or dull, or ugly. They are so 
 only because the real meaning of the names has been 
 half-forgotten or wholly lost. QEdipus and Perseus, 
 we are told, killed their parents, but it is only because 
 the sun was said to kill the darkness from which it 
 seems to spring. So, again, it was said that the Sun 
 was united in the evening to the light from which he 
 rose in the morning ; but in the later story it was said 
 that CEdipus became the husband of his mother lokaste, 
 and a terrible history was built upon this notion. But 
 none of these fearful stories were ever made on pur- 
 pose. No one ever sat down to describe gods and 
 great heroes as doing things which all decent men 
 would be ashamed to think of. There can scarcely be 
 a greater mistake than to suppose that whole nations 
 were suddenly seized with a strange madness which 
 drove them to invent all sorts of ridiculous and con- 
 temptible tales, and that every nation has at some time 
 or other gone mad in this way." 
 
 That the researches of comparative mythologi.its, so 
 well summed up in Mr. Cox's " Manual of Mythol- 
 ogy," are in the main tending in the right direction, is, 
 we believe, admitted by all whose opinion on such 
 matters carries much weight. It has been fully proved 
 that mythology is simply a phase, and an inevitable
 
 160 GREEK LEGENDS. 
 
 phase in the growth of language; language being 
 taken in its proper sense, not as the mere outward 
 symbol, but as the only possible embodiment of thought. 
 Everything, while language passes through that pecul- 
 iar phase, may become mythology. Not only the 
 ideas of men as to the origin of the world, the govern- 
 ment of the universe, the phenomena of nature, and 
 the yearnings and misgivings of the heart, are apt to 
 lose their natural and straightforward expression, and 
 to be repeated in a more or less distorted form, but 
 even historical events, the exploits of a powerful man, 
 the destruction of wild animals, 'the conquest of a new 
 country, the death of a beloved leader, may be spoken 
 of and handed down to later ages in a form decidedly 
 mythological. After the laws that regulate the growth 
 and decay of words have once been clearly established, 
 instead of being any longer surprised at the breaking 
 out of mythological phraseology, we almost wonder 
 how any language could have escaped what may really 
 be called an infantine disease, through which even the 
 
 ' O 
 
 healthiest constitution ought to pass sooner or later. 
 The origin of mythological phraseology, whatever out- 
 ward aspects it may assume, is always the same ; it is 
 language forgetting herself. Nor is there anything 
 strange in that self-forgetfulness, if we bear in mind 
 how large a number of names ancient languages pos- 
 sessed for one and the same thing, and how frequently 
 the same word was applied to totally different subjects. 
 If we take the sun, or the dawn, or the moon, or the 
 stars, we find that even in Greek every one of them is 
 still polyonymous, i. e. has different names, and is 
 known under various aliases. Still more is this the 
 case in Sanskrit, though Sanskrit too is a language
 
 GREEK LEGENDS. 1G1 
 
 which, to judge from its innumerable rings, must have 
 passed through many summers and winters before it 
 grew into that mighty stem which tills us witli awe 
 and admiration, even in the earliest relics of its litera- 
 ture. Now, after a time, one out of many names of 
 the same subject necessarily gains a preponderance ; it 
 becomes the current and recognized name, while the 
 other names are employed less and less frequently, and 
 at last become obsolete and unintelligible. Yet it fre- 
 quently happens that, either in proverbs, or in idiomatic 
 phrases, or in popular poetry, some of these obsolete 
 names are kept up, and in that case mythological decay 
 At once sets in. It requires a certain effort to see this 
 quite clearly, because in our modern languages, where 
 everything has its proper name, and where each name 
 is properly defined, a mythological misunderstanding 
 is almost impossible. 
 
 But suppose that the exact meaning of the word 
 " gloaming " had been forgotten, and that a proverbial 
 expression, such as " The gloaming sings the sun to 
 sleep," had been preserved, would not the gloaming 
 very soon require an explanation ? and would nurses 
 long hesitate to tell their children that the gloaming 
 was a good old woman who came every night to put 
 the sun into his bed, and who would be very angry if 
 she found any little children still awake ? The children 
 would soon talk among themselves about Nurse Gloam- 
 ing, and as they grew up would tell their children 
 again of the same wonderful old nurse. It was in this 
 and in similar ways that in the childhood of the world 
 many a story grew up which, when once repeated and 
 sanctioned by a popular poet, became part and parcel 
 
 VOL. II. 11
 
 162 GREEK LEGENDS. 
 
 of what we are accustomed to call the mythology of 
 ancient nations. 
 
 The mistake most commonly committed is to suppose 
 that mythology has necessarily a religious character, 
 and that it forms a whole or a system, taught in ancient 
 times and believed in as we believe in our Articles, or 
 even as the Roman Catholics believe in the legends of 
 their saints. Religion, no doubt, suffered most from 
 mythological phraseology, but it did not suffer alone. 
 The stories of the Argonauts, or of the Trojan War, 
 or of the Calydonian boar-hunt had very little to do 
 with religion, except that some of the heroes engaged 
 in them were called either the sons or the favorites of 
 some of the so-called gods of Greece. No doubt we 
 call them all gods, Vulcan and Venus, as well as Jupi- 
 ter and Minerva ; but even the more thoughtful among 
 the Greeks would hardly allow the name of gods to 
 all the inhabitants of Olympus, at least not in that 
 pregnant sense in which Zeus and Apollo and Athene 
 may fairly claim it. If children asked who was the 
 good Nurse Gloaming that sang the sun to sleep, the 
 answer would be easy enough, that she was the 
 daughter of the sky or of the sea, in Greek the 
 daughter of Zeus or of Nereus ; but this relationship, 
 though it might give rise to further genealogical com- 
 plications, would by no means raise the nurse to the 
 rank of a deity. We speak of days and years as per- 
 fectly intelligible objects, and we do not hesitate to say 
 that a man has wasted a day or a year, or that he has 
 killed the time. To the ancient world days and nights 
 were still more of a problem ; they were strangers that 
 came and went, brothers, or brother and sister, who 
 brought light and darkness, joy and sorrow, who might
 
 GREEK LEGENDS. 163 
 
 be called the parents of all living things, or themselves 
 the children of heaven and earth. One poetical image, 
 if poetical it can be called, which occurs very fre- 
 quently in the ancient language of India, is to repre- 
 sent the days as the herd of the sun, so that the coming 
 and going of each day might be likened to the stepping 
 forth of a cow, leaving its stable in the morning, cross- 
 ing the heavenly meadows by its appointed path, and 
 returning to its stable in the evening. The number of 
 this solar herd would vary according to the number of 
 days ascribed to each year. In Greek that simple 
 metaphor was no longer present to the mind of Homer ; 
 but if we find in Homer that Helios had seven herds 
 of oxen, fifty in each herd, and that their number 
 never grows and never decreases, surely we can easily 
 discover in these 350 oxen the 350 days of the primi- 
 tive year. And if then we read again, that the foolish 
 companions of Ulysses did not return to their homes 
 because they had killed the oxen of Helios, may we 
 not here too recognize an old proverbial or mytholog- 
 ical expression, too literally interpreted even by Homer, 
 and therefore turned into mythology ? If the original 
 phrase ran, that while Ulysses, by never-ceasing toil, 
 succeeded in reaching his home, his companions wasted 
 their time, or killed the days, i. e. the cattle of Helios, 
 and were therefore punished, nothing would be more 
 natural than that after a time their punishment should 
 have been ascribed to their actually devouring the oxen 
 in the island of Thrinakia ; just as St. Patrick, because 
 he converted the Irish and drove out the venomous 
 brood of heresy and heathenism, was soon believed to 
 have destroyed every serpent in that island, or as St. 
 Christopher was represented as actually having carried 
 on his shoulders the infant Christ.
 
 164 GREEK LEGENDS. 
 
 All mythology of this character must yield to that 
 treatment to which Mr. Cox has subjected the whole 
 Greek and Roman pantheon. But there is one point 
 that seems to us to deserve more consideration than it 
 has hitherto received at the hands of comparative my- 
 thologists. We see that, for instance, in the very case 
 of St. Patrick, mythological phraseology infected the 
 perfectly historical character of an Irish missionary. 
 The same may have taken place in fact we need not 
 hesitate to say the same has constantly taken place 
 in the ancient stories of Greece and Rome, as well as 
 in the legends of the Middle Ages. Those who 
 analyze ancient myths ought, therefore, to be prepared 
 for this historical or irrational element, and ought not 
 to suppose that everything which has a mythical ap- 
 pearance is thoroughly mythical or purely ideal. Mr. 
 Cox has well delineated the general character of the 
 most popular heroes of ancient mythology : 
 
 "In a very large number of legends (he says), the 
 parents, warned that their own offspring will destroy 
 them, expose their children, who are saved by some 
 wild beast and brought up by some herdsman. The 
 children so recovered always grow up beautiful, brave, 
 strong, and generous ; but, either unconsciously or 
 against their will, they fulfill the warnings given before 
 their birth, and become the destroyers of their parents. 
 Perseus, OEdipus, Cyrus, Romulus, Paris, are all ex- 
 posed as infants, are all saved from death, and dis- 
 covered by the splendor of their countenances and 
 the dignity of their bearing. Either consciously or un- 
 consciously Perseus kills Akrisios, (Edipus kills Laios, 
 Cyrus kills Astyages, Romulus kills Amulius, and 
 Paris brings about the ruin of Priam and the city of 
 Trov."
 
 GREEK LEGENDS. 165 
 
 Mr. Cox supposes that all these names are solar 
 names, and that the mythical history of every one of 
 these heroes is but a disguise of language. Originally 
 there must have existed in ancient languages a large 
 number of names for the sun, and the sky, and the 
 dawn, and the earth. The vernal sun returning with 
 fresh vigor after the deathlike repose of winter had a 
 different name from the sun of summer and autumn; 
 and the setting sun with its fading brilliancy was 
 addressed differently from the " bridegroom coming 
 forth out of his chamber," or " the giant rejoicing to 
 run his course." Certain names, expressions, and 
 phrases sprang up, originally intended to describe the 
 changes of the day and the seasons of the year ; after 
 a time these phrases became traditional, idiomatic, pro- 
 verbial ; they ceased to be literally understood, and 
 were misunderstood and misinterpreted into mythical 
 phraseology. At first the phrase "Perseus will kill 
 Akrisios " meant no more than that light will conquer 
 darkness, that the sun will annihilate the night, that 
 the morn is coming. If each day was called the child 
 of the night, it might be truly said that the young child 
 was destined to kill its parents, that CEdipus must kill 
 Laios. 1 And if the violet twilight, lokaste, was called 
 
 1 Professor Comparetti, in his Essay Edlpo e la Mitologla Comparata 
 (Pi.-=a, 1807), has endeavored to combat M. Breal's explanation of the myth 
 of (Edipus. His arguments are most carefully chosen, and supported by 
 much learning and ingenuity which even those, who are not convinced by his 
 able pleiuling, cannot fail to appreciate. It is not for me to defend the whole 
 theory proposed by M. Bre'sil in his Mi/the (f (E<li/ie (Paris, 1863). But as 
 i'rofessor Comparetti, in controverting the identification of" Laios r ' with tho 
 Sanskrit ' dasa," or " dasya," denies t'.ie possibility of an Aryan d appearing 
 in Greek as /. 1 may, in defense of my own identification of " dasahanta" 
 with A<f<o/<ivrrjs (Kuhn's Zeilsct/rift, vol. v. p. 152), be allowed to remark 
 .hat I had supported the change of d into / in Greek by instances taken 
 from Ahrens, De Dialeclo Dorica, p. 85, such as Ad/>ioj = Safivri, 'OAv<r<revt =
 
 166 GREEK LEGENDS. 
 
 the wife of the nocturnal Laios, the same name ot 
 lokaste, as the violet dawn, might be given to the 
 wife of (Edipus. Hence that strangely entangled 
 skein of mythological sayings which poets and philos- 
 ophers sought to disentangle as well as they could, 
 and which at last was woven into that extraordinary 
 veil of horrors which covers the sanctuary of Greek 
 rel igion. 
 
 But if this be so and, strange as it may sound at 
 first, the evidence brought in support of this interpre- 
 tation of mythology is irresistible it would seem to 
 follow that Perseus, and (Edipus, and Paris, and Rom- 
 ulus could none of them claim any historical reality. 
 Most historians might be prepared to give up Perseus, 
 CEdipus, and Paris, perhaps even Romulus and Re- 
 mus ; but what about Cyrus ? Cyrus, like the other 
 solar heroes, is known to be a fatal child ; he is exposed, 
 he is saved, and suckled, and recognized, and restored 
 to his royal dignity, and by slaying Astyages he fulfills 
 the solar prophecy as completely as any one of his com- 
 peers. Yet, for all that, Cyrus was a real man, an his- 
 torical character, whose flesh and bone no sublimating 
 process will destroy. Here then we see that mythol- 
 ogy does not always create its own heroes, but that it 
 lays hold of real history, and coils itself round it so 
 
 'OSuo-crtu's, and XI'O-KOS = fitVicos. If in any of the local dialects of Greece the 
 dental media could assume the sound of Z, the admission of the change of a 
 Greek d into a Greek I was justified for the purpose of explaining the 
 name of one or two among the local heroes of ancient Greece, though I 
 grant that it might be open to objections if admitted in the explanation of 
 ordinary Greek words, such as \ao? or /ieXeraw. If, therefore, Professor Cur- 
 tiua (Grundziige der Griechischen Etymoloyie. p. 325) calls the transition of 
 d into / unheard of in Greek, he could only have meant the classical Greek, 
 and not the Greek dialects, which are nevertheless of the greatest impor- 
 tance in the interpretation of the names of local gods and heroes, and in th 
 explanation of local legends.
 
 GREEK LEGENDS. 167 
 
 closely that it is difficult, nay, almost impossible, to sep- 
 a-rate the ivy from the oak, or the lichen from the gran- 
 ite to which it clings. And here is a lesson which 
 comparative mythologists ought not to neglect. They 
 are naturally bent on explaining everything that can be 
 explained ; but they should bear in mind that there 
 may be elements in every mythological riddle which 
 resist etymological analysis, for the simple reason that 
 their origin was not etymological, but historical. The 
 name of " Cyrus " or " Koresh " has been supposed to 
 have some affinity with the Persian name of the sun, 
 "khvar" or " khor " ; and, though this is wrong.it 
 can hardly be doubted that the name of " Astyages," 
 the Median king, the enemy of Cyrus, doomed to de- 
 struction by a solar prophecy, is but a corruption of the 
 Zend name " Azhi dahaka," the destructive serpent, 
 the offspring of Ahriman, who was chained by Thrae- 
 taona, and is to be killed at the end of days by Kere- 
 saspa. Mr. Cox refers several times to this " Azhi da- 
 haka " and his conqueror Thraetaona, and he mentions 
 the brilliant discovery of Eugene Burnouf, who recog- 
 nized in the struggle between Thraetaona and " Azhi 
 dahaka " the more famous struggle celebrated by Fir- 
 dusi in the " Shahnameh " between Feridun and Zo- 
 hak. 1 If, then, the Vedic " Ahi," the serpent of dark- 
 ness destroyed by Trita, Indra. and other solar heroes, 
 is but a mythological name, and if the same applies to 
 " Azhi dahaka," conquered by Thraetaona, and to the 
 Echidna slain by Phoebus, and to Fafnir slain by Si- 
 gurd, what shall we say of Astyages killed by Cyrus? 
 We refer those who take an interest in these questions 
 to a posthumous work of one of the most learned dig 
 
 1 See Essay on the Zend-Aresta, vol. i. p. 97.
 
 168 GREEK LEGENDS. 
 
 nitaries of the Roman Catholic Church, the " Zoroas- 
 trische Studien " of F. Winclischmann. The historical 
 character of Cyrus can hardly be doubted by any one % 
 but the question whether Astyages was assigned to him 
 as his grandfather merely by the agency of popular 
 songs, or whether Astyages too was a real king, involves 
 very important issues, particularly as, according to 
 Windischmann, there can be no doubt as to the iden- 
 tity of Darius, the Median, of the Book of Daniel, and 
 Astyages. What is called the history of Media before 
 the time of Cyrus is most likely nothing but the echo 
 of ancient mythology repeated by popular ballads. 
 Moses of Khorene distinctly appeals to popular songs 
 which told of " Ajdahak," the serpent, 1 and, with re- 
 gard to the changes of the name, Modjmil 2 says that 
 the Persians gave to Zohak the name of " Dehak," i. e. 
 ten evils, because he introduced ten evils into the world. 
 In Arabic his name is said to have been " Dechak," 
 the laugher, while his other name " Azdehak " is ex- 
 plained as referring to the disease of his shoulders, 
 where two serpents grew up which destroyed men. 8 
 All this is popular mythology, arising from a misunder- 
 standing of the old name, " Azhi dahaka ; " and we 
 should probably not be wrong in supposing that even 
 " Dejoces " was a corruption of " Dehak," another 
 ancestor in that Median dynasty which came to an 
 end hi Astyages, the reputed grandfather of Cyrus. 
 We can here only point to the problem as a warning 
 to comparative mythologists, and remind them, in part- 
 ing, that as many of the old German legends were 
 
 1 Windischmann, Zoroastrische Studien, p. 138. 
 1 Journal Asiatique, vol. xi. p. 156. 
 ' Windischmann, 1. c. p. 37.
 
 GREEK LEGENDS. 169 
 
 transferred to the Apostles, as some of the ancient 
 heathen prophecies were applied to the emperor Bar- 
 barossa, as tricks performed by solar archers were told 
 again of a William Tell, and Robin Hood, and Friar 
 Tuck naji as certain ancient legends are now told in 
 Germany of Frederick the Great it does not always 
 follow that heroes of old who performed what may be 
 called solar feats are therefore nothing but myths. We 
 ought to be prepared, even in the legends of Herakles, 
 or Meleagros, or Theseus, to find some grains of local 
 history on which the sharpest tools of comparative my- 
 thology must bend or break. 
 
 March 1867.
 
 XIX. 
 BELLEROPHON. 
 
 WHA.T was the original intention of the name of 
 " Bellerophon ? " That bellero, the first part of the 
 word, represents some power of darkness, drought, 
 cold, winter, or of moral evil, is easy to guess. The 
 Greeks say that there was a word T a lAAepa, which sig- 
 nified anything evil or hateful, 1 and was used in that 
 sense by Kallimachos. 2 Nay, Bellerophon or Beller- 
 ophontes is said to have been called also Ellerophontes. 
 That the Greeks in general, however, were no longer 
 conscious of the appellative power of Belleros, is best 
 proved by the fact that, in order to explain the myth 
 of Bellerophon, they invented, very late, it would seem, 
 a legend, according to which Bellerophon had killed a 
 distinguished Corinthian, of the name of Belleros, and 
 had fled to Argos or Tyrins to be purified by Prcetos 
 from the stain of that murder. Nothing, however, is 
 known about this Belleros, and as the ordinary ac- 
 counts represent Bellerophon as flying to Argos after 
 having killed his brother Deliades, or, as he is also 
 called, Peiren or Alkimenes, there can be little doubt 
 
 1 Preller, Giitcldsche Mythologie, vol. ii. p. 55. 
 
 Eustath. ad II. p. 635; Naeke, Opusc. vol. ii. p. 167.
 
 BELLEROPHON. 171 
 
 that the Corinthian nobleman of the name of Belleros 
 owes his origin entirely to a desire of later mytholo- 
 gists, who felt bound to explain the no longer intelligi- 
 ble name of Bellerophon or Bellerophontes. 
 
 Such a name, it is quite clear, was not originally 
 without some meaning, and without attempting to 
 unravel the whole tragedy of Hipponoos, who after- 
 wards monopolized the name of Bellerophon, it may be 
 possible to discover by a strict observance of etymolog- 
 ical laws, the original form and the original purport of 
 this peculiar name. 
 
 With regard to the second half of the name, there 
 can be little doubt that in Bellerophon and Beller- 
 ophontes, " phon " and " phontes " had one and the 
 same meaning. Now " phon-tes " at the end of com- 
 pounds means the killer, the Sanskrit " han-taV' killer ; 
 and therefore " phon " can, in our name, hardly mean 
 anything else, and would correspond exactly with the 
 Sanskrit "ban," nom. "ha," killing. 
 
 From the reported change in the initial letter of 
 Bellerophon, it is easy to see that it represents a labial 
 liquid, and is in fact the well-known digamma JEoli- 
 cum. But it is more difficult to determine what letters 
 we ought to look for as corresponding in other lan- 
 guages to the XX of the Greek word " bellero." In 
 many cases Greek AX represents a single Z, followed 
 originally by a sibilant or a liquid. 1 In this manner 
 we can account for the single I in TroXus and the double 
 I in TroXXot. Tlo\v<s corresponds to the Sanskrit "pulu " 
 (Rv. I. 179, 5), or " puru," gen. "puros," whereas 
 the oblique cases would represent a Sanskrit adjective 
 " purvd," gen. "purvasya." As TroAXoi points to a 
 * See Abrens, Dial. Dor. p. 60.
 
 172 BELLKROPHON. 
 
 Sanskrit " purve*," oAot points to the Sanskrit " sarve." 
 In Latin, too, a double I owes its origin not unfrequently 
 to an original single / or r followed by v. 1 Thus the 
 double / in mellis, the gen. of mel, honey, is explained 
 by the Sanskrit " madhu,'' raised to "madhv-i," and 
 regularly changed to " madv-i," " malv-i," " mall-5." 
 Pel, gen. fellis, is explained by "haru" in " haru- 
 s]KJx," 2 raised to "barv-i," "halv-i," "hall-i," "fall-i." 8 
 Mollis corresponds to Sanskrit " mridu," through the 
 intermediate links, " raardv-i," " maldv-i," " malv-i,'* 
 " mall-i ; " 4 nay, if Ave consider the Vedic word for bee, 
 " ridu-pa' " (Rv. VIII. 77, 11), mel, mellis, too, might 
 be derived from " mridu," and not from " madhu." 
 According to these analogies, then, the Greek jSe'AXcpo 
 would lead us back to a Sanskrit word " varvara." This 
 word actually occurs in the Sanskrit language, and 
 means hairy, woolly, shaggy, rough. It is applied to 
 the negro-like aboriginal inhabitants of India who were 
 conquered and driven back by Aryan conquerors, and 
 it has been identified with the Greek /3<ip/3apos. San- 
 dal-wood, for instance, which grows chiefly on the 
 Malabar coast, is called in Sanskrit " barbarottha," 
 sprung up among Barbaras, because that coast was 
 always held by Tamulian or non-Aryan people. Pro- 
 fessor Kuhn, identifying barbara and (3a.p(3apo<s, refers 
 the meaning of both words, not to the shaggy or woolly- 
 hair, but to the confused speech (balbutire) of non- 
 Aryan tribes. It will be difficult to prove with what 
 intent the Greeks and the Hindus first applied (3dp(3a- 
 
 1 Corssen, Kritische Beitrage, p. 385. 
 
 2 Aufrecht, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. iii. p. 198. 
 
 8 As to the interchange of h and / in Latin, see Corssen, Kritische Bi- 
 Irage, p. 208; as to the etymology of" fel," Ib. p. 318 
 4 Corssen, Kritisclte Beitraye, p. 323.
 
 BELLEROPHON. 173 
 
 pos and Barbara to tribes differing from themselves both 
 in speech and aspect. It is true that in Greek the word 
 occurs for the first time in Homer with a special refer- 
 ence to language (" Iliad,"' ii. 876, KSpes /2ap/2apo<io>voi) : 
 and in Sanskrit also the earliest passage in which " bar- 
 bara " is found refers to speech (Rig-veda Pratisakhya, 
 Sutra 784 ; XIV. 6). But the " barbarata " there men- 
 tioned as a fault of pronunciation, is explained by the 
 same word (" asaukumaryarn ") which in Sutra 778 
 serves as an explanation of " lomasya ; " and this " lo- 
 masya," meaning shagginess, is, like the Greek Sao-urr/?, 
 clearly transferred from the shagginess of hair ( u lo- 
 man," hair) to the shagginess of pronunciation, so that 
 after all, in Sanskrit at least, the original conception of 
 the adjective " barbara " seems to have been shaggy. 
 
 However that may be, it is clear that many words for 
 wool are derived from the same root " var" which 
 yielded " varvara " or " barbara." This root means 
 originally to cover, and it yielded in Sanskrit " ura " 
 in ura-bhra," ram, i. e. laniger ; in Greek eTpos and 
 Ip-iov. In the Veda we have likewise the feminine 
 " ura," sheep (Rv. VIII. 34, 3), 
 
 " dram na dh&nute vrfka/t," 
 
 "(the stone tears the Soma plant) as the wolf teari 
 the sheep." The wolf is called " uramathi " (Rv. 
 VIII. 66, 8), literally the sheep-shaker, or sheep-lifte?*. 
 From the same root are formed, by means of tire 
 suffix wa, the Sanskrit " uma," wool, particularly of 
 sheep ; afterwards " urwayu," a goat, and a spider ; the 
 one from wearing, growing, or supplying wool ; the 
 other from, as it were, spinning or weaving it. Tlris 
 the spider is also called in Sanskrit " uma-nabhi " and 
 " uma-vabhi," literally the wool-weaver; and one of
 
 174 BELLEROPHON. 
 
 the enemies killed bj Indra is "Aurnavabha," which 
 seems to mean a ram rather, a wool-provider, than a 
 spider. This " ura," as Bopp has shown, appears 
 again in Russian as " volna," in Gothic as " vulla," r 
 having been changed to Z, and In into II. The same 
 assimilation is found in Latin villus, gen. villi^ and vel- 
 ZMS, gen. velleris. It might be difficult to convince a 
 classical scholar that vellus was not derived from the 
 Latin vellere, particularly as Varro himself gives that 
 etymology ; but it would be equally difficult to establish 
 such an etymology by any analogies. It is curious, 
 however, to remark, for reasons to be explained here- 
 after, that vellera in Latin signifies light, fleecy clouds. 
 (Virg. "Georg." 1, 397; Luc. iv. 124.) 
 
 " Ura," therefore, from a root " var," to cover, 
 meant originally cover, then skin, fleece, wool. In its 
 derivatives, too, these various meanings of the root 
 " var " appear again and again, Thus " uranaA " 
 means ram, "urawi," sheep; but " urawaA," quite a 
 different formation, means protector. For instance, 
 with the genitive : 
 
 Rv. I. 173, 7. " samatsu tva sura satam uranam pra-pathfntamam," 
 " Thee, O hero, in battles the protector of the brave, the best guide! ' 
 Rv. VII- 73, 3. " aheina yai/nam patham uranaA," 
 " Let us speed the sacrifice, as keepers of the (old) ways! " 
 
 With the accusative : 
 
 Rv. IH. 19, 2. " (Agni/O deva-tatim uranafc," 
 "Agni, who protects the gods." 
 Rv. IX. 109, 9. " fnduA punanaA pra^am uranaA," 
 " The purified Soma, protecting the people." 
 
 Without any case : 
 
 Rv. IV. C, 4. " (AgniA) pra-dfvaA uranaA," 
 
 " Agni the old guardian." See also Rv. IV. 7, 3; VI. 63, 4. 
 
 Now if " uma," wool, meant originally a covering^
 
 BELLEROPHON. 175 
 
 " var-?za " also, which now means color, would seem 
 to have started from the same conception. Color 
 might naturally be conceived as the covering, the out- 
 side, as xpws and xpw/xa in Greek combine the meanings 
 of skin and color. From " vama," color (brightness), 
 we have in Sanskrit " varwi," gold, as from " rupa," 
 form (beauty), we have " rupya," silver, from which 
 " Rupee ; " for we cannot well derive the name of sil- 
 ver, the metal, from the figure (" rupa ") that was 
 stamped on a silver coin. 
 
 In the Veda "vama" appears in the sense of color, 
 of bright color or light, and of race. 
 
 In the sense of color in general, " vama " occurs, 
 
 Rv. I. 73, 7. " krishnam ka. varnam arunam ka sam dhuft," 
 
 " They placed together the dark and the bright color (of night and 
 
 day)." f 
 
 Rv. I. 113, 2. " dyav4 varnam fcavathaA a-minaneY' 
 " Day and night move on destro3'ing their color.'' 
 
 Frequently " vama " is used in the Veda as imply- 
 ing bright color or light : 
 
 Rv. II. 34, 13. " ni-meghamanaA atyena pa^asa su-sfcandram varwam 
 dadhire su-pe"sasam," 
 
 " They (the Rudras) strongly showering down on their horse, made shin- 
 ing, beautiful light." (On " payas " and its supposed connection with 
 Pegasos, see Kuhn, in his " Zeitschrift," vol. i. p. 461; and Sonne, Ib. 
 vol. x. p. 174, seq.) 
 
 Rv. II. 1, 12. " tava sparhe varne," 
 
 " In thy sparkling light, Agni ! " 
 
 Rv. III. 34, 5. " pra imam varnam atirat ukram asam," 
 
 " He, Indra, spread out the bright light of the dawn." 
 
 In the ninth Mandala the color (" vara ") of 
 the Soma juice is frequently mentioned, as "hari," 
 " rusat," " su&i," also as " asurya " : 
 
 Rv. X. 3, 3. " Agnih vi-tfsh^an rusadbhiA varnaiA," 
 " Agni far-striding with shining colors." 
 
 Even without determining adjectives, " varwa " has 
 occasionally the sense of light :
 
 J76 BELLEROPHON. 
 
 Rv. I. 92, 10. " samanam varnam abhf sumbhamana," 
 " The old Dawn that clothes herself in the same light." 
 Rv. X. 124. 7. " ta/ asya varnam sukaynh bharibhrati," 
 "They (the dawns), the bright ones, carry always the light of the 
 sun." See also Rv. II. 4, 5; II. 5, 5; IV. 15, 3. 
 
 Hence we may take " varwa " in the same sense in 
 another passage, where the commentator explains it as 
 Indra, the protector : 
 
 Rv. I. 104, 2. " devasa/t manyum dasasya sfcamnan 
 te' naA a vakshan suvitaya vnrnam," 
 
 " The gods broke the pride of Dasa (the enemy) ; may they bring 
 to us light for the sacrifice." 
 
 Lastly, " vanza " means color, or tribe, or caste, the 
 difference in color being undoubtedly one of the prin- 
 cipal causes of that feeling of strangeness and hetero- 
 geneousness which found expression in the name of 
 tribe, and, in India, of caste. 1 The commentators 
 generally take "vama" in the technical sense of caste, 
 and refer it to the three highest castes (" traivaraika "_) 
 in opposition to the fourth, the /S'udras. 
 
 Rv. III. 34, 9. " hatvi d;isyun pra aryam varnam ava/t," 
 
 " Indra, killing the Dasyus (the enemies), has protected the Aryan 
 
 color." 
 
 Rv. II. 12, 4. " yaA dasam varnam adharam giih& akar," 
 " Indra who brought the color of the Dasas low in secret.'' 
 Rv. II. 3,5. "varnam punanaA yasasam su-viram," 
 " (The heavenly gates) which illuminate the glorious color (race), 
 
 rich in heroes." 
 
 But to return to "varvara," to which on etymolog 
 ical grounds we should assign the meaning of shaggy 
 hairy, villosus, it need hardly be said that such a word, 
 though it supplies an intelligible meaning of the Greek 
 myth of Belleros, as slain by Bellerophon, does not 
 occur in the Veda among the numerous names of the 
 demons slain by Indra, Agni, and other bright gods. 
 
 1 See my letter to Chevalier Bunsen, On tite Turanian Language* 
 p. 84.
 
 BELLEROPHON. 177 
 
 The same happens very frequently, namely, that San- 
 skrit supplies us with the etymological meaning of a 
 term used in Greek mythology, although the correspond- 
 ing word does not occur in the actual or mythological 
 language of India. Thus the Greek "Hera" is easily 
 explained by " Svara," or, according to Sonne (Kuhn, 
 " Zeitschrift," vol. x. p. 366, vol. ix. p. 202), by 
 " Vasra ; " but neither of these words occurs in the 
 mythological phraseology of the Veda. There remains, 
 however, a question which has still to be answered, 
 namely, Do we find among the demons slain by solar 
 deities, one to whom the name of " varvara," l in the 
 sense of shaggy, would be applicable ? and this ques- 
 tion we may answer with a decided Yes. 
 
 One of the principal enemies or " dasas " conquered 
 by Indra is the black cloud. This black cloud con- 
 tains the rain or the fertilizing waters which Indra is 
 asked to send down upon the earth, and this he can 
 only do by slaying the black demon that keeps them in 
 prison. This black cloud itself is sometimes spoken of 
 in the Veda as the black skin : 
 
 Rv. IX. 41, 1. " ghnanta/i. krishnam apa tva&am," 
 " Pushing away the black skin, i. e. cloud." 
 
 In other places the cloud is called the rain-giving 
 and fertilizing skin : 
 
 Rv. I. 129, 3. " dasmaft hf sma vrfshanam pfnvasi tvafcam," 
 "For thou, the strong one, fillest the rainy skin." 
 
 i Be'AAepo? may either be simply identified with " varvara," in the sense 
 of shaggy, or by taking FXXo s as representing the Latin villas, an adjective 
 FtAAepos might have been formed, like 00o-po? from <ji06vos. The transi- 
 tion into XX appears also in /udXXos, sheep's-wool, where the n represents the 
 labial liquid. See Lobeck, De Prolhesi et Apharesi, p. Ill seq.; and 
 Curtius. in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. iii. p. 410: /u.apir = vrik ; fif\Stav = 
 FeXSiov, juaTjjv == vrithii. 
 
 VOL. II. 12
 
 178 BELLEROPHON. 
 
 While thus the cloud itself is spoken of as a black 
 skin, the demon of the cloud, or the cloud personified, 
 appears in the Veda as a ram, i. e. as a shaggy, hairy 
 animal, in fact, as a BeAAepos. 
 
 Thus Urarca, which, as we saw before, meant ram or 
 laniger, is a name of a demon, slain by Indra : 
 
 Rv. II. 14. " Ye priests, bring hither Soma for Indra, pour from the 
 
 bowls the delicious food ! The hero truly always lovea to drink 
 
 of it ; sacrifice to the strong, for he desires it ! 
 " Ye priests, he who struck down "VYitra, when he had hid the waters, 
 
 as a tree is struck by lightning, to him who desires this Soma, 
 
 offer it; for that Indra desires to drink it ! 
 "Ye priests, he who slew Drfbhika, who drove out the cows, for he 
 
 had opened the stable, to him offer this Soma ! Cover him with 
 
 Somas as the wind in the sky, as an old woman covers herself 
 
 with clothes ! 
 
 "Ye priests, he who slew Urana, who had shown his ninety-nine arms, 
 he who slew down to the ground Arbuda, that Indra call hither 
 to the offering of Soma! " 
 
 Here Urawa is no doubt a proper name, but the 
 idea which it suggested originally could only have 
 been that of " urana," meaning ram or some other 
 shaggy animal. And the same applies to the Greek 
 Be'AAepos. Though in Greek it has become a mere 
 proper name, its original meaning was clearly that of 
 the shaggy ram as the symbol of the shaggy cloud, a 
 monstrum villosum, this being the very adjective which 
 Roman poets like to apply to monsters of the same 
 kith and kin, such as Gorgo or Cacus ; e. g. Ov. 
 " Met." x. 21 : 
 
 " Nee uti villosa colubris 
 Terna Medusaei vincirem guttura monstri." 
 
 " ^En." viii. 266 (of Cacus) : 
 
 " Terribiles oculos, vultum, villosaque setis 
 Pectora semiferi " . . . . 
 
 We cannot therefore claim the name of Belleros 01
 
 BELLEROPHON. 179 
 
 Bellerophon for that period of mythology which pre- 
 ceded the Aryan separation, a period during which 
 such names as Dyaus = Zeus, Varuwa = Ovpavos, Ushas 
 = 'Hws, Sarawyu = 'Epii/v's, Ahana= Aa<^>nj and 'AOyvr], 
 T&bliu = 'Op^eus, Haritas = Xaptres were current among 
 the ancient worshippers of the Devas or bright gods. 
 But we can see at least this, that Bellerophontes had 
 an intelligible meaning, and a meaning analogous to 
 that of other names of solar heroes, the enemies of the 
 dark powers of nature, whether in the shape of night, 
 or dark clouds, or winter. In the Veda one of the 
 principal representatives of that class of demons is 
 Vritra, literally the coverer, the hider, whether of light 
 or rain. Indra, the great solar deity of the Veda, is 
 emphatically called " Vritrahan," the killer of Vritra. 
 It is well known that the name of Indra, as the su- 
 preme deity of the Vedic pantheon, is a name of In- 
 dian growth. Derived from the same root as " indu," 
 drop, it represents the Jupiter pluvius, whose su- 
 premacy among the gods of India is fully accounted 
 for by the climatic character of that country. Dyaus, 
 i. e. Zeus, the god of the bright sky, the original su- 
 preme deity of the undivided Aryans, was replaced in 
 India by Indra, who is sometimes called the son of 
 Dyaus, so that in India the prophecy of Prometheus 
 may be said to have been fulfilled, even before it was 
 uttered under a Greek sky. 
 
 But though we must not look in Greek mythology 
 for traces of a name like Indra, which did not spring 
 into existence before the separation of the Aryans, it 
 is not impossible that some of the names of Indra's 
 enemies may have been preserved in other countries. 
 These enemies were the enemies of Dvaus and other
 
 180 BELLEROPHON. 
 
 gods as well as of Indra ; and as they belong to an 
 earlier period, the appearance of their names in the 
 new homes of the Aryan emigrants could have nothing 
 to surprise us. 
 
 One of the names belonging to this class of beings, 
 hostile to men and the bright gods, and common to 
 India and Greece, I observed many years ago, and 
 having communicated my observation to several of my 
 friends, it was mentioned by them even before I found 
 an opportunity of laying it before the public, and sup- 
 porting it by sufficient proof. My excellent friend, 
 Professor Trithen, whose early death has deprived 
 Sanskrit scholarship of a man of real genius and high 
 promise, mentioned my identification of Kerberos with 
 the Sanskrit " sarvara " in a Paper read in April, 1848, 
 and published in the " Transactions of the Philological 
 Society ; " and another learned friend of mine referred 
 to it with approval a few years later, though neither 
 of them represented correctly the steps by which I had 
 arrived at my conclusion. My first point was that, as 
 " sarvari " in the Veda means the night, " sarvara " 
 must have had the original sense of dark or pale : 
 
 Rv. V. 52, 3. " td syandraso na ukshanaA ati skandanti sarvariA," 
 " These (the Storm-gods), like powerful bulls, rise over the dark nights 
 (or the dark clouds?)." 
 
 My second point was that the r in " sarvara " may 
 be dropt, and this I proved by comparing " sarvarika," 
 a low, vile man, with " savara," a barbarian ; or " sar- 
 vara, " l mischievous, nocturnal, with " savara," low, 
 vile. I thus arrived at " savara," as a modified form 
 
 1 Durga, in his Commentary on the NiruTcta (MS. E. I. H. 357, p. 223) 
 ays of the Dawn: "sarvarewa tamasa digdhani sarvadravyani piakasoda- 
 kena dhautaniva karoti."
 
 BELLEKOPHON. 181 
 
 of " sarvara," in the sense of dark, pale, 01* noctur- 
 nal. Lastly, by admitting the frequent change of r 
 into Z, I connected " sabala," the Vedic epithet of the 
 dog of Yama, the son of Sarama, with KeVberos, 
 though I drew attention to the difference in the accent 
 as a point that still required explanation. Kerberos, 
 therefore, in Greek, would have meant originally the 
 dark one, the dog of night, watching the path to the 
 lower world. In the Veda we find two such dogs, but 
 they have not yet received any proper names, and are 
 without that individuality which was imparted to them 
 by later legends. All we learn of them from the Veda 
 is that they have four eyes and broad snouts, that their 
 color is dark or tawny, that they guard the road to the 
 abode of Yama, the king of the departed, and that the 
 dead must pass by them before they can come to Yama 
 and the Fathers. They are also said to move about 
 among men, as the messengers of Yama, to feast on 
 the life of men, so that Yama is implored to protect 
 men from their fury, while, in other places, they them- 
 selves are invoked, like Yama and Mrityu, to grant a 
 long life to man. As the offspring of Sarama, they 
 are called Sarameya; but they have, as yet, no real 
 proper names. The same applies to Kerberos. His 
 proper name does not occur in Homer, but the dog 
 of Hades in Erebos is mentioned by him without 
 further particulars. Hesiod is the first who mentions 
 the name and genealogy of Kerberos, and with him 
 he is already fifty-headed, brazen-voiced, and furious, 
 .^ater poets speak of hirn as three-headed, with ser- 
 pents for his tail and mane ; and at last he becomes 
 hundred-headed. This Kerberos, as we know, is seized 
 by Herakles and brought up to the daylight, though 
 thrown back again into Hades.
 
 182 BELLERUrHON. 
 
 But, besides Kerberos, there is another dog con- 
 quered by Herakles, and as he, like Kerberos, is born 
 of Typhaon and Echidna, we may well look upon him 
 as the brother or ditto of Kerberos. He is the dog of 
 
 O 
 
 Geryones, sometimes called Kerberos himself (" Pal- 
 aeph." 40) ; and as Herakles, before conquering Ker- 
 beros, has first to struggle with Menoetios, the cowherd, 
 we find that in his eighth labor, too, Herakles has to 
 struggle with the cowherd Eurytion and his dog ; nay, 
 according to some authorities, Menoetios himself takes 
 part again in this struggle. This second dog is known 
 by the name of " Orthros," the exact copy, I believe, 
 of the Vedic Vritra. That the Vedic Vritra should 
 appear in Greece in the shape of a dog, need not sur- 
 prise us, particularly as there are traces to show that 
 in Greek mythology also he was originally a monster 
 of a less definite character. We find him, in Hesiod's 
 " Theogony," v. 308 seq., among the children of 
 Echidna and Typhaon : 
 
 q S' viroKvo-ancvri TTO Kpartpo-ppova. Tva, 
 "OpOpOv pev irpiarov KVVH ytiva.ro Vripvovyi. 
 Sevrepov aSns crucTer dfiyxavov, ovn <f>arei6v 
 TLepffepov, <a/i.T)a~nji> t 'AtSfia KVVO. \a.\K f6i}><avov, 
 irtvn]icOvTajca.pT)vov, dvaiSia. re Kparepov re. 
 
 Soon after, "Opflpos, for this is, no doubt, the right 
 reading, instead of "O P 0os, is called the parent of the 
 Nemsean lion. And what indicates still more the orig- 
 inal meaning of "O/jtfpos as a representative of darkness 
 struggling with light, is the idiomatic use of opOpos as 
 signifying the time before sunrise. Thus we read in 
 Hesiod, " O. D." 575, opOpov dviora/ievos, rising early, 
 t. e. while the darkness still reigns, and while the last 
 portion of the night is not yet driven away by the
 
 BELLEROPHON. 183 
 
 dawn (Centre chien et loup). The swallow, too, is called 
 opdpoyorj (568), literally " the early wailing ; " the cock 
 6p0po/3oas, the earlier caller. Thus we read in Horn. 
 " Hymn. Merc." 98, 
 
 bp<pvaly &' eiri'icovpoj ejraucro Sainovii) vvf, 
 T; n\fitav, Ta.\a 5' opQpos eyiyvero STj/xioepyO;, 
 
 where op#pos might simply be translated by Vritra, if 
 we consider how, in Vedic phraseology, Vritra is the 
 thief who keeps the cows or the rays of the morning 
 shut up in his stable, and how the first peep of day is 
 expressed by Sarama discovering the dark stables of 
 Vritra and the Panis. Of Hermes (the Sarameya) it 
 is said (v. 145) that he comes op$pu>s, i. e. with Vritra, 
 at the time of the final discomfiture of Vritra, 1 and 
 that he comes silently, so that not even the dogs bark 
 
 at llim, OVT KWes XeXttKOVTO. 
 
 Thus we discover in Herakles, the victor of Orthros, 
 a real Vritrahan, what might have been in Greek an 
 'Op6po<f>C)v or 'Op6po4>6vi"r]s ; and, though the names may 
 differ, we now see in BeXXepo^wv or BcXXepo^d^^s, who 
 killed, if not a he-goat (Tirana), at least a she-goat, i. e. 
 Xt/xaipa, a mere variation of the same solar hero, and 
 a reflection of the Vedic Indra Vritrahan. Chimsera, 
 like Orthros and Kerberos, is a being with three heads 
 or three bodies (rptc-w/Aaros and rptKe^aXos) ; nay, like 
 Orthros and Kerberos, Chimaera, too, is the offspring of 
 Typhaon and Echidna. 
 
 Nay, further, although the name of 'Op0po<wv or 
 'Op^po^ovTTjs has not been preserved in Greek mythol- 
 ogy, it is possible, I think, to discover in Greek traces 
 of another name, having the same import in Sanskrit, 
 
 1 The same place where Vritra lies (i. 52, 6, " r&g&ssJi budhnam ") is also 
 tailed the birthplace of Indra, iv. 1, 11.
 
 184 BELLEROPHON. 
 
 and frequently used as a synonym of " vritrahan." 
 This is " dasyuban," the killer of Dasyu. " Dasyu " 
 or " dasa " is in the Veda the general name of the 
 enemies of the bright gods, as well as of their wor- 
 shippers, the Aryan settlers of India. " Dasyuhanta " 
 or " dasa-hanta " would in Greek assume the form of 
 8oj<(Wr?s, or, as in some places of ancient Greece 8 was 
 pronounced like A, 1 this might assume the form of 
 AeoDc^ovnfs. Now this Leophontes occurs in Greek my- 
 thology as another name of Bellerophon, and it is clear 
 that the meaning of that name could not have been 
 lion-killer, for that would have been Leontophontes, 
 but that it could only signify killer of whatever is ex- 
 pressed by Aeco or Sew. 
 
 It is perfectly true that the change of d into I is in 
 Greek restricted to certain dialects, and that it cannot 
 
 1 That d and I are interchangeable letters is perfectly true, but this gen- 
 eral rule is liable to many limitations as applied to different languages. An 
 original I, for instance, is hardly ever changed to d, and hence the deriva- 
 tion of lingua from lih, to lick, is very doubtful; for dingua, which is men- 
 tioned as the older form of linyita, could well have been changed to linyua, 
 but not vice versa. On the same ground I doubt whether in adeps the d 
 represents an original Aryan I, although the Greek atevpa, ointment. Xiiro, 
 fat, and Sanskrit " lip," to anoint, would seem to support this view. My 
 former identification of /ueXe-row and meditor is equally untenable. All we 
 can say for certain is that an original or Aryan d may become I in Larin: 
 e. ff. Sansk. " devara," Greek Sarjp = Lat. levir ; Sansk. " dih," Goth. 
 " deiga "= Lat. pol-linqo ; Greek &a.Kpv, Goth. " tagr " = Lat. lacru-mn ; 
 Greek &ipaf = Lat. lorica ; Greek 'OSwaev's = Lat. Ulyxes. In Latin itself an 
 original d changes dialectically with /, as in odor and olfaclt ; impedimenta 
 and impelimenta ; dtdicare and dtlicare ; cassida and. cassila ; sedere and 
 snlium; presidium and prcesilium, and sul m prcesul, etc.; danfia and lautia; 
 dingun. (" tuggo " Goth.) and linffim; Medicce and Melicce ; rediria and relu- 
 mum, if from reduo, like iiiduvice. and not from luo, as proposed by Festus; 
 Diumpais (Osc.) and lymphis ; Akudunnia (Osk.) and Aquilonia, of unknown 
 origin, but with original d, as proved even by the modern name " Lace- 
 dogna." In Greek the same dialectic change is recorded in X 
 Atffitos= SICTKOS, 'OX"<r<revs = 'OSt'o-crevs.
 
 RELLKROl'HON. 185 
 
 be admitted as a general rule, unless there be some 
 new evidence to that effect. Were it not so, one 
 might feel inclined to trace even the common Greek 
 word for people Aao's, back to the same source as the 
 Sanskrit, " dasa." For " dasyu," meaning originally 
 enemies, hastes, assumed in Zend " dardm " and 
 " daqyu, the sense of province, a transition of mean- 
 ing which is rendered intelligible by the use of 
 " dahyu " in the cuneiform inscriptions, where Darius 
 calls himself king of Persia and king of the Dahyus, 
 i. e. of the conquered people or provinces. 1 The same 
 transition of meaning must be admitted in Greek, if, 
 
 O 77 
 
 as Professor Pott suggests, the Greek 8eo--7ror^s and 
 SeV-TT-otra correspond to Sanskrit " dasa-pati " and 
 " diisd-patni," in the sense of lord of subjects. The 
 only difficulty here, would be the retention of the s of 
 dasa,'' which, according to general practice, would 
 have been dropt between two vowels. The true form 
 of "dasa." in Greek would be Sctos or Sew?. Auo's is 
 well known as a name of slaves, but it admits of a dif- 
 ferent explanation. 2 The adjective 8aVos, however, or 
 STJI'OS, hostile, is clearly derived from the same source, 
 the root being " das," to perish ; though it is true that in 
 its frequent application to fire, the adjective Sa't'os might 
 also be referred to the root " dn," to burn. 3 After 
 we have once discovered on Greek soil the traces of 
 "dasa" in the sense of enemy, we see clearly that 
 Leophontes, as the name of Bellerophon, could not 
 have meant originally the killer of the people, but only 
 
 1 Lassen, Zeitschriflfiirdie Kundedes Morgenlandes, vol. vi. p. 12. 
 
 2 See Niebuhr, Kleinere Schriften, vol. i. p. 377. 
 
 8 See Aufrecht, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, vol. vii. p. 312; Pott, Ib. voL 
 viii. p. 428.
 
 186 BELLEEOPHON. 
 
 the killer of enemies. And if Leophontes meant the 
 killer of enemies or fiends, it can only be explained 
 as corresponding to the Sanskrit " dasahanta," the 
 destroyer of enemies, these enemies being the very 
 " Dasas " or demons of the Veda, such as Vritra 
 ("O/30pos), Namu&i ('A/xu/cos), 1 *Sambara, 2 and others. 
 
 November, 1855.8 
 
 * A. Pick, in Benfey's Orient und Occident, vol. Hi. p. 126. 
 
 2 Sambara, a very common name of a demon slain by Indra, invites 
 comparison with "sabara" and " sarbara," the Sinskrit original of Ker- 
 oeros. In the Zend-Avesta, too, "srvara" occurs as the name of a ser- 
 pent (" azhi "). 
 
 8 Some critical remarks on the subject of this article may be seen in Pro- 
 fessor Pott's tymologische Forschungen, second edition, vol. ii. o. 744.
 
 XX. 
 
 THE NORSEMEN IN ICELAND. 1 
 
 THERE is, after Anglo-Saxon, no language, no litera- 
 ture, no mythology so full of interest for the elucidation 
 of the earliest history of the race which now inhabits 
 these British Isles as the Icelandic. Nay, in one re- 
 spect, Icelandic beats every other dialect of the great 
 Teutonic family of speech, not excepting Anglo-Saxon 
 and Old High-German and Gothic. It is in Icelandic 
 alone that we find complete remains of genuine Teu- 
 tonic heathendom. Gothic, as a language, is more 
 ancient than Icelandic ; but the only literary work 
 which we possess in Gothic is a translation of the 
 Bible. The Anglo-Saxon literature, with the excep- 
 tion of the " Beowulf," is Christian. The old heroes of 
 the " Nibelunge," such as we find them represented in 
 the Suabian epic, have been converted into church- 
 going knights ; whereas, in the ballads of the elder 
 " Edda," Sigurd and Brynhild appear before us in their 
 full pagan grandeur, holding nothing sacred but their 
 love, and defying all laws, human and divine, in the 
 name of that one almighty passion. The Icelandic 
 contains the key to many a riddle in the English Ian 
 
 1 Ths WorKmen in Iceland. By Dr. G. W. Dasent Oxford Essayg, 
 1858.
 
 188 THE NORSEMEN IN ICELAND. 
 
 guage, and tr many a mystery in the English character. 
 Thouffh the Old Norse is but a dialect of the same 
 
 O 
 
 language which the Angles and Saxons brought to 
 Britain, though the Norman blood is the same blood 
 
 7 O 
 
 that floods and ebbs in every German heart, yet there 
 is an accent of defiance in that rugged Northern 
 speech, and a spring of daring madness in that throb- 
 bing Northern heart, which marks the Northman 
 jvherever he appears, whether in Iceland or in Sicily, 
 whether on the Seine or on the Thames. At the be- 
 ginning of the ninth century, when the great Northern 
 exodus began, Europe, as Dr. Dasent remarks, " was 
 in danger of becoming too comfortable. The two na- 
 tions destined to run neck-and-neci' in the great race 
 of civilization, Frank and Anglo-SiuTon, had a tendency 
 to become dull and lazy, and neither could arrive at 
 perfection till it had been chastised by the Norsemen, 
 and finally forced to admit an infusion of Northern 
 blood into its sluggish veins. The vigor of the various 
 brahcnes of the Teutonic stock may be measured by 
 the proportion of Norman blood which they received; 
 and the national character of England owes more to the 
 descendants of Hrolf Ganger than to the followers of 
 Hengist and Horsa." 
 
 But what is known of the early history of the 
 Norsemen? Theirs was the life of reckless freeloot- 
 ers, and they had no tirm to dream and ponder on the 
 past, whicn they had left behind in Norway. Where 
 they settled as colonists or as rulers, their own tradi- 
 tions, their very language, were soon forgotten. Their 
 language has nowhere struck root on foreign ground, 
 even where, as in Normandy, they became earls of 
 Rouen, or, as in these isles, kings of England. There
 
 THE NORSEMEN IN ICELAND. 189 
 
 is but one exception Iceland. Iceiand was discov- 
 ered, peopled, and civilized by Norsemen in the ninth 
 century ; and in the nineteenth century, the language 
 spoken there is still the dialect of Harold Fairhair, and 
 the stories told there are still the stories of the " Edda," 
 or the Venerable Grandmother. Dr. Dasent gives us 
 a rapid sketch of the first landings of the Norwegian 
 refugees on the fells and forths of Iceland. He de- 
 scribes how love of freedom drove the subjects of 
 Harold Fairhair forth from their home ; how the Teu- 
 tonic tribes, though they loved their kings, the sons of 
 Odin, and sovereigns by the grace of God, detested 
 the dictatorship of Harold. " He was a mighty war- 
 rior," so says the ancient Saga, "and laid Norway 
 under him, and put out of the way some of those who 
 held districts, and some of them he drove out of the 
 land ; and, besides, many men escaped out of Norway 
 because of the overbearing of Harold Fairhair, for 
 they would not stay to be subject to him." These 
 early emigrants were Pagans, and it was not till the 
 end of the tenth century that Christianity reached the 
 Ultima Thnle of Europe. The missionaries, however, 
 who converted the freemen of Iceland were freemen 
 themselves. They did not come with the pomp and 
 the pretensions of the Church of Rome. They 
 preached Christ rather than the Pope ; they taught 
 religion rather than theology. Nor were they afraid 
 of the old heathen gods, or angry with every custom 
 that was not of Christian growth. Sometimes this 
 tolerance may have been carried too far, for we read 
 of kings, like Helgi, " mixed in their faith, who trusted 
 in Christ, but at the same time invoked Thor's aid 
 whenever they went to sea, or got into any difficulty."
 
 190 THE NORSEMEN IN ICELAND. 
 
 But on the whole, the kindly feeling of the Icelandic 
 priesthood toward the national traditions and customs 
 and prejudices of their converts must have been bene- 
 ficial. Sons and daughters were not forced to call the 
 gods whom their fathers and mothers had worshipped, 
 devils ; and they were allowed to use the name of 
 " Allfadir," whom they had invoked in the prayers of 
 their childhood when praying to Him who is " Our 
 Father in Heaven." 
 
 The Icelandic missionaries had peculiar advantages 
 in their relation to the system of paganism which they 
 came to combat. Nowhere else, perhaps, in the whole 
 history of Christianity, has the missionary been brought 
 face to face with a race of gods who were believed by 
 their own worshippers to be doomed to death. The 
 missionaries had only to proclaim that Balder was dead, 
 that the mighty Odin and Thor were dead. The 
 people knew that these gods were to die, and the mes- 
 sage of the One Ever-living God must have touched 
 their ears and their hearts with comfort and joy. 
 Thus, while in Germany the priests were occupied for 
 a long time in destroying every trace of heathenism, in 
 condemning every ancient lay as the work of the devil, 
 in felling sacred trees and abolishing national customs, 
 the missionaries of Iceland were able to take a more 
 charitable view of the past, and they became the 
 keepers of those very poems, and laws, and proverbs, 
 and Runic inscriptions, which on the Continent had to 
 be put down with inquisitorial cruelty. The men to 
 whom the collection of the ancient pagan poetry of 
 Iceland is commoiily ascribed, were men of Christian 
 learning : the one, the founder of a public school ; the 
 other, famous as the author of a history of the North
 
 THE NORSEMEN IN ICELAND. 191 
 
 the " Heimskringla." It is owing to their labors that 
 we know anything of the ancient religion, the tradi- 
 tions, the maxims, the habits of the Norsemen, and it 
 is from these sources that Dr. Dasent has drawn his 
 stores of information, and composed his vigorous and 
 living sketch of primitive Northern life. It is but a 
 sketch, but a sketch that will bear addition and com- 
 pletion. Dr. Dasent dwells most fully on the religious 
 system of Iceland, which is the same, at least in its 
 general outline, as that believed in by all the members 
 of the Teutonic family, and may truly be called one 
 of the various dialects of the primitive religious and 
 mythological language of the Aryan race. There is 
 nothing more interesting than religion in the whole 
 history of man. By its side, poetry and art, science 
 and law, sink into comparative insignificance. Dr. 
 Dasent, however, has not confined his essay to the re- 
 ligious life of Iceland. He has added some minute 
 
 O 
 
 descriptions of the domestic habits, the dress, the 
 armor, the diet, the laws, and the customs of the race, 
 and he has proved himself well at home in the Icelan- 
 dic homestead. One thing only we miss, an account 
 of their epic poetry ; and this, we believe, would on 
 several points have furnished a tinier picture of the 
 very early and purely pagan life of the Norsemen than 
 the extracts from their histories and law books, which 
 are more or less, if not under the influence of Chris- 
 tianity, at least touched by the spirit of a more ad- 
 vanced civilization. The old poems, in their alliter- 
 ating metre, were proof against later modifications. 
 We probably possess what we do possess of them, in 
 its original form. As they were composed in Norway 
 in the sixth century after Christ, they were carried to
 
 192 THE NORSEMEN IN ICELAND. 
 
 Iceland in the ninth, and written down in the eleventh 
 century. The prose portions of the " Old Edda," and 
 still more of the "Young Edda," may be of later 
 origin. They betray in many instances the hand of a 
 Christian writer. And the same applies to the later 
 Sagas and law books. Here much is still to be done by 
 the critic, and we look forward with great interest to 
 a fuller inquiry into the age of the various parts of Ice- 
 landic literature, the history of the MSS., the genuine- 
 ness of their titles, and similar questions. Such sub- 
 jects are hardly fit for popular treatment, and we do 
 not blame Dr. Dasent for having passed them over in 
 his essay. But the translator of the younger " Edda " 
 ought to tell us hereafter what is the history of this, 
 and of the older collection of Icelandic poetry. How 
 do we know, for instance, that Saemund (10561133) 
 collected the Old, Snorro Sturlason (1178-1241) the 
 Young Edda?" How do we know that the MSS. 
 
 C3 
 
 which we now possess, have a right to the title of 
 "Edda?" All this rests, as far as we know, on the 
 authority of Bishop Brynjulf Swendsen, who discovered 
 the " Codex regius " in 1643, and wrote on the copy of 
 it, with his own hand, the title of " Edda Ssemundar 
 hinns froda." None of the MSS. of the second, or prose 
 " Edda," bear that title in any well-authenticated form ; 
 still less is it known whether Snorro composed either 
 part or the whole of it. All these questions ought to be 
 answered, as far as they can be answered, before we 
 can hope to see the life of the ancient Norsemen drawn 
 with truthfulness and accuracy. The greater part of 
 the poems, however, bear an expression of genuineness 
 which cannot be challenged ; and a comparison of the 
 mythology of the " Edda " with that of the Teutonic
 
 THE NORSEMEN IN ICELAND. 193 
 
 tribes, and again, in a more general manner, with that 
 of the other Indo-Germanic races, is best calculated to 
 convince the skeptic that the names and the legends of 
 the Eddie gods are not of late invention. There are 
 passages in the " Edda " which sound like verses from 
 the Veda. Dr. Dasent quotes the following lines from 
 the elder " Edda : " 
 
 " 'Twas the morning of time, 
 When yet naught was, 
 Nor sand nor sea were there, 
 Nor cooling streams; 
 Earth was not formed, 
 Nor heaven above ; 
 A yawning gap there was, 
 And grass nowhere." 
 
 A hymn of the Veda begins in a very similar way : 
 
 " Nor Aught nor Naught existed ; yon bright sky 
 Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. 
 What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed? 
 Was it the waters fathomless abyss? '' etc. 
 
 There are several mythological expressions common 
 to the " Edda " and Homer. In the " Edda," man is 
 said to have been created out of an ash-tree. In He- 
 siod, Zeus creates the third race of men out of ash- 
 trees ; and that this tradition was not unknown to 
 Homer, we learn from Penelope's address to Ulysses : 
 " Tell me thy family, from whence thou art ; for thou 
 art not sprung from the olden tree, or from the rock." 
 
 There are, however, other passages in the " Edda," 
 particularly in the prose " Edda," which ought to be 
 carefully examined before they are admitted as evidence 
 on the primitive paganism of the Norsemen. The 
 prose " Edda" was written by a man who mixed clas- 
 sical learning and Christian ideas with Northern tradi- 
 tions. This is clearly seen in the preface. But traces 
 
 VOL. U. 13
 
 194 THE NORSEMEN IN ICELAND. 
 
 of the same influence may be discovered in other parts, 
 as, for instance, in the dialogue called " G}'lh"s Mock- 
 ing." The ideas which it contains are meant to be 
 
 O 
 
 pagan, but are they really pagan in their origin ? Dr. 
 Dasent gives the following extract : 
 
 " Who is first and eldest of all gods ? He is called 
 " Allfadir " (the Father of All, the Great Father) in 
 our tongue. He lives from all ages, and rules over his 
 realm, and sways all things, great and small. He made 
 heaven and earth, and the sky, and all that belongs to 
 them ; and he made man, and gave him a soul that 
 shall live and never perish, though the body rot to 
 mould or burn to ashes. All men that are right-minded 
 
 O 
 
 shall live and be with him in the place called " Vin- 
 golf : " but Avicked ones fare to Hell, and thence into 
 Niflhell, that is, beneath in the ninth world." 
 
 We ask Dr. Dasent, Is this pure, genuine, unsophis- 
 ticated paganism? Is it language that Sigurd and 
 Brynhild would have understood ? Is that " Allfadir "' 
 really nothing more than Odin, who himself must per- 
 'sh, and whom at the day of doom the wolf, the Fenris- 
 tfolf, was to swallow at one gulp ? We can only ask 
 the question here, but we doubt not that in his next 
 work on the antiquities of the Northern races, Dr. 
 Dasent will give us a full and complete answer, and 
 thus satisfy the curiosity which he has raised by his 
 valuable contribution to the " Oxford Essays." 
 JTirfy 1358
 
 XXI. 
 
 FOLK-LORE. 1 
 
 As the science of language has supplied a new basis 
 for the science of mythology, the science of mythology 
 bids fair, in its turn, to open the way to a new and 
 scientific study of the folk-lore of the Aryan nations. 
 Not only have the radical and formal elements of lan- 
 guage been proved to be the same in India, Greece, 
 Italy, among the Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic na- 
 tions ; not only have the names of many of their gods, 
 the forms of their worship, and the mainsprings of their 
 religious sentiment been traced back to one common 
 Aryan source ; but a further advance has been made. 
 A myth, it was argued, dwindles down to a legend, a 
 legend to the tale ; and if the myths were originally 
 identical in India, Greece, Italy, and Germany, why 
 should not the tales also of these countries show some 
 similarity even in the songs of the Indian ayah and 
 .he English nurse? There is some truth in this line 
 ol' argument, but there is likewise great clanger of error. 
 Granted that words and myths were originally identi- 
 cal among all the members of the Aryan family ; granted 
 likewise that they all went through the same vicissi- 
 
 l Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk Lore. By W. K. 
 Kelly. London : Chapman & Hall. 1883.
 
 196 FOLK-LORE. 
 
 tudes ; would it not follow that, as no sound scholar 
 thinks of comparing Hindustani and English, or Ital- 
 ian and Russian, no attempt at comparing the modern 
 tales of Europe to the modern tales of India could 
 ever lead to any satisfactory results ? The tales, or 
 " Mahrchen," are the modern patois of mythology, and 
 if they are to become the subject of scientific treat- 
 ment, the first task that has to be accomplished is to 
 trace back each modern tale to some earlier legend, and 
 eacli legend to some primitive myth. And here it is very 
 important to remark that, although originally our pop- 
 ular tales were reproductions of more ancient legends, 
 yet after a time a general taste was created for marvel- 
 ous stories, and new ones were invented, in large num- 
 bers whenever they were required, by every grand- 
 mother and every nurse. Even in these purely imagina- 
 tive tales, analogies may no doubt be discovered with 
 more genuine tales, because they were made after orig- 
 inal patterns, and in many cases, were mere variations 
 of an ancient air. But if we tried to analyze them by 
 the same tests as the genuine tales, if we attempted 
 to recognize in them the features of ancient legends, 
 or to discover in these fanciful strains the key-notes 
 of sacred mythology, we should certainly share the 
 fate of those valiant knights who were led through 
 an enchanted forest by the voices of fairies till they 
 found themselves landed in a bottomless quagmire. 
 Jacob Grimm, as Mr. Kelly tells us in his work on 
 " Indo-European Tradition and Folk-Lore," was the 
 first scholar who pointed out the importance of collect- 
 ing all that could be saved of popular stories, customs, 
 sayings, superstitions, and beliefs. His " German My- 
 thology is a store-house of such curiosities, and, to
 
 FOLK-LORE. 197 
 
 gether with his collection of " Mahrehen," it shows 
 how much there is still floating about of the most an- 
 
 O 
 
 cient language, thought, fancy, and belief, that might 
 be, and ought to be collected in every part of tho 
 world. The Norse Tales lately published by Dr. 
 Dasent are another instance that shows how much 
 there is to reward the labors of a careful collector 
 and a thoughtful interpreter. Sufficient material has 
 been collected to enable scholars to see that these 
 tales and translations are not arbitrary inventions or 
 modern fictions, but that their fibres cling in many in- 
 stances to the very germs of ancient language and an- 
 cient thought. Among those who, in Germany, have 
 followed in the track of Grimm, and endeavored to trace 
 the modern folk-lore back to its most primitive sources, 
 the names of Kuhn, Schwartz, Mannhardt, and Wolf 
 held a prominent place ; and it has been the object of 
 Mr. Kelly to make known to us in his book the most 
 remarkable discoveries which have been achieved by 
 the successors and countrymen of Jacob Grimm in this 
 field of antiquarian research. 
 
 Mr. Kelly deserves great credit for the pains he has 
 taken in mastering this difficult subject, but we regret 
 the form in which he has thought fit to communicate 
 to an English public the results of his labors. He 
 tells us that a work by Dr. Kuhn, " On the Descent 
 of Fire and the Drink of the Gods," is his chief author- 
 ity ; but he adds : 
 
 " Although the very different nature of my work has 
 seldom allowed me to translate two or three consecu- 
 tive sentences from Dr. Kuhn's elaborate treatise, yet 
 I wish it to be fully understood that, but for the latter, 
 the former could not have been written. I am the more
 
 198 FOLK-LOBE. 
 
 bound to state this once for all, as emphatically as I 
 can, because the very extent of ray indebtedness has 
 hindered me from acknowledging my obligations to Dr. 
 Kuhn, in the text or in foot-notes, as constantly as I 
 have done in most other cases." 
 
 We cannot help considering this an unsatisfactory 
 arrangement. If Mr. Kelly had given a translation of 
 Dr. Kuhn's essay, English readers would have known 
 whom to hold responsible for the statements, many of 
 them very startling, as to the coincidences in the tales 
 and traditions of the Aryan nations. Or, again, if 
 Mr. Kelly had written a book of his own, we should 
 have had the same advantage ; for he would, no doubt, 
 have considered himself bound to substantiate every 
 fact quoted from the " Edda " or from the Veda by a 
 suitable reference. As it is, the reader's curiosity is 
 certainly excited to the highest degree, but his incredu- 
 lity is in no way relieved. Mr. Kelly does not tell us 
 that he is a Sanskrit or an Icelandic scholar, and hence 
 we naturally infer that his assertions about the gods of 
 the Indian and Northern pantheons are borrowed from 
 Dr. Kuhn and other German writers. But, if so, it 
 would have been far preferable to give the ipsissima 
 verba of these scholars, because, in descriptions of 
 ancient forms of belief or superstition, the slightest 
 change of expression is apt to change the whole bear- 
 ing of a sentence. Many of Dr. Kuhn's opinions have 
 been challenged and controverted by his own country- 
 men, by Welcker, Bunsen, Pott, and others ; some 
 he has successfully supported by new evidence, others 
 he may be supposed to have surrendered. All this 
 could not be otherwise in a subject so new and neces- 
 sarily so full of guess-work as the study of folk-lore,
 
 FOLK-LORE. 199 
 
 and it detracts in no way from the value of the excel- 
 lent essays in which Dr. Kuhn and others have ana- 
 lyzed various myths of the Aryan nations. All we 
 insist on is this, that before we can accept any conclu- 
 sions as to the Vedic character of Greek gods, or the 
 deep meaning of so whimsical a custom as divination 
 with the sieve and shears, we must have chapter and 
 verse from the Veda, and well authenticated descrip- 
 tions of the customs referred to. People do not object 
 to general assertions about the Bible, or Homer, or 
 Virgil, or Shakespeare, because here they can judge 
 for themselves, and would not mind the trouble of 
 checking statements which seem at all startling. But 
 if they are asked to believe that the Veda contains the 
 true theogony of Greece, that Orpheus is " Jftibhu," 
 or the wind, that the Charites are the Vedic " Hari- 
 tas," or horses, the Erinnys " Sarawyu," or the light- 
 ning, they will naturally insist on evidence such as 
 should enable them to judge for themselves, before 
 assenting to even the most plausible theories. What 
 authority is there for saying (p. 14) that, 
 
 " The Sanskrit tongue in which the Vedas are 
 written, is the sacred language of India, that is to 
 say, the oldest language, the one which was spoken, 
 as the Hindus believe, by the gods themselves, when 
 gods and men were in frequent fellowship with each 
 other, from the time when Yama descended from 
 heaven to become the first of mortals." 
 
 The Hindus, as far as we know, never say that the 
 gods spoke Vedic as opposed to ordinary Sanskrit ; 
 they never held that during the Vedic period the gods 
 lived in more frequent fellowship with men ; they 
 never speak of Yama as descending from heaven to
 
 200 FOLK-LORE. 
 
 become the first of mortals. These are three mistakes, 
 or at least three entirely un-Indian ideas, in one sen- 
 tence. Again, when we are told (p. 19) that, " in the 
 Vedas, Yama is the first lightning-born mortal," we 
 imagine that this is a simple statement from the Veda, 
 
 3 
 
 whereas it is a merely hypothetical and, we believe, 
 erroneous view of the nature of Yama, drawn from 
 the interpretation of the names of some Vedic deities. 
 If given as a guess, with all its pros and cons, it would 
 be valuable ; if given, as here, as a simple fact, it ia 
 utterly deceptive. 
 
 In page 18 we are told : 
 
 " On the whole, it is manifest that all these divine 
 tribes, Maruts, Jftbhus, Bhrigus, and Angiras, are 
 beings identical in nature, distinguished from each 
 other only by their elemental functions, and not essen- 
 tially different from the Pitris or fathers. The latter 
 are simply the souls of the pious dead." 
 
 Now these are strong and startling assertions, but 
 again given dogmatically, and without any proof. The 
 Pitris are, no doubt, the fathers, and they might be 
 called the souls of the pious dead ; but, if so, they 
 have no elementary origin, like the gods of the storms, 
 the days, and the seasons ; nor can they have any 
 elementary functions. To say that the Pitris or Manes 
 shone as stars to mortal eyes (p. 20) is another asser- 
 tion that requires considerable limitation, and is apt to 
 convey as false an idea of the primitive faith of the 
 Vedic Rishis, as when (p. 21) we read that the 
 " Apas " (waters) are cloud-maidens, brides of the 
 gods, or navigators of the celestial sea (" navyaA "), 
 and that the "Apsaras" are damsels destined to de- 
 light the souls of heroes the houris, in fact, of the
 
 FOLK-LORE. 201 
 
 Vedic paradise. The germs of some of these ideas 
 may, perhaps, be discovered in the hymns of the Veda, 
 but to speak thus broadly of a Vedic paradise, of 
 houris, and cloud-maidens, is to convey, as far as we 
 can judge from texts and translations hitherto pub- 
 lished, an utterly false idea of the simple religion of 
 the Vedic poets. 
 
 One other instance must suffice. At the end of the 
 sixth chapter, in order to explain why a healing virtue 
 is ascribed in German folk-lore to the mistletoe and 
 the ash, Mr. Kelly makes the following statement : 
 " This healing virtue, which the mistletoe shares with 
 the ash, is a long-descended tradition, for the KushfAa, 
 the embodiment of the Soma, a healing plant of the 
 highest renown among the Southern Aryans, was one 
 that grew beneath the heavenly Asvattha." We tried 
 in vain to understand the exact power of the for in 
 this sentence. Great stress is laid in Northern My- 
 thology on the fact that the mistletoe grows upon a 
 tree, and does not, like all other plants, spring from the 
 earth. But the KushlAa is never said to grow upon 
 the heavenly Asvattha, which Mr. Kelly translates by 
 religious fig, but beneath it. In fact, it is the Asvat- 
 tha, or Pippal, which, if found growing on another 
 tree, the /Sami (Acacia sumo), is considered by the 
 Brahmans as peculiarly fitted for sacrificial purposes. 
 The for, therefore, must refer to something else as 
 forming the tertium comparationis between the mistle- 
 toe and the Kush^Aa. Is it their healing power? 
 Hardly ; for, in the case of the mistletoe, the healing 
 power is a popular superstition ; in the case of the 
 Kushf/ia, the Oostus speciosus, it is, we believe, a me- 
 di"jnal fact. We suppose, therefore, that Mr. Kelly
 
 202 FOLK-LORE. 
 
 perceived the similarity between the German and the 
 Indian plants to consist in this, that the Kush^Aa was 
 really an embodiment of Soma, for in another passage 
 he says : 
 
 "Besides the earthly Soma, the Hindus recognize 
 a heavenly Soma or Amrita (ambrosia), that drops 
 from the imperishable Asvattha or Peepul (Ficus 
 religiosa), out of which the immortals shaped the 
 heaven and the earth. Beneath this mighty tree, 
 which spreads its branches over the third heaven, 
 dwell Yama and the Pitris, and quaff the drink of 
 immortality with the gods. At its foot grow plants of 
 all healing virtue, incorporations of the Soma." 
 
 Mr. Kelly then proceeds to remark that "the paral- 
 lelism between the Indian and the Iranian world-tree 
 on the one hand, and the ash Yggdrasil on the other, 
 is very striking." We shall pass by the Iranian world- 
 tree, the fact being that the Zend-Avesta does not 
 recognize one, but always speaks of two trees. 1 But 
 fixing our attention on Mr. Kelly's comparison of what 
 he calls the Indian world-tree and the ash Yggdrasil, 
 the case would stand thus : The Hindus believe in the 
 existence of a Pippal-tree (Ficus religiosa) that drops 
 Soma (Asclepias acida), at the foot of which grows 
 the Kush^Aa (Costus speciosus), a medicinal plant, the 
 incorporation of the Soma dropping from the Pippal. 
 As there is a similarity between the ash Yggdrasil and 
 the Pippal, both representing originally, as is main- 
 tained, the clouds of heaven, therefore a healing virtue 
 was ascribed to the ash and the mistletoe by the 
 Aryans that came to settle in Europe. We will not 
 deny that if the facts, as here stated, were quite cor- 
 
 1 See vol. i. p. 154.
 
 FOLK-LORE. 208 
 
 rect, some similarity of conception might bo discovered 
 in the German Yggdrasil and the Indian Pippal. But 
 did the Brahmans ever believe in a Pippal dropping 
 Soma, and in that Soma becoming embodied in a Cos- 
 tus? Mr. Kelly here, for once, gives a reference to 
 Rig-veda II. 164, which, as we find from the original 
 work of Dr. Kuhn, is intended for Rig-veda II. 164, 
 1922. In that hymn the word KushZ/ta never occurs. 
 A tree is indeed mentioned there, but it is not called 
 Asvattha, nor is it said to drop Soma, nor is there any 
 allusion to the fact that heaven and earth were made 
 of that tree. All that can be gathered from the ex- 
 tremely obscure language of that hymn is that the 
 fruit of the tree there described is called Pippala ; that 
 birds settle on it eating that fruit ; that they sing praises 
 in honor of a share of immortality, and that these birds 
 are called eaters of sweet things. That the word used 
 for " immortality " may mean Soma, that the word 
 meaning " sweet " may stand for the same beverage, 
 is perfectly true ; but, even if that conjectural render- 
 ing should be adopted, it would still leave the general 
 meaning of the verses far too obscure to justify us in 
 making them the basis of any mythological compari- 
 sons. As to the KushlAa the Costus speciosus, which 
 is said to be called in the Rig-veda an incorporation" of 
 Soma, we doubt whether such a word ever occurs in 
 the Rig-veda. It is mentioned in the mystical formulas 
 of the Atharva-veda, but there again it is called, in- 
 deed, the friend of Soma (Ath.-veda, V. 4, 7), but not 
 its embodiment ; nor is there any statement that under 
 the Asvattha-tree there mentioned, the gods drink 
 Soma, but simply that Yama drinks there with the 
 gods,
 
 204 FOLK-LORE. 
 
 It is impossible to be too careful in these matters, 
 otherwise everything becomes everything. Although 
 Mr. Kelly takes it for granted that the poets of the 
 Veda knew a tree similar to the tree Yggdrasil, a 
 world-tree, or a cloud-tree, or whatever else it may be 
 called, there is not a single passage that has been 
 brought forward in support by Mr. Kelly or by Dr. 
 Kuhn himself, which could stand a more severe crit- 
 icism. When the poets exclaim, " What wood, what 
 tree was it, of which they made heaven and earth ? " 
 this means no more in the ancient language of 
 religious poetry than, Out of what material were 
 heaven and earth formed? As to the tree Ilpa or 
 more correctly, Ilya nothing is known of it beyond 
 its name in one of the latest works of Vedic literature, 
 the Upanishads, and the remarks of so modern a com- 
 mentator as /Sankara. There is no proof whatever of 
 anything like the conception of the Yggdrasil having 
 entered the thoughts of the Vedic poets ; and to as- 
 cribe the healing virtue of ash or mistletoe to any rem- 
 iniscence of a plant, Kush^a, that might have grown 
 under a Vedic fig-tree, or Soma-tree, or Yggdrasil, is 
 to attempt to lay hold of the shadow of a dream. 
 
 There is but one way in which a comparative study 
 of the popular traditions of the Aryan nations can 
 lead to any satisfactory result. Let each tale be 
 traced back to its most original form, let that form be 
 analyzed and interpreted in strict accordance with the 
 rules of comparative philology, and after the kernel, or 
 the simple and original conception of the myth, has 
 been found, let us see how the same conception and 
 the same myth have gradually expanded and become 
 diversified under the bright sky of India and in the
 
 FOLK-LORE. 205 
 
 forests of Germany. Before the Northern Yggdra- 
 sil is compared to a supposed Indian world-tree it is 
 absolutely necessary to gain a clear insight into the 
 nature of the myth of Yggdrasil. That myth seems 
 to be of a decidedly cosmogonic and philosophical char- 
 acter. The tree seems to express the Universe. It is 
 said to have three roots : one in Niflheim, near the 
 well called " Hvergehnir ; " a second in Jotunheim, 
 near the well of the wise Mimir ; and a third in heaven, 
 near the well of Vurdh. Its branches embrace the 
 whole world. In heaven the gods hold their meetings 
 under the shadow of this tree, near the well of Vurdh. 
 The place is guarded by the three Nornas (Vurdh, 
 Verdhandi, and Skuld, Past, Present, and Future), 
 who water the roots of the tree with the water of 
 Vurdh. In the crown of the tree sits an eagle, and in 
 the well of Hvergehnir lies the serpent Nidhoggr, and 
 gnaws its roots. In none of these conceptions are there 
 any clear traces of clouds or thunder-storms ; but if 
 there were, this would be the very reason why the 
 Yggdrasil could not be compared to the Indian A- 
 vattha, in which no ingenuity will ever discover either 
 a bank of clouds or a thunder-storm. 
 
 Dtembcr, 1863.
 
 XXil. 
 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 1 
 
 WE should before now have brought the Rev. Dr. 
 Callaway's collection of the Nursery Tales, Traditions, 
 and Histories of the Zulus to the notice of our read- 
 ers, if we had not been waiting for a new instalment 
 of his interesting work. Dr. Callaway calls what he 
 has published the first part of the first volume, and as 
 this part contained only about three or four sheets, we 
 looked forward to a speedy continuation. The fact is 
 that one cannot well form an opinion of the real char- 
 acter of nursery tales and popular stories without see- 
 ing a good many of them. Each story by itself may 
 seem rather meaningless or absurd, but if certain fea- 
 tures occur again and again, they become important 
 in spite of their childishness, and enable us to discover 
 some method in their absurdity. If we knew of only 
 three or four of the stories of Jupiter or Herakles, we 
 should hardly give much thought to them ; but having 
 before us the immense quantity of fables about Greek 
 gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, we naturally 
 look upon them, with all their strangeness and extrava- 
 gance, as a problem in the history of the Greek nation, 
 
 1 IzinganeJcwane nensumansumane nezindaba zabantu. " Nursery Tales, 
 Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus." By the Rev. Henry Callaway, M. 
 D. Vol. i. parti. Natal, 1866.
 
 ZULU NUKSERY TALES. 207 
 
 and we try to discover in them certain characteristics 
 which throw light on the origin of these abnormal 
 creations of the human mind. It was the same with 
 the German nursery tales. Their existence in every 
 country where German races had settled was perfectly 
 well known, but they did not become the subject of 
 historical and psychological inquiry till the brothers 
 Grimm published their large collection, and thus en- 
 abled scholars to generalize on these popular fictions. 
 By this time the study of popular tales has become a 
 recognized branch of the study of mankind. It is 
 known that such tales are not the invention of individ- 
 ual writers, but that, in Germany as well as every- 
 where else, they are the last remnants the detritus, 
 if we may say so of an ancient mythology ; that 
 some of the principal heroes bear the nicknames of old 
 heathen gods ; and that in spite of the powerful dilu- 
 tion produced by the admixture of Christian ideas, the 
 old leaven of heathendom can still be discovered in 
 many of the stories now innocently told by German 
 nurses of saints, apostles, and the Virgin Mary. 
 
 From this point of view, the mere fact that the 
 Zulus possess nursery tales is curious, because nursery 
 tales, at least such as treat of ghosts and fairies and 
 giants, generally point back to a distant civilization, 01 
 at least to a long-continued national growth. Like 
 the anomalies of a language, they show by their very 
 strangeness that time enough has elapsed for the con- 
 solidation of purely traditional formations, and that a 
 time must have been when what is now meaningless or 
 irregular was formed with a purpose, and according to 
 rule. But before it is possible to analyze these Zulu 
 tales, twc things are necessary. First, we must have
 
 208 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 
 
 a much larger collection of them than we now possess ; 
 and, secondly, more collections must be made among 
 tribes of the same large race to which the Zulus be- 
 long. The Zulus are a Kafir race, and recent re- 
 searches have made it very clear that the Kafir races 
 occupy the whole east coast of Africa from the South 
 to several degrees beyond the Equator. They mi- 
 grated from North to South, and in the South they are 
 bounded by the Hottentots, who belong to a different 
 race. The Hottentots, too, are now believed to have 
 migrated from the North of Africa, and their lan- 
 guage is supposed to be akin to the dialects spoken in 
 the countries south of Egypt. If the ethnological out- 
 lines of the continent of Africa are once firmly estab- 
 lished, the study of the sacred and profane traditions 
 of the several African tribes will acquire a new inter- 
 est ; and it is highly creditable to Dr. Callaway, Dr. 
 Bleek, and others, to have made a beginning in a field 
 of research which at first sight is not very attractive or 
 promising. Many people, no doubt, will treat these 
 stories with contempt, and will declare that they are 
 not worth the paper on which they are printed. The 
 same thing was said of Grimm's " Mahrchen ; " nay, 
 it was said by Sir William Jones of the Zend-Avesta, 
 and, by less distinguished scholars, of the Veda. But 
 fifty years hence the collection of these stories may be- 
 come as valuable as the few remaining bones of the 
 
 O 
 
 dodo. Stories become extinct like dodos and meg- 
 atheria, and they die out so rapidly that in Germany, 
 .for instance, it would be impossible at present to dis- 
 cover traces of many of the stories which the brothers 
 Grimm and their friends caught up from the mouth of 
 an old granny or a village doctor half a century ago.
 
 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 209 
 
 Nor it it an easy matter to catch popular stories. The 
 people who know them are willing enough to tell them 
 to their children, but they do not like to repeat them to 
 grown up people, least of all to strangers, who are sup- 
 posed to laugh at them. Thus Dr. Callaways says : 
 
 " Like most other people, the Zulus have their nur- 
 sery tales. They have not hitherto, as far as I know, 
 been collected. Indeed, it is probable that their exis- 
 tence even is suspected but by a few, for the women 
 are the depositaries of these tales ; and it is not common 
 to meet with a man who is well acquainted with them, 
 or who is willing to speak of them in any other way 
 than as something which he has some dim recollection 
 of having heard his grandmother relate. It has been 
 no easy matter to drag out the following tales ; and it 
 is evident that many of them are but fragments of 
 some more perfect narration." 
 
 Waiting, then, for a larger instalment of Zulu 
 stories before we venture to pronounce an opinion of 
 their value for ethnological purposes, we proceed to 
 point out a few of their most curious features, which 
 may serve as a lesson and as a warning to the student 
 of the folk-lore of European and Indo-European na- 
 tions. If we admit for the present, in the absence of 
 any evidence to the contrary, that the Zulus were free 
 from the influence of German missionaries or Dutch 
 settlers in the formation of their popular stories, it is 
 certainly surprising to see so many points of similarity 
 between the heroes of their kraals and of our own 
 nurseries. The introduction of animals, speaking and 
 acting the parts of human beings, was long considered 
 as an original thought of the Greek and the Teutonic 
 tribes. We now find exactly the same kind of " ani- 
 
 vv n. 14
 
 210 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 
 
 mal fables " among the Zulus, and Dr. Bleek has ac- 
 tually discovered among the Hottentots traces of the 
 stories of Renard the Fox. 1 The idea that among ani- 
 mals cunning is more successful than brute force, 
 an idea which pervades the stories of " Reinecke 
 Fuchs," and of many other fables, predominates 
 likewise in the fables of the Zulus. In the Basuto 
 legend of the " Little Hare," the hare has entered into 
 an alliance with the lion, but, having been ill-treated 
 by the latter, determines to be avenged. " My father," 
 said he to the lion, " we are exposed to the rain and 
 hail ; let us build a hut." The lion, too lazy to work, 
 left it to the hare to do, and " the wily runner " took 
 the lion's tail, and interwove it so cleverly into the 
 stakes and reeds of the hut that it remained there con- 
 fined forever, and the hare had the pleasure of seeing 
 his rival die of hunger and thirst. The trick is not 
 
 ~ 
 
 quite so clever as that of Reinecke, when he persuades 
 the bear to go out fishing on the ice ; but then the 
 hare compasses the death of the lion, while Reinecke 
 by his stratagem only deprives the bear of his orna- 
 mental tail. 
 
 As in the German tales the character of Renard the 
 Fox is repeated in a humanized shape as Till Eulen- 
 spiegel, so among the Zulus one of the most favorite 
 characters is the young rogue, the boy UAlakanyana, 
 
 l Reynard the Foxin South Africa. By W. H. I. Bleek. London, 1864. 
 " "Whether these fables are indeed the real offspring of the desert, and can 
 be considered as truly indigenous native literature, or whether they have 
 been either purloined from the superior white race or at least brought into 
 xistence by the stimulus which contact with the latter gave to the native 
 mind (like that resulting in the invention of the Tshiroki and Vei alpha- 
 bets) may be matters of dispute for some time to come, and it may require 
 as much research as was expended upon the solving of the riddle >f the 
 originality of the Ossianic poems " v f xiii ).
 
 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 211 
 
 who at first is despised and laughed at, but wh > al- 
 ways succeeds in the end in having the laugh on his 
 side. This UAlakanyana performs, for instance, the 
 same trick on a cannibal by which the hare entrapped 
 the lion. The two have struck up a friendship, and 
 are going to thatch their house befoie they sit down to 
 devour two cows. U/tlakanyana is bent on having the 
 fat cow, but is afraid the cannibal will assign to him 
 the lean cow. So he says to the cannibal, " Let the 
 house be thatched now ; then we can eat our meat. 
 You see the sky, that we shall get wet." The canni- 
 bal said, " You are right, child of my sister." UAla- 
 kanyana said, " Do you do it then ; I will go inside 
 and push the thatching-needle for you." The canni- 
 bal went up. His hair was very, very long. U/ilakan- 
 yana went inside and pushed the needle for him. 
 He thatched in the hair of the cannibal, tying it very 
 tightly ; he knotted it into the thatch constantly, tak- 
 ing it by separate locks and fastening it firmly. He 
 saw the hair was fast enough, and that the cannibal 
 could not get down. When he was outside, U7ilakan- 
 yana went to the fire, where the udder of the cow 
 was boiled. He took it out and filled his mouth. The 
 cannibal said, "What are you about, child of my sis- 
 ter ? Let us just finish the house ; afterwards we can 
 do that ; we can do it together." UAlakanyana re- 
 plied, " Come down, then." The cannibal assented. 
 When he was going to quit the house, he was unable 
 to quit it. He cried out, " Child of my sister, how 
 have you managed your thatching ? U/tlakanyana said, 
 " See to it yourself. I have thatched well, for I shall 
 not have any dispute. Now I am about to eat in 
 peace ; I no longer dispute with anybody, for I am
 
 212 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 
 
 alone with my cow." It hailed and rained. The 
 cannibal cried on the top of the house ; he was struck 
 with the hailstones, and died there on the house. It 
 cleared. UAlakanyana went out, and said, " Uncle, 
 just come down. It lias become clear. It no longer 
 rains, and there is no longer hail, neither is there anj 
 more lightning. Why are you silent ? " So UAlakan- 
 yana eat his cow alone, and then went his way. 
 
 Dr. Callaway compares the history of the travels 
 and adventures of U7Jakanyana to those of Tom 
 Thumb and Jack the Giant-killer, and it is curious, 
 indeed, to observe how many of the tricks which we 
 admired as children in English or German story-books 
 are here repeated with but trifling modifications. The 
 feat performed by U7ilakanyana of speaking before he 
 was born exceeds indeed the achievements even of the 
 most precocious of German imps, and can only be 
 matched, as Dr. Callaway points out, by St. Benedict, 
 who, according to Mabillon, sang eucharistic hymns in 
 the same state in which UAlakanyana was clamoring 
 for meat. But the stratagem by which this Zulu 
 " Boots," after being delivered to the cannibal's mother 
 to be boiled, manages to boil the old woman herself, 
 can easily be matched by Peggy or Grethel who bakes 
 the cannibal witch in her own oven, or by the Shifty 
 Highland Lad, or by Maol a Chliobain who puts the 
 giant's mother in the sack in which she had been sus- 
 pended. UAlakanyana had been caught by cannibals, 
 and was to be boiled by their mother ; so, while the 
 cannibals are away, UAlakanyana persuades the old 
 mother to play with him at boiling each other. The 
 game was to begin with him, a proposal to which the 
 old dame readily assented. But he took care to pre-
 
 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 213 
 
 v*jnt the water from boiling, and after having been in 
 the pot for some time, he insisted on the old mother 
 fulfilling her part of the bargain. He put her in, and 
 put on the lid. She cried out, " Take me out, I am 
 scalded to death." He said, " No, indeed, you are 
 not. If you were scalded to death, you could not say 
 so.'' So she was boiled, and said no more. 
 
 There is a story of a cook which we remember 
 reading not long ago in a collection of German anec- 
 dotes. His master gives him a brace of partridges to 
 roast, and being very hungry, the cook eats one of 
 them. When his master returns, lie eats one par- 
 tridge, and then asks for the other. " But this Tras 
 the other," says the cook, and nothing can persuade 
 him that it wasn't. The same witticism, such as it is, 
 reappears in the story of U/ilakanyana teaching the 
 leopard how to suckle her cubs. The leopard wants 
 to have both her cubs together, but he insists that only 
 one ought to be suckled at a time, the fact being that 
 he had eaten one of the cubs. He then gives her the 
 one that is still alive, and after it has been suckled, he 
 gives it back to her as the second cub. 
 
 Those of our readers who still recollect the fearful 
 sensations occasioned by the " Fee fo fum, I smell the 
 blood of an Englishmun," will meet with several 
 equally harrowing situations in the stories of the 
 Zulus, and of other races, too, to whom the eating of 
 an Englishman is a much less startling event than it 
 seemed to us. Usikulmui, a young Zulu hero, goes to 
 court two daughters of Uzembeni, who had devoured 
 all the men of the country in which she lived. The 
 two girls dug a hole in the house to conceal their 
 iweetheart, but towards sunset Uzernbeni, the mother,
 
 21-1 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 
 
 returned. She had a large toe ; her toe came first, 
 she came after it; and as soon as she came, she 
 laughed and rolled herself on the ground, saying, 
 " Eh, eh ! in my house here to-day there is a deli- 
 cious odor ; my children, what is there here in the 
 house ?" The girls said, " Away ! Don't bother us ; 
 we do not know where we could get anything; we 
 will not get up." Thus Usikulumi escapes, and after 
 many more adventures and fights with his mother-in- 
 law, carries off her two girls. 
 
 It is impossible of course to determine the age of 
 these stories, so as to show that foreign influences are 
 entirely out of the question. Yet nursery tales are 
 generally the last things to be adopted by one nation 
 from another, and even in the few stories which we 
 possess we should probably have been able to discover 
 more palpable traces of foreign influences, if such 
 influences had really existed. Nay, there is one fea- 
 ture in these stories which to a certain extent attests 
 their antiquity. Several of the customs to which they 
 allude are no longer in existence among the Zulus. 
 It is not, for instance, any longer the custom among 
 the natives of South Africa to bake meat by means of 
 heated stones, the recognized mode of cookery among 
 the Polynesians. Yet when Usikulumi orders a calf 
 to be roasted, he calls upon the boys of his kraal to 
 collect large stones, and to heat them. There are 
 several other peculiarities which the Zulus seem to 
 share in common with the Polynesians. The avoiding 
 of certain words which form part of the names of 
 deceased kings or chieftains is a distinguishing feature 
 of the Zulu and Polynesian languages, being called 
 Ukuhlonipa in the one, and Tepi in the other. If a
 
 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 215 
 
 person who has disappeared for some time, and is sup- 
 posed to be dead, returns unexpectedly to his people, 
 it is the custom both among the Zulus and Polynesians 
 to salute him first by making a funeral lamentation. 
 There are other coincidences in the stories of both 
 races which make it more than probable that at some 
 distant period they lived either together or in close 
 neighborhood ; and if we find that some of the cus- 
 toms represented as actually existing in the Zulu 
 stories, have long; become extinct on the African con- 
 
 ' O 
 
 tinent, while they continue to be observed by the 
 Polynesian islanders, we might indeed venture to con- 
 clude, though only as a guess at truth, that the origin 
 of the Zulu stones must be referred to a time preced- 
 ing the complete separation of these two races. While 
 some customs that have become obsolete at present are 
 represented as still in force among the Zulus of the 
 nursery tales, as, for instance, the use of the UAlakula 
 or wooden weeding-stick which is now generally re- 
 placed by an iron pick ; other things, such as the use 
 of medicines, so much talked of now among the na- 
 tives, and which they imagine can produce the most 
 marvelous results, are never alluded to. All this 
 would be so much primd facie evidence of the gen- 
 uineness and antiquity of these Zulu tales, and would 
 seem to exclude the idea of European influences. The 
 only allusion to foreigners occurs in a story whet ~ one 
 of the heroes, in order to be taken for a stranger, com- 
 mits a number of grammatical blunders by leaving out 
 the prefixes that form so essential a feature in all Kafir 
 dialects. But this would not necessarily point to Eu- 
 ropeans, as other strangers too, such as Hottentots, for 
 instance, would naturally neglect these grammatical 
 niceties.
 
 216 ZULU NURSERY TALES. 
 
 We hope that Dr. Callaway will soon be able to 
 continue his interesting publication. Apart from other 
 points of interest, his book, as it contains the Zulu 
 text and an English translation on opposite columns, 
 will be of great use to the student of that language. 
 The system of writing the Zulu words with Roman 
 letters, adopted by Dr. Callaway, seems both rational 
 and practical. Like many others, he has tried Dr. 
 Lepsius' standard alphabet, and found it wanting. 
 " The practical difficulties," he writes, " in the way of 
 using the alphabet of Lepsius are insuperable, even if 
 we were prepared to admit the soundness of all the 
 principles on which it is founded." 
 
 March, 1867.
 
 XXIII. 
 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 1 
 
 WE had thought that the Popular Tales, the " Kin- 
 der und Hausinarchen " which the brothers Grimm 
 collected from the mouths of old women in the spin- 
 ning-rooms of German villages, could never be 
 matched. But here we have a collection from the 
 Norse as like those German tales as " Dapplegrim was 
 to Dapplegrim," " there wasn't a hair on one which 
 wasn't on the other as well." These Scandinavian 
 " Folkeeventyr " were collected by MM. Asbjornsen 
 and Moe during the last fifteen years, and they have 
 now been translated into English by Dr. Dasent, the 
 translator of the " Icelandic Edda," and the writer of 
 an excellent article in the last " Oxford Essays," " On 
 the Norsemen in Iceland." The translation shows in 
 every line that it has been a work of love and unflag- 
 ging enjoyment ; and we doubt not that, even trans- 
 planted on a foreign soil, these fragrant flowers will 
 strike root and live, and be the delight of children 
 
 7 o 
 
 young and old for many generations to come. 
 
 Who can tell what gives to these childish stories 
 their irresistible charm ? There is no plot in them to 
 
 1 Popular Tales from the Nwse. By George Webbe Dasent, D. C. L 
 With an Introductory Essay on the Origin and Diffusion of Popular Tales 
 Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1859.
 
 218 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 
 
 excite our curiosity. No gorgeous description of scen- 
 ery, a la Kingsley, dazzles our eyes ; no anatomy of 
 human passion, a la Thackeray, rivets our attention. 
 No, it is all about kings and queens, about princes and 
 princesses, about starving beggars and kind fairies, 
 about doughty boys and clumsy trolls, about old hags 
 that bawl and screech, and about young maidens an 
 white as snow and as red as blood. The Devil, too, is 
 a very important personage on this primitive stage. 
 The tales are short and quaint, full of downright ab- 
 surdities and sorry jokes. We know from the begin- 
 ning how it will all end. Poor Boots will marry the 
 Princess and get half the kingdom. The stepmother 
 will be torn to pieces, and Cinderella will be a great 
 queen. The troll will burst as soon as the sun shines 
 on him ; and the Devil himself will be squeezed and 
 cheated till he is glad to go to his own abode. And 
 yet we sit and read, we almost cry, and we certainly 
 chuckle, and we are very sorry when 
 
 " Snip, snap, snout, 
 This tale's told out." 
 
 There is witchery in these simple old stories yet! 
 But it seems useless to try to define in what it consists. 
 We sometimes see a landscape with nothing particular 
 in it. There is only a river, and a bridge, and a red- 
 brick house, and a few dark trees, and yet we gaze and 
 gaze till our eyes grow dim. Why we are charmed 
 we cannot tell. Perhaps there is something in that 
 simple scenery which reminds us of our home, or of 
 some place which once we saw in a happy dream. Or 
 we watch the gray sky and the heavy clouds on a 
 dreary day. There is nothing in that picture that 
 would strike an artist's eye, We have seen it all hun-
 
 POPULAR TALES FKOM THE NORSE. 219 
 
 dreds of times before ; and yet we gaze and gaze, till 
 the clouds, with their fantastic outlines, settle round 
 the sun, and vanish beyond the horizon. They were 
 only clouds on a gray afternoon, and yet they have left 
 a shadow on our mind that will never vanish. Is it 
 the same, perhaps, with these simple stories ? Do they 
 remind us of a distant home, of a happy childhood ? 
 Do they recall fantastic dreams, long vanished from 
 our horizon, hopes that have set, never to rise again ? 
 Is there some childhood left in us, that is called out by 
 these childish tales ? If there is and there is with 
 most of us we have only to open our book, and we 
 shall fly away into Dream-land, like " the lassie who 
 rode on the north wind's back to the castle that lies 
 east o' the sun and west o' the moon." Nor is it 
 Dream-land altogether. There is a kind of real life in 
 these tales life, such as a child believes in a life, 
 where good is always rewarded, wrong always pun- 
 ished ; where every one, not excepting the Devil, gets 
 his due ; where all is possible that we tnily want, and 
 nothing seems so wonderful that it might not happen 
 to-morrow. We may smile at those dreams of inex- 
 haustible possibilities ; but, in one sense, that child's 
 world is a real world too, and those children's stories 
 are not mere pantomimes. What can be truer than 
 Dr. Dasent's happy description of the character of 
 Boots, as it runs through the whole cycle of these 
 tales? 
 
 " There he sits idle whilst all work ; there he lies 
 with that deep irony of conscious power which knows 
 its time must one day come, and meantime can afford 
 to wait. When that time comes he girds himself to 
 the fcat, amidst the scoffs and scorn of hh flesh and
 
 220 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 
 
 blood ; but even then, after he has done some great 
 deed, he conceals it, returns to his ashes, and again sits 
 idly by the kitchen fire, dirty, lazy, despised, until the 
 time for final recognition comes ; and then his dirt and 
 rags fall off he stands out in all the majesty of his 
 royal robes, and is acknowledged once for all a King." 
 
 And then we see, 
 
 " The proud, haughty Princess, subdued and tamed 
 by natural affection into a faithful, loving wife. We 
 begin by being angry at her pride ; we are glad at the 
 retribution which overtakes her, but we are gradually 
 melted at her sufferings and hardships when she gives 
 up all for the Beggar and follows him ; we feel for her 
 when she exclaims, k O, the Beggar, and the babe, 
 and the cabin ! ' and we rejoice with her when the 
 Prince says, * Here is the Beggar, and there is the 
 babe, and so let the cabin be burnt away.' ' 
 
 There is genuine fun in the old woman who does 
 not know whether she is herself. She has been dipped 
 into a tar-barrel, and then rolled on a heap of feathers ; 
 and when she sees herself feathered all over, she 
 wants to find out whether it is her or not. And how 
 well she reasons ! "Oil know," she says, " how 
 I shall be able to tell whether it is me ; if the calves 
 come and lick me, and our dog Tray doesn't baik at 
 me when I get home, then it must be me, and no onr 
 else." It is, however, quite superfluous to say any- 
 thing in praise of these tales. They will make their 
 way in the world and win everybody's heart, as sure 
 as Boots made the Princess say, t; That is a story ! " 
 
 But we have not done with Dr. Dasent's book yet. 
 There is one part of it, the Introduction, which in 
 reality tells the most wonderful of all wonderful sto-
 
 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 221 
 
 ries the migration of these tales from Asia to the 
 North of Europe. It might seem strange, indeed, 
 that so great a scholar as Grimm should have spent so 
 much of his preciors time in collecting his " Mahr- 
 chen," if these " Mahrchen " had only been intended 
 for the amusement of children. When we see a Lyell 
 or Owen pick up pretty shells and stones, we may be 
 sure that, however much little girls may admire these 
 pretty tilings, this was not the object which these wise 
 collectors had in view. Like the blue and green and 
 rosy sands which children play with in the Isle of 
 Wight, these tales of the people, which Grimm was 
 the first to discover and collect, are the detritus of 
 many an ancient stratum of thought and language, 
 buried deep in the past. They have a scientific in- 
 terest. The results of the science of language are by 
 this time known to every educated man, and boys 
 learn at school what fifty years ago would have 
 been scouted as absurd that English, together with 
 all the Teutonic dialects of the Continent, belongs to 
 that large family of speech which comprises, besides 
 the Teutonic, Latin, Greek, Slavonic, and Celtic, the 
 oriental languages of Persia and India. Previously to 
 the dispersion of these languages, there was, of course, 
 one common language, spoken by the common ances- 
 tors of our own race, and of the Greeks, the Romans, 
 the Hindus, and Persians, a language which was 
 neither Greek, nor Latin, nor Persian, nor Sanskrit, 
 but stood to all of them in a relation similar to that in 
 which Latin stands to French, Italian, and Spanish ; 
 or Sanskrit to Bengali, Hindustani, and Marathi. It 
 has also been proved that the various tribes who 
 ttarted from this central home to discover Europe in
 
 222 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 
 
 the North and India in the South carried away with 
 them, not only a common language, but a common 
 faith and a common mythology, These are facts 
 which may be ignored but cannot be disputed, and the 
 two sciences of Comparative Grammar and Compara- 
 tive Mythology, though but of recent origin, rest on 
 a foundation as sound and safe as that of any of the 
 inductive sciences : 
 
 "The affinity," says Dr. Dasent, "which exists in 
 a mythological and philological point of view between 
 the Aryan or Indo-European languages is now the first 
 article of a literary creed ; and the man who denies it 
 puts himself as much beyond the pale of argument as 
 he who, in a religious discussion, should meet a grave 
 divine of the Church of England with the strict con- 
 tradictory of her first article, and loudly declare his 
 conviction that there was no God." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " We all came, Greek, Latin, Celt, Teuton, Sla- 
 vonian, from the East, as kith and kin, leaving kith 
 and kin behind us, and after thousands of years, the 
 language and traditions of those who went East and 
 those who went West bear such an affinity to each 
 other as to have established, beyond discussion or dis- 
 pute, the fact of their descent from a common stock." 
 
 But now we go beyond this. Not only do we find 
 the same words and the same terminations in Sanskrit 
 and Gothic ; not only do we find the same names for 
 Zeus and many other deities in Sanskrit, Latin, and 
 German ; not only is the abstract name for God the 
 same in India, Greece, and Italy ; but these very sto- 
 ries, these " Mahrchen," which nurses still tell, with 
 almost the same words, in the Thuringian forest and
 
 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 223 
 
 in the Norwegian villages, and to which crowds of 
 children listen under the Pippal-trees of India, these 
 stories, too, belonged to the common heir-loom of the 
 Indo-European race, and their origin carries us back 
 to the same distant past, when no Greek had set foot 
 in Europe, no Hindu had bathed in the sacred waters 
 of the Ganges. No doubt this sounds strange, and it 
 requires a certain limitation. We do not mean to say 
 that the old nurse who rocked on her mighty knees 
 the two ancestors of the Indian and the German races, 
 told each of them the story of Snow-white and Rosy- 
 red, exactly as we read it in the " Tales from the 
 Norse," and that these told it to their children, and 
 thus it was handed down to our own times. It is true 
 indeed and a comparison of our " Norwegian Tales " 
 with the " Mahrchen " collected by the Grimms in 
 Germany shows it most clearly that the memory of 
 a nation clings to its popular stories with a marvelous 
 tenacity. For more than a thousand years the Scan- 
 dinavian inhabitants of Norway have been separated 
 in language from their Teutonic brethren on the Con- 
 tinent, and yet both have not only preserved the same 
 stock of popular stories, but they tell them in several 
 instances in almost the same words. It is a much more 
 startling supposition or, we should say, a much more 
 startling fact that those Aryan boys, the ancestors 
 of the Hindus, Romans, Greeks, and Germans, should 
 have preserved the ancient words from " one " to 
 " ten," and that these dry words should have been 
 handed down to our own school-boy days, in several 
 instances, without the change of a single letter. Thus 
 2 in English is still " two," in Hindustani " do," in 
 Persian " du," in French " deux ; " 3 is still " three "
 
 224 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 
 
 in English, and " trys " in Lithuanian ; is still 
 " nine " in English, and " nuh " in Persian. Surely it 
 was not less difficult to remember these and thousands 
 >f other words than to remember the pretty stories 
 f Snow-white and Rosy-red. For the present, how- 
 ever, all we want to prove is that the elements of the 
 seeds of these fairy tales belong to the period that 
 preceded the dispersion of the Aryan race ; that the 
 same people who, in their migrations to the North and 
 the South carried along with them the names of the 
 Sun and the Dawn, and their belief in the bright gods 
 of Heaven, possessed in their very language, in their 
 mythological and proverbial phraseology, the more or 
 less developed germs that were sure to grow up into 
 the same or very similar plants on every soil and under 
 every sky. 
 
 This is a subject which requires the most delicate 
 handling, and the most careful analysis. Before we 
 attempt to compare the popular stories, as they are 
 found in India and Europe at the present day, and to 
 trace them to a common source, we have to answer 
 one very important question, Was there no other 
 channel through which some of them could have flowed 
 from India to Europe, or from Europe to India, at a 
 later time ? We have to take the same precaution in 
 comparative philology with regard to words. Besides 
 the words which Greek and Latin share in common 
 because they are both derived from one common, 
 s' urce, there is a class of words which Latin took over 
 from Greek ready made. These are called foreign 
 words, and they form a considerable element, particu- 
 larly in modern languages. The question is whether 
 the same does not apply to some of our common Indo-
 
 POPULAR /ALES FKOM THE NORSE. 225 
 
 European stories. How is it that some of Latbntaine's 
 fables should be identically the same as those which 
 we find in two collections of fables in Sanskrit, the 
 " Pan&atantra " and the " Hitopadesa ? " This is a 
 question, which, many years ago, has been most fully 
 treated in one of the most learned and most brilliant 
 essays of Sylvestre de Sacy. He there proves that, 
 about 570 after Christ, a Sanskrit work which con- 
 tained these very fables was brought to the court of 
 the Persian king, Khosru Nushirvan, and translated 
 into ancient Persian, or Pehlevi. The kings of Persia 
 preserved this book as a treasure till their kingdom was 
 conquered by the Arabs. A hundred years later, the 
 book was discovered and translated into Arabic by 
 Almokaffa, about 770 after Christ. It then passed 
 through the hands of several Arabic poets, and was 
 afterwards retranslated into Persian, first into verse, 
 by Rudaki, in the tenth century, then into prose, by 
 Nasrallah, in the twelfth. The most famous version, 
 however, appeared towards the end of the fifteeth cen- 
 tury, under the name of " Anvari Suhaili," by Husain 
 Vaiz. Now, as early as the eleventh century the Ar- 
 abic work of Almokaffa, called " Kalila Dimna," was 
 translated into Greek by Simeon. The Greek text 
 and a Latin version have been published, under the 
 title of "Sapientia Indorum Veterum," by Starkius, 
 Berlin, 1697. This work passed into Italian. Again 
 the Arabic text was translated into Hebrew by Rabbi 
 Joel ; and this Hebrew translation became the princi- 
 pal source of the European books of fables. Before' 
 the end of the fifteenth century, John of Capua ha<l 
 published his famous Latin translation, " Directorium 
 immanae vita), alias, parabolas antiquorum sapientium." 
 
 VOL. II. 15
 
 226 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 
 
 In his preface, he states that this book was called 
 " Belile et Dimne ; " that it was originally in the lan- 
 guage of India, then translated into Persian, after- 
 wards into Arabic, then into Hebrew, and lastly by 
 himself into Latin. This work, to judge from the 
 numerous German, Italian, Spanish, and French trans- 
 lations, must have been extremely popular all over 
 Europe in the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth 
 century a new stream of oriental fables reached the 
 literary world of Europe, through a translation of the 
 "Anvari Suhaili " (the Persian " Kalila Dimna") 
 into French, by David Sahid d' Ispahan. This work 
 was called " Le Livre des Lumieres, ou la conduite 
 des rois, compost par le sage Bilpay, Indien." It after- 
 wards went by the name of " Les Fables de Pilpay." 
 This was the book from which Lafontaine borrowed 
 the subjects of his later fables. An excellent English 
 translation, we may here state, of the " Anvari Su- 
 haili " has lately been published by Professor East- 
 wick. 
 
 This migration of fables from India to Europe is a 
 matter of history, and has to be taken into account, 
 before we refer the coincidences between the popu- 
 lar stories of India and Norway to that much earlier 
 intercourse of the ancestors of the Indo-European 
 races of which we have spoken before. Dr. Dasent 
 is so great an admirer of Grimm, that he has hardly 
 done justice to the researches of Sylvestre de Sacy. 
 He says : 
 
 " That all the thousand shades of resemblance and 
 affinity which gleam and flicker through the whole 
 body of popular tradition in the Aryan race, as the 
 Aurora plays and flashes in countless rays athwart the
 
 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 2^1 
 
 Northern heavens, should be the result of mere ser- 
 vile copying of one tribe's traditions by another, is a 
 supposition as absurd as that of those good country- 
 folk, who, when they see an Aurora, fancy it must be 
 a great fire, the work of some incendiary, and send off 
 the parish engine to put it out. No ! when we find in 
 such a story as the 'Master Thief traits which are 
 to be found in the Sanskrit ' Hitopadesa,' and which 
 are also to be found in the story of Rampsinitus in 
 Herodotos, which are also to be found in German, Ital- 
 ian, and Flemish popular tales, but told in all with 
 such variations of character and detail, and such adap- 
 tation to time and place, as evidently show the original 
 working of the national consciousness upon a stock of 
 tradition common to all the race, but belonging to no 
 tribe of that race in particular, and when we find this 
 occurring not in one tale, but in twenty, we are forced 
 to abandon the theory of such universal copying, for 
 fear lest we should fall into a greater difficulty than 
 that for which we were striving to account." 
 
 The instance which Dr. Dasent has here chosen to 
 illustrate his theory does seem to us inconclusive. The 
 story of the " Master Thief" is told in the " Hitopa- 
 desa." A Brahman, who had vowed a sacrifice, went 
 to the market to buy a goat. Three thieves saw him, 
 and wanted to get hold of the goat. They stationed 
 themselves at intervals on the high road. When the 
 Brahman, who carried the goat on his back, ap- 
 proached the first thief, the thief said, " Brahman, why 
 do you carry a dog on your back ? " The Brahman 
 replied : " It is not a dog, 'it is a goat." A little while 
 after, he was accosted by the second thief, who said, 
 " Brahman, why do you cariy a dog on your back ? "
 
 228 POPULAR TALES FKOM THE NORSE. 
 
 The Brahman felt perplexed, put the goat down, ex- 
 amined it, and walked on. Soon after he was stopped 
 by the third thief, who said, " Brahman, why do you 
 carry a dog on your back? " Then the Brahman was 
 frightened, threw down the goat, and walked home to 
 perform his ablutions for having touched an unclean 
 animal. The thieves took the goat and ate it. The 
 gist of the story is that a man will believe almost any- 
 thing if he is told the same by three different people. 
 The Indian story, with slight variations, is told in the 
 Arabic translation, the " Kalila and Dimna." It was 
 known through the Greek translation at Constantino- 
 
 O 
 
 pie, at least at the beginning of the Crusades, and was 
 spread all over Europe, in the Latin of the " Directo- 
 rium humanse vitae." The Norwegian story of the 
 " Master Thief" is not a translation, such as we find in 
 the " Filosofia morale," nor an adaptation, such as a 
 similar story in the " Face*tieuses Nuitsde Straparole." 
 But the key-note of the story is nevertheless the same. 
 That key-note might have been caught up by any 
 Norman sailor, or any Northern traveller or student, 
 of whom there were many in the Middle Ages, who 
 visited the principal seats of learning in Europe. And, 
 that key-note given, nothing was easier than to invent 
 the three variations which we find in the Norse " Mas- 
 ter Thief." If the same story, as Dr. Dasent says, 
 occurred in Herodotos the case would be different. 
 At thf 1 time of Herodotos the translations of the 
 " Hitopadesa " had not yet reached Europe, and we 
 should be obliged to include the " Master Thief" 
 within the most primitive stock of Aryan lore. But 
 there is nothing in the story of the two sons of the 
 architect who robbed the treasury of Rampsinitua
 
 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 229 
 
 which turns on the trick of the " Master Thief." There 
 were thieves, more or less clever, in Egypt as well as 
 in India, and some of their stratagems were possibly 
 the same at all times. But there is a keen and well- 
 defined humor in the story of the Brahman and his 
 deference to public opinion. Of this there is no trace 
 in the anecdote told by Herodotos. That anecdote 
 deals with mere matters of fact, whether imaginary or 
 historical. The story of Rampsinitus did enter into 
 the popular literature of Europe, but through a differ- 
 ent channel. We find it in the " Gesta Romanorum," 
 where Octavianus has taken the place of Rampsinitus, 
 and we can hardly doubt that there it came originally 
 from Herodotos. There are other stories in the 
 " Gesta Romanorum " which are borrowed directly 
 from the " Hitopadesa " and its translations. We 
 need only mention that of Prince Llewellyn and his 
 hound Gellert, wliich Dr. Dasent would likewise refer 
 to the period previous to the dispersion of the Aryan 
 race, but wliich, as can be proved, reached Europe by 
 a much shorter route. 
 
 But if in these special instances we differ from Dr. 
 Dasent, we fully agree with him in the main. There 
 are stories, common to the different branches of the 
 Aryan stock, which could not have travelled from In- 
 dia to Europe at so late a time as that of Nushirvan. 
 They are ancient Aryan stories, older than the " Pan- 
 fcatantra," older than the " Odyssey," older than the 
 dispersion of the Aryan race. We can only mention 
 one or two instances. 
 
 In the " Pafi&atantra," there is the story of the 
 King who asked his pet monkey to watch over him 
 whUe he was asleep. A bee settled on the King's
 
 230 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 
 
 head, the monkey could not drive her away, so he tools 
 his sword, killed the bee, and in killing her killed the 
 King. A very similar parable is put into the mouth 
 by Buddha. A bald carpenter was attacked by a 
 mosquito. He called his son to drive it away. The 
 son took the axe, aimed a blow at the insect, but split 
 his father's head in two, and killed him. This fable 
 reached Lafontaine through the " Anvari Suhaili,'' 
 
 O f 
 
 and appears in the French as the " Bear and the Gar- 
 dener." But the same fable had reached Europe at a 
 much earlier time, and though the moral has been al- 
 tered, it can hardly be doubted that the fable in Pha> 
 dros of the bald man who in trying to kill a gnat gives 
 himself a severe blow in the face, came originally 
 from the East. There may have been some direct 
 communication, and JEsop of old may have done very 
 much the same as Khosru Nushirvan did at a later 
 time. But it is more likely that there was some old 
 Aryan proverb, some homely saw, such as " Protect us 
 from our friends," or " Think of the king and the 
 
 ' ~ 
 
 bee." Such a saying would call for explanation, and 
 stories would readily be told to explain it. There is in 
 our Norwegian Tales a passage very much to the same 
 effect : 
 
 " A man saw a goody hard at work banging her 
 husband across the head with a beetle, and over his 
 head she had drawn a shirt without any slit for the 
 neck. 
 
 " ' Why, Goody ! ' he asked, * will you beat your 
 husband to death ? ' 
 
 " ' No," she said, * I only must have a hole in this 
 shirt for his neck to come throuo-h.' " 
 
 O 
 
 The story of the Donkey in the Lion's skin waa
 
 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 23J 
 
 known as a proverb to Plato. It exists as a fable in 
 the " Hitopadesa," "The Donkey in the Tiger's skin."' 
 Many of the most striking traits of animal life which 
 are familiar to us from Phjedros, are used for similar 
 purposes in the " Hitopadesa." The mouse delivering 
 her friends by gnawing the net, the turtle flying and 
 dying, the tiger or fox as pious hermits, the serpent as 
 king, or friend of the frogs, all these are elements com- 
 mon to the early fabulists of Greece and India. One 
 of the earliest Roman apologues, " the dispute between 
 the belly and the other members of the body," was 
 told in India long before it was told by Menenius 
 Agrippa at Rome. Several collections of fables have 
 just been discovered in Chinese by M. Stanislas 
 Julien, and will soon be published in a French trans- 
 lation. 
 
 With regard to the ancient Aiyan fables, which are 
 common to all the members of the Aryan family, it 
 has been said that there is something so natural in most 
 of them, that they might well have been invented more 
 than once. This is a sneaking argument, but never- 
 theless it has a certain weight. It does not apply, 
 however, to our fairy tales. They surely cannot be 
 called natural. They are full of the most unnatural 
 conceptions of monsters such as no human eye has 
 ever seen. Of many of them we know for certain 
 that they were not invented at all, but that they are 
 the detritus of ancient mythology, half-forgotten, mis- 
 understood, and reconstructed. Dr. Dasent has traced 
 the gradual transition of myth into story in the case 
 of the Wild Huntsman, who was originally the Ger- 
 man god Odin. He might have traced the last fibres 
 of " Odin, the hunter," back to Indra, the god of
 
 232 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 
 
 Storms, in the Veda ; and lower even than the 
 " Grand Veneur " in the Forest of Fontainebleau, he 
 might have dodged the Hellequin of France to the 
 very Harlequin of our Christmas Pantomimes. Wil- 
 liam Tell, the good archer, whose mythological cha,rac- 
 ter Dr. Dasent has established beyond contradiction, is 
 the last reflection of the Sun-god, whether we call him 
 Indra, or Apollo, or Ulysses. Their darts are uner- 
 ring. They hit the apple, or any other point ; and 
 they destroy their enemies with the same bow with 
 which they have hit the mark. The countless stories 
 of all the princesses and snow-white ladies who were 
 kept in dark prisons, and were invariably delivered by 
 a young bright hero, can all be traced back to mytho- 
 logical traditions about the Spring being released from 
 the bonds of Winter, the Sun being rescued from the 
 darkness of the Night, the Dawn being brought back 
 from the far West, the Waters being set free from the 
 prison of the clouds. In the songs of the Veda, where 
 the powers of nature have hardly assumed as yet their 
 fixed divine personality, we read over and over again of 
 the treasures which the God of light recovers from the 
 
 O 
 
 dark clouds. These treasures are the Waters conquered 
 after a fierce thunder-storm. Sometimes these Waters 
 are called the cows, which the robbers had hidden in 
 caves sometimes, the wives of the gods (Devapatm), 
 who had become the wives of the fiend (Dasapatni 
 or Deianeira=" dsa-nari). Their imprisonment is 
 called a curse ; and when they are delivered from it, 
 Indra is praised for having destroyed " the seven cas- 
 tles of the autumn." In the Veda the thief or the 
 fiend is called the serpent with seven heads. 
 
 Every one of these expressions may be traced in
 
 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 233 
 
 the German " Mahrchen." The loves and feuds of the 
 powers of nature, after they had been told, first of gods, 
 then of heroes, appear in the tales of the people as the 
 flirting and teasing of fairies and imps. Christianity 
 had destroyed the old gods of the Teutonic tribes, and 
 supplied new heroes in the saints and martyrs of the 
 Church. The gods were dead, and the heroes, the 
 sons of the gods, forgotten. But the stones told of 
 them would not die, and in spite of the excommunica- 
 tions of the priests they were welcomed wherever they 
 appeared in their strange disguises. Kind-hearted 
 grannies would tell the pretty stories of old, if it was 
 only to keep their little folk quiet. They did not tell 
 them of the gods ; for those gods were dead, or, worse 
 than that, had been changed into devils. They told 
 them of nobody ; ay, sometimes they would tell them 
 of the very saints and martyrs, and the apostles them- 
 selves have had to wear some of the old rags that be- 
 longed by right to Odin and other heathen gods. The 
 oddest figure of all is that of the Devil in his half- 
 Christian and half-heathen garb. The Aryan nations 
 had no Devil. Pluto, though of a sombre character, 
 was a very respectable personage ; and Loki, though a 
 mischievous person, was not a fiend. The German 
 goddess, Hell, too like Proserpina had once seen 
 better days. Thus, when the Germans were indoc- 
 trinated with the idea of a real Devil, the Semitic 
 Satan or Diabolus, they treated him in the most good- 
 humored manner. They ascribed to him all the mis- 
 chievous tricks of their most mischievous gods. But 
 while the old Northern story-tellers delighted in the 
 success of cunning, the new generation felt in duty 
 bound to represent the Devil in the end as always
 
 234 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 
 
 defeated. He was outwitted in all the tricks which 
 had formerly proved successful, and thus quite a new 
 character was produced the poor or stupid Devil, 
 who appears not unfrequently in the German and in 
 Norwegian tales. 
 
 All this Dr. Dasent has described very tersely and 
 graphically in his Introduction, and we recommend 
 the readers of his tales not to treat that Introduction 
 as most introductions are treated. We should particu- 
 larly recommend to the attention of those who have 
 leisure to devote to such subjects, what Dr. Dasent 
 says at the close of his Essay : 
 
 " Enough has been said, at least, to prove that even 
 nursery tales may have a science of their own, and 
 to show how the old Nornir and divine spinners can 
 revenge themselves if their old wives' tales are insulted 
 and attacked. The inquiry itself might be almost 
 indefinitely prolonged, for this is a journey where 
 each turn of the road brings out a new point of view, 
 and the longer we linger on our path the longer we 
 find something fresh to see. Popular mythology is a 
 virgin mine, and its ore, so far from being exhausted 
 or worked out, has here, in England at least, been 
 scarcely touched. It may, indeed, be dreaded lest the 
 time for collecting such English traditions is not past 
 and gone ; whether the steam-engine and pnnting- 
 press have not played their great part of enlightenment 
 too well ; and whether the popular tales, of which, 
 no doubt, the land was once full, have not faded away 
 before these great inventions, as the race of giants 
 waned before the might of Odin and the jEsir. Still 
 the example of this very Norway, which at one time 
 was thought, even by her own sons, to have few tales
 
 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 235 
 
 of her own, and now has been found to have them so 
 fresh and full, may serve as a warning not to abandon 
 a search, which, indeed, can scarcely be said to have 
 been ever begun ; and to suggest a doubt whether the 
 ill success which may have attended this or tliat par- 
 ticular attempt, may not have been from the fault 
 rather of the seekers after traditions, than from the 
 want of the traditions themselves. In point of fact, it 
 is a matter of the utmost difficulty to gather such tales 
 in any country, as those who have collected them most 
 successfully will be the first to confess. It is hard to 
 make old and feeble women, who generally are the de- 
 positaries of these national treasures, believe that the 
 inquirer can have any real interest in the matter. They 
 fear that the question is only put to turn them into rid- 
 icule ; for the popular mind is a sensitive plant ; it 
 becomes coy, and closes its leaves at the first rude 
 touch ; and when once shut, it is hard to make these 
 aged lips reveal the secrets of the memory. There 
 they remain, however, forming part of an under-cur- 
 rent of tradition, of which the educated classes, through 
 whose minds flows the bright upper-current of faith, 
 are apt to forget the very existence. Things out of 
 sight, and therefore out of mind. Now and then a 
 wave of chance tosses them to the surface from those 
 hidden depths, and all her Majesty's inspectors of 
 schools are shocked at the wild shapes which still haunt 
 the minds of the great mass of the community. It 
 cannot be said that the English are not a superstitious 
 people. Here we have gone on for more than a hun- 
 dred years proclaiming our opinion that the belief in 
 witches, and wizards, and ghosts, and fetches was ex- 
 tinct throughout the land. Ministers of all denomina-
 
 236 POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE. 
 
 tions have preached them down, and philosophers con- 
 vinced all the world of the absurdity of such vain 
 superstitions ; and yet it has been reserved for another 
 learned profession, the Law, to produce in one trial at 
 the Staffordshire Assizes, a year or two ago, such a 
 host of witnesses who firmly believed in witchcraft, and 
 swore to their belief in spectre dogs and wizards, as to 
 show that, in the Midland Counties at least, such tradi- 
 tions are anything but extinct. If so much of the bad 
 has been spared by steam, by natural philosophy, and 
 by the Church, let us hope that some of the good may 
 still linger along with it, and that an English Grimm 
 may yet arise who may carry out what Mr. Chambers 
 has so well begun in Scotland, and discover in the 
 mouth of an Anglo-Saxon Gammer Grethel some, at 
 least, of those popular tales which England once had 
 in common with all the Aryan race." 
 
 January, 1859.
 
 XXIV. 
 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 1 
 
 WHEN reviewing, some time ago, Dr. Dasent's 
 "Popular Tales from the Norse," we expressed a 
 hope that something might still be done for recovering 
 at least a few fragments here and there of similar tales 
 once current in England. Ever since the brothers 
 Grimm surprised the world by their " Kinder und 
 Hausmarchen," which they had picked up in various 
 parts of Germany in beer-houses, in spinning-rooms, 
 or in the warm kitchen of an old goody an active 
 search has been set on foot in eveiy comer of Ger- 
 many, in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, nay, even in 
 Finland and Lapland, for everything in the shape of 
 popular sayings, proverbs, riddles, or tales. The re- 
 sult has been more than could have been expected. 
 A considerable literature has been brought together, 
 and we have gained an insight into the natural growth 
 of popular lore, more instructive than anything that 
 could be gathered from chronicles or historians. Our 
 hope that Dr. Dasent's work would give a powerful 
 impulse to similar researches in this country has not 
 been disappointed. Good books seem to beget good 
 
 l Popular Tales of the West Highlands. Orally collected, with a trans* 
 lation by J. F. Campbell. Edinburgh: Edtnonston & Douglas, 1860.
 
 238 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 
 
 books, and in Mr. Campbell's " Popular Tales of the 
 West Highlands," orally collected, with a translation, 
 we are glad to welcome the first response to the ap- 
 peal made by the translator of the Norse Tales. It 
 might be feared, indeed, as Dr. Dasent said in. his 
 learned and eloquent Introduction, whether the time 
 for collecting such English traditions was not past and 
 gone ; whether the steam-engine and printing-press had 
 not played their great work of enlightenment too well ; 
 and whether the popular tales, of which, no doubt, the 
 land was once full, had not faded away before these 
 great inventions, as the race of giants waned before 
 the might of Odin and the JEsir. But not so. Of 
 course such stories were not to be found in London or 
 its immediate neighborhood. People who went out 
 story-fishing to Richmond or Gravesend would find 
 but poor sport among white-tied waiters or barmaids 
 in silk. However, even in St. James' Street, a prac- 
 ticed hand may get a rise, as witness the following 
 passage from Mr. Campbell's preface : 
 
 " I met two tinkers in St. James' Street, in Febru- 
 ary, with black faces and a pan of burning coals each. 
 They were followed by a wife, and preceded by a 
 mangy terrier with a stiff tail. I joined the party, and 
 one told me a version of ' the man who travelled to 
 learn what shivering meant,' while we walked to- 
 gether through the Park to Westminster." 
 
 But though a stray story may thus be bagged in the 
 West-end of London, Mr. Campbell knew full well 
 that his best chance would lie as far away from the 
 centre of civilization as railways could carry him, and 
 as far away from railways as his legs could take him. 
 So he went to his own native country, the Western
 
 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 239 
 
 Islands and Highlands of Scotland. There he knew 
 he would meet with people who could neither read nor 
 write, who hardly knew a word of English, and from 
 whom he remembered as a child to have heard stories 
 exactly like those which Dr. Dasent had lately im- 
 ported from Norway. We must copy at least one 
 description of the haunts explored by Mr. Campbell : 
 
 " Let me describe one of these old story-men as a 
 type of his kind. I trust he will not be offended, for 
 he was very polite to me. His name is MacPhie ; he 
 lives at the north end of South Uist, where the road 
 ends at a sound, which has to be forded at the ebb to 
 go to Benbecula. The house is built of a double wall 
 of loose boulders, with a layer of peat three feet thick 
 between the walls. The ends are round, and the roof 
 rests on the inner wall, leaving room for a crop of 
 yellow gowans. A man might walk round the roof 
 on the top of the wall. There is but one room, with 
 two low doors, one on each side of the house. The 
 fire is on the floor ; the chimney is a hole above it ; 
 and the rafters are hung with pendants and festoons 
 of shining black peat reek. They are of birch of the 
 main-land, American drift-wood, or broken wreck. 
 They support a covering of turf and straw, and stones 
 and heather ropes, which keep out the rain well 
 enough. 
 
 "The house stands on a green bank, with gray 
 rocks protruding through the turf; and the whole 
 neighborhood is pervaded by cockle shells, which indi- 
 cate the food of the people and their fishing pursuits. 
 In a neighboring kiln there were many cart-loads 
 about to be burned, to make that lime which is so 
 durable in the old castles. The owner of the house,
 
 240 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 
 
 whom I visited twice, is seventy-nine. He told me 
 nine stories, and, like all the others, declared that 
 there was no man in the island who knew them so 
 well. ' He could not say how many he knew ; ' he 
 seemed to know versions of nearly everything I had 
 got ; and he told me plainly that my versions were 
 good for nothing. ' Huch ! thou hast not got them 
 right at all.' ' They came into his mind,' he said, 
 4 sometimes at night when he could not sleep old 
 tales that he had not heard for threescore years.' 
 
 " He had the manner of a practiced narrator, and it 
 is quite evident that he is one ; he chuckled at the in- 
 teresting parts, and laid his withered finger on my 
 knee as he gave out the terrible bits with due solem- 
 nity. A small boy in a kilt, with large, round, glitter- 
 ing eyes, was standing mute at his knee, gazing at 
 his wrinkled face, and devouring every word. The 
 boy's mother first boiled and then mashed potatoes ; 
 and his father, a well grown man in tartan breeks, ate 
 them. Ducks and ducklings, a cat and a kitten, some 
 hens, and a baby, all tumbled about on the clay floor 
 together, and expressed their delight at the savory 
 prospect, each in his own fashion ; and then wayfarers 
 dropped in and listened for a spell, and passed their 
 remarks, till the ford was shallow. The light came 
 streaming down the chimney, and through a single pane 
 of glass, lighting up a track in the blue mist of the peat 
 smoke ; and fell on the white hair and brown, withered 
 foce of the old man, as he sat on a low stool, with his 
 feet to the fire ; and the rest of the dwelling, with all 
 its plenishing of boxes and box-beds, dishes and dresser, 
 and gear of all sorts, faded away, through shades of 
 deepening brown, to the black darkness of the smoked
 
 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 241 
 
 roof and the ' peat corner.' There we sat, and smoked 
 And talked for hours till the tide ebbed; and then I 
 crossed the ford by wading up to the waist, and dried 
 my clothes in the wind in Benbecula." 
 
 Mr. Campbell, we see, can describe well, and the 
 small sketches which he inserts in his preface bits 
 of scenery from Scotland or Lapland, from Spain or 
 Algiers are evidently the work of a man who can 
 handle brush and pen with equal skill. If he had 
 simply given a description of his travels in the West- 
 ern Highlands, interspersed with some stories gathered 
 from the mouths of the people, he would have given 
 us a most charming Christmas-book. But Mr. Camp- 
 bell had a higher aim. He had learned from Dr. 
 Dasent's preface, that popular stories may be made to 
 tell a story of their own, and that they may yield most 
 valuable materials for the paleontology of the human 
 race. The nations who are comprehended under the 
 common appellation of Aryan or Indo-European the 
 Hindus, the Persians, the Celts, Germans, Romans, 
 Greeks, and Slaves do not only share the same words 
 and the same grammar slightly modified in each coun- 
 try, but they seem to have likewise preserved a mass 
 of popular tradition which had grown up before they 
 had left their common home. That this is true with 
 regard to mythological traditions has been fully proved, 
 and comparative mythology has by this time taken its 
 place as a recognized science, side by side with compar- 
 ative philology. But it is equally known that the gods 
 of ancient mythology were changed into the demi-gods 
 and heroes of ancient epic poetry, and that these demi- 
 gods again became, at a later age, the principal char- 
 acters of our nursery tales. If, therefore, the Saxons, 
 
 VOL. II. 16
 
 242 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 
 
 Celts, Romans, Greeks, Slaves, Persians, and Hindus 
 once spoke the same language, if they worshipped the 
 same gods and believed in the same myths and legends, 
 we need not be surprised that even at the present day 
 there is still a palpable similarity between the stories 
 told by MacPhie of South Uist and those for which we 
 are indebted to the old grannies in every village of 
 Germany nay, that the general features of their 
 tales should be discovered in the stories of Vishnu- 
 *arman and Somadeva in India. 
 
 The discoveiy of such similarities is no doubt highly 
 interesting, but at the same time the subject requires 
 the most delicate handling. Such has been the later 
 literary intercourse between the nations of the East 
 and the West, that many channels, besides that of the 
 one common primitive language, were open for the 
 spreading of popular stories. The researches of De 
 Sacy and Benfey have laid open several of these chan- 
 nels through which stories, ready made, were carried 
 through successive translations from India to Persia 
 and Greece and the rest of Europe. This took place 
 during the Middle Ages ; whereas the original seeds of 
 Indo-European legends must have been brought to 
 Europe by the first Aryans who settled in Greece, 
 Italy, Germany, and Gaul. These two classes of le- 
 gends must, therefore, be carefully kept apart, though 
 their separation is often a work of great difficulty. The 
 first class of legends those which were known to the 
 primeval Aryan race, before it broke up into Hindus, 
 Greeks, Romans, Germans, and Celts may be called 
 primitive, or organic. The second those which 
 were imported in later times from one literature into 
 another may be called secondary, or inorganic. The
 
 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 243 
 
 former represent one common ancient stratum of lan- 
 guage and thought, reaching from India to Europe ; 
 the latter consist of boulders of various strata carried 
 along by natural and artificial means from one country 
 to another. As we distinguish in each Aryan language 
 between common and foreign words, the former con- 
 stituting the ancient heir-loom of the Aryan race, the 
 latter being borrowed by Romans from Greeks, by 
 Germans from Romans, by Celts from Germans, so 
 we ought to distinguish between common aboriginal 
 Aryan legends and legends borrowed and transplanted 
 at later times. The rules which apply to the treatment 
 of words apply with equal force to the comparative 
 analysis of legends. If we find words in Sanskrit ex- 
 actly the same as in Greek, we know that they cannot 
 be the same words. The phonetic system of Greek is 
 different from that of Sanskrit ; and words, in order to 
 prove their original identity, must be shown to have 
 suffered the modifying influences of the phonetic sys- 
 tem peculiar to each language. " Ekatara " in San- 
 skrit cannot be the same word as eKarrpos in Greek ; 
 "better" in English cannot be the same as "behter" 
 in Persian. " Ei " in German cannot be the same as 
 English " eye." If they were the same words, they 
 would necessarily have diverged more widely through 
 the same influence which made Greek different from 
 Sanskrit, Persian different from English, and English 
 different from German. This of course does not apply 
 to foreign words. When the Romans adopted the 
 word " philosophos " from Greek, they hardly changed 
 it at all ; whereas the root " sap " had, by a perfectly 
 natural process, produced sapiens in Latin, and 
 " sophos " in Greek.
 
 244 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 
 
 Another rule of the science of language which ought 
 to be carefully observed in the comparative study of 
 legends is tins, that no comparison should be made be- 
 fore each word is traced back to its most primitive form 
 and meaning. We cannot compare English and Hin- 
 dustani, but we can trace an English word back to 
 Anglo-Saxon and Gothic, and a Hindustani word back 
 to Hindu and Sanskrit; and then from Gothic and 
 Sanskrit we can measure and discover the central point 
 from whence the original Aryan word proceeded. We 
 thus discover not only its original form, but at the 
 same time its etymological meaning. Applying this 
 rule to the comparison of popular tales, we maintain 
 that before any comparison can be instituted between 
 nursery tales of Germany, England, and India, each 
 tale must be traced back to a legend or myth from 
 whence it arose, and in which it had a natural mean- 
 ing : otherwise we cannot hope to arrive at any satis- 
 factory results. One instance must suffice to illustrate 
 the application of these rules. In Mr. Campbell's 
 West Highland Tales we meet with the story of a frog 
 who wishes to marry the daughter of a queen, and 
 who, when the youngest daughter of the queen con- 
 sents to become his wife, is freed from a spell and 
 changed into a handsome man. This story can be 
 traced back to the year 1548. In Germany it is well 
 known as the story of the " Froschkonig." Mr. Camp- 
 bell thinks it is of Gaelic origin, because the speech of 
 the frog in Gaelic is an imitation of the gurgling and 
 quacking of spring frogs. However, the first question 
 to answer is this, How came such a story ever to be 
 invented ? Human beings, we may hope, were at all 
 times sufficiently enlightened to know that a marriage
 
 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 245 
 
 between a frog and the daughter of a queen was ab- 
 surd. No poet could ever have sat down to invent 
 sheer nonsense like this. We may ascribe to our an- 
 cestors any amount of childlike simplicity, but we must 
 take care not to degrade them to the rank of mere 
 idiots. There must have been something rational in 
 the early stories and myths ; and until we find a reason 
 for each, we must just leave them alone as we leave a 
 curious petrifaction which lias not yet been traced back 
 to any living type. Now, in our case it can be shown 
 that frog was used as a name of the sun. In the an- 
 cient floating speech of the Aryan family the sun had 
 hundreds of names. Each poet thought he had a 
 right to call the sun by his own name ; and he would 
 even call it by a different name at sunrise and at sun- 
 set, in spring and in winter, in war or in peace. Their 
 ancient language was throughout poetical and meta- 
 phorical. The sun might be called the iiourisher, the 
 awakener, the giver of life, the messenger of death, 
 the brilliant eye of heaven, the golden swan, the dog, 
 the wolf, the lion. Now at sunrise and sunset, when 
 the sun seemed squatting on the water, it was called the 
 frog. This may have been at first the expression of 
 one individual poet, or the slang name once used by a 
 fisherman watching the sun as it slowly emerged from 
 the clouds in winter. But the name possessed vitality ; 
 it remained current for a time ; it was amplified into 
 short proverbial sayings ; and at last, when the original 
 metaphor was lost sight of, when people no longer knew 
 that the frog spoken of in their saws and proverbs was 
 meant for the sun, these saws and proverbs became 
 changed into myths and legends. In Sanskrit the 
 name of the froo; is " Bheka," and from it a feminine 
 
 O 7
 
 246 TALES OF 1HE WEST HIGHLANDS. 
 
 was formed, "Bheki." This fen inine, " Bheki,' : must 
 have been at one time used as a name of the sun, for 
 the sun was under certain circumstances feminine in 
 India as well as in Germany. After a time, when 
 this name had become obsolete, stories were told of 
 " Bheki " which had a natural sense only when told 
 ?f the sun, and which are the same in character as 
 Dther stories told of heroes or heroines whose original 
 solar character cannot be doubted. Thus we find in 
 Sanskrit the story that " Bheki," the frog, was a 
 beautiful girl ; and that one day, when sitting near a 
 well, she was discovered by a king, who asked her to 
 be his wife. She consented, on condition that he 
 should never show her a drop of water. One day, 
 being tired, she asked the king for water, the king for- 
 got his promise, brought water, and " Bheki " disap- 
 peared. This story was known at the time when 
 Kapila wrote his philosophical aphorisms in India, for 
 it is there quoted as an illustration. But long before 
 Kapila the story of " Bheki " must have grown up 
 gradually, beginning with a short saying about the sun, 
 such as that " Bheki," the sun, will die at the sight 
 of water, as we should say that the sun will set when 
 it approaches the water from which it rose in the 
 morning. Thus, viewed as a woman, the sun-frog 
 might be changed into a woman and married to a 
 king ; viewed as a man he might be married to a 
 princess. In either case stories would naturally arise 
 to explain more or less fully all that seemed strange in 
 these marriages between frog and man, and the change 
 from sun to frog, and from frog to man, which was at 
 nrst due to the mere spell of language, would, in our 
 nursery tales, be ascribed to miraculous charms more 
 bioiiliar to a later age.
 
 TALES OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 247 
 
 It is in this way alone that a comparison of tales, 
 legends, and myths can lead to truly scientific results. 
 Mere similarity between stories discovered in distant 
 parts of the world is no more than similarity of sound 
 between words. Words may be identical in sound, 
 and yet totally distinct in origin. In all branches of 
 science we want to know the origin of things, and to 
 watch their growth and decay. If " Storiology," as 
 Mr. Campbell calls it, is to be a scientific study, it 
 must follow the same course. Mr. Campbell has 
 brought together in his introduction and his notes 
 much that is valuable and curious. The coincidences 
 which he has pointed out between the stories of the 
 Western Highlands and other parts of the Aryan 
 world, are striking in themselves, and will be useful for 
 further researches. But the most valuable parts of his 
 work are the stories themselves. For these he will re- 
 ceive the thanks of all who are interested in the study 
 of language and popular literature, and we hope that 
 he will feel encouraged to go on with his work, and 
 that his example will be followed by others, in other 
 parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. 
 
 February, 1861.
 
 XXV. 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 1 
 
 THE study of mankind is making rapid progress in 
 our days. The early history of the human race, 
 which in former centuries was written chiefly by poets 
 or philosophers, has now been taken up in good earnest 
 by men who care for facts, and for facts only, and who, 
 if they cannot reveal to us the very beginnings of 
 human life and human thought, have succeeded, at 
 least, in opening broad views into a distant past, hith- 
 erto impenetrable, and have brought together frag- 
 ments of language, religion, mythology, legends, laws, 
 and customs which give us a real and living idea of 
 the early ancestors of our race. 
 
 The first impulse to these researches was given by 
 the science of language. By a mere classification of 
 languages and by a careful analysis of words, that 
 science has shed a dazzling light on the darkest agea 
 in the history of man. Where all was guess-work 
 before, we have now a well-established pedigree of 
 languages and races, which still stands the test of the 
 most uncompromising skepticism. Who in the last 
 century could have dreamt of a genealogical relation- 
 
 1 Researches into the Early History of Mankind, and the Development of 
 Civilization. By Edward Burnet Tylor, author of Mexico and the Mexican* 
 London: John Murray, 1865.
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 249 
 
 ship between the languages of the Greeks and Romans 
 and that of the ancient Hindus, or the Persians of 
 Zoroaster and Darius. Who would have ventured to 
 maintain that the Teutonic, Celtic, and Slavonic na- 
 tions were in reality of the same kith and kin as the 
 Greeks and Romans, who looked down upon them as 
 mere barbarians ? The change from the Ptolemaic 
 system to that which placed the sun in the centre of 
 our planetary world was hardly more startling than the 
 discovery of an Indo-European or Aryan family of 
 speech, which unites by a common bond nations so 
 distant as the inhabitants of Ceylon and Iceland. And 
 by how close a bond ! Let us consider but one in- 
 stance. " I know " in modern German is " ich weiss ; " 
 " we know," in the plural, " wir wissen." Why this 
 change of vowel in the singular and plural ? Modern 
 German can give us no answer, nor ancient German, 
 not even the most ancient German of the fourth cen- 
 tury, the Gothic of Ulphilas. Here, too, we find 
 " vait," I know, with the diphthong in the singular, 
 but " vitum," we know, with the simple vowel. A 
 similar change meets us in the ancient language of 
 England, and King Alfred would have said " wat," 
 I know, but " witon," we know. If, then, we turn to 
 Greek we see here, too, the same anomalous transition 
 from " (v)oida," I know, to " (v)ismen," we know ; but 
 we look in vain for any intelligible explanation of so 
 capricious a change. At last we turn to Sanskrit, and 
 there not only do we meet with the change from 
 " veda," I know, to " vidma," we know, but we also 
 discover the key to it. In Sanskrit the accent of the 
 perfect falls throughout on the first syllable in the sin- 
 gular, in the plural on the last ; and it was this change
 
 250 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 of accent which produced the analogous change in the 
 length of the radical vowel. So small and apparently 
 insignificant a fact as this, the change of i into e (ai) 
 whenever the accent falls on it, teaches us lessons 
 more important than all the traditions put together 
 which the inhabitants of India, Greece, and Germany 
 have preserved of their earliest migrations and of the 
 foundations of their empires, ascribed to their gods, or 
 to the sons of their gods and heroines. This one fact 
 proves that before the Hindus migrated to the south- 
 ern peninsula of Asia, and before the Greeks and 
 Germans had trodden the soil of Europe, the common 
 ancestors of these three races spoke one and the same 
 language, a language so well regulated and so firmly 
 settled that we can discover the same definite outlines 
 in the grammar of the ancient songs of the Veda, the 
 poems of Homer, and the Gothic Bible of Ulphilas. 
 What does it mean, then, that in each of these three 
 languages, " I know " is expressed by a perfect, orig- 
 inally meaning " I have perceived ? " It means that 
 this fashion or idiom had become permanent before the 
 Greeks separated from the Hindus, before the Hindus 
 became unintelligible to the Germans. And what is 
 the import of the shortening of the vowel in the 
 plural, or rather of its strengthening in the singular ? 
 Its import is that, at an early period in the growth of 
 the most ancient Aryan language, the terminations 
 of the first, second, and third persons singular had 
 ceased to be felt as independent personal pronouns ; 
 that hence they had lost the accent, which fell back 
 on the radical vowel; while in the plural the termi- 
 nations, continuing to be felt as modificatory pronom- 
 inal suffixes, retained the accent and left the radical
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 251 
 
 vowel unchanged. This rule continued to be observed 
 in Sanskrit long after the reason of it had ceased to be 
 perceived. The change of accent and the change of 
 vowel remained in harmony. In Greek, on the con- 
 trary, the accentuation was gradually changed. The 
 accent in the perfect remained in the plural on the 
 same vowel as in the singular ; yet, although thus the 
 efficient cause for the change in the vowel had disap- 
 peared, we find the Greek continuing to strengthen 
 the vowel in the singular " (v)oida," and to shorten 
 it in the plural " (v)ismen," instead of " (v)idmen," 
 just as their forefathers had done before their common 
 language had been broken up into so many national 
 dialects the Sanskrit, the Greek, the German. The 
 facts of language, however small, are historical facts, 
 and require an historical explanation ; and no expla- 
 nation of the fact just mentioned, which is one out 
 of thousands, has yet been started, except that long 
 before the earliest literary documents of Sanskrit, 
 which go back to 1500 B. c., long before Homer, long 
 before the first appearance of Latin, Celtic, German, 
 and Slavonic speech, there must have been an earlier 
 and more primitive language, the fountain-head of all, 
 just as Latin was the fountain-head of Italian, French, 
 and Spanish. How much time was required for this 
 gradual change and separation, how long it took 
 before the Hindus and Greeks, starting from the same 
 centre, became so different in their language as the 
 Sanskrit of the Veda is from the Greek of Homer, 
 is a question which no honest scholar would venture to 
 answer in definite chronological language. It must 
 have taken several generations ; it may have taken 
 hundreds or thousands of years. We have no ad-
 
 252 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 equate measures for such changes, and analogies 
 derived from the time required for modern changes 
 are as deceptive in language as in geology. The facts 
 established once for all by the science of language are 
 important enough in themselves, even though the an- 
 cient periods in the growth of human thought which 
 have thus unexpectedly been opened before our eyes 
 should resist all attempts at chronological measure- 
 ment. There is a perspective order of facts which to 
 those acquainted with the facts is more instructive 
 than mere chronological perspective ; and he who, after 
 examining the grammars of Greek and Sanskrit, simply 
 wonders how long it must have taken before two 
 branches of speech, once united, could diverge so far, 
 has a far more real and useful impression of the long 
 process that led to such results than he who should 
 assert that a thousand years is the minimum to account 
 for such changes. 
 
 What it is important to know, and more important 
 than any dates, is this, that if we search for monu- 
 ments of the earliest history of our race, we have but 
 to look around us. " Si monumentum quaeris, circum- 
 spice." Our language, the dialects spoken at the pres- 
 ent moment in every town and village of these islands, 
 not excluding the Celtic vernaculars of Wales, Ireland, 
 and Scotland ; the languages again of Germany, Swe- 
 den, Denmark, of Italy, France, Spain, of Russia and 
 her dependencies, of Persia and of India ; these are 
 the most ancient monuments, these are the ancient 
 mounds through which we may run our trenches if we 
 wish to discover beneath their surface the very palaces 
 which were the homes of our forefathers, the very 
 temples in which they prayed and worshipped, Lan-
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 253 
 
 guages, it is true, are constantly changing, but miver 
 in the history of man has there been a new language. 
 What does that mean ? Neither more nor less than 
 that in speaking as we do, we are using the same ma- 
 terials, however broken up, crushed, and put together 
 anew, which were handled by the first speaker, i. e. 
 the first real ancestor of our race. Call that ancestor 
 Adam, and the world is still speaking the language of 
 Adam. Call those ancestors Shem, Ham, and Japhet, 
 and the races of mankind are still speaking the lan- 
 guages of Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Or if we use the 
 terminology of the science of language, we say again 
 that all Aryan nations are still speaking the language 
 of the founders and fathers of the Aryan family, in 
 the same sense in which Dante speaks the language of 
 Virgil, or Guizot the language of Cicero ; that all 
 Semitic nations speak but varieties of the original 
 speech of their first ancestors, and that the languages 
 of the Turanian or Allophylic tribes are so many rivers 
 and rivulets diverging from distant centres, changing 
 so rapidly as almost to lose their own identity, yet in 
 their first beginnings as ancient as any of the Aryan 
 or Semitic branches of speech. The very words, which 
 we are here using have their first beginning nowhere 
 within the recollection of history. We hear of the 
 invention of new tools and weapons, we never hear of 
 the invention of new languages or even of new words. 
 New words are old words ; old in their material ele- 
 ments, though new, and constantly renewed, in their 
 form. If we analyze any word, its last radical ele- 
 ments, those elements which resist further analysis, arc 
 prehistoric, primordial, older than anything human in 
 the realm of nature or the realm of thought. In thest.
 
 254 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 words, if carefully analyzed, is to be read the history 
 of the human mind, the gradual progress from simple 
 to mixed modes of thought, from material to abstract 
 conceptions, from clear to obscure metaphors. Let us 
 take one instance. Do we want to know what was 
 uppermost in the minds of those who formed the word 
 for punishment, the Latin paena, or punio, to punish ; 
 the root " pu " in Sanskrit, which means to cleanse, to 
 purify, tells us that the Latin derivative was originally 
 formed, not to express mere striking or torturing, but 
 cleansing, correcting, delivering from the stain of sin. 
 In Sanskrit many a god is implored to cleanse away 
 (" pumhi") the sins of men, and the substantive "pa- 
 vana," though it did not come to mean punishment, 
 this in Sanskrit is called by the most appropriate name 
 "daw^a," stick, took in later times the sense of pu- 
 rification and penance. Now, it is clear that the train 
 of thought which leads from purification to penance or 
 from purification to punishment reveals a moral and 
 even a religious sentiment in the conception and nam- 
 ing of poena ; and it shows us that in the very infancy 
 of criminal justice punishment was looked upon, not 
 simply as a retribution or revenge, but as a correction, 
 as a removal of guilt. We do not feel the presence 
 of these early thoughts when we speak of corporal 
 punishment or castigation ; yet " castigation," too, was 
 originally " chastening," from castus, pure ; and inces- 
 tum was impurity or sin, which, according to Roman 
 law, the priests had to make good, or to punish, by a 
 supplicium, a supplication or prostration before the 
 gods. The power of punishment, originally belonging 
 tc the father, as part of his patria potestas* was grad- 
 ually transferred to the king ; and if we want to know
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 255 
 
 the original conception of kingship among the Aryan 
 nations, we have again only to analyze etymologically 
 some of their names for kino;. These names tell us 
 
 O 
 
 nothing of divinely given prerogative, nor of the pos- 
 session of supereminent strength, courage, and wisdom. 
 " 6ranaka," one of the words for king in Sanskrit, 
 means originally parent, father, then king, thus show- 
 ing the natural transition from father to king, from pa- 
 tria to reyia potestas. It was an important remark of 
 one of the most thoughtful etymologists, Jacob Grimm, 
 that the Old Norse word for king, " Konungr," or 
 " Kongr," cannot, as was commonly supposed, be de- 
 rived from the Old Norse " kyn," race, nor the Anglo 
 Saxon " cyning," from " cyn," kin, family. King is 
 an old word common to the three branches of the 
 Teutonic races, not coined afresh in Sweden, England, 
 and Germany, nay, not even coined out of purely 
 German ore. It did not mean originally a man of 
 family, a man of noble birth, but it is, as we said, in 
 reality the same word, both in form and meaning, as 
 the Sanskrit "^ranaka," formed previously to the separ- 
 ation of Sanskrit, from German, and meaning origin- 
 ally father, secondly, king. 
 
 And here we perceive the difference between ety- 
 mology and definition, which has so often been over- 
 looked. The etymology of a word can never give us 
 its definition ; it can only supply us with historical evi- 
 dence that at the time when a word was formed, its 
 predicative power represented one out of many charac- 
 teristic features of the object to which it was applied. 
 We are not justified in saying that because punire 
 meant originally to p arify, therefore the Roman con- 
 ception of punishment wa.s exclusively that of purifi-
 
 256 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 cation. All we can say is that one aspect of punish- 
 ment, which struck the earliest framers of the language 
 of Italy, was that of expiation. Other views of punish- 
 ment, however, were by no means overlooked, but 
 found manifold expression in synonymous words. Thus 
 the transition of meaning from father to king shows 
 that as in each family the eldest male parent was su- 
 preme, so when families grew into clans, tribes, and 
 nations, a similar supremacy over these larger com- 
 munities was allowed to one of the fathers or elders. 
 It shows us one phase in the origin of patriarchal king- 
 ship, one so well brought out by Mr. Maine in his 
 " Ancient Law ; " but it neither proves that kingly 
 government among the Aryan nations was always pa- 
 ternal, nor that there were no other steps to sovereign 
 power. Words such as rex, from regere, to steer ; dux, 
 from ducere, to lead, or imperator, a general, tell us of 
 different ways in which ancient dynasties were founded. 
 By this process of comparing and analyzing words, 
 particularly words common to many or all of the Aryan 
 nations, it has been possible to recover some of the 
 thoughts that filled the hearts and minds of our own 
 
 O 
 
 most distant ancestors, of a race of men who lived we 
 know not where and when, but to whose intellectual 
 labors we owe not only the precious ore, but much of 
 the ready money which still forms the intellectual cur- 
 rency of the Aryan world. Our dictionaries are but 
 new editions of their dictionary ; our grammars but ab- 
 stracts of their grammar. If we are what we are, not 
 only by flesh and blood, but by thought and language, 
 then our true kith and kin are to be found among the 
 nations of Greece and Italy, of India and Persia ; OUT 
 true ancestors he bured in that central Aryan home
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 257 
 
 from which, at a time long before the fifteenth century 
 B. c., migrated those who brought to India the language 
 of the Vedas, and to the shores of the uEgean Sea the 
 language of the Homeric songs. 
 
 Here, however, the science of language does not 
 stop. Not satisfied with having proved the original 
 identity of the grammatical structure of Sanskrit, Per- 
 sian, Greek, Latin, the Teutonic, Slavonic, and Celtic 
 dialects, and thus having brought to light the original 
 meaning of their words, it proceeded to establish an- 
 other fact of equal importance, and to open a new 
 field of research of even greater interest. It showed 
 that the broad outlines of the ancient relations of 
 
 o 
 
 those races were likewise the same ; that originally they 
 all worshipped the same gods, and that their earliest 
 communities were not broken up before such preg- 
 nant conceptions as " God," " evil spirit," "heaven," 
 " sacred," " to worship," " to believe," had found ex- 
 pression. The comparison of the different forms of 
 Aryan religion and mythology in India, Persia, Greece, 
 Italy, and Germany, has followed closely in the wake 
 of comparative philology, and its results cannot fail to 
 modify largely the views commonly entertained of the 
 origin of the religions of mankind. 
 
 Nor was this all. It was soon perceived that in each 
 of these nations there was a tendency to change the 
 original conception of divine powers, to misunderstand 
 the many names given to these powers, and to misin- 
 terpret the praises addressed to them. In this manner 
 some of the divine names were changed into half- 
 divine, half-human heroes ; and at last the myths which 
 were true and intelligible as told originally of the sun, 
 or the dawn, or the storms, were turned into legends
 
 258 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, 
 
 or fables too marvelous to be believed of common 
 mortals, yet too profane to be believed any longer of 
 gods like those who were worshipped by the contem- 
 poraries of Thales or Herakleitos. This process can be 
 watched in India, in Greece, in Germany. The same 
 story, or nearly the same, is told of gods, of heroes, 
 and of men. The divine myth becomes an heroic 
 legend, and the heroic legend fades away into a nursery 
 tale. Our nursery tales have well been called the 
 modern patois of the ancient sacred mythology of the 
 Aryan race, and as there are similarities between Hin- 
 dustani and French (such similarities as we may ex- 
 pect between distant cousins), we may well understand 
 how it came to pass that in many of the Norse tales or 
 in Grimm's " Mahrchen " the burden of the story is 
 the same as in the Eastern fairy tales and in Grecian 
 fables. Here, too, the ground- plan of a new science 
 has been sketched out, and broken relics of the ancient 
 folk-lore of the Aryan family have been picked up in 
 the cottages of Scotland, the spinning-rooms of Ger- 
 many, the bazaars of Herat, and the monasteries of 
 Ceylon. 
 
 Thus we have finished our survey of the various in- 
 quiries into the ancient " works and days " of man- 
 kind which have been set on foot by the students of 
 the science of language, and we have reached at last 
 that point where we may properly appreciate the ob- 
 ject and character of Mr. Tylor's book, " Researches 
 into the Early History of Mankind and the Develop- 
 ment of Civilization." The question had often been 
 asked, if everything in language which seems mod- 
 ern is really so very old, if an unbroken chain unites 
 our thoughts with the first stammerings of our Aryan
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 259 
 
 forefathers, if the Robin Hood of our nursery tales is 
 only a disguise of the Northern god Wodan or Odin, 
 and our Harlequin a mollified representative of the 
 Hellequin of the Franks, why should not the same 
 apply to many of our manners and customs ? It is 
 true we are no longer shepherds and hunters, like our 
 earlier forefathers. We wash, and comb, and dress, 
 and shave, while they had no names for soap or razors, 
 for combs or kilts. They were uncivilized Pagans 
 we are civilized Christians. Yet, in spite of all these 
 differences, it Avas thought to be a question of interest 
 whether some of our modern customs might not be 
 traced back to earlier sources, and be shown to have 
 prevailed not only on Teutonic soil, but among several, 
 or all, of the races which together form the Aryar. 
 family. Jacob Grimm wrote a most interesting paper 
 on the different forms of burial, and he came to the 
 conclusion that both burning and burying were recog- 
 nized forms of sepulture among the Aryan nations 
 from the earliest times, but that burning was originally 
 preferred by nomadic, burying by agricultural tribes. 
 He likewise showed that the burning of widows was 
 by no means a custom confined to India, but that it 
 existed in earlier times among Thracians, Getae, and 
 Scythians, and that the self-immolation of Brynhild on 
 the pile of Sigurd was by no means an isolated instance 
 in the mythology of the Teutonic race. Curious coin- 
 cidences have likewise been pointed out in the mar- 
 riage ceremonies of the Hindus, Greeks, Romans, and 
 Germans, and not a few of the laws and customs of 
 the Teutonic tribes have been traced back by Grimm, 
 with a more or less success, to corresponding laws and 
 customs in India, Greece, and Italy.
 
 260 ON MANNERS S.ND CUSTOMS. 
 
 It is, no doubt, desirable in researches of this kind 
 to keep at first within the bounds laid down by the 
 science of language, and to compare the customs of 
 those nations only whose languages are known to be 
 of the same origin. A comparative study of Aryan 
 customs, of Semitic customs, of Turanian customs, 
 would yield more satisfactory results than a promis- 
 cuous intercomparison of the customs of all mankind. 
 In a book recently published by Mr. McLennan " On 
 Primitive Marriage," in which he proves that among 
 many nations wives were originally captured, and that 
 the form of capture remained as a symbol in the mar- 
 riage ceremonies of later ages, the want of some sys- 
 tematic treatment of this kind is felt very much, and 
 while we find evidence from all quarters of the globe 
 in support of his theory, we miss a due consideration 
 of what is nearer home ; for instance, the Old Norse 
 word " quan-fang," " wife -catching," and the German 
 " brut-loufti," " bride-racing," both used in the sense 
 of marriage. 
 
 At the same time, a more comprehensive study of 
 customs is necessary as a corrective for more special 
 inquiries. If we find the same custom in India and 
 in Greece, we are apt to suppose that it must have 
 sprung from a common source, and we are inclined to 
 ascribe its origin to the times preceding the Aryan 
 separation. But if we find exactly the same custom 
 in America or Australia, we are warned at once against 
 too hasty conclusions. In this respect Mr. McLennan's 
 book is very useful. We learn, for instance, that bride- 
 racing, even as a merely symbolic ceremony, was by 
 no means confined to the Aryan nations. Among the 
 wild tribes of the ]\Ialay peninsula the bride and bride-
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 261 
 
 groom are led by one of the old men jf the tribe 
 towards a circle. The girl runs round first, and the 
 young man pursues a short distance behind ; if he suc- 
 ked in reaching and retaining her, she becomes his 
 wife ; if not, he loses all claim to her. As in a com- 
 parative study of laws we must learn to distinguish the 
 surface of conventional statutes from the lower and 
 far more widely extending substratum of morality, so 
 in a comparative study of customs, it is necessary to 
 separate what is conventional, individual, local, or na- 
 tional from what is natural, general, universal, and 
 simply human. If, for instance, we found metrical and 
 rhythmical poetry in Greece, Rome, and India only, we 
 might look upon it as an invention peculiar to the Aryan 
 race ; but if we find the same among Semitic and 
 Turanian races, we see at once that metre and rhythm 
 are forms which human language naturally assumes, 
 and which may be brought to more or less perfection 
 under circumstances more or less favorable. Lolling 
 out the tongue as a sign of contempt is certainly an 
 ancient Aryan custom, for the verb " lal " is found in 
 Sanskrit with the same meaning as in English. Yet 
 this gesture is not restricted to Aryan nations. Rub- 
 bing of noses, by way of salutation, might seem pecul- 
 iar to the New Zealander ; but it exists in China, and 
 LinnaBus found the same habit in the Lapland Alps. 
 Here we perceive the principal difficulty in what may 
 be called eihological as distinguished from ethnological 
 researches ; and we see why it is necessary that in a 
 comparative study of manners special studies should 
 always be checked by more general observations. 
 
 In the volume before us, which we hope is only the 
 first of a long series, Mr. Tvlor has brought together
 
 262 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 the most valuable evidence as to the similarity of cus- 
 toms, not only among races linguistically related to each 
 other, but likewise among races whose languages are 
 totally distinct. He has been a most patient and accu- 
 rate collector of facts, and, considering how few pred- 
 ecessors he has had in this branch of study, he de- 
 serves great credit for his industry in collecting and his 
 good sense in arranging his evidence. He expresses 
 himself indebted to Dr. Gustav Clemm, of Dresden, 
 and Dr. Bastian, whose works on the history of civili- 
 zation are frequently quoted. But Mr. Tylor has sup- 
 plied that which was wanting in those works, by giving 
 life and purpose to facts, and making them instructive, 
 instead of being simply oppressive. Some articles by 
 Professor Lazarus, too, are quoted from a German 
 periodical specially devoted to what is called " Volker- 
 psychologie," or ethnic psychology ; but they are the 
 works of a philosopher rather than of a collector of 
 facts. They are full of deep metaphysical specula- 
 tions, and we do not wonder at Mr. Tylor's remarks, 
 who, when quoting a particularly lucid and eloquent 
 passage on the relation of speech to thought, observes, 
 " Transcendental as it is, it is put in such clear terms 
 that we may almost think we understand it." 
 
 Mr. Tylor is particularly free from foregone conclu- 
 sions ; nay, he has been blamed for not attempting to 
 bring his researches more to a point, and drawing gen- 
 eral conclusions from the statements which he has 
 grouped so well together. We have no doubt that his 
 book would have been read with keener interest, if it 
 had been written in support of any popular or unpop- 
 ular theory, or if certain conclusions to which his re- 
 searches seem to lead had been laid down as indubit-
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 263 
 
 able facts. But what thus detracts from the ephemeral 
 interest will increase the permanent value of his work. 
 
 " The ethnologist," says Mr. Tylor (p. 273), " must 
 have derived from observation of many cases a general 
 notion of what man does and does not do before he 
 can say of any particular custom which he finds in two 
 distant places either that it is likely that a similar state 
 of things may have produced it more than once, or 
 that it is unlikely that it is even so unlikely as to 
 approach the limit of impossibility that such a thing 
 should have grown up independently in the two, or 
 three, or twenty places where he finds it. In the first 
 case, it is worth little or nothing to him as evidence 
 bearing on the early history of mankind, but in the 
 latter it goes with more or less force to prove that 
 the people who possess it are allied by blood, or have 
 been in contact, or have been influenced indirectly one 
 from the other, or both from a common source, or that 
 some combination of these things has happened ; in a 
 word, that there has been historical connection between 
 them." 
 
 Thus, Mr. Tylor argues very correctly that a belief 
 in immortality, which is found in many parts of the 
 world, is no proof of any historical contact between 
 the nations that hold it. The ancient Hindus believed 
 in immortality, and in personal immortality ; and we 
 find them in the Veda praying to their gods that they 
 might see their fathers and mothers again in the bright 
 world to come. We can hardly imagine such a prayer 
 from the lips of a Greek or a Roman, though it would 
 not surprise us in the sacred groves of ancient Ger- 
 many. What a deeply interesting work might be writ- 
 ten on this one subject on the different forms which a
 
 264 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 belief in immortality has assumed among the different 
 races of mankind ! We shall here only mention a few 
 of its lowest forms. 
 
 The Greenlander believes that when a man dies his 
 soul travels to Torngarsuk, the land where reigns per- 
 petual summer, all sunshine, and no night ; where 
 there is good water, and birds, fish, seals, and reindeer 
 ; without end, that are to be caught without trouble, or 
 are found cooking alive in a huge kettle. But the jour- 
 ney to this land is difficult ; the souls have to slide five 
 days or more down a precipice all stained with the 
 blood of those who have gone down before. And it is 
 especially grievous for the poor souls, when the journey 
 must be made in winter or in tempest, for then a soul 
 may come to harm, or suffer the other death, as they 
 call it, when it perishes utterly, and nothing is left. 
 The bridge Es-Sirat, which stretches over the midst of 
 the Moslem hell, finer than a hair, and sharper than 
 the edge of a sword, conveys a similar conception ; and 
 the Jews, too, when they came to believe in immor- 
 tality, imagined a bridge of hell, at least for unbe- 
 lievers to pass. Mr. Tylor traces this idea of a bridge 
 in Java, in North America, in South America, and he 
 shows how, in Polynesia, the bridge is replaced by 
 canoes in which the souls had to pass the great gulf. 
 
 The native tribes of the lower end of South Amer- 
 ica believe in two great powers of good and evil, but 
 likewise in a number of inferior deities. These are 
 supposed to have been the creators and ancestors of 
 different families, and hence when an Indian dies his 
 soul goes to live with the deity who presides over his 
 particular family. These deities have each their separ- 
 ate habitations in vast caverns under the earth, and
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 265 
 
 thither the departed repair to enjoy the happiness of 
 being eternally drunk. 
 
 Messrs. Lewis and Clarke give the following account 
 of the belief in a future state entertained by another 
 American tribe, the Mandans : 
 
 " Their belief in a future state is connected with thisV 
 tradition of their origin : The whole nation resided in 
 one large village underground near a subterraneous 
 lake. A grape-vine extended its roots down to then 
 habitation and gave them a view of the hVht. Some 
 
 o o 
 
 of the most adventurous climbed up the vine, and 
 were delighted with the sight of the earth, which they 
 found covered with buffalo, and rich with every kind 
 of fruit. Returning with the grapes they had gath- 
 ered, their countrymen were so pleased with the taste 
 of them that the whole nation resolved to leave their 
 dull residence for the charms of the upper region. 
 Men, women, and children ascended by means of the 
 vine, but when about half the nation had reached the 
 surface of the earth, a corpulent woman who was 
 clambering up the vine broke it with her weight, and 
 closed upon herself and the rest of the nation the light 
 of the sun. Those who were left on earth made a 
 village below where we saw the vine villages ; and 
 when the Mandans die they expect to return to the 
 original seats of their forefathers, the good reaching 
 the ancient village by means of the lake, which the 
 burden of the sins of the wicked will not enable them 
 to cross." 
 
 Mr. Tylor aptly compares the fable of the vine and 
 the fat woman with the story of " Jack and the Bean- 
 stalk," and he brings other stories from Malay and 
 Polynesian districts embodying the same idea. Among
 
 266 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 the different ways by which it was thought possible to 
 ascend from earth to heaven, Mr. Tylor mentions the 
 rank spear-grass, a rope or thong, a spider's wtb, a 
 ladder of iron or gold, a column of smoke, or the rain- 
 bow. In the Mongolic tales of Gesser Chan the hero 
 lets himself down from heaven and ascends again by 
 means of a chain. 
 
 The Polynesians imagine that the sky descends at 
 tho horizon and incloses the earth. Hence they call 
 foreigners "papalangi,'' or "heaven-bursters," as hav- 
 ing broken in from another world outside. According 
 to their views, we live upon the ground-floor of a great 
 house, with upper stories rising one over another above 
 us and cellars down below. There are holes in the 
 ceiling to let the rain through, and as men are supposed 
 to visit the dwellers above, the dwellers from below are 
 believed to come sometimes up to the surface, and like- 
 \jvise to receive visits from men in return. 
 
 Catlin's account of the Choctaw belief in a future 
 state is equally curious. They hold that the spirit lives 
 after death, and that it has a great distance to travel 
 towards the west ; that it has to cross a dreadful, deep, 
 and rapid stream, over which, from hill to hill, there 
 lies a long, slippery pine log, with the bark peeled off. 
 Over this the dead have to pass before they reach the 
 delightful hunting-grounds. The good walk on safely, 
 though six people from the other side throw stones at 
 them ; but the wicked, trying to dodge the stones, slip 
 off the log, and fall thousands of feet into the water 
 'which is dashing over the rocks. 
 
 The New Hollanders, according to Mr. Oldfield, be- 
 lieve that all who are good men and have been prop- 
 erly buried, enter heaven after death. Heaven, which
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 267 
 
 is the abode of the two good divinities, is represented 
 as a delightful place, where there is abundance of game 
 and food, never any excess of heat or cold, rain or 
 drought, no malign spirits, no sickness or death ; but 
 plenty of rioting, singing, and dancing for evermore. 
 They also believe in an evil spirit who dwells in the 
 nethermost regions, and, strange to say, they represent 
 him with horns and a tail, though one would think that 
 prior to the introduction of cattle into New Holland, 
 the natives could not have been aware of the existence 
 of horned beasts. 
 
 Now, with regard to all these forms of belief in a 
 future state, Mr. Tylor would hold that they had arisen 
 independently among different races, and that they 
 supply no argument in favor of any historical connec- 
 tion between these races. But let us now take a dif- 
 ferent instance. When we find in Africa the same 
 beast fables with which we are familiar from " Reynard 
 the Fox," then the coincidence is such that, according 
 to Mr. Tylor, it cannot be ascribed to natural causes. 
 
 " Dr. Dasent," he writes, " in his Introduction to the 
 Norse Tales, has shown that popular stories found in 
 the west and south of Africa must have come from the 
 same source with old myths current in distant regions 
 of Europe. Still later, Dr. Bleek has published a col- 
 lection of Hottentot Fables, ' Reynard the Fox in 
 South Africa,' which shows that other mythic episodes, 
 long familiar in remote countries, have established 
 themselves among these rude people as household tales. 
 As it happens, we know from other sources enough to 
 explain the appearance in South Africa of stories from 
 Revnard by referring them to European, and more 
 particularly to Dutch influences. But, even without
 
 268 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 such knowledge, the tales themselves prove an histor- 
 ical connection, near or remote, between Europe ana 
 the Cape of Good Hope." 
 
 Where coincidences occur in the customs and tradi- 
 tions of nations who, as far as history tells us, have 
 never had any intercourse together, Mr. Tylor simply 
 registers the fact, without drawing further conclusions. 
 He has, indeed, endeavored in one instance to estab- 
 lish an historical connection between the mythology of 
 America and that of Asia and the rest of the world, 
 on the strength of a certain similarity of legends ; but 
 we doubt whether his evidence, however striking, is 
 strong enough to support so bold an arch. There is in 
 the popular traditions of Central America the story of 
 two brothers who, starting on their dangerous journey 
 to the land of Xibalba, where their father had perished, 
 plant each a cane in the middle of their grandmother's 
 house that she may know by its flourishing or wither- 
 ing whether they are alive or dead. Exactly the same 
 conception occurs in Grimm's " Mahrchen." When 
 the two gold-children wish to see the world and to 
 leave their father, and when their father is sad and 
 asks them how he shall have news of them, they tell 
 him, " We leave you the two golden lilies ; from these 
 you can see how we fare. If they are fresh, we are 
 well ; if they fade, we are ill ; if they fall, we are 
 dead." Grimm traces the same idea in Indian stories. 
 Now this idea is strange enough, and its occurrence in 
 India, Germany, and Central America is stranger still. 
 If it occurred in Indian and German tales only, we 
 might consider it as ancient Aryan property, but when 
 we find it again in Central America, nothing remains 
 bT.t either to admit a later communication between
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 269 
 
 European settlers and native American story-tellers 
 an admission which, though difficult, is not quite im- 
 possible ; or to inquire whether there is not some in- 
 telligible and truly human element in this supposed 
 sympathy between the life of flowers and the life of 
 man. Mr. Tylor himself has brought together anal- 
 ogous cases in his chapter of images and names. 
 Thus, when a Maori war-party is to start, the priests 
 set up sticks in the ground to represent the warriors, 
 and he whose stick is blown down, is to fall in the bat- 
 tle. In British Guiana, when young children are be- 
 trothed, trees are planted by the respective parties in 
 witness of the contract, and if either tree should hap- 
 pen to wither, the child it belongs to is sure to die. 
 And surely this is a feeling in which many can share 
 even in this enlightened age. Perhaps we should only 
 call it unlucky if a tree planted by an absent child 
 were suddenly to wither, or if a distant friend's por- 
 trait were to fall from the wall, or if a wedding-ring 
 were to roll off the finger ; yet the fact that we call 
 such things unlucky shows that there must be some- 
 thing human in the sentiment which prompted the 
 story of the gold-children, and of the brothers who 
 went to Xibalba, and that we need not on that account 
 admit an historical intercourse between the aborigines 
 of Guatemala and the Aryans of India and Germany. 
 It is likewise a curious coincidence that the Mex , 
 icans represent an eclipse of the moon as the moon\ 
 being devoured by a dragon, and that the Hindus do 
 just the same ; nay, both nations continued to use this J ^ 
 expression long after they ha \ discovered the true 1 
 cause of an eclipse. Yet here again the original con-y 
 ception is natural and intelligible, and its occurrence
 
 270 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 in India and Mexico need not be the result of any his- 
 torical intercourse. We know that such an intercourse 
 was suspected by Alexander von Humboldt, and we 
 are far from considering it impossible. But the evi- 
 dence on the American side requires more careful sift- 
 ing than it has yet received ; and we must remind Mr. 
 Tylor that even the MS. of the "Popul Vuh," to 
 which he refers for ancient American traditions, has 
 never been traced beyond the end of the seventeenth 
 century, and that even had it been written towards the 
 end of the sixteenth century, it would not have been 
 quite safe from European influences. 
 
 That there was in very early days a migration from 
 the northeast of Asia to the northwest of America is, 
 as yet, a postulate only. There are scattered indica- 
 tions in the languages and traditions, as well as in the 
 fauna and flora of the two opposite continents, which 
 seem to require the admission of a primeval bridge of 
 islands across Behring's Straits. Yet the evidence has 
 never been carefully sifted and properly summed up, 
 and till that is done a verdict cannot be given. As a 
 contribution, apparently small, yet by no means insig- 
 nificant, towards a solution of this important problem, 
 we shall mention only one of Mr. Tylor's observations. 
 Joannes de Piano Carpini, describing in 1246 the man- 
 ners and customs of the Tartars, says that one of their 
 superstitious traditions concerns sticking a knife into 
 the fire, or in any way touching the fire with a knife, 
 or even taking meat out of a kettle with a knife, or 
 cutting near the fire with an axe, for ihey believe that 
 so the head of the fire would be cut off. In the far 
 northeast of Asia, it may be found, in the remarkable 
 catalogue of ceremonial sins of the Kamchadals, among
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 271 
 
 whom it is a sin to take up a burning ember with_the. 
 knife^pintj and light tobacco; but it must be taken! ^ 
 hold of with the bare hands. How is it possible to sep- 1 
 arate from these the following statement taken out of 
 a list of superstitions of the Sioux Indians of North 
 America ? " They must not stick an awl or needle 
 into .... a stick of wood on the fire. No person 
 must chop on it with an axe or knife, or stick an awl 
 into it ; neither are they allowed to take a coal from 
 the fire with a knife, or any other sharp instrument." 
 These, no doubt, are striking coincidences ; but do 
 they not at once lose much of their force by the fact, . 
 mentioned by Mr. Tylor himself, that among the an- ) 
 cient Pythagorean maxims we find, Trvp ^a^aipa. /AT? o-Ka- / Y 
 
 " not to stir the fire with a sword." 
 Mr. Tylor seems almost to despair of the existence 
 of any custom anywhere which cannot be matched 
 somewhere else. " Indeed," he says (p. 175), " any 
 one who claims a particular place as the source of 
 even the smallest art, from the mere fact of finding it 
 there, must feel that he may be using his own ignoi 
 ance as evidence, as though it were knowledge. An 
 ingenious little drilling instrument which I and other 
 observers had set down as peculiar to the South Sea 
 Islanders, in or near the Samoan group, I found kept 
 one day in stock in the London tool-shops." 
 
 It is impossible to be too cautious in a comparative 
 study of manners before admitting an historical con-S 
 nection on the strength of ethological coincidences,! J- 
 however startling. Let those who are inclined to 
 blame Mr. Tylor for not having dogmatized more 
 broadly on these problems, consider but one case, that 
 of the Couvade, so well described in his book. Who
 
 272 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 could believe that there was one single tribe, however 
 silly in other respects, which should carry its silliness 
 so far as to demand that on the birth of a child the 
 father should take to his bed, while the mother attends 
 to all the duties of the household ? Yet there are few 
 customs more widely spread than this, and better at- 
 tested by historical evidence during nearly 2,000 years. 
 The Chinese, whose usages are quaint enough, have 
 long been credited with this custom, but, as it would 
 seem, without good reason, Marco Polo, passing 
 through China in the thirteenth century, observed this 
 custom in the Chinese province of West Yunnan, and 
 the widow's remark to Sir Hudibras owes its origin 
 most probably to Marco Polo's travels : 
 
 " For though Chineses go to bed, 
 And lie-in in their ladies' stead." 
 
 The people, however, among whom the Venetian trav- 
 eller observed this custom were not properly Chinese, 
 but the aboriginal tribes of the land. Among these 
 tribes, commonly called Miau-tze, soil-children, the 
 custom remarked by Marco Polo in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury exists to the present day. The father of a new- 
 born child, as soon as its mother has become strong 
 enough to leave her couch, gets into bed himself, and 
 there receives the congratulations of his acquaintances. 
 But the custom is more ancient than the thirteenth 
 century. About the beginning of the Christian era 
 one of the most trustworthy geographers, Strabo, 1 
 mentions that among the Iberians of the north of Spain 
 
 , III. 4, 17. Koica Se ai Taura jrpbs TO. Ke\riKa edvri ai ra paxia 
 KO.L Sfcuflixa, KOIVO. Se KO\ TO. jrpbs avSpeiav Trjvre Ttav dvSpuiv KOJ. Tyy riav yvvaintav. 
 yeuipyovcri aural, TEKoGcrtu re SIO.KOVOIHTL Tens avSpaa-u', eKtCvovf dv6* eavrtav team*
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 273 
 
 the women, after the birth of a child, tend their hus- 
 bands, putting them to bed, instead of going them- 
 selves. In the same locality, and among the modern 
 Basques, the descendants of the Iberians, M. F. Michel 
 found the same custom in existence but a few years 
 ago. " In Biscay," he says, " the women rise immedi- 
 ately after childbirth, and attend to the duties of the 
 household, while the husband goes to bed, taking the 
 baby with him, and thus receives the neighbors' com- 
 pliments." From the Basques in the Pyrenees this 
 absurd custom seems to have spread to France, where 
 it received the name of faire la couvade. 
 
 " It has been found in Navarre," Mr. Tylor writes, 
 " and on the French side of the Pyrenees. Legrand i 
 d'Aussy mentions that in an old French fabliau, thei 
 king of Torelore is au lit et en couche, when Aucassin< 
 arrives and takes a stick to him and makes him prom-) 
 ise to abolish the custom in his realm. And the same ; 
 author goes on to say that the practice is said still to 
 exist in some cantons of Be"arn." Nor is this all. We 
 have the respectable authority of Diodorus Siculus that 
 among the natives of Corsica the wife was neglected 
 and the husband put to bed and treated as the patient. 
 And, if we may trust Apollonius Rhodius, 1 the same 
 
 1 Apollonius, Argonautica, II. 1009-1014: 
 
 Tous ie fieV avriV tjreira revqraiov Atbs axpijv 
 yi/ajuu|<a)>Tes, auiovro Trapef Ti.tfapijviSa ya.la.v- 
 'Ev9" eirei ap ice TeKtavrai \nr' avSpaai. reicva yvaocw, 
 avroi fj.tv (?Tv6.\o"<Ti.v v\ Ae^e'ccrai irecroi'Tes, 
 xpaara &r)<rdnevoC TOU &' ev xo/ueo an i&ia&fl 
 ac epa?, ^8 Xocrpa ix'''' a Town, wevovriu. 
 
 See also Valerius Flficcus, Aryan. V. 148: 
 
 " Inde Genetset rupem Jovis, hinc Tibarenflm 
 Dant virides post terga lacus, ubi deside n-.itra 
 Feta ligat, partuque virum fovet ipsa soluto " 
 VOL. n. 18
 
 274 ON MAXXKKS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 almost incredible custom prevailed at the south of the 
 Black Sea, among a people called Tibareni, where, 
 when the child was born, the father lay groaning in 
 bed with his head tied up, while the mother tended 
 him with food and prepared his baths. 
 
 Thus, a custom which ought to be peculiar to Bed- 
 / lam has been traced during more than 1,800 years in 
 the most distant parts of the world in Western 
 China, near the Black Sea, in Corsica, in Spain, and 
 among tribes who, as far as we know, had no historical 
 intercourse with each other, and whose languages cer- 
 tainly show no traces of relationship. Is it, then, a nat- 
 ural custom ? Is there anything rational or intelligible 
 in it to which there might be some response from every 
 human heart ? Mr. Tylor thinks that he has discov- 
 ered such an element. " The Couvade," he says, 
 " implicitly denies that physical separation of individ- 
 uals which a civilized man would probably set down as 
 a first principle. It shows us a number of distinct and 
 distant tribes deliberately holding the opinion that the 
 connection between father and child is not only, as we 
 think, a mere relation of parentage, affection, and 
 duty, but that their very bodies are joined by a phys- 
 ical bond ; so that what is done to the one acts directly 
 upon the other ! " Mr. Tylor fixes on what he calls a 
 " fusion of objective and subjective relations in the 
 mind " as the source of this and other superstitions ; 
 and though allowing that it is difficult to place ourselves 
 at the same angle of thought, he traces the effects of 
 a similar confusion in many of the customs and cere- 
 monies of earlier ages. 
 
 Without denying the existence of this mental con- 
 fusion, nay, readily allowing to it some influence on
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 275 
 
 the latter modifications of the Couvade, we are inclined / 
 to take a different view of the origin of that extraor- 
 dinary custom. Customs, however extraordinary, after 
 a lapse of time, have generally very simple begin- ( 
 nings. Now, without exaggerating the treatment j 
 which a husband receives among ourselves at the time 
 of his wife's confinement, not only from mothers-in- 
 law, sisters-in-law, and other female relatives, but from 
 nurses, from every consequential maid-servant in the 
 house, it cannot be denied that while his wife is suffer- 
 ing, his immunity from pain is generally remarked 
 upon, and if anything goes wrong Tor which it is possi- 
 ble to blame him, he is sure to hear of it. If his boots 
 are creaking, if his dog is barking, if the straw has not 
 been properly laid down, does he not catch it? And 
 would it not be best for him to take to his bed at once, 
 and not to get up till all is well over ? If something 
 of this kind exists in our highly civilized age, let us try 
 to imao-ine what it must have been among nomadic f 
 
 o 
 
 races ; or, rather, let us hear evidence. Among the 
 land Dayaks of Borneo the husband, before the birth 
 of his child, may do no work with a sharp instrument j 
 except what is necessary for the farm ; nor may he fire 
 guns, nor strike animals, nor do any violent work, lest 
 bad influences should affect the child ; and after it is 
 born, the father is kept in seclusion in-doors for several f 
 days and dieted on rice and salt, to prevent not his own f 
 but his child's stomach from swelling. In Kamschatka 
 the husband must not do such things as bend sledge- 
 staves across his knee before his child is born. In 
 Greenland he must for some weeks before his wife's 
 confinement do no work except what is necessary to 
 procure food, and this, it is believed, in order that the
 
 276 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 child may not die. Among the Arawaks of Surinam 
 for some time after the birth of his child the father 
 must fell no tree, fire no gun, hunt no large game ; 
 he may stay near home, shoot little birds with a bow 
 and arrow, and angle for little fish, but, his time hang- 
 ing heavy on his head, the most comfortable thing he 
 can do is to lounge in his hammock. 
 
 In all these arrangements the original intention is 
 very clear. The husband was to keep quiet before as 
 well as after the birth of his child, and he was told 
 by the goodies of the house that if he went out hunt- 
 ing or came home drunk, it would injure the child. 
 If the child happened to die he would never hear 
 the last of his carelessness and want of consideration. 
 Now, if this train of ideas was once started, the rest 
 would follow. If a timid and kind-hearted husband 
 had once been frightened into the belief that it was 
 his eating too much or his coming home drunk from 
 the Club that killed the child, need we wonder if the 
 next time he tried to be on his good behavior, and 
 even took to fasting in order to benefit his child, i. e 
 in reality, to save his servants the trouble of preparing 
 dinner for him ? Other husbands would then be told 
 with significant looks what a pattern of a husband he 
 had been, and how his children never died, and thus 
 the belief would soon spread that if a child died it was 
 the husband who killed it by some neglect or other. 
 Fasting before or after the birth of a child would be- 
 come meritorious, and would soon be followed by other 
 kinds of mortification which the natural spitefulness of 
 the female population against the unfortunate husband 
 would tend to multiply and increase ad infinitum. 
 Now, let us see whether in the peculiar formalities of
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 277 
 
 the Couvade we can still discover motives of this kind, 
 The following account is given by Du Tertre of the 
 Carib Couvade in the West Indies : 
 
 " When a child is born the mother goes presently 
 to her work, but the father begins to complain ana 
 takes to his hammock, and there he is visited as though 
 
 7 O 
 
 he were sick, and undergoes a course of dieting which 
 would cure of the gout the most replete of Frenchmen. 
 How they can fast so much, and not die of it (contin- 
 ues the narrator) is amazing to me. When the forty 
 days are up, they invite their relations, who, being 
 arrived, before they set to eating hack the skin of this 
 poor wretch with agouti teeth, and draw blood from all 
 parts of his body, in such sort that from being sick by 
 pure imagination they often make a real patient of him. 
 This is, however, so to speak, only the fish, for now 
 comes the sauce they prepare for him ; they take sixty 
 or eighty large grains of pimento, or Indian pepper, 
 the strongest they can get, and after well washing it 
 in water, they wash with this peppeiy infusion the 
 wounds and scars of the poor fellow, who, I believe, 
 suffers no less than if he were burnt alive ; however, 
 he must not utter a single word if he will not pass for 
 a coward and a wretch. 1 This ceremony ended, they 
 bring him back to his bed, where he remains some 
 days more, and the rest go and make good cheer in the 
 house at his expense. Nor is this all. Through the 
 
 1 Among the Koriaks, who inhabit the northern half of the peninsula of 
 Kamtschatka, the bridegroom, when he receives his bride, is beaten with 
 sticks by his future parents and neighbors. If he endures this manfully, 
 he proves his ability " to bear up against the ills of life," and is then con- 
 ducted without further ceremony to the apartment of his betrothed. See A. 
 8. Bickmore, "The Ainos or Hairy Men," American Joitrnal of Science, 
 Miy, 1868, p. 12.
 
 278 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 space of six whole months he eats neither birds njr 
 fish, firmly believing that this would injure the child's 
 stomach, and that it would participate in the natural 
 faults of the animals on which its father had fed ; for 
 example, if the father ate turtle poor, alderman ! 
 the child would be deaf and have no brains like this 
 animal ! " 
 
 The Jesuit missionary Dobrizhofer gives the follow- 
 ing account of the Abipones in South America : 
 
 " No sooner do you hear that the wife has borne a 
 child than you will see the Abipone husband lying in 
 bed huddled up with mats and skins, lest some ruder 
 breath of air should touch him, fasting, kept in pri- 
 vate, and for a number of days abstaining religiously 
 from certain viands ; you would aver it was he who 
 had had the child. And in truth they observe this 
 ancestral custom, troublesome as it is, the more wil- 
 lingly and diligently, from their being altogether per- 
 suaded that the sobriety and quiet of the father is 
 effectual for the well-being of the new-born offspring, 
 and is even necessary. They believe that the father's 
 carelessness influences the new-born offspring, from a 
 natural bond and sympathy of both. Hence if the 
 child comes to a premature end, its death is attributed 
 by the women to the father's intemperance, this or 
 that cause being assigned : he did not abstain from 
 mead ; he had loaded his stomach with water-hog ; he 
 had swam across the river when the air was chilly ; 
 he had neglected to shave off his long eyebrows ; he 
 had devoured underground honey, stamping on the 
 bees with his feet ; he had ridden till he was tired and 
 sweated. With raving like this the crowd of women 
 5 accuse the father with impunity of causing the child's
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 279 
 
 death, and are accustomed to pour curses on the unof- ( ,, 
 fending husband." 
 
 These statements, such as they are, given by un- 
 prejudiced observers, seem to support very strongly*) 
 the natural explanation which we proposed of the) 
 Couvade. It is clear that the poor husband was at( 
 first tyrannized^^erljyTnsfeTn^^ ) p 
 
 warHtlrjghtened info ^iperstitionT He thenbegan to \ 
 make a martyr of himseiT till he made himself really / 
 ill or took to his bed in self-defense. Strange "ano^ 
 absurd as the Couvade appears at first sight, there is 
 something in it with which, we believe, most mothers- 
 in-law can sympathize ; and if we consider that it has 
 been proved to exist in Spain, Corsica, Pontus, Africa, 
 the Eastern Archipelago, the West Indies, North and 
 South America, we shall be inclined to admit that it 
 arose from some secret spring in human nature, the 
 effects of which may be modified by civilization, but 
 are, perhaps, never entirely obliterated. __^ 
 
 It is one of the principal charms in the study of cus- i 
 toms to watch their growth and their extraordinary \ 
 tenacity. It is true we are no longer savages ; we do 
 not thrust rings and bones and feathers through the 
 cartilage of our noses, nor pull our ears in long nooses 
 down to the shoulders by heavy weights. Still less do 
 we put wooden plugs as big as table spoons through 
 slits in the under lip, or stick the teeth of animals 
 point outwards through holes in the cheeks. Yet 
 the ears of female children are still mutilated even in 
 Europe, and ladies are not ashamed to hang jewels in 
 them. 
 
 What is the meaning of the wedding-ring which the 
 wife has to wear ? There is no authority for it either
 
 280 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 in the Old or New Testament. It is simply a heathen 
 custom, whether Roman or Teutonic we shall not 
 attempt to decide, but originally expressive of the fetter 
 by which the wife was tied to her husband. In Eng- 
 land it is the wife only who wears the golden fetter, 
 while all over Germany the tie is mutual ; both hus- 
 band and wife wearing the badge of the loss of their 
 liberty. We thought, indeed, we had discovered 
 among the wild tribes in the interior of the Malay pen- 
 insula an independent instance of the use of wedding- 
 rings. But although every trace of Christianity seems 
 extinct among the Mantras, there can be no doubt, 
 from the description given by Father Bourien (" Trans- 
 actions of Ethnological Society," vol. iii. p. 82) that 
 Christian missionaries had reached these people, though 
 it may be, before the time when they migrated to their 
 present seats. 
 
 We should not venture to call our levees and draw- 
 ing-rooms the remnants of barbarism and savagery. 
 Yet they must clearly be traced back to the Middle 
 Ages, when homage was done by each subject by put- 
 ting his hands joined between the hands of the king. 
 This, again, was originally a mere symbol, an imita- 
 tion of the act by which a vanquished enemy surren- 
 dered himself to his despoiler. We know from the 
 sculptures of Nineveh and from other sources that it 
 was the custom of the conqueror to put his foot on the 
 neck of his enemy. This, too, has been abbreviated ; 
 and as in Europe gentlemen now only kiss the king's 
 ,1 hand, we find that in the Tonga Islands, when a sub- 
 ' iject approaches to do homage, the chief has to hold up 
 his foot behind, as a horse does, and the subject touches 
 ' the sole with his fingers, thus placing himself, as it
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 281 
 
 were, under the sole of his lord's foot. Every one 
 seems to have the right of doing reverence in this way 
 when he pleases ; and chiefs get so tired of holding up 
 their feet to be touched that they make their escape at 
 the very sight of a loyal subject. 
 
 Who has not wondered sometimes at the fumbling 
 efforts of gentlemen in removing their gloves before 
 shaking hands with a lady, the only object being, it 
 would seem, to substitute a warm hand for a cool 
 glove ? Yet in the ages of chivalry there was a good 
 reason for it. A knight's glove was a steel gauntlet, 
 and a squeeze with that would have been painful. 
 
 Another extraordinary feature in the history ' 
 manners is the utter disability of people to judge of the 
 manners of other nations or of former ages with any- 
 thing like fairness or common sense. An English lac 
 travelling in the East turns away her face with disgust 
 when she sees oriental women passing by with bare 
 feet and bare legs ; while the Eastern ladies are hor- 
 rified at the idea of women in Europe walking about 
 barefaced. Admirers of Goethe may get over the Idea 
 that this great poet certainly ate fish with a knife ; but 
 when we are told that Beatrice never used a fork, and 
 that Dante never changed his linen for weeks, some of 
 our illusions are rudely disturbed. We mourn _in i 
 black, and think that nothing can be more natural ; the I "V 
 aborigines of Australia mourn in white, and, their ' 
 clothing being of the scantiest, they plaster their fore- 
 heads, the tips of their noses, and the lower parts of 
 the orbit of their eyes with pipe-clay. As long as the 
 people of Europe represented the Devil in human form 
 they represented him in black. In Africa the natives 
 of the Guinea coast paint him in the whitest colors.
 
 282 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 )To Northern nations Hell was a cold pla^e, a dreary 
 region of snow and frost; to Eastern nations, and those 
 who derive their notions from the East, the place of 
 torment was ablaze with fire and flame. Who shall 
 tell which is right? 
 
 And now, after we have gone through these few 
 samples, ancient and modern, of barbarous and refined 
 customs, we are afraid that we have given but a very 
 incomplete idea of what may be found in Mr. Tylor's 
 book on the early history of mankind. We have en- 
 deavored to point out the importance of the subject 
 which he has treated, but we have hardly done justice 
 to the careful yet pleasing manner in which he has 
 treated it. There are in the beginning four chapters 
 on the various ways in which man utters his thoughts 
 in gestures, words, pictures, and writing. Of these we 
 have not been able to say anything, though they con- 
 tain much that is new, and the result of thoughtful ob- 
 servation. Then there is a chapter on images and 
 names, where an attempt is made to refer a great part 
 of the beliefs and practices included under the general 
 name of magic to one very simple mental law, namely, 
 the taking the name for the thing, the idol for the deity, 
 the doll for the living child. There is an excellent 
 essay on flints and celts, in which it is shown that the 
 transition from implements of stone to those of metal 
 took place in almost every part of the globe, and a prog- 
 ress from ruder to more perfect modes of making fire 
 and boiling food is traced in many different countries. 
 Here Mr. Tylor expresses his obligations to Mr. Henry 
 Christie, whose great collection of the productions of 
 the lower races has few rivals in Europe, and whose 
 lucid Paper on the " Different Periods of the Stone
 
 ON MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 283 
 
 Age," lately published, is, we hope, but the first in- 
 stalment of a larger work. Lastly, there are several 
 chapters in which a number of stories are grouped to- i 
 gether as " Myths of Observation," i. e. as stories in- 
 vented to account, somehow or~other, for actual facts, 
 the real origin of which was unknown. Every one of 
 these subjects would well deserve a separate review. 
 But, having already overstepped the proper limits of a 
 literary article, we will not anticipate any further the 
 pleasure of those who want to have an instructive book 
 to read during their leisure hours.
 
 XXVI. 
 OUR FIGURES. 1 
 
 THE two words " cipher" and " zero," which are in 
 reality but one, would almost in themselves be sufficient 
 to prove that our figures are borrowed from the Arabs. 
 " Cipher" is the Arabic "cifron," which means empty, 
 a translation of the Sanskrit name of the nought, " su- 
 nya." The same character, the nought, is called " ze- 
 phiro " in Italian, and has by rapid pronunciation been 
 changed into "zero" a form occurring as early as 
 1491, in a work of Philip Calander on Arithmetic, 
 published at Florence. " Cipher " originally the 
 name of the tenth of the numerical figures, the nought 
 became in most European languages the general 
 term for all figures, " zero " taking its place as the 
 technical name of the nought ; while in English " ci- 
 pher " retained its primitive sense, and is thus used 
 oven in common parlance, as, for instance, " He is a 
 mere cipher." 
 
 The Arabs, however, far from claiming the discov- 
 ery of the figures for themselves, unanimously ascribe 
 it to the Indians ; nor can there be much doubt that 
 the Brahmans were the original inventors ot those 
 numerical symbols which are now used over the whole 
 
 i Memoire stir la Propagation dea Chiff'ret IruKens. Par M F Woepcke. 
 Paris, 1863.
 
 OCR FIGURES. 285 
 
 civilized world. But although this has long been ad- 
 mitted as true, there is considerable difficulty when we 
 come to trace the channels through which the figures 
 could have reached, and did reach the nations of Eu- 
 rope. If these numerical symbols had been unknown 
 in Europe before the invasion of Spain by the Moham- 
 medans, or before the rise of Mohammedanism, all 
 would be easy enough. We possess the work through 
 which the Arabs, under the Khalif Almamun, in the 
 ninth century, became initiated into the science of In- 
 dian ciphering and arithmetic. This work of Abu 
 Jafar Mohammed Ben Musa Alkharizmi was founded 
 on treatises brought from India to Bagdad in 773, and 
 was translated again into Latin during the Middle 
 Ages, with the title of " Algoritmi de numero Indo- 
 rum." It was generally supposed, therefore, that the 
 Mohammedans brought the Indian figures into Spain ; 
 and that Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II., who 
 died 1003, acquired a knowledge of them at Seville or 
 Cordova, where he was supposed (though wrongly) to 
 have Jived as a student. Unfortunately, the figures 
 used in the principal countries of Europe during the 
 Middle Ages, and, with some modifications, to the 
 present day, differ considerably from the figures used 
 in the East; and while they differ from these, they 
 approach very near to the figures used by the Arabs 
 in Africa and Spain. This is the first point that has 
 to be explained. Secondly, there is at the end of the 
 first book of the " Geometry " of Boethius a passage 
 vhere, in describing the Mensa Pyihagorea, also called 
 the Abacus, Boethius mentions nine figures which he 
 ascribes to the Pythagoreans or Neo-Pythagoreans, 
 and which, to judge from the best MSS., are curiously
 
 286 OUR FIGURES. 
 
 like the figures used in Africa, Syria, and the principal 
 countries of Europe. To increase the difficulty of our 
 problem, this very important passage of Boethius is 
 wanting in some MSS., is considered spurious by sev- 
 eral critics, and is now generally ascribed to a con- 
 tinuator of Boethius, who drew, however, not from 
 Eastern, but, as it would seem, from Greek sources. 
 We have, therefore, in MSS. of the eleventh century, 
 figures which are supposed to have been used, if not 
 by Boethius himself, at least by his continuators and 
 successors in the sixth and following centuries figures 
 strikingly like those used by the Arabs in Africa and 
 Spain, and yet not to be traced directly to an oriental 
 source, but to the school of the Neo-Pythagoreans. 
 The Neo-Pythagoreans, however, need not therefore 
 be the inventors of these figures, any more than the 
 Arabs. All that can be claimed for them is, that they 
 were the first teachers of ciphering among the Greeks 
 and Romans ; that they, at Alexandria or in Syria, be- 
 came acquainted with the Indian figures, and adapted 
 them to the Pythagorean Abacus ; that Boethius, or 
 his continuator, made these figures generally known 
 in Europe by means of mathematical hand-books ; and 
 that thus, long before the time of Gerbert, who proba- 
 bly never went to Spain, and long before the influence 
 of the Arabs could be felt in the literature of Europe, 
 these same figures had found their way from Alexan- 
 dria into our schools and monasteries. The names by 
 which these nine figures are called in some of the 
 MSS. of Boethius, though extremely obscure, are sup- 
 posed to show traces of that mingling of Semitic and 
 Pythagorean ideas which could well be accounted far 
 in the schools of Alexandria.
 
 OUR FIGURES. 287 
 
 Yet all these considerations do not help us in tracing 
 with any certainty the first appearance in Europe of 
 our own figures beyond the eleventh century. The 
 MSS. of Boethius, which contain the earliest traces of 
 them, belong to the eleventh century; and, strictly 
 speaking, they cannot be made to prove that such 
 figures as we there see existed in the time of Boe'thius, 
 i. e. the sixth century, still less that they were known 
 to the Neo-Pythagorean philosophers. All that can be 
 conceded is that Boe'thius, or rather his continuator, 
 knew of nine figures ; but that they had in his time 
 the same form which we find in the MSS. of the 
 eleventh century, is not proven. 
 
 It is at this stage that M. Woepcke, an excellent 
 Arabic scholar and mathematician, takes up the prob- 
 lem in his " Me"moire sur la Propagation des Chiffres 
 Indiens," just published in the " Journal Asiatique." 
 He points out, first of all, a fact which had been neg- 
 lected by all previous writers, namely, that the Arabs 
 have two sets of figures, one used chiefly in the East, 
 which he therefore calls the " Oriental ; " another 
 used in Africa and Spain, and there called " Gobar." 
 " Gobar " means " dust," and these figures were so 
 called because, as the Arabs say, they were first intro- 
 duced by an Indian who used a table covered with fine 
 dust for the purpose of ciphering. Both sets of figures 
 ire called Indian by the Arabs. M. Woepcke then 
 proceeds to show that the figures given in the MSS. 
 of Boe'thius coincide with the earliest forms of the 
 Gobar figures, whilst they differ from the Oriental 
 figures ; and, adopting the view of Prinsep l that the 
 Indian figures were originally the initial letters of the 
 
 l Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, April, 1838.
 
 288 OUE FIGURES. 
 
 Sanskrit numerals, he exhibits in a tuble the similarity 
 between the Gobar figures and the initial letters of the 
 Sanskrit numerals, giving these letters from Indian 
 inscriptions of the second century of our era. Hereby 
 an important advance is made, for, as the Sanskrit al- 
 phabet changes from century to century, M. Woepeke 
 argues very plausibly, though, we must add, not quite 
 convincingly, that the apices given in Boethius, and 
 ascribed by him to the Neo-Pythagoreans, could not 
 have been derived from India much after the third or 
 fourth centuries. He points out that these nine figures 
 were of less importance to the Greeks, who used their 
 tetters with numerical values, and who had in the 
 Abacus something approaching to a decimal system ; 
 but that they would have been of the greatest value to 
 the Romans as replacing their V, X, L, C, D, M. In 
 Italy, therefore, and in the Roman provinces, in Gaul 
 and Spain, the Indian figures, which were adopted by 
 the Neo-Pythagoreans, and which resemble the Gobar 
 figures, began to spread from the sixth century, so that 
 the Mohammedans, when arriving in Spain in the 
 eighth, found these figures there already established. 
 The Arabs themselves, when starting on their career 
 of conquest, were hardly able to read or to write ; they 
 certainly were ignorant of ciphering, and could not 
 therefore be considered as the original propagators of 
 the so-called Arabic figures. The Khalif Walid, who 
 reigned at Damascus from 705 to 715 A. D., prohibited 
 the use of Greek in public documents, but was obliged 
 to make an exemption in favor of Greek figures, be- 
 cause it was impossible to write them in Arabic. In 
 Egypt, the Arabs adopted the Coptic figures. .In 773 
 an Indian embassy arrived at Bagdad, at the court of
 
 OUR FIGURES. 289 
 
 t ie Khalif Almansur, bringing among other things a 
 set of astronomical tables. In order to explain tnese 
 tables, the ambassadors had naturally to begin with 
 explaining their figures, their arithmetic, and algebra. 
 Anyhow, the astronomical work, the Siddhanta of 
 Brahrnagupta, which that astronomer had composed in 
 628 A. D., 1 at the court of king Vyaghra, was then and 
 there translated into Arabic by Mohammed Ben Ibra- 
 him Alfazari, under the title of the " Great Sindhind." 
 This work was abridged in the first half of the ninth 
 century by a contemporary of the Khalif Almamun, 
 Mohammed Ben Musa Alkharizmi, the same who after- 
 wards wrote a manual of practical arithmetic, founded 
 likewise on an Indian original (Woepcke, p. 58). We 
 can well understand, therefore, that the Arabs, on 
 arriving in Spain, without, as yet, any considerable 
 knowledge of arithmetic, should have adopted there, 
 as they did in Greece and Egypt, the figures which 
 they found in use, and which had travelled there from 
 the Neo-Pythagorean schools of Egypt, and originally 
 from India ; and likewise that when, in the ninth or 
 tenth century, the new Arabic treatises on arithmetic 
 arrived in Spain from the East, the Arabs of Spain 
 should have adopted the more perfect system of cipher- 
 ing, carried on without the Abacus, and rendering, in 
 fact, the columns of the Abacus unnecessary by the 
 judicious employment of the nought. But while drop- 
 ping the Abacus, there was no necessity for their dis- 
 continuing or changing the figures to which the Arabs 
 as well as the Spaniards had then been accustomed for 
 centuries ; and hence we find that the ancient figures 
 
 i Dr. Bhao Daji, " On the Age of Arrabhafta," etc., in the Journal of 
 
 the Rjyal Asiatic Society, 1865, p. 410. 
 
 VOL. II. 19
 
 290 OUR FIGURES. 
 
 were retained in Spain, only adapted to the purposes 
 of the new Indian arithmetic by the more general use 
 of the nought. The nought was known in the Neo- 
 Pythagorean schools, but with the columns of the 
 Abacus it was superfluous, while, with the introduc- 
 tion of ciphering in fine powder, and without columns, 
 its use naturally became very extensive. As the sys- 
 tem of ciphering in fine powder was called " Indian," 
 the Gobar figures, too, were frequently spoken of un- 
 der the same name, and thus the Arabs in Spain 
 brought themselves to believe that they had received 
 both their new arithmetic and their figures from In- 
 dia ; the truth being, according to M. Woepcke, that 
 they had received their arithmetic from India directly, 
 while their figures had come to them indirectly from 
 India through the mediation of the Neo- Pythagorean 
 schools. 
 
 M. Woepcke would therefore admit two channels 
 through which the Indian figures reached Europe 
 one passing through Egypt about the third century 
 of our era, when not only commercial but also philo- 
 sophical interests attracted the merchants of U^ayini 
 ('O^ITJ) towards Alexandria, and thinkers such as 
 Plotinus and Numenius toward Persia and India ; an- 
 other passing through Bagdad in the eighth century, 
 and following the track of the victorious Islam. The 
 first carried the earlier forms of the Indian figures from 
 Alexandria to Rome and as far as Spain, and, consid- 
 ering the active social, political, and commercial inter- 
 course between Egypt, as a Roman province, and the 
 rest of the Roman Empire, we must not look upon 
 one philosophical school, the Neo-Pythagorean, as the 
 only agent? in disseminating so useful an invention.
 
 OUK FIGURES. 291 
 
 ilie merchant may have been a more active agent than 
 the philosopher or the schoolmaster. The second car- 
 ried the later forms from Bagdad to the principal coun- 
 tries conquered by the Khalifs, with the exception of 
 those where the earlier or Gobar figures had already 
 taken firm root. M. W.oepcke looks on onr European 
 figures as modifications of the early Neo- Pythagorean 
 or Gobar forms, and he admits their presence in Europe 
 long before the science and literature of the Arabs in 
 Spain could have reacted on our seats of classical 
 learning. He does not pronounce himself distinctly 
 on the date and the authorship to be assigned to the 
 much controverted passage of Boethius, but he is evi- 
 dently inclined to ascribe, with Boeckh, a knoAvledge of 
 the nine Indian figures to the Western mathematicians 
 of the sixth century. The only change produced in 
 the ciphering of Europe by the Arabs was, according 
 to him, the suppression of the Abacus, and the more 
 extended use of the cipher. He thinks that our own 
 figures are still the Gobar figures, written in a more 
 cursive manner by the Arabs of Spain ; and that Ad- 
 elard of Bath, Robert of Reading, William Shelley, 
 David Morley, Gerard of Cremona, and others who, 
 in the twelfth century, went to Spain to study Arabic 
 and mathematics, learnt there the same figures, only 
 written more cursively, which Boethius or his continu- 
 ator taught in Italy in the sixth. In MSS. of the thir- 
 teenth and fourteenth centuries the figures vaiy con- 
 siderably in different parts of Europe, but they are at 
 last fixed and rendered uniform by the introduction 
 of printing. 
 
 It will be admitted by everybody who has taken an 
 ..jiterest in the complicated problem of the origin and 
 the migrations of our figures, that the system proposed
 
 292 OUR FIGURES. 
 
 by M. Woepcke would remove many difficulties. It is 
 quite clear that our figures could not have come to us 
 from the Arabs of Bagdad, and that they are the same 
 as *hose of the Arabs of Spain. But it might still be 
 questioned whether it is necessary to admit that the 
 Arabs found the Gobar figures on their arrival in Spain 
 established in that country. Is there really any evi- 
 dence of these Gobar figures being in common use any- 
 where in the West of Europe before the eleventh cen- 
 tury ? Could not the Gobar figures represent one of 
 the many local varieties of the Indian figures of which 
 Albiruni speaks in the eleventh century, nay, which 
 existed in India from the earliest to the present time ? 
 It should be borne in mind that the Gobar figures are 
 not entirely unknown among the Eastern Arabs, and 
 there are traces of them in MSS. as early as the mid- 
 dle of the tenth century (p. 150). How could this be 
 explained, if the Arabs became acquainted with the 
 Gobar figures only after their arrival in Spain ? Could 
 not the mathematicians of the Meghrab have adopted 
 one kind of Indian figures, the Gobar, and brought 
 them to Spain, just as they brought their own peculiar 
 system of numerical letters, differing slightly, yet 
 characteristically, from the numerical alphabet of the 
 Eastern Mohammedans ? Once in Spain, these Gobar 
 figures would naturally find their way into the rest of 
 Europe, superseding the Eastern figures which hail 
 been adopted in the mathematical works of Neophytus, 
 Planudes, and other Byzantine writers of the four- 
 teenth century. There is, no doubt, that passage of 
 Boethius, or of his continuator. But to a skeptical 
 mind that passage can carry no conviction. We do 
 not know who wrote it, and, strictly speaking, the 
 6gures which it contains can only prove that the writer
 
 OUR FIGURES. 293 
 
 of the MS. in the eleventh century was acquainted 
 with the Gobar figures, which at that time were 
 known, according to M. Woepcke's own showing, both 
 at Shiraz and at Toledo. But though M. Woepcke 
 has not driven away all our doubts, he has certainly 
 contributed greatly to a final settlement of this prob- 
 lem, and he has brought together evidence which 
 none but a first rate Arabic scholar and mathematician 
 could have mastered. M. Woepcke, before grappling 
 with this difficult subject, has even taken the trouble to 
 familiarize himself with Sanskrit, and he has given, in 
 his Essay, some valuable remarks about the enormous 
 numbers used by the Buddhists in their sacred writ- 
 ings. Whether these enormous numbers necessitate 
 
 O 
 
 the admission that the nine figures and the use of the 
 cipher were known to the Buddhists in the third cen- 
 tury B. c. is again a more doubtful point, particularly 
 if we consider that the numbers contained in the Bac- 
 tro-Pali inscriptions, in the first or second century H. c., 
 show no trace, as yet, of that perfect system of cipher- 
 ing. They either represent the numerals by a corre- 
 sponding number of upright strokes, which is done up 
 to five in the Kapurdi-giri inscription, or they adopt a 
 special symbol for four namely, a cross and then 
 express five by a cross and one stroke, eight by two 
 crosses, 1 and ten, twenty, and a hundred by other 
 special symbols. Thus seventy-eight is written in the 
 Taxila inscription by three twenties, one ten, and two 
 fours. This is a late discovery due to the ingenious 
 
 1 It would be very desirable if the origin of the numerical figures in the 
 Hieratic inscriptions could be satisfactorily explained. If the Hieratic 
 figures for one, two, and three are mere corruptions of the hieroglyphic 
 signs, the similarity between them and the Indian figures would certainly be 
 Btartling. Writing the eight by two fours is likewise a strange coincident 
 between the Hieratic and the Indian system, and the figures for nine art 
 almost identical in both.
 
 294 OUR FIGURES. 
 
 researches of Professor Dowson, Mr. Norris, and Gen- 
 eral A. Cunningham, as published in the last numbers 
 of the " Journals of the Royal Asiatic Society," and 
 of the "Asiatic Society of Bengal." We also beg to 
 call attention to a list of ancient Sanskrit numerals col- 
 lected by Dr. Bhao Daji, and published in the last 
 number of the " Journal of the Asiatic Society of 
 Bengal." They are of a totally different character, 
 and place the theory of Prinsep, that the Indian figures 
 were originally the initial letters of the numerals in 
 Sanskrit, beyond all doubt. Yet here too, we see no 
 trace, as yet, of decimal notation, or of the employ- 
 ment of the cipher. We find nine letters, the initials 
 of the Sanskrit numerals, employed for 1 to 9 a pro- 
 ceeding possible in Sanskrit, where every numeral be- 
 gins with a different letter ; but impossible in Greek, 
 where four of the simple numerals began with e, and 
 two with t. We then find a new symbol for ten, some- 
 times like the e?, the initial letter of the Sanskrit nu- 
 meral; another for twenty, for a hundred, and for a 
 thousand ; but these symbols are placed one after the 
 other to express compound numerals, very much like 
 the letters of the Greek alphabet, when employed for 
 numerical purposes ; they are never used with the 
 nought. It would be highly important to find out at 
 what time the nought occurs for the first time in Indian 
 inscriptions. That inscription would deserve to be 
 preserved among the most valuable monuments of an- 
 tiquity, for from it would date in reality the beginning 
 of tnie mathematical science, impossible without the 
 nought nay, the beginning of all the exact sciences 
 to which we owe the discoveries of telescopes, steam- 
 engines, and electric telegraphs. 
 
 December, 1863.
 
 XXVII. 
 CASTE. 
 
 WHAT is caste ? The word is used everywhere and 
 by everybody. We have heard it of late in Parlia- 
 ment, at public meetings, in churches and chapels. It 
 has found its way into English, and into most of the 
 modern languages of Europe. We hear of caste not 
 only in India, and in ancient Egypt, and among the 
 Persians ; but in England, in London, in the very 
 drawing-rooms of Belgrave Square we are told by 
 moralists and novel writers that there is caste. Among 
 the causes assigned for the Sepoy mutiny, caste has 
 been made the most prominent. By one party it is 
 said that too much, by another that too little regard 
 was paid to caste. An Indian colonel tells us that 
 it was impossible to keep up military discipline among 
 soldiers who, if their own officers happened to pass by 
 while the privates were cooking their dinner, would 
 throw their mess into the fire, because it had been de- 
 filed by the shadow of a European. An Indian civil- 
 
 l Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and Progress of the Religion and 
 Institutions of India, collected, translated into English, and illustrated by 
 notes, chiefly for the use of students and others in India. By J. Muir, 
 Esq., U. C. L., late of the Bengal Civil Sen-ice. Part First, " The Myth- 
 ical and Legendary Accounts of Caste." London, 1858. Williams & 
 Norgate.
 
 296 CASTE. 
 
 ian assures us with equal confidence that the Sepoys 
 were driven mad by the greased cartridges ; that they 
 believed they were asked to touch what was unclean 
 in order to lose their caste, and that, rather than lose 
 their caste, they would risk everything. Missionaries 
 have been preaching against caste as the chief obstacle 
 to conversion. Philanthropists have seen in the con- 
 stant attacks of the missionaries upon caste the chief 
 obstacle to the spreading of Christianity among the 
 Hindus. Among the Hindus themselves some patriots 
 have represented caste as the cause of India's humilia- 
 tion and weakness, while their priests maintain that the 
 dominion of the barbarians, under which India has 
 been groaning for so many centuries, was inflicted as a 
 divine vengeance for the neglect of the old and sacred 
 distinctions of caste. 
 
 Where such different effects are attributed to the 
 same cause, it is clear that different people must ascribe 
 very different meanings to the same word. Nor is this 
 at all extraordinary. In India caste, in one form or 
 other, has existed from the earliest times. Words may 
 remain the same, but their meaning changes constantly ; 
 and what was meant by caste in India a thousand years 
 B. c., in a simple, healthy, and patriarchal state of so- 
 ciety, was necessarily something very different from 
 what is called caste nowadays. M. Guizot, in his 
 " History of Civilization," has traced the gradual and 
 hardly perceptible changes which the meaning of such 
 words as liberty, honor, right, has undergone in dif- 
 ferent periods of the history of Europe. But the his- 
 tory of India is a longer history than the history of 
 Europe ; and creeds, and laws, and words, and tradi- 
 tions had been growing, and changing, and decayir g on
 
 CASTE. 297 
 
 the borders of the Sarasvati and the Ganges, before 
 the Saxons had reached the borders of the Elbe and 
 their descendants had settled on the coast of Kent 
 There may have been less change in India than in 
 Europe, but there has been considerable change in 
 India too. The Brahmans of the present day are no 
 longer the Brahmans of the Vedas, and the caste of 
 the Sepoys is very different from the caste of the old 
 Kshatriya warriors. Yet we call it all caste, a word 
 not even Indian in its origin, but adopted from the 
 Portuguese, and the Brahmans themselves do very 
 much the same. They use, indeed, different words 
 for what we promiscuously call caste. They call it 
 "varna" and "</ati," and they would use "kula" and 
 "gotra," and " pravara " and "Tarawa," in many cases 
 where we promiscuously use the word "caste." But 
 on the whole they also treat the question of caste as if 
 caste had been the same thing at all times. Where it 
 answers their purpose they admit, indeed, that some of 
 the old laws about caste have become obsolete, and are 
 no longer applicable to a depraved age. But in the 
 same breath they will appeal to the Veda as their most 
 ancient and most sacred authority in order to substan- 
 tiate their claim to a privilege which their forefathers 
 enjoyed some thousand years ago. It is much the 
 same as if the Archbishop of Canterbury were to de- 
 vlare the ninth commandment, "Thou shalt not bear 
 false witness against thy neighbor," was antiquated, 
 because it had never been reenacted since the time of 
 Moses ; and were to claim at the same time the right of 
 excommunicating the Queen, or flogging the nobility, 
 because, according to the most ancient testimonies of
 
 298 CASTE. 
 
 Caesar and Tacitus, the Druids and the ancient priests 
 of Germany enjoyed the same privilege. 
 
 The question of caste in India has, however, as- 
 sumed too serious an aspect to be treated any longer in 
 this vague manner. New measures will soon have to 
 be adopted with regard to it, and these measures must 
 be such as will be approved by the more enlightened 
 among the natives. Whatever the truth may be about 
 the diabolical atrocities which are said to have been 
 committed against women and children, a grievous 
 wrong has been done to the people of India by making 
 them responsible for crimes committed or said to have 
 been committed by a few escaped convicts and raving 
 fanatics ; and, in spite of the efforts now making to 
 counteract the promiscuous hatred against Hindus and 
 Mohammedans, it will be long before the impression 
 once created can be effaced, and before the inhabitants 
 of India are treated again as men, and not as monsters. 
 It is now perceived that it will never answer to keep 
 India mainly by military force, and that the eloquent 
 but irritating speeches of Indian reformers must prove 
 very expensive to the tax-paying public of England. 
 India can never be held or governed profitably with- 
 out the good-will of the natives, and in any new meas- 
 ures that are to be adopted it will be necessary to listen 
 to what they have to say, and to reason with them as 
 we should reason with men quite capable of appreciating 
 the force of an argument. There ought to be no idea 
 ?f converting the Hindus by force, or of doing violence 
 to their religious feelings. They have the promise, and 
 that promise, we know, will never be broken, that their 
 religion is not to be interfered with, except where it 
 violates the laws of humanitv. Hinduism i? a decrepit
 
 CASTE. 299 
 
 religion, and has not many years to live. But our im- 
 patience to see it annihilated cannot be pleaded as an 
 excuse for employing violent and unfair means to hasten 
 its downfall. If, therefore, caste is part of the Hindu 
 religion, it will have to be respected as such by the 
 Government. If it is not, it may be treated in the 
 same spirit as social prejudices are treated at home. 
 
 Now, if we ask the Hindus whether their laws of 
 caste are part of their religion, some will answer that 
 they are, others that they are not. Under these cir- 
 cumstances we must clearly decide the question for 
 ourselves. Thanks to the exertions of Sir William 
 Jones, Colebrook, Wilson, and others, we possess in 
 this country a nearly complete collection of the relig- 
 ious and legal works of the Brahmans. We are able 
 
 c> 
 
 to consult the very authorities to which the Hindus 
 appeal, and we can form an opinion with greater im- 
 partiality than the Brahmans themselves. 
 
 The highest authority for the religion of the Brah- 
 mans is the Veda. All other works, the " Laws of 
 Manu," the six orthodox systems of philosophy, the 
 Puranas, or the legendary histories of India, all de- 
 rive their authority from their agreement with the 
 Veda. The Veda alone is called /S'ruti, or revelation ; 
 everything else, however sacred, can only claim the 
 title of Smriti, or tradition. The most elaborate argu- 
 ments have been framed by the Brahmans to establish 
 the divine origin and the absolute authority of the 
 Veda. They maintain that the Veda existed before 
 all time, that it was revealed by Brahman, and seen by 
 divine sages, who themselves were free from the taint 
 of humanity. " For what authority," the Brahmans 
 say, " could we claim for a revelation which had been
 
 300 CASTE. 
 
 revealed by Brahman to fallible mortals ? It might have 
 been perfect truth as seen by Brahman, but as seen by 
 men it would have been affected by their faulty vision. 
 Hence revelation, in order to be above all suspicion, 
 must be handed down by inspired Jfishis, till at last it 
 reaches in its perfect form the minds of the common 
 believers, and is accepted by them as absolute truth." 
 This is a curious argument, and not without some gen- 
 eral interest. It is one of the many attempts to alle- 
 viate the responsibility of the believer in his own belief, 
 to substitute a faith in man for a faith in God, to get 
 something external to rest on instead of trying to stand 
 on that which alone will last a man's own faith in 
 his own God. It is the story of the tortoise and the 
 elephant and the earth over again, only in a different 
 form ; and the Brahmans, in order to meet all possible 
 objections, have actually imagined a series of sages 
 the first quite divine, the second three fourths divine 
 and one fourth human, the third half divine and half 
 human, the fourth one fourth divine and three fourths 
 human, the last human altogether. This Veda then, 
 as handed down through this wonderful chain, is the 
 supreme authority of all orthodox Brahmans. To 
 doubt the divine origin and absolute authority of the 
 Veda is heresy. Buddha, by denying the authority of 
 the Veda, became a heretic. Kapila, an atheistic phi- 
 losopher of the purest water, was tolerated by the 
 Brahmans, because however much he differed from 
 their theology, he was ready to sign the most impor- 
 tant article of their faith the divine origin and infal- 
 libility of scripture. 
 
 At the present day there are but few Brahmans who 
 can read and understand the Veda. They learn por-
 
 CASTE. 301 
 
 tions of it by heart, these portions consisting of hymns 
 nnd prayers, which have to be muttered at sacrifices; 
 and which every priest must know. But the language 
 and grammar of the Veda being somewhat different 
 from the common Sanskrit, the young priests have as 
 much difficulty in understanding those hymns correctly 
 as we have in translating old English. Hence argu- 
 ments have not been wanting to prove that these 
 hymns are really more efficacious if they are not un- 
 derstood, and all that the young student is required to 
 learn is the pronunciation, the names of the metre, of 
 the deity to whom the hymn is addressed, and of the 
 poet by whom it was composed. In order to show that 
 this is not an exaggerated account we quote from an 
 article in the " Calcutta Review," written by a native 
 and a real Sanskrit scholar : " The most learned Pan- 
 dit in Bengal," he says, " has need to talk with diffi- 
 dence of what he may consider to be the teaching of 
 the Vedas on any point, especially when negative prop- 
 ositions are concerned. It may be doubted whether 
 a copy of the entire Vedas is procurable in any part of 
 Hindostan ; it is more than probable that such a copy 
 does not exist in Bengal. It would scarcely be modest 
 or safe, under such circumstances, to say that such and 
 such doctrines are not contained in the Vedas." In 
 the South of India the Veda is perhaps studied a little 
 more than in Bengal, yet even there the Brahmans 
 would be completely guided in their interpretation by 
 their scholastic commentaries ; and when the Pandits 
 near Madras were told by Dr. Graul, the director of 
 the Lutheran Missions in India, that a countryman of 
 his had been intrusted by the East India Company with 
 the publication of the Veda, they all declared that it 
 was an impossible task.
 
 302 CASTE. 
 
 Instead of the Veda, the Brahmans of the present 
 day read the " Laws of Mann," the six systems of 
 philosophy, the Purawas, and the Tantras. Yet, igno- 
 rant as they are of the Veda, they believe in it as im- 
 plicitly as the Roman Catholic friar believed in the 
 Bible, though he had never seen it. The author of the 
 so-called " Laws of Manu " is but a man, and he has 
 to produce his credentials before the law which he 
 teaches can be acknowledged as an authority. Now, 
 what are his credentials, what is the authority of Manu ? 
 He tells us himself: "The root of the law," he says, 
 44 is the whole Veda and the tradition and customs of 
 those who knew the Veda." Exactly the same words, 
 only not yet reduced to a metrical form, occur in the 
 old Sutras or law-books which were paraphrased by 
 the author of the " Laws of Manu." Towards the 
 end of the law-book the author speaks of the Veda in 
 still stronger terms : 
 
 4 ' To the departed, to gods and to men, the Veda is 
 an imperishable eye ; the Veda is beyond the power 
 and beyond the reason of man : this is certain. Tradi- 
 tional codes of law, not founded on the Veda, and all 
 the heterodox theories of man, produce no good fruit 
 after death ; they are all declared to rest on darkness. 
 Whatever they are, they will rise and perish ; on ac- 
 count of their modern date they are vain and false. 
 The four classes of men, the three worlds, the four 
 stages of life, all that has been, is, and will be, is 
 known from the Veda. The imperishable Veda sup- 
 )rts all creatures, and therefore I think it is the 
 highest means of salvation for this creature man. 
 Comm&nd of armies, royal authority, power of inflict- 
 ing punishment, and sovereign dominion over all na-
 
 CASTE. 303 
 
 tions, he only will deserve who perfectly understands 
 the Veda. As fire with augmented force burns up 
 even humid trees, thus he, who well knows the Veda, 
 burns out the taint of sin in his soul which arose from 
 evil works. He who completely knows the sense of 
 the Veda, while he remains in any one of the four 
 stages of life, approaches the divine nature, even though 
 he sojourn in this low world." 
 
 Again, whatever system of philosophy we open, we 
 invariably find in the very beginning that as for right 
 behavior ("dharma"), so for right knowledge, the 
 Veda is to be considered as the highest authority. In 
 the Vedanta philosophy the beginning of all wisdom is 
 said to be a desire to know God, who is the cause of 
 the Universe, and that he is the cause of the Universe 
 is to be learnt from the scripture. The Nyaya philos- 
 ophy acknowledges four sources of knowledge ; and 
 the fourth, which follows after perception, induction, 
 and analogy, is the Word, or the Veda. The Vaise- 
 shika philosophy, an atomistic system, and looked upon 
 with no very favorable eye by the orthodox Brahmans, 
 is most emphatic in proclaiming the absolute authority 
 of the Veda. And even the " Sankhya," the atheistic 
 " Sankhya," which maintains that a personal God can- 
 not be proved, conforms so far as to admit the received 
 doctrine of the Veda as evidence in addition to percep- 
 tion and induction. At the time when these systems 
 were originally composed, the Veda was still studied 
 and understood ; but in later times the Veda was 
 superseded by more modern works, particularly the 
 Purawas, and the less its real contents were known, 
 the more easily could its authority be appealed to by 
 the Brthmans in support of anything they wished to
 
 304 CASTE. 
 
 establish as a divine ordinance. In their controversies 
 with the Mohammedans, and in more recent times with 
 the missionaries, the Brahmans, if they were hard 
 pressed, invariably fell back upon the Veda. The 
 " Laws of Manu " and other law-books were printed 
 and translated. Some of their Purarzas, also, had been 
 rendered into English and French. With regard to 
 these, therefore, the missionaries could ask for chapter 
 and verse. But the Veda was unknown to either 
 party, and on the principle of omne ignotum pro mag- 
 nifieo, the Brahmans maintained and the missionaries 
 had to believe that everything which was to be found 
 nowhere else was to be found in the Veda. There was 
 no commandment of the Old Testament which, accord- 
 ing to the Brahmans, might not be matched in the 
 Veda. There was no doctrine of Christianity which 
 had not been anticipated in the Veda. If the mission- 
 aries were incredulous and called for the manuscripts, 
 they were told that so sacred a book could not be ex- 
 posed to 'the profane looks of unbelievers, and there 
 was an end to all further argument. 
 
 Under these circumstances it was felt that nothing 
 would be of greater assistance to the missionaries in 
 India than an edition of the Veda. Prizes were offered 
 to any Sanskrit scholar who would undertake to edit 
 the work, but after the first book, published by the late 
 Dr. Rosen in 1838, no further progress was made. 
 The Directors of the East India Company, always 
 ready to assist the missionaries by any legitimate 
 means, invited the Pandits, through the Asiatic Society 
 at Calcutta, to undertake the work, and to publish a 
 complete and authentic edition of their own sacred 
 writings. The answers received only proved what was
 
 CASTE 305 
 
 known before, that in the whole of Bengal there was 
 not a single Brahman who could edit the Veda. In 
 spite of all these obstacles, however, the Veda is now 
 being published in this country under the patronage 
 of the East India Company. The missionaries have 
 already derived great assistance from this edition of 
 the Veda and its commentary, and constant applica- 
 tions are being made by various missionary societies for 
 copies of the original and its English translation. The 
 Brahmans, though they did not approve the publica- 
 tion of their sacred writings by a Mle&Ma, have been 
 honest enough to admit that the edition is complete and 
 authentic. One of their most learned representatives, 
 when speaking of this edition, says, " It will furnish 
 the Vaidic Pandits with a complete collection of the 
 Holy Sanhitas, only detached portions of which are to 
 be found in the possession of a few of them." And 
 again, " It is surely a very curious reflection on the 
 vicissitudes of human affairs that the descendants of 
 the divine jRishis should be studying on the banks of 
 the Bhagirathi, the Yamun&, and the Sindhu, their 
 Holy Scriptures, published on the banks of the Thames 
 by one whom they regard as a distant Mle&Ma." 
 
 If, then, with all the documents before us, we ask 
 the question, Does caste, as we find it in Manu and 
 at the present day, form part of the most ancient relig- 
 ious teaching of the Vedas? we can answer with a 
 decided "No." There is no authority whatever in 
 the hymns of the Veda for the complicated system of 
 castes ; no authority for the offensive privileges claimed 
 by the Brahmans ; no authority for the degraded posi- 
 tion of the A$udras. There is no law to prohibit the 
 different classes of the people from living together, 
 
 YOU it 20
 
 306 CASTE. 
 
 from eating and drinking together ; no law to prohibit 
 the marriage of people belonging to different castes ; 
 no law to brand the offspring of such marriages with 
 an indelible stigma. All that is found in the Veda r at 
 least in the most ancient portion of it, the hymns, is a 
 verse, in which it is said that the priest, the warrior, 
 the husbandman, and the serf, formed all alike part of 
 Brahman. Rv. x. 90, 6, 7 : " When they divided 
 man, how many did they make him ? What was his 
 mouth? what his arms? what are called his thighs and 
 feet ? The Brahmawa was his mouth, the Raj/anya 
 was made his arms, the Vaisya became his thighs, the 
 iS'udra was born from his feet." European critics are 
 able to show that even this verse is of later origin than 
 the great mass of the hymns, and that it contains mod- 
 ern words, such as ySfidra and Ragranya, which are not 
 found again in the other hymns of the Rig-veda. Yet 
 it belongs to the ancient collection of the Vedic hymns, 
 and if it contained anything in support of caste, as it 
 is now understood, the Brahmans would be right in 
 saying that caste formed part of their religion, and was 
 sanctioned by their sacred writings. But, as the case 
 now stands, it is not difficult to prove to the natives 
 of India that, whatever their caste may be, caste, as 
 now understood, is not a Vedic institution, and that in 
 disregarding the rules of caste, no command of the real 
 Veda is violated. Caste in India is a human law, a 
 law fixed by those who were most benefited by it 
 themselves It may be a venerable custom, but it has 
 no authority in the hymns of the Jftshis. The mis- 
 sionaries, if they wish to gain the ear and confidence 
 of the natives, will have to do what the Reformers 
 did for the Christian laity. The people in the six-
 
 CASTE. 307 
 
 teenth century, no doubt, believed that the worship of 
 the Virgin and the Saints, auricular confession, indul- 
 gences, the celibacy of the clergy, all rested on the 
 authority of the Bible. They could not read the Bible 
 in the original, and they were bound to believe what 
 they were taught by the priests. As our own Reform- 
 ers pointed out that all these were institutions of later 
 growth, that they had become mischievous, and that no 
 divine law was violated in disregarding them, it should 
 be shown to the natives of India that the relio-ion which 
 
 O 
 
 the Brahmans teach is no longer the religion of the 
 Veda, though the Veda alone is acknowledged by all 
 Brahmans as the only divine source of faith. A Hindu 
 who believes only in the Ved;v would be much nearer 
 to Christianity than those who follow the Pur&was and 
 the Tantras. From a European point of view there is, 
 no doubt, even in the Veda a great deal that is absurd 
 and childish ; and from a Christian point of view there 
 is but little that we can fully approve. But there is no 
 trace in the Veda of the atrocities of /Siva and Kali, 
 nor of the licentiousness of Krishna, nor of most of the 
 miraculous adventures of Vislmu. We find in it no 
 law to sanction the blasphemous pretensions of a priest- 
 hood to divine honors, or the degradation of any human 
 beino- to a state below the animal. There is no .text to 
 
 O 
 
 countenance laws which allow the marriage of children 
 and prohibit the remarriage of child-widows, and the 
 unhallowed rite of burning the widow with the corpse 
 of her husband is both against the spirit and the letter 
 of the Veda. The great majority of those ancient 
 hymns are mere prayers for food, health, and wealth ; 
 and it is extraordinary that words which any child 
 might have uttered should ever have seemed to require
 
 308 CASTE. 
 
 the admission of a divine author. Yet there are pas- 
 sages scattered about in these hymns which, apart from 
 their interest as relics of the earliest period in the his- 
 tory of the human mind, are valuable as expressions of 
 a simple faith in God, and of a belief in the moral gov- 
 ernment of the world. We should look in vain in 
 Sanskrit works for hymns like the following : 
 
 1. Wise and mighty are the works of him who 
 stemmed asunder the wide firmaments (heaven and 
 earth). He lifted on high the bright and glorious 
 heaven ; he stretched out apart the starry sky and the 
 earth. 
 
 2. Do I say this to my own self? How can I get 
 unto Varuwa ? Will he accept my offering without 
 displeasure ? When shall I, with a quiet mind, see 
 him propitiated? 
 
 3. I ask, O Varmza, wishing to know this my sin. 
 I go to ask the wise. The sages all tell me the same : 
 Vanma it is who is angry with thee. 
 
 4. Was it an old sin, O Varuna, that thou wishest 
 to destroy thy friend, who always praises thee ? Tell 
 me, thou unconquerable lord, and I will quickly turn to 
 thee with praise, freed from sin. 
 
 5. Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, and from 
 those which we committed with our own bodies. Re- 
 lease Vasishdia, O king, like a thief who has feasted on 
 stolen oxen ; release him like a calf from the rope. 
 
 6. It was not our own doing, O Varuna, it was ne- 
 cessity (or temptation), an intoxicating draught, pas- 
 sion, dice, thoughtlessness. The old is there to mis 
 lead the young ; even sleep brings unrighteousness. 
 
 7. Let me without sin give satisfaction to the angry
 
 CASTE. 309 
 
 god, like a slave to the bounteous lord. The lord god 
 enlightened the foolish ; he, the wisest, leads his wor- 
 shipper to wealth. 
 
 8. O lord Varuwa, may this song go well to thy 
 heart ! May we prosper in keeping and acquiring ! 
 Protect us, O gods, always with your blessings ! 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose that the educated 
 classes in India are unable to appreciate the argument 
 which rests on a simple appeal to what, from their very 
 childhood, they have been brought up to consider as 
 the highest authority in matters of religion. They 
 have seen the same argument used repeatedly by their 
 own priests. Whenever discussions about right and 
 wrong, about true and false doctrine, arose, each party 
 appealed to the Veda. Decided heretics only, such as 
 the Buddhists, objected to this line of argument. Thus, 
 when the question was mooted whether the burning of 
 widows was an essential part of the Hindu religion, 
 the Brahmans were asked to produce an authority for 
 it from the Veda. They did so by garbling a verse, 
 and as the Veda was not yet published, it was impossi- 
 ble at that time to convict them of falsih ^tion. They 
 tried to do the same in defense of the law which for- 
 bids the marriage of widows. But they were met by 
 another party of more enlightened Brahmans, who, 
 with the support of the excellent President of the 
 Sanskrit College at Calcutta, Eshvar Chandra Vidya- 
 sagar, and several enlightened members of the govern- 
 ment, carried the day. 
 
 The following correspondence, which passed between 
 an orthodox Brahman and the editor of one of the 
 most influential native newspapers at Madras, may
 
 310 CASTE. 
 
 serve as a specimen of the language used by native 
 divines in arguments of this kind. 
 
 The pious correspondent begins with a prayer to 
 Vislwu : 
 
 " O thou heavenly Boar, Vishwu, residing in Seitri- 
 potti (in the neighborhood of Madras), which place, 
 rising like a mountain, is brilliant in its fullness, bless 
 the inhabitants of the sea-girt Earth by knowledge 
 which alone leads to virtue ! " 
 
 Then comes an address to the editor : 
 
 "Among the followers of the six religions by which 
 the four castes have been divided, there are but few 
 to whom sound knowledge and good conduct have 
 been granted. All the rest have been robbed of these 
 blessings by the goddess of mischief. They will not 
 find salvation either in this life or in the life to come. 
 Now in order to benefit those miserable beings, there 
 appears every Sunday morning your excellent paper, 
 bearing on its front the three forms of /Siva, and rising 
 like the sun, the dispeller of darkness. Please to 
 vouchsafe in that paper a small place to these lines. It 
 is with that confident hope that I sharpen my pen and 
 begin : 
 
 " For some time I have harbored great doubts 
 within myself, and though I always intended to place 
 them before the public in your newspaper, no opportu- 
 nity seemed hitherto to offer itself. But you have your- 
 self pronounced an opinion in one of your last numbers 
 about infanticide, and you remark that it reveals a 
 depravation more depraved than even the passion of 
 lust. This seems a small saying, and yet it is so full 
 of meaning that I should fain call it a drop of dew 
 poised on the top of a blade of grass in which a mJghty
 
 CASTE. 311 
 
 tree is fully reflected. It is true there is on earth no 
 greater bliss than love. This is proved by the word 
 of the poet : ' Say, is the abode of the lotus-eyed god 
 sweeter than a dream on the shoulders of the beloved ? ' 
 No intoxication is so powerful as the intoxication of 
 love. This is proved by another verse of the same 
 poet: 'Not the palm-wine, no, it is love which runs 
 through the veins, and enraptures even by sight.' Nay, 
 more, love is a fire beyond all fires. And this also is 
 proved by a verse of the poet : ' If I fly, there is fire ; 
 if I am near her, there is refreshing coolness. Whence 
 did she take that strange fire ? ' 
 
 " And love leaves neither the high nor the low with- 
 out temptation. Even the curly-haired $iva could not 
 resist the power of love, as you may read in the story 
 of Pandya and his Fish-flag, and in many other legends. 
 Nor are women less moved by passion than men. And 
 hence that secret criminal love, and, from fear of 
 shame, the most awful of all crimes, infanticide ! The 
 child is killed, the mother frequently dies, and bad 
 gossip follows ; and her relations have to walk about 
 with their heads bent low. Is it not all the conse- 
 quence of that passion ? And such things are going 
 on among us, is it not so? It is said, indeed, that it 
 is the fault of the present generation, and that good 
 women would never commit such atrocities. But even 
 in the patriarchal ages, which are called the virtuous 
 ao-es, there was much vice, and it is owing to it that the 
 present age is what it is. As the king, so the subjects. 
 Where is chastity to be found among us ? It is the 
 exception, and no longer the rule. And what is the 
 chief cause of all this misery ? 
 
 " It is because people are married in their tender in
 
 812 CASTE. 
 
 fancy. If the husband dies before the child grows into 
 a woman, how much suffering, how much temptation, 
 will come upon her. The poet says : ' A woman that 
 faithfully serves her husband, even though she serve 
 not the gods, if she prays, Send us rain, it will rain.' 
 Women who heed this will no doubt walk the path of 
 virtue. Yet it is a sad thought. There is much that 
 is good and true and beautiful in our poet ; people read 
 it, but they do not act according to it. Most men fol- 
 low another verse of the poet, ' I swim about on the 
 wild sea of love ; I see no shore ; the night also I am 
 tossed about.' 
 
 " Alas, my dear editor ! All this hellish sin is the 
 fault of father and mother who do not prevent it. If, 
 in accordance with the Vedas, and in accordance with 
 the sacred codes that are based on them, women were 
 allowed to marry again, much temptation and shame 
 would be avoided. But then the world calls out, 
 * No, no, widow-marriage is against all our rules ; it is 
 low and vulgar.' Forsooth, tell me, are the four holy 
 Vedas, which sprang from the lotus-born god, books of 
 lies and blasphemy? If we -are to believe this, then 
 our sacred laws, which are all ordained in the Vedas, 
 are branded as lies. If we continue in this path, it 
 will be like a shower of honey running down from a 
 roof of sugar to the heathen, who are always fond of 
 abusing us. Do we read in the Vedas that a man only 
 may marry two, three, or four times? Do we not 
 read in the same place that a woman may marry at 
 least twice? Let our wise masters ponder on this. 
 Really we are shamed by the lowest castes. They fol- 
 low the holy Vedas on this point, and we disregard 
 them. O marvel of marvels ! This country is full
 
 CASTE. 313 
 
 already of people who do not scruple to murder the 
 sacred cow ! Should murder of infants be added 
 thereto, as though the murder of cows was not yet 
 enough ? My dear editor, how long is our god likely 
 to bear this ? " 
 
 There is a good deal more in the same style, which 
 is not quite adapted for publication in a more northern 
 climate. At the end, the editor is exhorted not to fol- 
 low the example of other editors, who are afraid of 
 burning their fingers, and remain silent when they 
 ought to speak. 
 
 After some weeks, the editor published a reply. He 
 fully agrees with the arguments of his correspondent, 
 but he says that the writer does not sufficiently appre- 
 ciate the importance of universal custom. Universal 
 custom, he continues, is more powerful than books, 
 however sacred. For books are read, but customs are 
 followed. He then quotes the instance of a learned 
 Brahman, a great Sanskrit scholar. His daughter had 
 become a child-widow. He began to search in the 
 sacred writings in order to find whether the widow of 
 a Brahman was really forbidden to marry again. He 
 found just the contrary, and was determined to give 
 his daughter in marriage a second time. But all his 
 relations came running to his house, entreating him 
 not to do a thing so contrary to all etiquette, and the 
 poor father was obliged to yield. 
 
 At the end, however, the editor gives his correspon- 
 dent some sensible advice. " Call a great meeting of 
 wise men," he says. " Place the matter before them, 
 and show the awful results of the present system. If 
 some of them could be moved, then they might be of 
 good cheer. A few should begin allowing their wid-
 
 314 CASTE. 
 
 owed children to marry. Others would follow, and 
 the new custom would soon become general etiquette." 
 
 The fact is that even now the Brahmanic law has by 
 no means gained a complete ascendency, and in Mal- 
 abar, where a list has been drawn up of sixty-four 
 offenses tolerated or even sanctioned in Kerala, the 
 fifty-fourth offense is described as follows : " The 
 Vedas say that the widow of a Brahman may marry 
 again. This is not the law in Kerala or elsewhere." 
 
 We must be prepared, no doubt, to find the Brah- 
 mans standing up for their traditional law as equally 
 sacred as the Veda. They will argue even against 
 their own Veda in the same spirit in which the Church 
 of Rome argued against the Bible, in order to defend 
 the hierarchical and dogmatic system which, though it 
 had no sanction in the Bible, was said to be but a 
 necessary development of the spirit of the Bible. The 
 Brahmans maintain, first of all, that there are four 
 Vedas, each consisting of two portions, the hymns or 
 Mantras, and theological tracts or Brahmawas. Now, 
 with regard to the hymns, it can easily be shown that 
 there is but one genuine collection, the so-called Rig- 
 veda, or the Veda of Praise. The Sama-veda is but a 
 short extract from the Rig-veda, containing such hymns 
 as had to be chanted during the sacrifice. The Ya^ur- 
 veda is a similar manual intended for another class of 
 priests, who had to mutter certain hymns of the Rig- 
 veda, together with invocations and other sacrificial for- 
 mulas. The fourth, or Atharva-veda, is confessedlv of 
 later origin, and contains, besides a large number of 
 nymns from the Rig-veda, some interesting specimens 
 of incantations, popular rhymes, and mystical odes. 
 There remains, therefore, the Rig-veda only which haa 
 a right to be called the Veda.
 
 CASTE. 315 
 
 As to the theological tracts attached to each Veda, 
 the Brahmans stoutly maintain that the arguments by 
 which they have established the divine origin of the 
 hymns apply with equal force to these tracts. It is in 
 these Brahmanas that they find most of the passages 
 by which they support their priestly pretensions ; and 
 this is but natural, because these Brahmawas were 
 composed at a later time than the hymns, and when 
 the Brahmans were already enjoying those very privi- 
 leges which they wish to substantiate by a primeval 
 revelation. But even if we granted, for argument's 
 sake, that the Brahmawas were as ancient as the 
 hymns, the Brahmans would try in vain to prove the 
 modern system of caste even from those works. Even 
 there, all we find is the division of Indian society into 
 four classes, priests, warriors, husbandmen, and 
 serfs. A great distinction, no doubt, is made between 
 the three higher castes, the Aryas, and the fourth class, 
 the A$iidras. Marriages between Aryas and /Suclras are 
 disapproved of, but we can hardly say that they are pro- 
 hibited (Vaj. Sanhita- 23, 30) ; and the few allusions to 
 mixed castes which have been pointed out, refer only 
 to special professions. The fourth class, the ^udras, is 
 spoken of as a degraded race whose contact defiles the 
 Aryan worshipper while he is performing his sacrifice, 
 and they are sometimes spoken of as evil spirits ; but 
 even in the latest literary productions of the Vedic 
 age, we look in vain for the complicated rules of Manu. 
 
 The last argument which a Brahman would use 
 under these circumstances is this : " Though at present 
 we find no authority in the Veda for the traditional 
 rules about caste, we are bound to admit that such an 
 authority did exist in portions of the Veda which have
 
 316 CASTE. 
 
 been lost; for Mann and other ancient lawgivers are 
 known to be trustworthy persons, and they would not 
 have sanctioned such laws unless they had known some 
 divine authority in support of them. Therefore, unless 
 it can be proved that their laws are contrary to the 
 Veda, we are bound to believe that they are based on 
 lost portions of the Veda.-" However, there are few 
 people, even in India, who do not see through this 
 argument, which is ironically called the appeal to the 
 dead witness. 
 
 The Brahmans themselves have made this admission, 
 that when the Veda, the Law-books, and the Purawas 
 differ, the Veda is the supreme authority ; and that 
 where the Purawas differ from the Law-books, the Pu- 
 r&was are overruled. According to this decision of 
 Vyasa, the fallibility of the Law-books and the Purawas 
 is admitted. They may be respected as the works of 
 good and wise men ; but what was ruled by men may 
 be overruled by men. And even Manu, after enu- 
 merating the various sources of law the Veda, the 
 traditions and customs of those who knew the Veda 
 and the practice of good men, adds as the last, man's 
 own judgment (" atmanas tushlis "), or the approval 
 of conscience. 
 
 As the case now stands, the government would be 
 perfectly justified in declaring that : t will no longer 
 consider caste as part of the religious system of the 
 Hindus. Caste, in the modern sense of the word, is 
 no religious institution ; it has no authority in the 
 sacred writings of the Brahmans, and by whatever 
 promise the government may have bound itself to 
 respect the religion of the natives, that promise will 
 not be violated, even though penalties were inflicted 
 for the observation of the rules of caste.
 
 CASTE. 317 
 
 It is a different question whether such a proceeding 
 would be either right or prudent ; for, although caste 
 cannot be called a religious institution, it is a social 
 institution, based on the law of the country. It has 
 been growing up for centuries, and the whole frame 
 of Hindu society has been moulded in it. On these 
 grounds the question of caste will have to be treated 
 with great caution : only it is right that the question 
 should be argued on its real merits, and that religious 
 arguments should not be dragged in where they would 
 only serve to make confusion worse confounded. If 
 caste is tolerated in India, it should be known on both 
 sides that it is not tolerated on religious grounds. If 
 caste is to be put down, it should be put down as a 
 matter of policy and police. How caste grew up as a 
 social institution, how it changed, and how it is likely 
 to change still further, these are questions which ought 
 to be carefully considered before any decision is taken 
 that would affect the present system of caste. 
 
 Mr. Muir, therefore, seems to us to have undertaken 
 a very useful work at the present moment in collecting 
 and publishing a number of extracts from Sanskrit 
 works bearing on the origin and history of caste. In 
 his first part he treats on the mythical and legendary 
 accounts of caste, and he tries to discover in them the 
 faint traces of the real history of that extraordinary 
 institution. 
 
 As soon as we trace the complicated system of caste, 
 such as we find it in India at the present day, back to 
 its first beginnings, we find that it flows from at least 
 three different sources, and that accordingly we must 
 distinguish between ethnological, political, and profe* 
 sional caste.
 
 318 CASTE. 
 
 Ethnological caste arises wherever different races are 
 brought in contact. There is and always has been a 
 mutual antipathy between the white and the black man, 
 and when the two are brought together, either by con- 
 quest or migration, the white man has invariably as- 
 serted his superiority, and established certain social 
 barriers between himself and his dark-skinned brother. 
 The Aryas and the iSudras seem to have felt this mu- 
 tual antipathy. The difference of blood and color 
 was heightened in ancient times by difference of relig- 
 ion and language ; but in modern times also, and in 
 countries where the negro has learnt to speak the 
 same language and to worship the same God as his 
 master, the white man can never completely overcome 
 the old feeling that seems to lurk in his very blood, and 
 makes him recoil from the embrace of his darker neigh- 
 bor. And even where there is no distinction of color, 
 an analogous feeling, the feeling of race, asserts its in- 
 fluence, as if inherent in human nature. Between the 
 Jew and the Gentile, the Greek and the barbarian, the 
 Saxon and the Celt, the Englishman and the foreigner, 
 there is something whether we call it hatred, or 
 antipathy, or mistrust, or mere coldness which in a 
 primitive state of society would necessarily lead to a 
 system of castes, and which, even in more civilized 
 countries, will never be completely eradicated. 
 
 Political caste arises from the struggles of different 
 parties in the same state for political supremacy. The 
 feeling between the patrician and the plebeian at Rome 
 was ft feeling of caste, and for a long time marriage be- 
 tween the son of a plebeian and the daughter of a patri- 
 cian was as distasteful at Rome as the marriage between 
 a /Sudra and the daughter of a Brahman in India. In
 
 CASTE. 319 
 
 addition to these two classes of society, the governing 
 and the governed, the nobility and the people, we find 
 a third class starting into existence at a very early 
 period, and in almost all countries, the priests ; and if 
 we look at the history of the ancient world, particularly 
 among Eastern nations, it chiefly consists in contests 
 between the nobility and the priesthood for political 
 supremacy. Thus, whereas ethnological caste leads 
 generally only to one broad division between the white 
 and the black man, between the conquering and the 
 conquered race, between the freeman and the slave, 
 political caste superadds a threefold division of the 
 superior race, by separating a military nobility and 
 a priestly hierarchy from the great body of the citizens. 
 Professional caste is in reality but a continuation of 
 the same social growth which leads to the establishment 
 of political caste. After the two upper classes have 
 been separated from the main body of the people, the 
 gradual advancement of society towards a more perfect 
 organization takes place, chiefly by means of new sub- 
 divisions among the middle classes. Various trades 
 and professions are established, and privileges once 
 granted to them are defended by guilds and corpora- 
 tions, with the same jealousy as the political privileges 
 of the nobility and the priesthood. Certain trades and 
 professions become more respectable and influential 
 than others, and, in order to keep up that respecta- 
 bility, the members of each bind themselves by regula- 
 tions which are more strictly enforced and more severely 
 felt than the laws of the people at large. Every nation 
 must pass through this social phase, which in Europe 
 was most completely realized during the Middle Ages. 
 And though, in later times, with the progress of civil-
 
 320 CASTE. 
 
 ization and true religion in Europe, all the barriers of 
 caste became more and more leveled, the law being 
 the same for all classes, and the services of Church and 
 State being opened to the intellectual aristocracy of the 
 whole nation, yet within smaller spheres the traditional 
 feeling of caste, in its threefold character, lingers on ; 
 and the antipathy between Saxon and Celt, the distinc- 
 tion between nobility and gentry, the distance between 
 the man who deals in gold and silver and the man who 
 deals in boots and shoes, are still maintained, and would 
 seem almost indispensable to the healthy growth of 
 every society. 
 
 The first trace of caste which we find in India is 
 purely ethnological. India was covered by a stratum 
 of Turanian inhabitants before the Aryas, or the peo- 
 ple who spoke Sanskrit, took possession of the country. 
 Traces of these aboriginal inhabitants are still to be 
 found all over India. The main body of these earlier 
 settlers, however, was driven to the South, and to the 
 present day all the languages spoken in the south of 
 India, Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, etc., are perfectly dis- 
 tinct from Sanskrit and the modern Sanskrit dialects, 
 such as Hindustani, Bengali, and Mahratti. At the 
 time of the great Aryan immigration the differences in 
 the physical appearance of the conquered and the con- 
 quering races must have been considerable, and even 
 at present a careful observer can easily distinguish the 
 descendants of the two. "No sojourner in India," Dr. 
 Stevenson remarks, "can have paid any attention to 
 the physiognomy of the higher and lower orders of 
 natives, without being struck with the remarkable dif- 
 ference that exists in the shape of the head, the build 
 of the body, and the color of the skin between the
 
 CASTE. 3:11 
 
 higher and the lower castes into which the Hindu popu- 
 lation is divided. The high forehead, the stout build, 
 and the light copper color of the Brahmans, and other 
 castes allied to them, appear in strong contrast with 
 the somewhat low and wide heads, slight make, and 
 dark bronze of the low castes." Time, however, has 
 worked many changes, and there are at present Brah- 
 mans, particularly in the South of India, as black as 
 Pariahs. 
 
 The hymns of the Veda, though they never mention 
 the word /Sudra, except in the passage pointed out 
 before, allude frequently to these hostile races, and 
 call them " Dasyus," or enemies. Thus one poet says 
 (Rv. III. 34, 9) : 
 
 " Indra gave horses, Indra gave the sun, he gave the 
 earth with food for many, he gave gold, and he gave 
 wealth ; destroying the Dasyus, Indra protected the 
 Aryan color." 
 
 The word which is here translated by color, " varwa," 
 is the true Sanskrit name for caste. Nor can there be 
 any doubt that there was a distinction of color between 
 the Aryas and the Dasyus, and that the name " varwa " 
 meaning originally color was afterwards used in 
 the more general sense of caste. 1 Mr. Muir has quoted 
 a passage from the Mahabharata, where it is said that 
 the color of the Brahmans was white ; that of the 
 Kshatriyas, red ; that of the Vaisyas, yellow, and that 
 of the /SKidras, black. But this seems to be a later 
 allegory, and the colors seem to be chosen in order to 
 express the respective character of the four castes. At 
 the time when this name of " vama " was first used in 
 the sense of caste, there were but two castes, the Aryas 
 
 1 See page 176. 
 21
 
 822 CASTE. 
 
 and the non-Aryas, the bright and the dark race. 
 This dark race is sometimes called by the poets of the 
 Veda "the black skin." Rig-veda I. 130, 8: " Indra 
 protected in battle the Aiyan worshipper, he subdued 
 the lawless for Manu, he conquered the black skin." 
 Other names given to them by their Aryan conquerors 
 are "goat-nosed and noseless," whereas the Aryan gods 
 are frequently praised for their beautiful noses. That 
 those people were considered as heathen and barbarians 
 by the Vedic poets we may conclude from other pas- 
 sages where they are represented as keeping no sacred 
 fires and as worshipping mad gods. Nay, they are 
 even taunted with eating raw flesh, as in the Dek- 
 ban some of the low castes are called Puliyars, or 
 Poliars, i. e. flesh eaters, and with feeding on 
 human flesh. How they were treated by the Brah- 
 mans, we may conclude from the following invoca- 
 tion : 
 
 " Indra and Soma, burn the devils, destroy them, 
 throw them down, ye two Bulls, the people that grow 
 in darkness ! Hew down the madmen, suffocate them, 
 kill them ; hurl them away, and slay the voracious. 
 
 " Indra and Soma, up together against the cursing 
 demon ! May he burn and hiss like an oblation in the 
 fire I Put your everlasting hatred upon the villain who 
 hates the Brahman, who eats flesh, and whose look is 
 abominable. 
 
 " Indra and Soma, hurl the evil-doer into the pit, 
 even into unfathomable darkness ! May your strength 
 be full of wrath to hold out, that no one may come out 
 again ! " 
 
 This ancient division between Aryan and non-Aryan 
 races, based on an original difference of blood, was
 
 CASTE. 323 
 
 preserved in later times as the primary dish.ietion be- 
 tween the three twice-born castes and the /Sudras. The 
 word " arya " (noble) is derived from " arya," which 
 means a householder, and was originally used as the 
 name of the third caste, or the Vaisyas. These Aryas 
 or Vaisyas formed the great bulk of the Brahmanic 
 society, and it is but natural that their name, in a 
 derivative form, should have been used as a common 
 name of the three classes into which these Aryas be- 
 came afterwards divided. How these three upper 
 castes grew up we can see very clearly in the hyrnns, 
 in the Brahmawas, and in the legendary stones con- 
 tained in the epic poems. The three occupations of 
 the Aryas in India were fighting, cultivating the soil, 
 and worshipping the gods. Those who fought the 
 battles of the people would naturally acquire influence 
 and rank, and their leaders appear in the Veda as 
 Rajahs or kings. Those who did not share in the 
 fighting would occupy a more humble position ; they 
 were called " Vis," "Vaisyas," or householders, and 
 would no doubt have to contribute towards the main- 
 tenance of the armies. " Vispati," or " lord of the 
 Vis," became the usual name for king, and the same 
 word is found in the old Persian " Vispaiti," and the 
 modern Lithuanian " wieszpatis," king. But a third 
 occupation, that of worshipping the gods, was evidently 
 considered by the whole nation to be as important and 
 as truly essential to the well-being of the country as 
 fighting against enemies or cultivating the soil. How- 
 ever imperfect and absurd their notions of the Deity 
 may seem to us, we must admit that no nation was 
 ever so anxious to perform the service of their gods 
 as the early Hindus. It is the gods who conquer the
 
 324 CASTE. 
 
 enemy, it is the gods who vouchsafe a rich harvest. 
 Health and wealth, children, friends, flocks, and gold, 
 all are the gifts of the gods. And these are not un- 
 meaning phrases with those early poets. No, the poet 
 believes it ; he not only believes, but he knows it, that 
 all good things come from above. " Without thee, O 
 Varuwa! " the poet says, "I am not the master even 
 of a twinkling of the eye. Do not deliver us unto 
 death, though we have offended against thy command- 
 ment day by day. Accept our sacrifice, forgive our 
 offenses, let us speak together again, like old friends." 
 Here it is where the charm of these old hymns lies. 
 There is nothing in them as yet about a revelation to 
 be believed in, because it was handed down by sages 
 three fourths divine and one fourth human. They be- 
 lieve in one great revelation, and they require no one 
 to answer for its truth, and that revelation is that God 
 is wise, omnipotent, the Lord of heaven and earth ; 
 that he hears the prayers of men, and forgives their 
 offenses. Here is a short verse containing every one 
 of these primitive articles of faith (Rig-veda I. 25, 
 19):- 
 
 " Hear this my calling, O Varuna, and bless me 
 now ; I call upon thee, desirous of thy help. 
 
 " Thou, O wise God, art the king of all, of heaven 
 and earth, hear me on thy path." 
 
 Among a nation of this peculiar stamp the priests 
 were certain to acquire great influence at a very early 
 period, and, like most priests, they were as certain to 
 use it for their own advantage, and to the ruin of all 
 true religious feeling. It is the life-spring of all relig- 
 ion that man feels the immediate presence of God, and 
 draws near to God as a child to his father. But the
 
 CASTE. 325 
 
 priests maintained that no one should approach the 
 gods without their intercession, and that no sacrifices 
 should be offered without their advice. Most of the 
 Indo-European nations have resisted these claims, hut 
 in India the priests were successful, and in the Veda, 
 already, though only in some of the latest hymns, the 
 position of the priest, or the Purohita, is firmly estab- 
 lished. Thus we read (Rv. IV. 50, 8) : 
 
 " That king before whom marches the priest, he 
 alone dwells well-established in his own house ; to him 
 the earth yields at all times, to him the people bow by 
 themselves. 
 
 " The king who gives wealth to the priest that im- 
 plores his protection, he will conquer unopposed the 
 treasures, whether of his enemies or his friends ; him 
 the gods will protect." 
 
 This system of Purohiti, or priestly government, 
 had gained ground in India before the first collection 
 of the Vedic hymns was accomplished. These very 
 hymns were the chief strength on which the priests 
 relied, and they were handed down from father to son 
 as the most valuable heir-loom. A hymn by which the 
 gods had been invoked at the beginning of a battle, and 
 which had secured to the king a victory over his ene- 
 mies, was considered an unfailing spell, and it became 
 the sacred war-song of a whole tribe. Thus we read, 
 
 Rv. VII. 33, 3. "Did not Indra preserve Sudas 
 in the battle of the ten kings through your prayer, O 
 VasistoAas ? " 
 
 Rv. III. 53, 12. " This prayer of Visvamitra, of one 
 who has praised heaven and earth and Indra, preserves 
 the people of the Bharatas." 
 
 l J. Muir, On the Relations of the Priestt, p. 4.
 
 326 CASTE. 
 
 But the priests only were allowed to chant these 
 songs, they only were able to teach them, and they im- 
 pressed the people with a belief that the slightest mis- 
 take in the words, or the pronunciation of the words, 
 would rouse the anger of the gods. Thus they became 
 the masters of all religious ceremonies, the teachers of 
 the people, the ministers of kings. Their favor was 
 courted, their anger dreaded, by a pious but credulous 
 race. 
 
 The following hymn will show that at an early time 
 the priests of India had learned, not only to bless, but 
 also to curse (Rv. VI. 52) : 
 
 1. No, by heaven ! no, by earth I I do not approve 
 of this ; no, by the sacrifice ! no, by these rites ! May 
 the mighty mountains crush him ! May the priest of 
 Atiya^a perish ! 1 
 
 2. Whosoever, O Maruts, weans himself above us, 
 or scoffs at the prayer (" brahma ") which we have 
 made, may hot plagues come upon him, may the sky 
 burn up that hater of Brahmans ("brahma-dvish ") ! 
 
 3. Did they not call thee, Soma, the guardian of the 
 Brahman ? did they not say that thou didst shield us 
 against curses ? Why dost thou look on when we are 
 scoffed at ? Hurl against the hater of the Brahman 
 the fiery spear ! 
 
 4. May the coming dawns protect me, may the 
 swelling rivers protect me ! May the firm mountains 
 protect me ! May the Fathers protect me at the invo- 
 cation of the gods ! 
 
 5. May we always be happy, may we see the rising 
 
 l See J. Muir, On the Relations of the Priests, p. 33 ; and Wilson 
 Translation of the Rig-veda, vol. iii. p. 490.
 
 CASTE. 327 
 
 Bun ! May the Lord of the Vasus order it thus, he 
 who brings the gods, and is most ready with his 
 help ; 
 
 6. Indra who comes nearest with his help ; Sarasvati, 
 the swelling, with the rivers ; Pan/ariya who blesses us 
 with plants; the glorious Agni who, like a father, is 
 ready to hear when we call ; 
 
 7. All ye gods, come hither! hear this my prayer! 
 Sit down on this altar ! 
 
 8. To him, O gods, who honors you by an oblation 
 flowing with butter, to him ye come all. 
 
 9. May they who are the sons of the Immortal, hear 
 our prayers, may they be gracious to us ! 
 
 10. May all the righteous gods who hear our pray- 
 ers, receive at all seasons this acceptable milk ! 
 
 11. May Indra, -with the host of the Maruts, accept 
 our praise ; may Mitra with Tvashter, may Aryaman 
 receive these our oblations ! 
 
 12. O Agni, carry this our sacrifice wisely, looking 
 for the divine host. 
 
 13. All ye gods, hear this my call, ye who are in 
 the air, and in the sky, ye who have tongues of fire, 1 
 and are to be worshipped ; sit down on this altar and 
 rejoice ! 
 
 14. May all the holy gods hear, may Heaven and 
 Earth, and the Child of the waters (the Sun) hear my 
 prayer ! May I not speak words which you cannot 
 approve, may we rejoice in your favors, as your nearest 
 friends ! 
 
 15. May the great gods, who are as strong as the 
 enemy, who sprang from the earth, from heaven, and 
 
 i This means the gods who receive sacrifice offered on the fire of th 
 Itar.
 
 328 CASTE. 
 
 from the conflux of the waters, give us gifts according 
 to our desire, all our life, day and night ! 
 
 16. Agni and Par^anya, accept my prayer, and our 
 praise at this invocation, ye who are well invoked. One 
 made the earth, the other the seed : give to us here 
 wealth and progeny ! 
 
 17. When the grass is spread, when the fire is 
 kindled, I worship with a hymn with great veneration. 
 Rejoice to-day, ye adorable Visve Devas, in the obla- 
 tion offered at this our sacrifice ! 
 
 The priests never aspired to royal power. " A 
 Brahmin," they say, "is not fit for royalty." ($ata- 
 patha-brahmafta, V. 1, 1, 12). They left the insignia 
 of royalty to the military caste. But woe to the war- 
 rior who would not submit to their spiritual guidance, 
 or who would dare to perform his sacrifice without 
 waiting for his Samuel ! There were fierce and san- 
 guinary struggles between the priests and the nobility, 
 before the king consented to bow before the Brahmin. 
 In the Veda we still find kings composing their own 
 hymns to the gods, royal bards, Ra^arshis, who united 
 in their person the powers both of king and priest. 
 The family of Visvamitra has contributed its own col- 
 lection of hymns to the Rig-veda, but Visvamitra him- 
 self was of royal descent ; and if in later times he is 
 represented as admitted into the Brahmanic family of 
 the Bhrigus, a family famous for its sanctity as well 
 as its valor, this is but an excuse invented by the 
 Brahmans, in order to explain what would otherwise 
 have upset their own system. King (kanaka of Videha 
 is represented in some of the Brahmawas as more 
 learned than any of the Brahmans at his court. Yet ;
 
 CASTE. 329 
 
 when instructed by Ya^navalkya as to the real nature 
 of the soul and its identity with Brahma, or the divine 
 spirit, he exclaims, " I will give thee, O Venerable, 
 the kingdom of the Videhas, and my own self, to be- 
 come thy slave." 
 
 As the influence of the Brahmans extended, they 
 became more and more jealous of their privileges, and, 
 while fixing their own privileges, they endeavored at 
 the same time to circumscribe the duties of the war- 
 riors and the householders. Those of the Aryas who 
 would not submit to the laws of the three estates were 
 treated as outcasts, and they are chiefly known by the 
 name of " Vratyas," or tribes. They spoke the same 
 language as the three Aryan castes, but they did not 
 submit to Brahmanic discipline, and they had to per- 
 form certain penances if they wished to be readmitted 
 into the Aryan society. The aboriginal inhabitants 
 again, who conformed to the Brahmanic law, received 
 certain privileges, and were constituted as a fourth 
 caste, under the name of "/Sudras," whereas all the rest 
 who kept aloof were called " Dasyus," whatever their 
 language might be (Manu, X. 45). This Brahmanic 
 constitution, however, was not settled in a day, and we 
 tind everywhere in the hymns, in the Brahmawas, and 
 in the epic poems, the traces of a long continued war- 
 fare between the Aryas and the aboriginal inhabitants, 
 and violent contests between the two highest classes of 
 the Aryas striving for political supremacy. For a long 
 time the three upper classes continued to consider them- 
 selves as one race, all claiming the title of Arya, in 
 contradistinction from the fourth caste, or the Sudras 
 Tn the Brahmanas it is stated distinctly : Aryas are 
 only the Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas, for they
 
 880 CASTE. 
 
 are admitted to the sacrifices. They shall not speak 
 with everybody, for the gods did not speak with every- 
 body, but only with the Brahman, the Kshatriya, and 
 the Vaisya. If they should fall into a conversation 
 with a *Sudra, let them say to another man, " Tell this 
 iSudra so." In several passages of the Puranas, where 
 an account of the creation is given, we hear of hut one 
 original caste, which, by the difference of works, be- 
 came afterwards divided into three. Professor Wilson 
 says : 
 
 " The existence of but one caste in the age of purity, 
 however incompatible with the legend which ascribes 
 the origin of the four castes to Brahm&, is everywhere 
 admitted. Their separation is assigned to different 
 individuals, whether accurately to any one may be 
 doubted ; but the notion indicates that the distinction 
 was of a social or political character." 
 
 In some places the threefold division of caste is rep- 
 resented to have taken place in the TretS. age, and Mr. 
 Muir quotes a passage from the Bhagavatapurawa, 
 where it is said, 
 
 " There was formerly only one Veda, only one God, 
 one fire, and one caste. From Pururavas came the 
 triple Veda, in the beginning of the Treta age." 
 
 A similar idea is expressed in the account of the 
 creation given in the Brihad-&ranyaka-upanishad. It 
 is there stated that in the beginning there was but One, 
 which was Brahman ; that Brahman created the war- 
 like gods, such as Indra, Varuwa, Soma, Rudra, Par- 
 granya, Yama, Mrityu, and Isana. That after that, he 
 created the corporations of gods, the Vasus, Rudras, 
 Adityas, Visve Devas, and Maruts ; and at last he 
 created the earth, which supports all things. This
 
 CASTE. 331 
 
 creation of the gods is throughout treated as a prelude 
 to the creation of man. And as Brahman was the 
 first god, so the Brahman is the first man. As the 
 warlike gods came after, so after the Brahman comes 
 the Kshatriya. As the corporations of gods came 
 third, so the corporations of men, the Vaisyas, occupy 
 the third place, whereas the fourth order, the AS'udra 
 color, is represented as the earth or Pushan, this being 
 one of their ancient gods, who is called Pushan because 
 he nourishes all beings. Practical conclusions are at 
 once drawn from this passage. " Brahman," it is said, 
 "is the birthplace of the Kshatriya; therefore, although 
 the king obtains the highest dignity, he at last takes 
 refuge in Brahman as in his birthplace. Whosoever 
 despises him, destroys his own birthplace ; he is a very 
 great sinner, like a man who injures his superior." 
 
 Even the name of gods is claimed for the Brahmans 
 as early as the Brahmawa period. In the /Satapatha- 
 brahmana (II. 2, 2, 6), we read : " There are two kinds 
 of gods : first the gods, then those who are BrShmans, 
 and who have learnt the Veda and repeat it ; they are 
 human gods (' manushya-devaA '). And this sacrifice 
 is twofold : oblations for the gods, gifts for the human 
 gods, the Brahmans, who have learnt the Veda and re- 
 peat it. With oblations he appeases the gods, with 
 gifts the human gods, the Br&hmans, who have learnt 
 the Veda and repeat it. Both gods when they are 
 pleased, place him in bliss." 
 
 Nevertheless, the Brahman knew how to be humble 
 where it was necessary. " None is greater," he says, 
 " than the warrior, therefore the Brahman under the 
 warrior worships at the royal sacrifice." 
 
 After long and violent struggles between the Brh-
 
 832 CASTE. 
 
 mans and the Kshatriyas, the Brahmans carried the 
 day, and, if we may judge from the legends which they 
 themselves have preserved of these struggles, they 
 snded with the total destruction of most of the old 
 Kshatriya families and the admission of a few of them 
 to the privileges of the first caste. Parasurama is the 
 great hero of the Brahmans : 
 
 " He cleared the earth thrice seven times of the 
 Kshatriya caste, and filled with their blood the five 
 large lakes of Samanta, from which he offered libations 
 to the race of Bhrigu. Offering a solemn sacrifice to 
 the king of the gods, Parasurama presented the earth 
 to the ministering priests. Having given the earth to 
 Kasyapa, the hero of immeasurable prowess retired to 
 the Mahendra mountain, where he still resides ; and in 
 this manner was there enmity between him and the 
 race of the Kshatriyas, and thus was the whole earth 
 conquered by Parasurama." 
 
 The destruction of the Kshatriyas by Parasurama 
 had been provoked by the cruelty of the Kshatriyas. 
 We are told that there had been a king Kritavirya, by 
 whose liberality the Bhrigus, who officiated as his 
 priests, had been greatly enriched with corn and money. 
 After he had gone to heaven his descendants were in 
 want of money, and came to beg for a supply from the 
 Bhrigus, of whose wealth they were aware. Some of 
 the latter hid their money under ground, others be- 
 stowed it on Brahmans, being afraid of the Kshatriyas, 
 while others again gave these last what they wanted. 
 It happened, however, that a Kshatriya, while digging 
 the ground, discovered the money concealed in the 
 house of a Bhrigu. The Kshatriyas then assembled 
 and saw this treasure, and slew in consequence all the
 
 CASTE. 333 
 
 Bhrigus down to the children in the womb. One of 
 them concealed her unborn child. The Kshatriyas, 
 hearing of its existence, sought to kill it ; but it issued 
 forth with a lustre which blinded the persecutors. 
 They now humbly supplicated the mother of the child 
 for the restoration of their sight; but she referred them 
 to her wonderful infant, Aurva, into whom the whole 
 Vedas had entered, as the person who had robbed them 
 of their sight, and who alone could restore it. Aurva 
 did restore their sight, and, admonished by the spirits 
 of his ancestors, he abstained from taking vengeance 
 on the Kshatriyas; but vengeance was to come from 
 the Bhrigus upon the Kshatriyas. Parasurama, the 
 scourge of the Kshatriyas, was, through his father 
 (Sramadagni and his grandfather Jfi&ika, a descendant 
 of the Bhrigus, though, through his grandmother, the 
 daughter of Gadhi, the king of Kanyakub^a, he be- 
 longed to the royal race of the Kusikas. 
 
 This royal race of the Kusikas, which produced the 
 avenger of the Brahmans, the destroyer of all Ksha- 
 triyas, Parasurama, counts among its members another 
 equally remarkable person, Visvamitra. He was the 
 son of the same Gadhi whose daughter, Satyavati, be- 
 came the mother of 6ramadagni and the grandmother 
 of Parasurama. Though of royal extraction, Visvft- 
 mitra conquered for himself and his family the privi- 
 leges of a Brahman. He became a Brahman, and 
 thus broke through all the rules of caste. The Bral- 
 
 o 
 
 mans cannot deny the fact, because it forms one of the 
 ^rincipal subjects of their legendary poems. But they 
 have spared no pains to represent the exertions of Via- 
 vamitra, in his struggle for Brahmahood, as so super- 
 human that no one would easily be tempted to follow
 
 334 CASTE. 
 
 his example. No mention is made of these monstrous 
 penances in the Veda, where the struggle between 
 Visvamitra, the leader of the Kusikas or Bharatas, and 
 the Brahman Vasish^Aa, the leader of the white-robed 
 Tritsus, is represented as the. struggle of two rivals for 
 the place of Purohita, or chief priest and minister at 
 the court of king Sudas, the son of Pi^avana. In the 
 epic poems this story is frequently alluded to, and we 
 give the following extracts from Mr. Muir's book, as 
 likely to throw some light on the history of caste in 
 India : 
 
 " Saudasa was king of the race of Ikshvaku. Vis- 
 vamitra wished to be employed by him as his officiating 
 priest, but the king preferred Vasish^Aa. It happened, 
 however, that the king had gone out to hunt, and 
 meeting /Saktri, the eldest of VasishzAa's hundred sons, 
 on the road, he ordered him to get out of his way. 
 The priest civilly replied, ' The path is mine, O king ; 
 this is the immemorial law ; in all observances the king 
 must cede the way to the Brahman.' In later times 
 he would have quoted a less civil sentence from the 
 Brahma-vaivarta : ' He who does not immediately bow 
 down when he sees his tutor, or a Brahman, or the 
 image of a god, becomes a hog on earth.' The king 
 struck the priest with a whip ; the priest cursed the 
 king to become a cannibal. Visvamitra, who happened 
 to be near, took advantage of this fracas, prevented 
 the king from imploring the priest's mercy, and the 
 priest himself, the son of Vasish^Aa, fell .as the first vic- 
 tim of Saudasa' s cannibalism. The same fate befell all 
 the other sons of Vasish^Aa. VasishfAa, on hearing of 
 the destruction of his sons by Visvamitra, supported 
 his affliction as the great mountain sustains the earth
 
 CASTE. 335 
 
 He meditated his own destruction, and never thought 
 of exterminating the Kausikas. In spite of repeated 
 efforts, however, Vasishtfb. failed in depriving himself 
 of his life, and when returning to his hermitage he dis- 
 covered that the wife of his eldest son was pregnant, 
 and that there was hope of his lineage beinw continued. 
 
 * c* o 
 
 A son was born, and he was called Parasara. The 
 king Saudasa was going to swallow him also, when 
 Vasish^Aa interfered, exorcised the king, and delivered 
 him from the curse by which he had been affected for 
 twelve years. Vasish^Aa resumed his duties as priest, 
 and the king remained a patron of the Brahmans, but 
 he is always quoted as an instance of a Kshatriya, hos- 
 tile to the Brahmans, and punished for his hostility." 
 
 The most important point in the eyes of the later 
 Brahmans was how Visvamitra, being born a Ksha- 
 triya, could have become a Brahman, and it is for the 
 solution of this difficulty that they invented the most 
 absurd fables. The object of his ambition is said to 
 have been the cow of Vasish^Aa, a most wonderful 
 animal, and, though in the end he did not obtain that 
 cow, yet he obtained by penance, performed during 
 thousands of years, a share in the benefits of the 
 priesthood. Mr. Muir has carefully collected all the 
 passages from the Puranas and the epic poems, which 
 illustrate the contest for the milk-cow of the priest, and 
 the chief passages from the Ramayawa may be read in 
 Chevalier Gorresio's excellent Italian translation of 
 that epic poem. 
 
 Another difficulty for the later Brahmans was the 
 case of their own most famous legislator, Manu. Pie, 
 too, was by birth, a Ra^anya or Kshatriya, and his 
 father Vivasvat is called " ths seed of all the Ksha-
 
 836 CASTE. 
 
 triyas " (Madhusudana, Bhagavadgita, IV. 1). For a 
 Kshatriya to teach the law was a crime (" svadharm&~ 
 tikrama"), and it is only by a most artificial line of 
 argument that the dogmatic philosophers of the Mi- 
 mawsa school tried to explain this away. The Brah- 
 mans seem to have forgotten that, according to their own 
 Upanishads, A</atasatru, the king of Kasi, possessed 
 more knowledge than Gargya, the son of Balaka, 
 who was renowned as a reader of the Veda, 1 and that 
 Gargya desired to become his pupil, though it was not 
 right, as the king himself remarked, that a Kshatriya 
 should initiate a Brahman. They must have forgotten 
 that Pra vah ana 6raivali, king of the PanMlas, silenced 
 /SVetaketu Aruweya and his father, and then communi- 
 cated to them doctrines which Kshatriyas only, but no 
 Brahmans, had ever known before. 2 That king 6ra- 
 naka of Videha possessed superior knowledge is ac- 
 knowledged by one of the most learned among the 
 Brahmans, by Ya^navalkya himself; and in the ata- 
 patha-brahmawa, which is believed to have been the 
 work of Ya^navalkya, it is said that king 6ranaka be- 
 came a Brahman. 3 
 
 Whatever we may think of the historical value of 
 such traditions, one thing is quite clear, namely, that 
 the priests succeeded in establishing, after a time, a 
 lucrative supremacy, and that it was worth fighting for 
 to be admitted to their caste. When the supremacy 
 of the Brahmans was once firmly established, the rules 
 
 1 Kanshitaki brahmana-upanishad, cap. 4, ed. Cowell, p. 167. In the 
 Satapatlia-brahmana, XIV. 5, 1, nearly the same story is told of Dripta- 
 balaki Gargya. 
 
 2 AVjandogya-upanishad, V. 3, 7, translated by Dr. Roe'r, p. 85. In th 
 8atapatha-brahmana, XIV. 9, 1, read aivalL 
 
 * jSatapatha-brahmana, XI. 6, 2, 5.
 
 CASTE 337 
 
 about caste became stricter than ever, and the prohibi- 
 tion of marriage, not only between Aryas and Madras, 
 but between the different castes of Aryas, became 
 essential for the maintenance of those privileges for 
 which the Brahrnans and Kshatriyas had been fight- 
 ing their sanguinary battles. It is, indeed, only in 
 the very latest works of the Vedic period of litera- 
 ture that we meet with the first traces of that intoler- 
 ant spirit of caste which pervades the " Laws of 
 Manu." But that the oppressiveness of the system 
 and the arrogant tyranny of the Brahmans were felt 
 by the people at an earlier period we may guess from 
 that reaction which called forth the opposite system of 
 Buddha, and led to the adoption of Buddhism as the 
 state religion of India in the third century B. c. Buddha 
 himself was a Kshatriya, a royal prince, like (kanaka, 
 like Visvamitra, and the secret of his success lies in 
 his disregard of the privileges of the priestly caste. 
 He addressed himself to all classes ; nay, he addressed 
 himself to the poor and the degraded rather than to 
 the rich and the high. He did not wish to abolish 
 caste as a social institution, and there is no trace of 
 social leveling or democratic communism in any of his 
 sermons. His only attacks were leveled against the 
 exclusive privileges claimed by the Brahmans, and 
 against their cruel treatment of the lowest castes. He 
 
 O 
 
 was met by the Brahmans with the same arguments 
 with which they had met former reformers : " How 
 can a Kshatriya take upon himself the office of a 
 priest? He breaks the most sacred law by attempting 
 to interfere in religious matters." Buddha, however, 
 having no views of personal aggrandizement like Vis- 
 vamitra, and abstaining from all offensive warfare, sim- 
 
 VOL. it. 22
 
 338 CASTE. 
 
 ply went on preaching and teaching, that " all that ia 
 born must die, that virtue is better than vice, that pas- 
 sions must be subdued, till a man is ready to give up 
 everything, even his own self." These doctrines would 
 hardly have possessed so great a charm in the eyes of 
 the people if they had not been preached by a man of 
 royal extraction, who had given up his exalted position 
 and mixed with the lowest classes as his friends and 
 equals. 
 
 " As the four rivers which fall in the Ganges lose 
 their names as soon as they mingle their waters with 
 the holy river, so all who believe in Buddha cease to 
 be Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and /S'udras." 
 
 This was the teaching of Buddha. Or again, 
 
 " Between a Brahman and a man of another caste 
 there is not the same difference as between gold and a 
 stone, or between light and darkness. The Brahman 
 is born of a woman, so is the .ffandala. If the Brah- 
 man is dead, he is left as a thing impure, like the other 
 castes. Where is the difference ? " " If the Brah- 
 mans were above the law, if for them there were no 
 unhappy consequences of sins committed, then, indeed, 
 they might be proud of their caste." " My law is a 
 law of grace for all." " My doctrine is like the sky. 
 There is room for all without exception men, wo- 
 men, boys, girls, poor, and rich." 
 
 Such a doctrine, preached in a country enthralled 
 under the rules of caste, was sure to conquer. At tho 
 bidding of Buddha the evil spirit of caste seems to 
 have vanished. Thieves and robbers, beggars and 
 cripples, slaves and prostitutes, bankrupts and sweep- 
 ers gathered around him. But kings also carne to 
 confess their sins and to perform public penance, and
 
 CASTE. 389 
 
 the most learned among the Brahmans confessed their 
 ignorance before Buddha. Hindu society was changed. 
 The dynasties which reigned in the chief cities of In- 
 dia were /S'udras. The language used in their edicts 
 is no longer Sanskrit, but the vulgar dialects. The 
 Brahmanic sacrifices were abolished, and buildings rose 
 over the whole of India, sacred through the relics of 
 Buddha which they contained, and surrounded by 
 monasteries open to all ranks, to Brahmans and /S'udras, 
 to men and women. How long this state of things 
 lasted it is difficult to say. Towards the end of the 
 fourth century, when Fahian, the Chinese pilgrim, trav- 
 elled through India, a Brahmanic reaction had already 
 commenced in some parts of the country. At the 
 time of Hiouen-thsang, in the middle of the seventh 
 century, Buddhism was losing ground rapidly, and 
 some of its most sacred places were in ruins. The 
 Brahmans had already gained back much of their 
 former influence, and they soon grew strong enough to 
 exterminate forever the heresy of Buddha on the soil 
 of India, and to reestablish orthodoxy under /Sankara- 
 A&arya. There are at present no Buddhists left in 
 India ; they have migrated to Ceylon in the South, to 
 Nepal, Thibet, and China in the North. After the vic- 
 torious return of the Brahmans the old laws of caste 
 were reenacted more vigorously than ever, and the 
 Brahmans became again what they had been before the 
 rise of Buddhism the terrestrial gods of India. A 
 change, however, had come over the system of caste. 
 Though the laws of Manu still spoke of four castes, of 
 Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Suclras, the social 
 confusion during the long reign of Buddhism had left 
 but one broad distinction ; on the one side the pure
 
 340 CASTE. 
 
 caste : the Brahman ; on the other, the mixed and 
 impure castes of the people. In many places the 
 pure castes of the Kshatriyas and Vaisyas had become 
 extinct, and those who could not prove their Brah- 
 manic descent were all classed together as $udras. 
 At present we should look in vain for pure Kshatriyas 
 and Vaisyas in India, and the families which still claim 
 those titles would find it difficult to produce their pedi- 
 gree. Nay there are few who could even lay claim to 
 the pure blood of the /Sudra. Low as the Sudra stood 
 in the system of Manu, he stood higher than most of 
 the mixed castes, the Varnasankaras. The son of a 
 $udra by a /S'iidra woman is purer than the son of a 
 $iidra by a woman of the highest caste (Manu, X. 30). 
 Manu calls the ^Candala one of the lowest outcasts, 
 because he is the son of a $udra father and a Brah- 
 manic mother. He evidently considered the misalli- 
 ance of a woman more degrading than that of a man. 
 For the son of a Brahman father and a /S'udra mother 
 may in the seventh generation raise his family to the 
 highest caste (Manu, X. 64) ; while the son of a $udra 
 father and a Brahman mother belongs forever to the 
 .ffandalas. The abode of the jfiTandalas must be out 
 of the town, and no respectable man is to hold inter- 
 course with them. By day they must walk about dis- 
 tinguished by badges ; by night they are driven out of 
 the city. 
 
 Manu represents, indeed, all the castes of Hindu so- 
 ciety, and their number is considerable, as the result 
 of mixed marriages between the four original castes. 
 According to him, the four primitive castes, by inter- 
 marrying iu every possible way, gave rise to sixteen 
 mixed castes, which by continuing their intermarriages
 
 CASTE. 341 
 
 produced the long list of the mixed castes. It is ex- 
 tremely doubtful, however, whether Maim meant to 
 say that at all times the offspring of a mixed marriage 
 had to enter a lower caste. He could not possibly 
 maintain that the son of a Brahman father and a 
 Vaisya mother would always be a physician or a 
 Vaidya, this being the name given by Manu to the off- 
 spring of these two castes. At present the offspring 
 of a /Sfidra father and a Brahman mother would find 
 no admission in any respectable caste. Their mar- 
 riage would not be considered marriage at all. The 
 only rational explanation of Manu's words seems to be 
 that originally the caste of the Vaidyas or physicians 
 sprang from the union of a Brahman father and a Vaisya 
 mother, though this, too, is of course nothing but a 
 fanciful theory. If we look more carefully, we fhall 
 find that most of these mixed castes are in reality the 
 professions, trades, and guilds of a half-civilized society. 
 They did not wait for mixed marriages before they 
 came into existence. Professions, trades, and handi- 
 crafts had grown up without any reference to caste in 
 the ethnological or political sense of the word. Some 
 of their names were derived from towns and countries 
 where certain professions were held in particular esti- 
 mation. Servants who waited on ladies were called 
 " Vaidehas," because they came from Videha, the 
 Athens of India, just as the French called the " por- 
 teur d'eau" a " Savoyard." To maintain that every 
 member of the caste of the Vaidehas, in fact, every 
 lady's maid, had to be begotten through the marriage 
 of a Vaisya and a Brahmam, is simply absurd. In 
 other cases the names of Manu's castes were derived 
 from their occupations. The caste of musicians, for
 
 342 CASTE. 
 
 instance, were called "Verais," from " viwa," the 
 lyre. Now, it was evidently Manu's object to bring 
 these professional corporations in connection with the 
 old system of the castes, assigning to each, according 
 to ?ts higher or lower position, a more or less pure de- 
 scent from the original castes. The Vaidyas, for in- 
 stance, or the physicians, evidently a respectable cor- 
 poration, were represented as the offspring of a Brah- 
 man father and a Vaisya mother, while the guild of 
 the fishermen, or Nishadas, were put down as the de- 
 scendants of a Brahman father and a /Sudra mother. 
 Manu could hardly mean to say that every son of a 
 Vaisya father and Kshatriya mother was obliged to be- 
 come a commercial traveller, or to enter the caste of 
 the Magadhas. How could that caste have been sup- 
 plied after the extinction in many places of the Ksha- 
 triya and Vaisya castes ? But, having to assign to the 
 Magadhas a certain social position, Manu recognized 
 them as the descendants of the second and third castes, 
 in the same manner as the Herald office would settle 
 the number of quarters of an earl or a baron. 
 
 Thus, after the political caste had become nearly ex- 
 tinct in India, leaving nothing behind but the broad 
 distinction between the Brahmans and mixed castes, a 
 new system of caste came in of a purely professional 
 character, though artificially grafted on the rotten 
 trunk of the ancient political castes. This is the system 
 which is still in force in India, and which has exercised 
 its influence on the state of Indian society for good and 
 evil. During periods of history when public opinion is 
 weak, and when the administration of justice is pre- 
 carious, institutions analogous to these Indian castes 
 must necessarily spring into existence. Men who have
 
 CASTE. 343 
 
 the same interests, the same occupations, the same 
 principles, unite in self-defense, and after acquiring 
 power and influence they not only defend their rights, 
 but claim important privileges. They naturally impose 
 upon their members certain rules which are considered 
 essential to the interest of their caste or company. 
 These rules, sometimes of apparently the most trifling 
 character, are observed by individual members with 
 greater anxiety than even the laws of religion, because 
 an offense against the latter may be pardoned, while a 
 disregard of the former would lead to instant exclusion 
 or loss of caste. Many a Hindu carrier would admit 
 that there was no harm in his fetching water for his 
 master. But he belongs to a caste of carriers who 
 have bound themselves not to fetch water, and it would 
 be dishonorable if he, for his own personal convenience, 
 were to break that rule. Besides it would interfere 
 with the privileges of another caste, the water-carriers. 
 There is an understanding in most parts of India that 
 certain trades should be carried on by certain castes, 
 and the people no doubt have the same means of pun- 
 ishing interlopers as the guilds had during the Middle 
 Ages. The more lucrative the trade, the more jeal- 
 ously it was guarded, and there was evidently no trade 
 in India so lucrative as that of the priests. The priests 
 were therefore the strongest advocates of the system of 
 caste, and after investing it with a sacred character in 
 the eyes of the people, they expanded it into an im- 
 mense spider's web, which separated class from class., 
 family from family, man from man, and which, while 
 it rendered all united public action impossible, enabled 
 the watchful priests to pounce upon all who dared to 
 disturb the threads of their social tissue, and to wither
 
 844 CASTE. 
 
 them to death. But although much harm was ctone by 
 allowing the priests to gain too great an influence, 
 much good also was achieved by the system of caste 
 with regard to public morality. A man knew that he 
 might lose caste for offenses of which the law would 
 take no cognizance. Immorality and drunkenness 
 might be punished by degradation or loss of caste. In 
 fact, if caste could be divested of that religious charac- 
 ter which the priests for their own advantage suc- 
 ceeded in fastening upon it, thereby giving an un- 
 natural permanence and sanctity to what ought to be, 
 like all social institutions, capable of change and growth, 
 it would probably be found that the system of caste was 
 well adapted to that state of society and that form of 
 government which has hitherto existed in India ; and 
 that if it w r ere suddenly destroyed, more harm than 
 good would follow from such a change. 
 
 The great objections against the system of castes as 
 it exists at present, are, that it prevents people from 
 dining witli whom they please, from marrying whom 
 they please, and from following what profession they 
 please. The mere prohibition of dining together is no 
 very serious inconvenience, particularly in Eastern 
 countries ; and people belonging to different castes, and 
 abstaining from mutual hospitality, may entertain, 
 nevertheless, the most friendly relations. Dining to- 
 gether among oriental nations has a different meaning 
 from what it has with us. It is more than our social 
 feeding together. It is dining en famille. No one 
 invites, and no one wishes to be invited. At all events 
 there is something mutual in caste. It is not that the 
 rich may visit the poor, but that the poor must not 
 visit the rich. It is not that the Brahman may invite
 
 CASTE. 345 
 
 the Sudra to dinner, but must not be tnvite.l in turn. 
 No one in India is ashamed of his caste, and the lowest 
 Pariah is as proud and as anxious to preserve his own 
 caste as the highest Brahman. The Turas, a class of 
 /Sttdras, consider their houses defiled, and throw away 
 their cooking utensils, if a Brahman visit them. 
 Another class of >Sudras throw away their cooking 
 vessels if a Brahman comes upon their boat. Invite 
 one of the lowest orders of /Sfidras to a feast with a 
 European of the highest rank, and he turns away his 
 face with the most marked disgust. 
 
 O 
 
 The prohibition of certain marriages, again, is less 
 keenly felt in an Eastern country than it would be 
 among ourselves. Nor is the prohibition of marriages 
 the result of caste alone. People belonging to the same 
 caste are prohibited from marrying on account of their 
 pedigree. Kulins, /Srotriyas, and Vamsa^as, though all 
 of them Brahrnans, will freely dine together, though 
 they have scruples about allowing their children to 
 marry. The six divisions of the caste of the Tatis, or 
 weavers, will neither visit nor intermarry with each 
 other. These are social prejudices which exist in half- 
 civilized countries, and which even in Europe are not 
 quite extinct. Nay, it is doubtful whether an absolute 
 prohibition of certain marriages is more cruel than a 
 partial prohibition. It is certainly a curious fact, 
 which psychologists have still to explain, that people 
 very seldom fall in love when marriage is absolutely 
 impossible. Now, there never has been, and there 
 never will be, any state of society without the distinc- 
 tions of birth, position, education, and wealth ; and, in 
 order to keep up these distinctions, marriages between 
 high and low, educated and uneducated, rich and poor
 
 846 CASTE. 
 
 people, must to a certain extent be discouraged and 
 prohibited. In England, where women occupy so dif- 
 ferent a position in society from what they do in the 
 East, where they are conscious of their own worth and 
 of their own responsibility, exceptions will no doubt 
 occur. A young lord may imagine that a poor govern- 
 ess is more beautiful, more charming, more ladylike, 
 more likely to make him truly happy than any rich 
 heiress that happens to be in the market ; the daughter 
 of an earl may imagine that the young curate of the vil- 
 lage is more manly, more cultivated, more of a gentle- 
 man, than any of the young scions of the nobility ; yet 
 such is the power of society, such is the hidden in- 
 fluence of caste, that these marriages are violently op- 
 posed by fathers and mothers, by uncles and aunts. In 
 countries where such marriages are altogether impos- 
 sible, much shedding of tears and breaking of hearts 
 are avoided, and the hardship in reality is not greater 
 than what every commoner in England endures in ab- 
 staining from falling in love with the most charming of 
 the princesses of the Royal Family. 
 
 As to the choice of a profession being circumscribed 
 by caste, it may seem to be a great grievance. We 
 read but lately in a very able article on caste in the 
 " Calcutta Review : " 
 
 " The systems by which a person's studies and pro- 
 fession are made dependent on his birth can never be 
 sufficiently execrated. The human mind is free, it 
 will not submit to restraints ; it will not succumb to the 
 regulations of freakish legislators. The Brahman or 
 the Kshatriya may have a son whose mind is ill adapted 
 to his hereditary profession ; the Vaisya may have a 
 son with a natural dislike for a counting-house, and the
 
 CASTE. 34T 
 
 fS'udra may have talents superior to his birth. If they 
 be forced to adhere to their hereditary professions their 
 minds must deteriorate." 
 
 Now, this is language applicable to England in the 
 nineteenth century, but hardly to India. Where there 
 is a well organized system of public education, a boy 
 may choose what profession he likes. But where this 
 is not the case, the father most likely will be the be&t 
 teacher of his son. Even in England the public ser- 
 vice has but very lately been thrown open to all classes, 
 and we heard it stated by one of the most eminent men 
 that the Indian Civil Service would no longer be fit for 
 the sons of gentlemen. Why ? Because one of the 
 elected candidates was the son of a missionary. The 
 system of caste, no doubt, has its disadvantages, but 
 many of them are inherent in human society, and are 
 felt in England as well as in India. 
 
 There may seem to be an essential distinction be- 
 tween raste in India and caste in Europe, the one be- 
 ing invested with a sacred character and supposed to be 
 unchangeable, the other being based merely on tradi- 
 tional prejudices and amenable to the pressure of pub- 
 lic opinion. But that sacred character of caste is a 
 mere imposition of the priests, and could be removed 
 without removing at the same time those necessary 
 social distinctions which are embodied in India in the 
 system of caste. In a country governed, if not polit- 
 ically, at least intellectually, by priests, the constant ap- 
 peal to divine right, divine grace, divine institutions, 
 loses much of its real meaning. Though the Brali- 
 mans may appeal to the " Laws of Manu," these Laws 
 of Manu, like the Canon Law of the Church of Rome, 
 are not unchangeable. The Brahmans themselves vio-
 
 848 CASTE. 
 
 late these laws daily. They accept gifts from 
 though Manu .declares that a Brahman shall not accept 
 gifts from a /S'udra. They will bow before a rich 
 banker, however low his caste, and they will sit on the 
 same carpet and at the feet of a >S r udra, though Manu 
 declares (VIII. 281), " A man of the lowest class 
 anxious to place himself on the same seat with one of 
 the highest, is to be banished with a mark branded on 
 his back," etc. In fact, however unchangeable the 
 laws of caste may seem in the eyes of the Brahmans, 
 they have only to open their eyes, to read their ancient 
 works, and to look at the society around them, in order 
 to convince themselves that caste is not proof against 
 the changes of time. The president of the Dharma- 
 sabha at Calcutta is a $udra, while the secretary is a 
 Brahman. Three fourths of the Brahmans in Bengal 
 are the servants of others. Many traffic in spirituous 
 liquors, some procure beef for the butchers, and wear 
 shoes made of cow leather. Some of the Brahmans 
 themselves are honest enough to admit that the Laws 
 of Manu were intended for a different age, for the 
 mythical Satyayuga, while the Laws of the Kaliyuga 
 were written by Parasara. In places like Calcutta and 
 Bombay the contact with English society exercises a 
 constant attrition on the system of castes, and produces 
 silently and imperceptibly a greater effect than can 
 ever be produced by violent declamation against the 
 iniquity of caste. As soon as the female population of 
 India can be raised from their present degradation ; as 
 soon as a better education and a purer religion will 
 have inspired the women of India with feelings of 
 moral responsibility and self-respect ; as soon as they 
 have learned what Christianity alone can teach
 
 CASTE. 849 
 
 that in the true love of a woman there is something far 
 above the law of caste or the curses of priests, their 
 influence will be the most powerful, on the one side, to 
 break through the artificial forms of caste, and on the 
 other, to maintain in India, as elsewhere, the true caste 
 of rank, manners, intellect, and character. 
 
 With many of the present missionaries, the abolition 
 of caste has become a fixed idea. Some of the early 
 Roman Catholic missionaries, no doubt, went too far in 
 their toleration of caste, but some of the most efficient 
 Protestant missionaries, men of the school of Schwarz, 
 have never joined in the indiscriminate condemnation 
 of caste, and have allowed their Christian converts to 
 keep up, under the name of caste, those social dis- 
 tinctions which in European countries are maintained 
 by public opinion, by the good feeling and the self-re- 
 spect of the lower classes, and, where necessary, by 
 the power of the law. As regards the private life of 
 the natives, their match-making, their hospitality, their 
 etiquette, and their rules of precedence, it would be 
 unwise for missionaries as well as for the Government 
 to attempt any sudden interference. What would peo- 
 ple say in England if Parliament, after admitting the 
 Jews, were to insist on Mr. Newdegate shaking hands 
 with Baron Rothschild, or asking the Jewish members 
 to his dinner parties? How would the fashionable 
 occupants of our church pews in their crisp muslin 
 dresses like it if the bishops were to require that they 
 should sit side by side with men in oily fustian jackets? 
 How would our bankers and Quakers bear any inter- 
 ference with their system of marrying, if possible, 
 within their own families ? 
 
 There are, however, certain points where the Gov-
 
 350 CASTE. 
 
 eminent will have to interfere with caste, and where 
 it may do so without violating any pledge and without 
 rousing any serious opposition. If any of its Indian 
 subjects are treated with indignity on account of their 
 caste, the law will have to give them protection. In 
 former times a Pariah was obliged to carry a bell 
 the very name of Pariah is derived from that bell in 
 order to give warning to the Brahmans, who might be 
 polluted by the shadow of an outcast. In Malabar, a 
 Nayadi defiles a Brahman at a distance of seventy- 
 four paces; and a Nayer, though himself a /S'udra, 
 would shoot one of these degraded races if they ap- 
 proached too near. Here the duty of the Government 
 is clear. 
 
 Secondly, no attention should be paid to caste in any 
 contract which the Government makes with the na- 
 tives. Where natives are to be employed, whether in 
 the civil or military service, no concession should be 
 made to the punctilio of caste. Soldiers must not only 
 fight together, but they must live and mess together. 
 Those who have any conscientious objections must 
 stay away. 
 
 Thirdly, caste must be ignored in all public institu- 
 tions, such as schools, hospitals, and prisons. Railway 
 companies cannot provide separate carriages for each 
 of the fifty castes that may wish to travel by them- 
 selves, nor can Government provide separate forms, or 
 wards, or cells for Brahmans and udras. Firmness 
 on the part of the Government is all that is required. 
 At Madras a few Pariah boys were admitted at the 
 High-school. The other boys rebelled, and forty left 
 the school. After a time, however, twenty returned, 
 and the spell was broken.
 
 CASTE. 35 J 
 
 The missionaries are not obliged to act with the 
 same rigor. Their relation to the natives, and parti- 
 cularly to their converts, is a private relation, and 
 much of their success will depend on their discretion 
 in dealing with native prejudices. A Hindu who em- 
 braces Christianity loses caste, and is cut off from 
 all his friends. But if he was brought up as a gentle- 
 man, it is not fair that, as a Christian, he should be 
 forced to mix with other converts, his inferiors in birth, 
 education, and manners. Much offense has been given 
 by the missionaries by maintaining that no one can be 
 a true convert who refuses to eat and drink with his 
 fellow-converts. " The kingdom of God is not meat 
 and drink." The social position of the converts in 
 India will be for a long time a stumbling-block. Na- 
 tive converts are not admitted to English caste, and it 
 is the dread of this isolated position which acts most 
 powerfully against conversion. The Mohammedans 
 admit Hindu converts into their own society, and treat 
 every Mussulman on terms of equality. Christian so- 
 ciety in India is hardly able to do this, and it is a ques- 
 tion whether even the purest religion will be able to 
 overcome that deep-rooted feeling of caste which di- 
 vided the Arya from the Dasyu, and which still divides 
 the white European from the dark Asiatic. Measures 
 must be adopted to give to the Hindus who accept 
 Christianity something in place of the caste which they 
 lose. In a certain sense no man ought to be without 
 caste, without friends who take care of him, without 
 companions who watch him, without associates whose 
 good opinion he values, without companions with whom 
 he can work for a common cause. The healthy life of 
 a political body can only be supported by means of a*
 
 352 CASTE. 
 
 sociations, circles, leagues, guilds, clans, clubs, or par- 
 ties ; and in a country where caste takes the place of 
 all this, the abolition of caste would be tantamount to 
 a complete social disorganization. Those who know 
 the Hindus best are the least anxious to see them with- 
 out caste. Colonel Sleeman remarks : 
 
 " What chiefly prevents the spread of Christianity 
 is the dread of exclusion from caste and all its privi- 
 leges, and the utter hopelessness of their ever finding 
 any respectable circle of society of the adopted relig- 
 ion, which converts, or would be converts, to Chris- 
 tianity now everywhere feel. Form such circles for 
 them ; make the members of these circles excel in the 
 exertion of honest and independent industry. Let 
 those who rise to eminence in them feel that they are 
 considered as respectable and important in the social 
 system as the servants of Government, and converts 
 will flock around you from all parts and from all classes 
 of the Hindu community. I have, since I have been 
 in India, had, I may say, at least a score of Hindu 
 grass-cutters turn Mussulmans, merely because the 
 grooms and the other grass-cutters of my establish- 
 ment happened to be of that religion, and they could 
 neither eat, drink, nor smoke with them. Thousands 
 of Hindus, all over India, become every year Mus- 
 sulmans from the same motive, and we do not get 
 the same number of converts to Christianity, merely 
 because we cannot offer them the same advantages. I 
 am persuaded that a dozen such establishments as that 
 of Mr. Thomas Ashton, of Hyde, as described by a 
 physician of Manchester, and noticed in Mr. Baines' 
 admirable work on the cotton manufactures of Great 
 Britain (page 447), would do more in the way of con-
 
 CASTE. 353 
 
 version among the people of India than has ever yet 
 been done by all the religious establishments, or ever 
 will be done by them, without some such aid." 
 
 Caste, which has hitherto proved an impediment to 
 the conversion of the Hindus, may in future become 
 one of the most powerful engines for the conversion 
 not merely of individuals, but of whole classes of In- 
 dian society. Caste cannot be abolished in India, and 
 to attempt it would be one of the most hazardous opera- 
 tions that was ever performed on a living political 
 body. As a religious institution caste will die ; as a 
 social institution it will live and improve. Let the 
 /Sudras, or, as they are called in Tamil, the Petta 
 Pittei, the children of the house, grow into free labor- 
 ers, the Vaisyas into wealthy merchants, the Kshatriyas 
 into powerful barons, and let the Brahmans aspire to 
 the position of that intellectual aristocracy which is the 
 only true aristocracy in truly civilized countries, and 
 the four castes of the Veda will not be out of date in 
 the nineteenth century, nor out of place in a Christian 
 country. But all this must be the work of time. 
 * The teeth," as a native writer, says, " fall off them- 
 selves in old age, but it is painful to extract them in 
 youth." 
 
 April, 1858. 
 
 VOL. n. *
 
 INDEX. 
 
 The numerals 1. and ii. refer to the volumes ; the figures to the pagM 
 Pr. = Preface. 
 
 ABA 
 
 ABACUS, ii. 285, 286, 288, 289, 
 290, 291; Mensa Pythagorea 
 called , 285 ; Pythagorean , 
 286 ; suppressed by the Arabs, 289, 
 291. 
 
 Abel, servant, i. 353. 
 
 Abd-allah, servant of God, i. 353. 
 
 Abhidharma, by-law, i. 193,223, 280, 
 281 n. 1 ; metaphysics of the 
 Buddhists, 22, 280;"compiled by 
 Ka-syapa, 280; propounded by 
 Buddha, when he was fifty-one 
 years old, 281 n. 1. 
 
 Abipones in South America, Cou- 
 vade, among the , ii. 278. 
 
 Abraham, Abram, Pr. xi., xii., 
 xxviii.; i. 45, 59, 148, 149, 150, 
 156, 157, 343, 363-70, 372; tempta- 
 tion of, 59 ; faith of, 365, 367; 
 friend of God, 367; God of, 
 368. 
 
 Absolute, i. 248, 259 ; forms of the 
 , 249. 
 
 A-buddha, not enlightened, i. 228. 
 
 Abu .lafar Mohammed Ben Musa 
 Alkharizmi, ii. 285, 294; trans- 
 lator of the Siddhanta of Brahma- 
 gupta, 289; this translation, the 
 " Great Sindhind," translated 
 again into Latin, 285. 
 
 Abulfara.9, old Arabic prayer men- 
 tioned by , i. 372. 
 
 Acacia Suma, or /Sami, ii. 201. 
 
 Achaemenian, i. 79, 85, 86, 89, 95, 
 119, 161, 260; dynasty, 260; 
 inscriptions, 89, 119, 260; lan- 
 guage of the , 79, 85. 
 
 Acheroo ii. 70 n. 2. 
 
 S3 
 
 Achilles, ii. 106, 107. 
 Acosta, i. 318; Historia natural 3 
 
 moral. Historia del Nuevc 
 
 Orbe, ii. 112 n. 1. 
 Adam. i. 150. 151, 347. 354; ii. 253) 
 
 identified with Yima, i. 150. 
 
 son of God, i. 347. 
 
 Addik (American reindeer), clan of 
 
 the, i. 313. 
 Adelard of Bath, ii. 291. 
 
 aeX/io;, aeX^ij, ii. 23. 
 
 Adelung's Mithridates, i. 21. 
 
 Adeps, d in , ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 Ader Berzin, well acquainted with 
 
 the ancient poems of the Persians, 
 
 i. 95. 
 Adhvaryus (assistants) = Rathwis- 
 
 kare, i. 105. 
 Aditi, the sun called face of , ii. 
 
 85. 
 Aditya, i. 44, 47; ii. 131, 330. 
 
 ttie sun, ii. 131 ; class of gods, i. 
 47; ii. 330: created by Brah- 
 man, ii. 330. 
 
 Adjetatig of Wabojeeg, i. 313. 
 Adonia (Lord), Deity m Phenicia, i. 
 
 360 
 
 Adrammelech, worshippers of. 341. 
 sedes, temple, and house, i. 237. 
 (ic'Xioi, iii. 29, 31. 
 /Kuliuns. Greek traditions about th 
 
 , i. 327. 
 JEoVic, ii. 51. 
 tequor, ii. 47, 79. 
 
 aepo-o, ii. 87 n. 1. 
 
 tea, seris, ii. 45. 
 
 ASshma daeva, the Zend spirit of 
 concupiscence (Asmodeus), i. 145
 
 356 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 JES 
 ^Esir, might of Odin and the. ii. 234, 
 
 238. 
 
 Ji>op, ii. 230. 
 
 Aethlios, king of Elis, ii. 78. 
 Aetius, ii. 110. 
 
 Africa, East roast of, i. 51 ; ii. 208. 
 South Africa, beast fables, Rfi_v- 
 nard the Fox in , 210 n. 1, 267. 
 Couvade in Africa, 279; Devil 
 painted white in , 281. 
 African, ii. 83, 208,215. Betshuana, 
 an dialect. 83. 
 
 niya, she-goat, ii. 42. 
 
 A^atasatru, murderer of his father, 
 the king of Magadha, i. 213; 
 king of Kasi, ii. 336. 
 
 Agathon, ii. 14. 
 
 Age, four ages of the world of the 
 Parsis, Brahmans, i. 149, 150, 151. 
 
 in Genesis, they never assumed 
 the form of a theory, i. 150; the 
 Greeks believed really in five, and 
 not in four, i. 151 ; Satyayuga, 
 mythical age, ii. 354; Treta age, 
 fi. 380. 
 
 ager, ii. 43. 
 
 AgeMlaos, Leader of the people, i. 
 259. 
 
 Aftlaophamus, by Lobeck, ii. 14 n. 4. 
 
 Agni. fire, i. 27^ 28, 33, 34, 37, 68, 
 235, 238, 354, 362, 372; ii. 35 n. 
 1; 101, 131,133-136,174-176,333, 
 834; hymn to , i. 33, 34; horses 
 
 n of ii. 133. 
 
 Agnidhra, i. 106. 
 
 Agniminrlha, i. 106. 
 
 agouti teeth, ii. 277. 
 
 #ra, field, ager, ii. 43. 
 
 Agrippa, Menenius, "the dispute be- 
 tween the belly and the other 
 members of the bodv" told by . 
 ii. 231. 
 
 ayoos, ii 43. 
 
 ah, root , i. 156. 
 
 ahan, day, ii. 89, 135. 
 
 Alinna, name for dawn, !. 235; ii. 
 90. 
 
 A barman, i. 136. 
 
 aheneus (ahes), ii. 45. 
 
 ahi, serpent, i. 99; ii. 42, 167. 
 
 ahmi (Zend), I am, i. 124; ii. 18. 
 
 Alirens, Dial. Gneo. ii. P3 n. 1. De 
 Dialecto Dorica, ii. 128, 165 n. 1. 
 171 n. 1. 
 
 Ahritian, the evil power, i. 150. 151, 
 152, 170; ii. 167. 
 
 ALQ 
 
 Ahriman i. e. ahgro mainyus, i. 152 
 
 Azhi dahaka, offspring of , ii. 
 167. 
 
 ahu, lord, i. 156. 
 
 Ahura, '. e. living, i. 124; creator of 
 
 the world, i. 152; means lord as 
 
 well as aliu, i. 156. 
 Ahura mazda, i. 24, 124, 138. 
 
 the supreme deity of Zoroaster, i. 
 24,25. 
 
 communication of to Zoroaster, 
 i. 124. 
 
 Ait/a, the son of Wa, ii, 101. 
 
 AiSr/s, ii. 182. 
 
 aighe (Irish), ii. 42. 
 
 ain-lif, ii. 51. 
 
 Ainos, The or Hairy Men (A. S. 
 
 Bickmore), ii. 277 n. 1. 
 ains, ii. 51. 
 airgiod, ii. 45. 
 Airvana vaeya (the seed of the Ar^ 
 
 yan), i. 146, 147, 157. 
 ais, ii. 45. 
 Aisvarikas, followers of Buddha, i 
 
 230. 
 
 Aitareya-Brahmana, i. 101-113. 
 *;$, ii. 42. 
 
 Ajdahak, serpent, ii. 168. 
 11x017, ii. 70. 
 Akrisios, ii. 165. 
 akr-s, ii. 43. 
 
 Akudunnia, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Albiruni, ii. 292. 
 aX/>a, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Alexander the Great, i. 14, 62, 66. 
 
 80, 88, 171, 233, 289; ii. 37 n. 1. 
 
 conquest and invasion of India, i. 
 80. 233, 289. 
 
 Zoroastrian books destroyed by 
 , i. 88, 171. 
 
 Alexandria, Pr. xxix.; i. 132, 149. 
 230 n. 2, 294, 345; ii. 286, 290. 
 
 contact between Jews and Greeks 
 at, i. 132; the Old Testament and 
 the Avesta at the same time trans- 
 lated into Greek at , i. 149. 
 
 Clemens of, Pr. xxix.: i. 230 
 n. 2. 
 
 merchants of U^ayini attracted 
 towards, ii. 290. 
 
 "AXef.KOKo?, name of Apollo and 
 
 Zeus, ii. 88. 
 Alfred, Anglo-Saxon of, i. 21; ii. 
 
 249. 
 Algoritimi de numero Indorum, ii 
 
 285.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 357 
 
 AH 
 Alilat, translated by Herodotus by 
 
 Oupafiv;, i. 372. 
 Alkimenes, ii. 170. 
 Alkinoos. paince of ii. 9. 
 Allah, i. 3C7, -372. 
 Allahabad, ii 114, 123. 
 A Hat, i. 37-2. 
 Alltadir, the father of All, ii. 190, 
 
 Allophylic, or Turanian tribes, ii. 
 
 253. 
 
 Almfimun, Khalif, ii. 285, 289. 
 Almokafta's work Kalila Dimna. ii 
 
 225. 
 
 Alom, i. 329. 
 Alphabet, Chinese, i. 290, 297. 
 
 Greek, used for numerical pur- 
 poses, ii. 294. 
 
 Sanskrit, i 291. 
 Al Uzza, i, 372. 
 ama-ad, ii. 44. 
 
 Amalaberg, niece of Theodoric. ii. 
 
 110. 
 
 Ambagapitva, i. 193. 
 America, Central, i. 311, 317, 322; ii. 
 
 268, 269. 
 
 North, i. 310, 311, 316, 317; ii. 
 264, 271, 279. 
 
 Russian, i. 334. 
 
 South, i. 317, 322; ii. 264, 278. 
 279. 
 
 ancient inhabitants, natives, abo- 
 riginal races of, i. 322, 323. 327. 
 
 Spanish Conquest of, i. 236, 324 
 n. 1. 
 
 Popul Vuh (history of the civilized 
 races in C. A.), i. 309-336. 
 
 hieroglyphics in N. A., i. 310; 
 scattered ruins of ancient , i. 320. 
 
 scrawls of the wandering tribes of 
 N. A., i. 313. 
 
 Bridge of Hell imagined by the 
 natives of N. and S. A., ii. 264, 
 271. 
 
 - Couvade in N. and S. A., ii. 278, 
 
 279. 
 - Popular Traditions of C. A., ii. 
 
 268. 
 
 Superstitions of the Sioux Indians 
 of N. A., ii. 271. 
 
 Supposed migration from the 
 Northeast of Asia, to the North- 
 west of A., ii. 271. 
 
 American antiquities, i. 320, 321, 
 323. 
 
 AP 
 
 American, hieroglyphic manuscripts 
 ot the, i. 321. 
 
 languages, i. 322; life little valued 
 by some tribes, i. 57; Maimscrit 
 1 ictograpliique Amlricain, i. 309 
 
 P' 2 : , vV-,' ths of ~ ^quity, * 
 Popol Vuh. 
 
 pictography, j. 311. 
 
 traditions, "i. 328; ii. 270. 
 Amorite, gods of the , i. 363. 
 Amphiirite, ii. 32. 
 Amphitryo, ii. 111. 
 
 Amrita, Soma or , ii. 202. 
 Amulius, ii. 164. 
 A/a <)?, ii. 186. 
 Ananda, compiler of the first Basket 
 
 (the Sutras) of the Tripi<aka, i. 
 
 280. 
 Anathapiw/ada, i. 203, 213. 
 
 aoaroAai, ii. 79. 
 
 av&pa&e\ '.OS apjpa&X^i), ii. 29. 
 
 Andvari, the dwarf, ii. 108. 
 
 d-Ki^io?, ii. 31. 
 
 Angiras, divine tribe, ii. 200. 
 angi-s, ii. 42 
 
 Angles, and Saxons, ii. 188. 
 Anglo-Saxon, i. 8, 21; ii. 25, 27, 29 
 
 42, 43, 48, 90, 119, 187, 188, 236, 
 
 244, 255. 
 
 of Altied, i. 21. 
 anguilla, ii. 44. 
 anguis, ii. 42. 
 angury-s, ii. 42. 
 Anhuma (Ormazd), i. 136. 
 Animals, ii. 41, 42, 210 fables, ii. 
 
 2 10 ; names of domestic , ii. 41, 42. 
 
 Aniruddha, ii. 136. 
 
 An-isvara, lord-less, atheistic, i. 279. 
 
 Anna, i. 310. 
 
 Annamelech, worshippers of, i. 341. 
 
 Anquetil Duperron, i. 79, 80, 89, 
 117, 119, 135, 143, 146, 160; ii. 
 133 n. 1; first translator of tha 
 Zend-Avesta, i. 79; this transla- 
 tion made with the assistance of 
 Dustoor Darab, i. 119. 
 
 anser, ii. 42. 
 
 antarikshapra, ii. 100. 
 
 Antigone, ii. 138 n. 1. 
 
 Anvari Suhaili, by Husain Vaiz, ii. 
 2-25, 226, 230. 
 
 translated by Professor Eastwick, 
 ii. 226. 
 
 Anvata/iplaksha, lake, ii. 101. 
 ap,"apas, i. 27; ii. 79, 200.
 
 858 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 APA 
 
 A pate, or fraud, ii. 76, or Nyx, ii. 
 76. 
 
 Apavarga, release, i, 279. 
 
 Apestak, Fehlevi for Avesta (au- 
 thorized text), i. 120. 
 
 Apestako, Semitic form of Avesta, i. 
 90. 
 
 Aphrodite, ii. 100, 136. 
 
 Apices, given in Boethius, ii. 287. 
 
 Apollo, Apollon, i. 30, 237, 239, 355, 
 360; ii. 66, 68, 73, 83, 88, 92, 93, 
 99 n. 1, 111, 112, 146, 156, 162, 
 232. 
 
 A>jAios, ii. 73. 
 
 Delphian , ii. 111. 
 
 Etymology of A. not yet found, ii. 
 156. 
 
 A"<ojyeV>)9, son of Light, ii. 73 ; ora- 
 cle of A. at Pytho, ii. 68. 
 
 myth of A. and Daphne, ii. 92, 93, 
 156. 
 
 Apollonic theology, ii. 146. 
 Apollonius Rhodius, ii. 273. 
 
 Couvade mentioned in A. R. 
 Argonautica, ii. 273 n. 1. 
 
 Apophasis, daughter of Epimetheus, 
 
 ii. 70. 
 
 Apsaras, ii. 200. 
 Aptya, i. 96. 
 Aquilonia, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 tar, root , ii. 42 (for ploughing), 136 
 
 n. 2, 138 n. 2. 
 ar ( Gaelic ), ii. 43. 
 Arab, i 92, 94, 160, 338, 340, 371; ii. 
 
 225, 284, 292. 
 
 conquest of Persia by the Arabs, 
 i. 92, 93; ii. 225. 
 
 Arab branch of the Semitic family, i. 
 340. 
 
 in Africa and Spain, ii. 285, 286. 
 
 of Bagdad, ii. 292. 
 
 Figures borrowed from the, ii. 284. 
 
 initiated into the science of In- 
 dian ciphering under Khalif Al- 
 mamun, ii. 285. 
 
 Figures used by the Arabs in 
 Africa and Spaing ii. 285, 286. 
 
 have two sets of figures, ii. 287. 
 
 adopted the Coptic figures in 
 Egypt, ii. 288. 
 
 adopted in Spain, as they did in 
 Greece and Kg.ypt, the figures 
 there in use, ii. 289. 
 
 Arabia, i. 91, 366, 372. 
 
 idolatry of the Semitic tribes of. 
 L366. 
 
 ARJ 
 
 Arabia, the Semitic inhabitants of 
 Arabia worshipped not only gods, 
 but goddesses also, i. 372. 
 
 Arabian dialect, ii. 8. 
 
 Nights, i. 331. 
 
 Pre- Mohammedan ideas of the 
 Nomads of the Arabian peninsula, 
 Pr. xiii. 
 
 Arabic, Old A. prayer, i. 372. 
 
 figures, ii. 288 sqq. 
 
 studv of A- and mathematics in 
 Spain, ii. 291. 
 
 treatises on arithmetic, ii. 289. 
 dp<x>"), ii 45. 
 
 arad, aradyr, ii. 43. 
 
 aradar, ii. 48. 
 
 Arago, Freycinet and Arago's Voj- 
 
 age to the Eastern Ocean, i. 312. 
 Aramean dialect, ii. 8. 
 aranea, ii. 45. 
 Aranyaka, i. 71. 
 Ararat, i. 155. 
 arare, ii. 42. 
 aratrum, ii. 43. 
 Arawaks of Surinam, ii. 276. 
 Araxes, i. 146, 147. 154. 
 Arbaces, the Meek', i. 100. 
 Arbhu, ii. 126. 
 Arbuda, ii. 178. 
 Archipelago,Couvade in the Eastern, 
 
 ii. 279. 
 
 Arda Viraf, i. 88. 
 Ardeshir, inscription of, i. 89. 
 ardhr, ii. 43. 
 
 Ares, ii. 70 n. 1. (By H. D. Muller) 
 arg, i. 23 n. 2. 
 argentum, ii. 46 
 Argonauts, ii. 162. 
 Argos, ii. Ill, 112, 154, 170. 
 
 royal family of, ii. 111. 
 Argos, worship of Here in, ii. lli. 
 
 Tales of Thebes and, ii. 154. 
 upy -pos, ii. 45. 
 
 Arhat (rahat), i. 285. 
 Ariosto, ii. 131 n. 1. 
 Aristotle, i. 90, 185,236, 313; ii. 6, 
 78 n. 1. 
 
 Metaphysics of, ii. 78 n. 1. 
 
 Politica'of, i. 313. 
 
 Saint-Ililaire, translator of, i. 185 
 Arithmetic, ii. 284, 289. 29C t 291. 
 
 Arabic treatises on, ii. 289. 
 
 the Arabs received their from 
 India directly, 290. 
 
 work of Philip Caiander on, 284 
 arjaii, ii. 43.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 859 
 
 ARK 
 
 irkla-s, ii. 43. 
 
 VTTO, ii. 42. 
 
 uporpoi', ii. 43. 
 
 lipouv, ii 42. 
 
 i<po po, ii. 4-3. 
 
 Arran, i. 140-149, 156. 
 
 art, ii. 42. 
 
 Artaxerxes II., i. 88. 
 
 artha, i. 215: ii. 138 n. 1 
 
 Arthur, stories of, i. 195. 
 
 iirti, ii. 43. 
 
 Aru;/a, ii. 133 n. 1. 
 
 Arus, ii. 133 n. 1. 
 
 Arusha (the younir sun, the child of 
 
 Dyaus), ii 133, 134, 135, 136. 
 Arushi (cow), ii. 131-136. 
 arvas (N. arvan), Fern, arushi, ii. 
 
 13-2, 133. 
 arvat (N. arva), Fein, arvati, ii. 130, 
 
 131, 132, 136, 137 n. 2. 138 n. 2. 
 urvuin, i:. 43. 
 Arva, i. 61 ; ii. 323-325. 
 Arva, i. 203, 296; ii. 315, 318, 320- 
 
 323, 329, 337, 351. 
 
 Distinction of color between the 
 Aryas and the Dasyus, ii 321. 
 
 originally only two castes, Aryas 
 and non-Aryas, or the bright and 
 the dark races, ii. 321. 
 
 oiilv admitted to the sacrifices, ii. 
 , 330." 
 
 Arvabhatfa, Dr. Bhao Daji, on the 
 , ageof,ii. 289 n. 1. 
 Aryaman, ii. 333. 
 Arvan civilization, ii. 29. 
 
 color, ii. 176, 327. 
 
 conquerors of India, ii. 172. 
 
 customs, ii. 260, 261. 
 
 dialects, ii. 19, 23, 24, 30, 41, 125. 
 
 fables, ii. 231, 243 
 
 family, i. 61, 65, 81; ii. 22, 29, 32, 
 39. 47, 50, 148, 195, 231, 245, 253, 
 258, 259. 
 
 folklore of the nations, ii. 
 195. 
 
 kingship, and kingly government 
 among the nations, ii. 255, 256. 
 
 mythology, ii. 83, 88, 93, 138, 139, 
 257. 
 
 numerals, ii. 49-51. 
 
 separation (dispersion) of the 
 tribes, ii. 150, 179, 224, 229, 260. 
 
 the Veda, the theogony of the 
 races, ii. 76. 
 
 words, ii. 51, 54, 130. 
 ts, to be, i. 156; ii. 18. 
 
 A SB 
 
 assail, ii. 42. 
 
 asaiikumaryam, ii. 173. 
 
 Asbjonisen, Mr., ii. 217. 
 
 ascendo, i. 83 n. 1. 
 
 Asclt-pias Acida, ii. 202. 
 
 Ascoli, Krammeuti Linguistic! by, ii. 
 
 149 n. 1. 
 Ash, Ash-tree, ii. 193, 201, 202. 
 
 204. 
 
 healing virtue of the ash, ii. 204. 
 
 Vggdrasil, ii. 202. 
 
 Asha vahista, the best purity, i. 
 
 124. 
 
 Ash dfihak. i. 97. 
 Ashima, worshippers of, i. 341. 
 Ashtaroth, worshippers of, 341. 
 ashlau, ii. 51. 
 asi, sword, ii. 46. 
 Asia, Central, i. 189, 210 n. 1, 232, 
 
 243, 206. 
 
 barbarians of C. A., i. 243. 
 
 civilization among the tribes of 
 C. A., i. 266. 
 
 intellectual intercourse between 
 the Indian peninsula and the 
 northern continent of, i. 255. 
 
 languages of, i. 22. 
 
 Migration of tales from to the 
 North of Europe, ii. 221. 
 
 Minor, ii. 46. 
 
 Asiatic Researches, i. 190, 279 n. 1, 
 281 n. 1; ii. 33 n. 1. 
 
 Society of Bengal, i. 188, 296; ii. 
 294. 
 
 Calcutta, i. 196; ii 294, 304. 
 
 London, i. 188, 197, 277; ii.33 
 
 n. 1, 289 n. 1, 294. 
 Paris, i. 188, 197, 277; ii. 168 
 
 n. 2, 287. 
 asila-s, ii. 42. 
 asilu, ii. 42. 
 asi n us, ii. 42. 
 asm ad, ii. 27. 
 asmi, ii. 18, 61. 
 
 Asmodeus (Eshem-dev), i. 145. 
 A*oka, Fr. xxiv.; i. 14. 194, 220,221, 
 
 253, 2i'4, 21)5. 297, '299. 
 
 the Constantine of India, Pr. xxiv.; 
 i. 14. 
 
 the Buddhist Constantine, i. 220. 
 
 Edicts of A. preserved on th 
 rocks of Dhnuli, (iirnar, and Ka- 
 purdigiri, i. 2.')3, 2U4. 
 
 Sanskrit of the time of, i. 297. 
 aspa, ii. 42. 
 
 asm, ii. 89.
 
 860 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ASS 
 Assyrian, i. 5, 141. 
 
 dynasties, i. 5. 
 
 invasion into Persia, i. 99. 
 Astagiri mountain, i. 287. 
 Asterodia. n*me of Selene, ii. 79. 
 acTTtp Jfiv, ii. 65. 
 
 <j<rT , ii. 40. 
 
 Astyages (corruption of Azhi da- 
 haka), ii. 104, 167, 168. 
 
 asu, breath, i. 156; ii. 61. 
 
 a.-iu (a.sva), ii. 42. 
 
 asurya, ii. 175. 
 
 asva, ii. 42, 99 n. 1 (tjriros). 
 
 asva, the mare, name for Dawn, ii. 
 
 .129. 
 
 Asvalavana, i. 14, 106 n. 1. 
 
 Asvattha, ii. 201, 202, 203, 205. 
 
 Asvins, the two, ii. 91. 
 
 asyn, ii. 42. 
 
 aszua, fern., ii. 42. 
 
 Ate, ii. 70. 
 
 atliair, ii. 21. 
 
 Atharva-veda, i. 8, 9, 15, 40, 47, 70 
 n. 1, 72; ii. 134 n. 1, 203, 314; the 
 Ath. intended for the Brahman, or 
 overseer of the sacrifice, i. 9. 
 
 Hymn taken from the Ath , i. 40. 
 
 Mystical formulas of the, ii. 203. 
 
 Ath. of later origin, ii. 314. 
 Athene, ii. 93 n 1. 
 
 myth of, ii. 93 n. 1. 
 'A0OT, ii. 179. 
 Athenodoros, ii. 70 n. 1. 
 Athens, i. 3, 345; ii.2,341. 
 
 Pantheon of, i. 3. 
 Athwya, i. 96, 176. 
 Atithi'gva, i. 32. 
 Atiya0a, priest of, ii. 326. 
 Atll, ii. 109, 110. 
 Atman (self), i. 69; ii. 316. 
 
 Atmanas tush/is (man's own 
 judgment), last source of law, ii. 
 316. 
 
 Atropatene, i. 146. 
 
 Atropos, ii. 152. 
 
 Attakathas, commentaries brought 
 
 by Mahinda to Ceylon, i. 194. 
 Attica, ii. 88. 
 Attila, ii. 110, 112. 
 Aubin, i. 320, 321. 
 Aucassir ii. 273. 
 Aufi-echt, ii. 27 n. 2, 185 n. 3. 
 auh.-an, ii. 42. 
 avu, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 
 Auramazda, Auramazdis .. 12? 159. 
 ivpiov, ii. 137 n. 2 
 
 BAL 
 
 Aumavabha, ii. 174. 
 
 Aurora (UshAsa), i. 78; ii. 46, 128, 
 
 132 n. 1, 1 J7 n. 2, 226. 
 aurum, ii. 40, 137 n. 2. 
 Aurva, last of the Bhrigus, ii. 339. 
 Aus (present), i. 353. 
 Aus-alla, i. 353. 
 ausha, ii. 136. 
 Australia, i. 42 n. 1; ii. 29, 260, 281. 
 
 The Aborigines of A. (Oldtield) 
 i. 42 n. 1. 
 
 Mourning in A., ii. 281. 
 Austrasia, ii. 110. 
 
 Austrasian, the Nibelunge derived by 
 some from the A. history, ii. 111. 
 
 ouTOX'Soves, ii 6!l. 
 
 Auxiliary verb-!, ii. 17. 18, 60. 
 Avadana (parables), i. 292. 
 avastha, i. 120. 
 
 Avesta, i. 79-100, 120, 121, 122, 140- 
 157, 173. 
 
 (avastha), sacred text, i. 120, 122. 
 
 Zend, proper title of Z.-A., i. 120, 
 121. 
 
 The Zend-Avesta, i. 79-100. 
 
 Genesis and the Zend-Avesta, i. 
 140-157. 
 
 A. uud die Genesis by Spiegel, i. 
 143. 
 
 Avi, ii. 42. 
 
 Avidya (ignorance), i. 248. 
 avi str, ii. 42. 
 avoir, ii. 63. 
 avunculus, ii. 31. 
 avus, ii. 31. 
 axe, ii. 46. 
 ayas, ii. 45. 
 Ayu, i. 32. 
 Ayus, ii. 124. 
 Azdehak, ii. 168 
 
 Azhi dahaka, i. 97, 98, 99, 152; ii. 
 167, 168. 
 
 Zohak identified by Burnouf with 
 , i. 97. 
 
 Astyages corruption of A., ii. 
 167. 
 
 Aztec, i. 309, 334. 
 
 BAAL (Bel) Lord, i. 341, 359, 360 
 364, 371, 373. 
 
 servants of B., i. 371. 
 
 worshippers of, i. 341. 
 Baal-peor, worshippers of, i. 341. 
 Baal-zebub, worshippers of, i, 341. 
 Babel, Tower of, i. 333. 
 balbutire ii 172.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 361 
 
 BAB 
 
 Babylon, Pr. xii.; i. 5, 22, 113, 142, 
 267, 374. 
 
 languages and ideas of B., i. 142. 
 
 cuneiform inscriptions of, i. 374. 
 Babylonia, i. 89, 91; ii. 3. 
 
 Semitic influence of B., i. 89. 
 
 Literature of B., ii. 3. 
 Bacchus, i. 372. 
 Bacon, works of, ii. 3 
 Bactria, i. 2U6, 267, 271. 
 Bactrian fire-worship, i. 267. 
 Bactro-Pali inscriptions, ii. 293. 
 baddlia (conditioned), i. 225. 
 Baghdad, i. 92, 93; ii. 285, 291. 
 
 Arabs of B , ii. 292. 
 
 Indian embassy at B., ii. 288. 
 Balaka, Gargva, the sou of B., ii. 
 
 336. 
 
 Balder, Baldr, i. 240; ii. 106,107, 
 190. 
 
 death of B., i. 240. 
 Balkh, i. 147, 149, 267. 
 Ballantvne, Dr., i. 103, 224 n. 1. 
 Banier, Abbe, i. 147. 
 
 Baptist missionaries at Serampore. i. 
 
 301. 
 
 Baptiste, T., i. 316. 
 bani, ex nihilo creavit, i. 132. 
 barbara, ii. 172. 173. 
 barbarata, ii. 173. 
 Barbarian. Pr. xxix.; i. 181; ii. 5, 
 
 44, 324. 
 
 0ap,6'apo?, ii. 172, 173. 
 
 fSap >apd/>a>'Oi, Kape?, ii. 173. 
 
 Barbarossa, Emperor, ii. 169. 
 
 barbarottha (Sandal- wood), ii. 172. 
 
 Barhain, Francis, i. 276, 282. 
 
 ffmnXeuei, >)^K , ii. 75. 
 
 Basilius, Pr. xx. 
 
 Basques, Couvade among the, ii. 273. 
 
 Bastian, Dr., ii. 262. 
 
 Basuto legend, ii. 210. 
 
 tfa'lo?, ii. 47 n. 1. 
 
 Baudiha (Buddha), i. 219, 281. 
 
 Bear, ii. 42, 230. 
 
 tha Bear and the Gardener, ii. 
 230. 
 
 Be'arn, Couvade in, ii. 273. 
 
 Bt-asts, different names of the wild, 
 
 ii. 41,42. 
 Becker, die inschriftlichen Ueber- 
 
 reste der Reltischen Sprache, i. 23 
 
 n. 1. 
 Beel-samin (Lord of Heaven), i. 
 
 359. 
 Behar or Magadha, i. 211. 
 
 BIIA 
 
 Behring's Straits, ii. 270. 
 behter, ii. 243. 
 
 Being, Absolute, i. 225, 227, 247 
 251. 
 
 Divine, i. 251, 279, 329. 
 
 Immaterial supernatural, i. 350. 
 Beitrage zur vergleichenden Sprach- 
 
 forschung, i. 23 n. 1. 
 
 Bel (Baal), image of, Pr. xii. ; wor- 
 shippers of, i. 341. 
 
 Belial, son of, ii. 150 
 
 believe, to, ii. 257. 
 
 Belile et Dimne, ii. 226. 
 
 Bellerophon, ii. 170-186. 
 
 Bellerophontes, ii. 170, 183. 
 
 Belleros, ii. 171, 177, 178. 
 
 Belly, dispute between the and 
 the other members of the body, ii. 
 231. 
 
 Bel us, i. 91. 
 
 Benares, Pr. xvi., xxv. ; i. 103, 116, 
 212. 224, 258. 
 
 Principal seat of learning in In- 
 dia, i. 212. 
 
 Sanskrit College of, i. 103, 224. 
 Benbecula, ii. 239, 241. 
 
 Benfey, i. 97; ii. 186 n. 1, 242. 
 
 Orient and Occident, edited by, 
 ii. 186 n. 1. 
 
 researches of, ii. 242. 
 
 Bengal, Annals of Rural B., Pr. 
 xviii. n. 1. 
 
 Asiatic Society of B., i. 188, 290. 
 
 Journal of the A. S., ii. 287 n. 1, 
 294. 
 
 three fourths of the Brahmans in 
 B. are the servants of others, ii. 
 348 
 
 Bengali, i. 116; ii. 221, 320. 
 
 B. is a Sanskrit dialect, ii. 320. 
 /?eV0os, ii. 47 n. 1. 
 
 Beowulf, ii. 187. 
 
 Berghaus. Physical Atlas of, i. 158, 
 
 211 n. 1. 
 
 Bern (Verona), Dietrich von, ii lift 
 Berosus, i. 321. 
 Bethel, i. 364. 
 Betshuana, ii. 83. 
 better, ii. 243. 
 bha-, with vi-, ii. 99. 
 bhadras ii. 129. 
 Bhagavadirita. ii. 336. 
 Bhagavat, i. 203, 204, 286. 
 Bhagavata-1'urana, ii. 133 n. 1. 
 Bhagirath!, ii. 305. 
 Bhao Daji, Dr., ii. 289 n. 1, 294.
 
 362 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 BHA 
 
 Bhao Daji, Dr., on the age of Arya- 
 bhaa, ii. 289 n. 1. 
 
 Bharadva</a, ii. 126. 
 
 Bharatas, the people of the pre- 
 served bv the pruver of Visvami- 
 tra, ii. 325. 
 
 Kusikas or, ii. 334. 
 Bhava, ii. 73. 
 
 Bheka (frog), Bheki (sun), story of, 
 
 ii. 245. 
 
 bhikshu (mendicant), i. 209. 
 Bhikshuka, i. 204. 
 bhratar, ii. 21, 24, 31. 
 Bhngu, ii, 200, 328, 332, 333. 
 
 tribe of the Bhngus, 200. 
 
 Visvamitra admitted into the 
 Brahmanic family of the, ii. 328. 
 
 the, slain by the Kshatriyas, ii. 
 332, 333. 
 
 bhu, to be, ii. 61. 
 
 Bible, authority of the, ii. 307. 
 
 the Church of Rome argued 
 against the, ii. 314. 
 
 the Gothic Bible (of Ulphilas), ii. 
 187, 250. 
 
 translation of the B. into the Mas- 
 sachusetts language, i. 316. 
 
 Bibliotheca Indica, i. 108 n. 1, 224 
 
 n. 1, 254 n. 5. 
 Bickmore, A. S. (The Ainos or 
 
 Hairy Men), ii. 277 n. 1. 
 Bilpay, Le livre des lumieres .... 
 
 compose 1 par le sage Bilpay In- 
 
 dien, ii. 226. 
 
 Bimbisara, king of Magadha, i. 212. 
 Biot. i. 186, 256. 
 Biscay, Couvade in, ii. 273. 
 Bitol.'i. 329. 
 
 Bitto, epigram on, ii. 10. 
 Bkah-hgyur (Kanjur), i. 189. 
 Black Sea, Couvade formerly there, 
 
 ii. 274. 
 
 Bleda, ii. 110. 
 Bleek, Dr., ii. 208, 210, 267. 
 
 Reynard the Fox in South Af- 
 rica, among the Hottentots, dis- 
 covered by, ii. 210. 
 
 Bli:delin, ii.'llO. 
 
 bo, ii. 42. 
 
 Boar, heavenlv = Vishnu, ii. 310. 
 
 Bodhisattva, i. 203, 204, 272, 283, 
 
 284. 
 
 Bodhisattva dharani, i. 204. 
 Boeckh, ii. 291. 
 
 Boethius, ii. 285-288, 291, 292. 
 - Continuator of, ii. 286, 292. 
 
 BRA 
 Boethius, Apices given in, ii. 288. 
 
 nine figures ascribed by Hoethim 
 to the Pythagoreans, ii. 285. 
 
 the figures in the MSS. of coin- 
 cide with the earliest Gobar lig- 
 ures, ii. 287. 
 
 geometry of, ii. 285. 
 Bohemian, ii. 29, 38, 42, 44. 
 
 old,ii. 29. 
 
 Bohlen, von, 5. 140 n. 1. 
 Bollensen, ii. 113 n. 1. 
 Bombay, Parsis of, i. 87. 
 bonus, ii. 67. 
 Boots, ii. 212, 218, 220. 
 Bopp, i. 80, 95, 117; ii. 19, 38, 40, 
 48 n. 1,86, 90, 147,174. 
 
 comparative grammar, i. 80, 95 ; 
 ii. 19. 
 
 Glossarium, ii. 49 n. 1. 
 Boreas, ii. 1, 157, 158. 
 Borneo, Dayaks of, ii. 275. 
 bos, buves, ii. 26, 42. 
 Botta, trader at, i. 312. 
 
 Boturini, collector of American MSS. 
 
 and antiquities, i. 320, 321. 
 Bouddha et sa Religion (Par T. Bar- 
 
 the"lemy Saint-Hilaire), i. 179 n. 1 
 
 /JouKoAe'co, ii. 2ti. 
 
 Bourien, Father, ii. 280. 
 
 Bournemouth, flirt's of, ii. 157. 
 
 0oOs, #6ts, ii. 26, 42. 
 
 /tfouoWVoi', ii. 28. 
 
 Bouvet, Pr. xv. 
 
 Bowring, Sir John, i. 258. 
 
 Brahma, Pr. xviii. ; i. 205, 243, 259, 
 294, 298; ii. 326, 329; see Brah- 
 man, n. 
 
 Brahma dvish, hater of Brahmans, 
 ii. 326. 
 
 Brahmagupta, Siddhanta of, ii. 289. 
 
 Brahmahood, Visvamitra's superhu- 
 man struggles for, ii. 333. 
 
 brahmaA'arya, i. 205. 
 
 Brahman, n., force, prayer: n. m. 
 god, i. G8, 69, 71, 220, 227, 228, 
 243, 252. 298, 359; ii. 299, 300, 
 306, 32o, 32J, 330, 331. 
 
 n., force, prayer, i. 68, 63; ii. 329. 
 
 (n.) m., god,"i. 68, 69, 70, etc. 
 
 Brahman the first God, the Brah- 
 mans the first caste., ii. 331. 
 
 the Brahmana is his mouth, the 
 Ra^anya his arms, the Vaisya his 
 thighs," and the /S'udra his feet, ii. 
 306. 
 
 created *rst the warlike gods,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 363 
 
 BRA 
 
 then the corporations of gods, 
 and at last the earth, ii. 330 
 
 Brahman, the Veda revealed by ii. 
 299. 
 
 Brahman, priest, overseer, Pr. vii., 
 xi., xviii., xx., xxiv., xxv.,xxxii. ; 
 i. 1,2, 8, 9,13, 23, 24, 71, 75, 101- 
 103, 105-107, 110, 113, 115, 121, 
 126, 151, 153, 156, 176, 179, 183, 
 210, 211, 216, 217, 220-222 224- 
 228, 230, 241, 243, 246, 27H n. 1. 
 281, 296, 298, 308, 331; ii. 13, 33 
 34, 35, 36, 52, 114, 118. 147, 201 
 204, 227, 229, 284, 299-307, 309, 
 313-316, 321, 322, 326, 328-342 
 345, 346-350, 353. 
 
 how the lower castes were treated 
 by the, ii. 322. 
 
 the color of the , according to 
 Mahabharata, white, ii. 321. 
 
 Brahman, in South India the are 
 as black as Pariahs, ii. 321. 
 
 controversies of the with the 
 Mohammedans, ii. 304. 
 
 correspondence between an ortho- 
 dox and the editor of a native 
 newspaper at Madras, ii. 309. 
 
 the in the Indian Drama, ii. 
 114. 
 
 fables of the, i. 331. 
 
 inventors of the figures, ii. 284. 
 
 gifts from a (S'udra not to be ac- 
 cepted by a , ii. 348. 
 
 the are human gods, ii. 331, 
 339. 
 
 Sacred Hymns of the , Pr. vii. ; 
 i. 226. 
 
 admission of the Kshatrivas to 
 the caste of the , ii. 328, 333 335, 
 336, 337. 
 
 Kings must cede the way to the 
 , ii. 334. 
 
 supporting the laws of Manu, ii. 
 815, 316. 
 
 ~ marriages between and Sftdras 
 disapproved of, ii. 315, 316. 
 
 marriages between Aryas and Stt- 
 dras prohibited, ii. 337. 
 
 a Na3'adi in Malabar defiles a 
 Brahman at a distance of seventy- 
 four paces, ii. 350. 
 
 Parasurama, the great hero of the 
 , ii. 332. 
 
 the physiognomy of the nobler 
 than that of the lower castes, ii. 
 321 
 
 Bfil 
 
 Brahman, sfory of the and th 
 three thieves, ii. 227-229. 
 
 Vedanta philosophy of the , ii 
 303. 
 
 Visvamitra, though of royal ex- 
 traction, became a , ii. 333, 335. 
 
 the four Yugas of the , i. 151. 
 
 &*'-*, -to ; 11. oUo. 
 Brahmana, theological tracts, i. 10 
 12-15, 17, 70, 72, 74,75, 102-114 
 220, 242; ii. 101, 103, 125, 314 
 315, 323, 328, 329, 331, 336. 
 
 according to the Brahmans also 
 of divine origin, ii. 315. 
 
 the later Br. support the priestly 
 pretensions of the Brahmans, ii. 
 315. 
 
 period, i. Ill; ii. 331; Aitareva 
 , i. 102-114; Satapatha , "ii. 
 328, 331, 336. 
 
 Brali manic ancestors of the Zoroaa- 
 trians, i. 370. 
 
 Discipline, ii. 329. 
 
 Reaction against Buddhism, ii. 
 339. 
 
 Sacrifices abolished, ii. 339. 
 Brahmanism, Pr. xiv., xx.; i. 13, 23. 
 
 48, 50, 99, 198, 220, 221, 234, 250; 
 
 reestablishment of , i. 221. 
 Brahmanists, number of, 158, 212 
 
 n. 1. 
 Brahma-vaivarta, sentence from the, 
 
 ii. 334. 
 Brahmyas, followers of Brahma, i. 
 
 205. 
 Brasseur, de Bourbourg, editor of 
 
 the "Popol Vuli," i. 309 n. 1,322- 
 
 325, 328. 
 brat', ii. 21. 
 bratar, ii. 21. 
 brathair, ii. 21. 
 Breal, i. 84 n. 1, 145, 152; ii. 165 
 
 n.l. 
 
 brech, ii. 42. 
 Breton, ii. 28 n. 1, 29. 
 Bribu, admitted into the Brakmanic 
 
 community, ii. 126. 
 Bridge over the hell, ii.264. 
 Rnhad-arartyaka, i. 69 n. 1 and 2. 
 B/'ihad - arayaka - upanishad, Ac- 
 
 count of the creation in the , ii. 
 
 330. 
 
 Brihaddevata, ii. 36. 
 b)-ihaddiva, ii. 100. 
 Brihan-Naradlya-Purana, ii. 33 n 1
 
 364 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 BRI 
 
 Brihaspati, ii. 33 n. 1, 133. 
 B/'ihat-katha, ii. 113. 
 Brinton, ii. 112 n. 1. 
 British Guiana, ii. 269. 
 Brockhaus, Prof, i. 119. 
 Gpovr'i (he thunders), i. 353. 
 brother, ii. 21. 
 brother-in-law, ii. 29, 52. 
 Browne, Rev. R. G. S., i. 131, 132. 
 Brimehault, Brunhilt, Brvnhild, ii. 
 
 107-111, 187, 194, 259. 
 bruth-t'aths (bridegroom), ii. 37. 
 brut-loufti (bride-racing), ii. 260, 
 
 261. 
 Brynhild (see Brunehault, Brunhilt), 
 
 pelf-immolation of , ii 259. 
 Bstan-hgyur (Tanjur^, i. 189. 
 Buddha, Pr. xxiv., xxvi. 
 did not wisli to abolish caste as a 
 
 social institution, ii. 337. 
 
 but nil who believe in cease to 
 be Brahmans, Ksliatriyas, Vaisyas, 
 and i'&dras, ii. 338. 
 
 ten commandments of, i. 244. 
 
 death of. i. 20-2. 213. 
 
 devoured by tigers, i. 245. 
 
 discourses or Sutras of, i. 193. 
 
 doctrines of, i. 187, 255, 289, 294; 
 i. 338 ; commencement of the , 
 i. 289. 
 
 dust of, i. 271. 
 
 the enlightened, i. 206, 211, 214, 
 215, 2-28. 243, 294. 
 
 became a heretic by denying the 
 authority of the Veda, ii.'SOO. 
 
 the heresv of exterminated on 
 the soil of India, ii. 339. 
 
 lite of (see Lahita Vistara), i. 205, 
 sqq., 254. 
 
 Pratveka (Supreme) , i. 203, 
 285." 
 
 Relics of, ii. 339. 
 
 shadow of, i. 268, 270. 
 
 statues of, i. 271, 289. 
 
 Sutras (discourses) of, i. 193. 
 Puddhaghosha, i. 194, 195. 
 Buddhi-m in Ceylon, China, Kash- 
 mir, Thibet, i. 254. 
 
 Ceylon chief seat of , i. 270. 
 
 in "Russia and Sweden, i. 233. 
 
 canonical books of, i. 373. 
 
 Chinese writers on, i. 292. 
 
 losing ground rapidly in India at 
 the time of Uiouen-thsang, ii. 
 339. 
 
 of the Shamans, Pr. xxiv. 
 
 BUR 
 
 Buddhism, State religion of China 
 i. 254. 
 
 Buddhist books written in a tolera- 
 bly correct Sanskrit, i 294. 
 
 canonical books of the , i. .3, 
 23, 183, 184, 277, 284. 
 
 of Burmah, i. 230. 
 
 canon, Pr. xxiv.; 1. 187, 183, 190, 
 191, 202, 212, 229, 280. 
 
 Thibetan translation of the ca- 
 non, i. 188. 
 
 Chinese , i. 181, 258, 297. 
 
 Chinese translations of the lite- 
 rature of India, i. 288. 
 
 council (first and third), Pr. xxiv.; 
 i. 252, 280, 289. 
 
 emigrated to Cevlon, Nepal, 
 Thibet, and China, n. 339. 
 
 ethics and metaphysics, i. 201, 
 250 n. 1. 
 
 Female devotee, i. 213. 
 
 in India at present no , ii. 345. 
 
 legends and theories of the 
 (Hardy), i. 192 n. 1. 
 
 literature, i. 188, 191, 197, 201, 
 221, 259, 260, 270. 
 
 in China, i. 292. 
 
 Matradlia, holy country of the , 
 i. 270. 
 
 metaphysics' (Abhidharma), i. 301, 
 223, 276". 
 
 Minstrel, i. 298. 
 
 Missionaries, i. 192, 254, 289. 
 
 Monastery, i. 262. 
 
 Northern", i. 285. 
 
 number of the, i. 158, 211 n. 1. 
 
 enormous numbers used by the , 
 ii. 293. 
 
 philosophical schools among the, 
 in India, i. 278. 
 
 pilgrims, i. 13, 210 n. I, 232-275, 
 276, 278, 288. 292, 293, 299. 
 
 similarities between the Roman 
 Catholic and the ceremonial, L 
 187. 
 
 Southern , i. 285. 
 
 tenets discussed in Edessa, i. 90. 
 Biihler, G., i. 23 n. 2. 
 Bundehesh, i. 91, 153. 
 
 Bunsen, Baron, Pr. v., vii., viii. ; i. 7 
 122; ii. 71 n. 1, 117, 176 n. 1. 19R 
 
 work, " Gott in der Geschichte," 
 i. 122. 
 
 Burgundy (kings of), ii. 110, 112. _ 
 Burial, the in India, by Koto, ii 
 35 n. 1.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 365 
 
 BUR 
 Burial, Jacob Grimm's Paper on the 
 
 different forms of, ii. 251). 
 iuriatcs, i. 189. 
 Curmah, i. 187, 192, 193, 230,234. 
 
 - Buddhists of, i. 230. 
 Burmese, i. 193, 198. 
 
 MsS. written in characters, i. 
 193. 
 
 Burning of widows, ii 33-37, 259, 
 307, 309. 
 
 in the Veda no law to counte- 
 nance the rite of, ii. 307. 
 
 Barnouf, Eugene, I'r. xxiv. n. 1; i. 
 5, 80, 82, 84, 88, 96, 97, 98, 100, 
 117, 119, 127, 129, 135, 143, 155, 
 160, 183, 185, 18(5, 188, 191, 196- 
 198, 201, 202, 218, 244 n. 1, 249 
 n. 1 and 2, 253, 260, 277, 279 n. 1, 
 280 n. 1, 281 n. 1, 283 n. 1,284, 
 292, 295, 296; ii. 133 n. 1, 167. 
 
 founder of /end philology, i. 80. 
 
 the i.ankavatara translated by , 
 i. 279 
 
 Lectures of at the College de 
 France, i. 6. 
 
 L'Histoire du Buddhisme Indien, 
 i. 253, 2%. 
 
 Introduction a 1'histoire du Bud- 
 dhisme, i. 197, 253, 277, 279 n. 1, 
 283 n. 1, 284 n. 1. 
 
 Lotus de la bonne loi, Pr. xxiv. 
 n. 1 ; i. 244 n. 1, 249 n. 1, 253, 
 277. 
 
 Names occurring in the Shahna- 
 meh identified by with heroes 
 mentioned in the Zend-Avesta, i. 
 96, 97, 98, 100. 
 
 Commentaire sur le Yasna, i. 143. 
 Bushby, H. T., on widow-burning, 
 
 ii. 36 n. 1, 37 n. 1. 
 Buttmann, ii. 143. 
 Byblos, ii. 68. 
 
 /CABALISTIC fancies of Jewish 
 
 * J commentators, i. 131. 
 eabbar, ii. 42. 
 
 Cacus, Hercule et, i. 145, 152; ii. 178. 
 
 Caedmon, i. 90. 
 
 Cakchiquel, i. 323. 
 
 Calander, Th., on arithmetic, ii. 284. 
 
 Calcutta, i. 116, 189, 186; ii. 33 n. 1, 
 
 113 n. 1, 301, 304, 309, 346, 348. 
 -Asiatic Society at, i. 196; ii. 304. 
 
 Dharmasabha at, ii. 348. 
 
 Review, ii. 301, 346. 
 Caldwell, i. 301. 
 
 CAS 
 
 calf, ii. 42. 
 Callaway, Rev. Henrv, ii. 206, 208 
 
 209,212,216. 
 
 Calydonian boar hunt, ii. 162. 
 Campbell, J. F. (Popular Tales of 
 
 the West Highlands), ii. 237-247. 
 Canarese, ii. 320. 
 Canis, ii. 42. 
 Canoes, in Polynesia the souls pass 
 
 in canoes the great gulf (hell), ii. 
 
 264. 
 
 Caper, ii. 42. 
 Capua, John of, ii. 225. 
 Carib-Couvade in the "West Indies, 
 
 ii. 277. 
 
 Carlyle, Mr., ii. 125. 
 Carolina Islands, native of the, i. 
 
 312. 
 
 cartH, ii. 20. 
 
 Carthaginians, Pr. xii.; i. 312, 338. 
 cassida, cassila, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Cassiodorus, ii. 110. 
 Caste, ii. 295-353. 
 
 originally only two castes, the 
 Aryas and the non-Aryas, the 
 bright and the dark race, ii. 322. 
 
 originally only one high , but 
 afterwards divided into three, ii. 
 330. 
 
 the word caste, adopted from the 
 Portuguese, ii. 297. 
 
 the names of Manu's castes were 
 derived from their occupation, ii. 
 342. 
 
 distinction between ethnological, 
 political, and professional , ii. 
 317. 
 
 the growth of the three upper 
 castes may be seen clearly in the 
 Brahmanas, ii. 323. 
 
 Kshatriyas admitted to the of 
 Brahmans, ii. 328, 333, 335, 336, 
 338. 
 
 Mixed castes, according to Manu, 
 produced by intermarrying of 
 the four primitive castes, ii 241. 
 
 physiognomy of the Indian castes 
 different, ii. 320, 321. 
 
 In the hymns of the TZishis there 
 is no authority for , ii. 306. 
 
 the threefold" division of repre- 
 sented to have taken place in the 
 Treta age, ii. 330. 
 
 words to express , are: varwu 
 cati, kula, gotra. pravara, ana 
 Parana, ii. 207.
 
 366 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 CAS 
 
 Oastren, Pr. xiii.; i. 234 n. 1. 
 castus, ii. 254. 
 Catechism, i. 169-175, 244 n. 1, 281. 
 
 Guzerati of Parsiism, 1.169-174. 
 
 of the Shamans, i. 244 n. 1, 281. 
 Catlin, ii. 266. 
 
 Cattle, ii. 42. 
 causa, cause, ii. 63. 
 L'aussin de Perceval, i. 372. 
 (Jecrops, migration of, i. 327. 
 Cilts, i. 61, 62, 66, 235, 341; ii. 222, 
 241, 242, 243, 273 n. 1, 318, 320. 
 
 Couvade among the Celts, accord- 
 ing to Strabo, ii. 271 n. 1. 
 
 Celtic language, ii. 8, 257. 
 
 mythology. Pr. xii. 
 
 religion of the race, i. 23. 
 centum, ii. 51. 
 
 Ceres, i. 356. 
 
 Ceylon, Buddhism in, i. 254; ii. 339. 
 
 history of Buddhism in, i. 196. 
 
 Buddhist literature of, i. 191, 197. 
 
 chief seat of Buddhism, i. 270. 
 
 Mahay an sa, or history of , i. 
 191. 
 
 monasteries of, ii. 258. 
 
 Pali and Singhalese works of, i. 
 285. 
 
 sacred and historical books of, i. 
 191, 192. 
 
 Wesleyan missionaries in, i. 192. 
 Ceylonese era, i. 202. 
 
 xai'pw, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 Chambers, Mr, ii 236. 
 Chamen (/Sramana), i. 259. 
 Champollion, Pr. xiii.; i. 321. 
 Change of d to / in Greek, ii. 165 
 n. 1, 184. 
 
 of t into e (ai), ii. 250. 
 Chaos, ii. 136. 
 
 ^opa, Capias, xapi^o^ai, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 
 Charis, ii. 83 n. 2, 136, 137 n. 2. 
 
 chief, Aphrodite, ii. 136. 
 
 etymology of, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 Chantes, ii. 99. 100 n. 1, 129, 136, 137 
 
 n. 2, 199. 
 
 Spartan, ii. 100 n. 1. 
 
 Xdpires, ii. 179. 
 
 Charon, i. 147 n. 1. 
 chastening, ii. 254. 
 Chemosh, worshippers of, i. 341. 
 Xir, ii. 42. 
 Cherubim, i. 154. 
 Che-wei (Sravasti), i. 259. 
 Ch5zy, i. 292. 
 Chichicastenango, i. 323, 324. 
 
 CHR 
 Chichimecs, imitations of the, I 
 
 327. 
 
 Xt'Xtoi, ii. 51. 
 Chilperic, ii. 110. 
 Chimalpopoca. Codex, i. 323. 
 China, annals of, i. 289. 
 
 Buddhism, state religion in, t 
 254. 
 
 Buddhists in, i. 197, 212 n. 1, 292. 
 
 early civilization of, i. 266. 
 
 Couvade in Western, ii. 274. 
 
 Jesuit missionaries iu India and 
 -,i. 301. 
 
 Roman Catholic missionaries in. 
 Pr. xv. 
 
 view of Nirvana in, i. 287. 
 
 Marco Polo travels through, ii. 
 272. 
 
 rubbing of nose, salutation in, ii. 
 261. 
 
 Chinese alphabet, i. 257, 290, 297. 
 
 Classics, classical books, i. 300 n. 
 1. 301, 302, 306 n. 1. 
 
 Sanskrit dictionary, i. 288. 
 
 collections of fables in, ii. 231. 
 
 Couvade in the province 
 \Vest Yunnan, ii. 272. 
 
 Hindus settled in monasteries 
 i. 290. 
 
 language, Pr. xiii.; i. 22, 258, 
 290. 
 
 pilgrims, i. 197, 232, 256, 257, 266 
 297; ii. 339. 
 
 translations, i. 203 n. 1, 254, 288- 
 299. 
 
 Choctaw, belief of the in a futur* 
 
 state, ii. 266. 
 Xolpo?, ii. 42. 
 \6proi, ii. 40. 
 chose, ii. 63. 
 Christ and other masters, Pr. xxiv. } 
 
 i. 49-60. 
 
 The Infant carried by St 
 Christopher, ii. 163. 
 
 Christian ideas, i. 146 (in the Koran), 
 328; ii. 193,207. 
 
 missionaries, i. 161, 169, 173, 176; 
 ii. 13, 280. 
 
 mysticism of Eckhardt and Tatt- 
 ler", i. 277. 
 
 number of Christians, i. 158, 213 
 n. 1. 
 
 Christie, Henry, ii. 282. 
 Christmas, ii. 232, 241 : Book, 241 
 
 Harlequin of, 232; Panto 
 
 mimes, 241.
 
 1NDLX. 
 
 307 
 
 CHB 
 
 Christos. the Anointed, i. 215. 
 XpiMa, ii 175. 
 XpofOf, ii. 150. 
 xpuis, i. 175. 
 
 Xp'icro$po>'O, ii. 75. 
 
 xpiiaw, ii. 46. 
 
 Chung Yung (doctrine of the Mean, 
 
 the third Shoo), i. 304, 306. 
 Chuuing, ii. 39. 
 dun Tsew (Spring and Autumn, 
 
 the fifth King), i.^03. 
 Chuo, pi. chuowi, ii. 26, 42. 
 chwegrwn, chwegyr, ii. 29. 
 citron (empty), ii. 284. 
 Cinderella, ii. 218. 
 cipher, ii. 284. 
 Civilization, history of, ii. 248 n. 1, 
 
 257, 262, 296. (See Bastian, 
 
 Guizot, Klemm, Tylor.) 
 Clara (<p*cvvd), ii. 100 n. 1. 
 Clarke, Mr. 's account of the be- 
 lief of theManclans, ii. 265. 
 Clemens of Alexandria, Stromata, 
 
 Pr. xxix. ; i. 230 n. 2, 362 n. 1. 
 cloth, name of, ii. 44. 
 cluo (A*, sravas), i. 259. 
 Codex Cakchiquel, Chimalpopoca, 
 
 i. 323. 
 
 regius, ii. 192. 
 cognoscere, ii. 72. 
 Golden, i. 311. 
 
 Colebrooke, H. T., i. 6, 19, 76, 183, 
 186, 296; ii. 33 n. 1, 34 n. 1, 299. 
 
 Duties of a faithful Widow, ii. 33 
 n. 1. 
 
 Colhaus, migrations of the, i. 327. 
 Comparative grammar, ii. 19, 222. 
 
 mythology, ii. 1-141, 165 n. 1, 222, 
 241. 
 
 Philology, i. 21, 79, 80; ii. 48 n. 
 1, 223, 241. 
 
 Comparetti, Prof., ii. 165 n. 1. 
 Comte, i. 52, 55. 
 Comtean epochs, Pr. ix. 
 Confucian, i. 179, 306, 307. 
 
 Analects,!. 306,307. 
 Confucius, Pr. xiii., xv. ; i. 50, 55, 
 
 184, 212, 254, 263, 272, 289, 300- 
 308. 
 
 doctrines of, i. 254, 272, 28? . 
 
 The 5th (Chun Tsew) King only 
 composed by, i. 304. 
 
 cons-ilium (considium), ii. 25. 
 consobrinus, ii. 31. 
 Coptic figures in Egypt adopted by 
 the Arabs, ii. 288. 
 
 CYR 
 
 Cordova, ii. 285. 
 
 Cornish, ii. 28 n. 1, 43. 
 
 Corpus Juris of Gagannatha, ii. 33 
 n. 1. 
 
 Correspondence between an orthodox 
 Brahman and the Editor of a na- 
 tive newspaper at Madras, ii. 309- 
 314. 
 
 Corsica, Couvade in, ii. 273, 274, 279. 
 
 Corssen (Kritische Beitrage), ii. 172, 
 n. 1, 3, 4. 
 
 Cortez, i. 182, 321, 323. 
 
 Don Juan, i. 325. 
 Costus Speciosus, ii. 201-203. 
 Council, Early councils of Christi- 
 anity, Pr. xxvi. 
 
 Buddhist, i. 253, 280. 
 Cousin, i. 186, 242. 
 Couvade, ii. 272-279. 
 
 origin of the, ii. 276, sqq. 
 Cow, ii. 42. 
 
 Cowell, ii. 336 n. 1. 
 
 Cox, G. \V., Manual of Mythology, 
 ii. 154-169. 
 
 Crane, clan, i. 313. 
 
 Creation of the gods, ii. 330, 331; 
 of man, i. 330-333; ii. 330; of 
 the world, i. 151, 152 ; ii. 330. 
 
 credo, i. 42. 
 
 Cremona, Gerard of, ii. 291. 
 
 Creuzer, i. 276-278; ii. 142, 155. 
 
 Symbolik of, i. 278; symbolic 
 school of, ii. 142. 
 
 cu, ii. 42. 
 
 engine, ii. 33. 
 
 cuneiform, i. 5, 85, 87, 130, 160, 260 
 
 267, 322, 373. 
 edicts of Darius, i. 160. 
 
 Decipherer of inscriptions, i. 322. 
 
 inscriptions, i. 5, 130, 260, 322, 
 373 (of Babylon and Nineveh), ii. 
 185. 
 
 Oppert's theory on the invention 
 of letters, i. 267. 
 
 translation of inscriptions, i. 
 130, 260. 
 
 Cunningham, General A., ii. 294. 
 
 Cupid, ii 137 n. 2. 
 
 Curtius, Prof., i. 82 n. 1; ii. 47, 48 
 
 n. 1, 86 n. 2, 92 n. 1, 136 n. 2, 137, 
 
 166 n. 1, 177 n. 1. 
 Customs, on manners and, ii. 248- 
 
 283. 
 
 cvn, cyning, ii. 200. 
 Cyrus; i. 5, 64, 99, 127, 142, 146, 159 
 
 "160, 362 n. 1 ; ii. 164-168.
 
 368 
 
 1KDEX. 
 
 DAD 
 
 T)ADALA, i. 193. 
 -*-'' daeges eiige, ii. 119 n. 1. 
 6ar,p, ii. 29, 52, 184 n. 1. 
 daeva, i. 25. 
 daga, ii. 90. 
 dagian, ii. 90. 
 
 Dagon, worshippers of, i. 341. 
 dab (to burn), ii. 90. 
 dahyu, ii. 38, 185. 
 ilairah, ii. 39. 
 Scu'os, ii. 185. 
 
 daisy, myth of, ii. 119 n. 1. 
 Dakiki, poet, i. 94. 
 6ap , ii. 89, 184 n. 1. 
 daina, ii. 39. 
 Damascus, ii. 288. 
 dawsanavat, ii. 27. 
 Danaus, migration of, i. 327. 
 da/trfa, Rtick, ii. 254. 
 Daw/apaMt, father of Buddha's wife, 
 
 i. 207, 215. 
 dawhu, ii. 185. 
 Daniel, i. 143, 146; ii. 168 (book 
 
 of). 
 Danishver, Dikhan, collector of the 
 
 epic traditions of Persia, i. 93, 94. 
 Dank-wart, ii. 110. 
 o;, ii. 185. 
 Daphne, ii. 92, 93, 156. 
 
 Myth of Daphne and Apollo, ii. 
 92, 93, 156. 
 
 name of the dawn, ii. 156. 
 8a'^, ii. 92 n. 1, 166 n. 1, 179. 
 
 8a<c7j(^opos, ii. 88. 
 
 Dapplegrim, ii. 217. 
 daqyu, ii. 185. 
 Darab, Dustoor, i. 119. 
 Darius, i. 86, 88, 127, 128, 146, 159, 
 160, 260; ii. 38, 168, 185, 249. 
 
 cuneiform edicts of, i. 160. 
 
 inscriptions of, i 127. 
 
 the Median, ii. 168. 
 das, to perish, ii. 185. 
 dasa, ii. 51. 
 
 dasa, people, enemy, ii. 38, 165 n. 1, 
 176, 184-186. 
 
 dasahauta, ii. 165 n. 1, 184, 186. 
 
 dasa nari, ii. 2-32. 
 
 dasa-pati, ii. 38, 185. 
 
 dasa-patni, ii. 88, 185, 232. 
 
 basaratha, i. 215 
 
 Dasent, Dr. G. W., ii. 154, 187-194, 
 197, 217, 219, 220. 222, 226-229, 
 232, 234, 237-239, 241, 287. 
 
 The Norsemen in Iceland, ii. 187- 
 192. 
 
 Seu 
 
 Dasent, Popular Tales from the None 
 
 ii. 217-236. 
 Saffunj?, ii. 173. 
 divsya, ii. 165 n. 1. 
 dasva-nari, ii. 88. 
 dasvu, ii. 38, 176, 184, 321, 329, 38L 
 
 = dasa, people, ii. 38. 
 dasyuhaii, dasyulianta, ii. 184. 
 dasyuhatyaya, ii. 103. 
 Savxnov, ii. 92 n. 1. 
 daughter, ii. 21, 52. 
 daughter-in-law, ii. 29. 
 
 daur, ii. 40. 
 
 dautia, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 David, i. 151, 153. 
 
 David Sahid d'lspahan, ii. 226. 
 
 dawe, ii. 90. 
 
 Dawn, i. 2J5; ii. 80, 83, 87, 90-96 
 98-100, 10 i, LOG, 107, 126, 128, 129 
 132-136, 151, 152, 156, 160, 181 n. 
 1, 224. 232, 257. 
 
 myths of, ii. 80 sqq. 
 
 names of, i. 235 ( Ushas, Urvarf, 
 Ahaua, Surva), ii. 128, 129 (asva> 
 
 day, ii. 89, 135, 138 n 2. 
 
 Dayaks of Borneo, ii. 275. 
 
 dea, ii. 32. 
 
 dear, ii. 21. 
 
 decem, ii. 51. 
 
 Dechak, ii. 168. 
 
 dedicare (delicare), ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 Dehak (ten evils), ii. 168. 
 
 Deianeira, ii. 88, 89, 232. 
 
 deiga, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 Aei/ios, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 
 Deism, i. 370. 
 
 Deity, absorption into the, i. 57. 
 
 Belief in two great deities in South 
 America, ii. 264, 265. 
 
 invisible, i. 230. 
 
 names of the, i. 359, 37i. 
 Dejoces, ii. 168. 
 
 c'xa, ii. 51. 
 
 Dekhan, name of some low caste* in 
 
 the, ii. 322. 
 Deliades, ii. 170. 
 A>jAoi;, ii. 73. 
 Delos, ii. 73. 
 6^X0;, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 Delphos, ii. 69. 
 Deluge, i. 155. 
 Demagogos, i. 259. 
 Demeter, i. 361; ii. 108. 
 Demon of night ( Witra), i. 152. 
 Denmark, i. 143; ii. 237, 252. 
 fcu^oirijt, ii. 184.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 869 
 
 DER 
 Deri, i. 91. 
 
 descondo, i. 83 n. 1. 
 
 ScffTroira, Seajron]?, ii. 38, 185. 
 
 deszimt, ii. 51. 
 
 Deukalion, ii. 11. 
 
 deus, i. 25. 238, 361; ii. 124 (ex 
 
 machina). 
 Deutsche, i. 32 n. 1, 83 n. 1; ii. 36 n. 
 
 2, 79 n. 1, 85 n. 1. 
 
 Monatsschrift, i. 32 n. 1. 
 
 Morgenliindische Gesellschaft. ii. 
 36 n. 2. 
 
 Mythologie (by Grimm), ii. 79 n. 
 1, 85 n. 1. 
 
 Geschichtederdeutschen Sprache 
 (by Grimm), i. 83 n. 1. 
 
 deux, ii. 223. 
 
 Dev (evil spirit), i. 145. 
 
 Deva, bright, divine, i?od, i. 24, 204, 
 
 235, 361, 370; ii. 95, 148, 179, 328, 
 
 330, 331. 
 
 Devadatta, i. 371. 
 Devapatni, ii. 232. 
 devar, devara, ii. 29, 52, 184 n. 1. 
 Devil, i. 125; ii. 146, 218, 219, 281. 
 
 the Aryan nations had no, ii. 
 233. 
 
 Swiss legend of the D.'s bridge, 
 ii. 146. 
 
 gods turned into, ii. 233. 
 
 personality of the, i. 125. 
 
 poor or stupid, ii. 234. 
 
 The Devil is represented black in 
 Europe, and white in Africa, ii. 
 281. 
 
 Dew, ii. 86, 87, 103. 
 
 deweris, ii. 31. 
 
 dewyni, ii. 53. 
 
 Dhanimapadam (a Pali work on 
 
 Buddhist ethics), i. 197, 217, 251 
 
 n. 1. 
 
 dharani, i. 204. 
 Dliarma, i. 193, 298 ; ii. 303. 
 
 law, the general name of the 
 second and third baskets of the 
 Tripi/aka, i. 193. 
 
 Dharmasaliha at Calcutta, ii. 348. 
 
 Dl auli, 5. 253, 294. 
 
 dhava, ii. 32. 
 
 Jhu, to tear, ii. 173. 
 
 dhuma, i. 96. 
 
 Diabolus, ii. 233. 
 
 &ia.KTu>p, 6iaKTopos, ii. 133. 
 
 Dialect, ii. 93 n. 1, 165 n. 1, 171 n. 1, 
 
 257, 320. 
 Dialectic, ii. 9, 12 (period). 
 
 VOL. n. 24 
 
 OKI 
 
 Dialogue in Guzerati (Catechism of 
 Parsiism), i. 169, 170. 
 
 Gylfi's Mocking, ii. 194. 
 
 Diana, ii. 85. 
 
 didhyana/i, ii. 83. 
 
 Dietrich von Hern, ii. 110. 
 
 Dieti-donne", i. 215. 
 
 Digamma (aeolicum), i. 87; ii. 87 n. 
 1, 171; in Homer, i. 87. 
 
 dih, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 Dikhan (farmer, historian, landed 
 nobleman of Persia), i. 92, 95. 
 
 dina, ii. 137 n. 2. * 
 
 dingua, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 Dio Cassius, i. 120. 
 
 Diocletian, i. 159. 
 
 Diodorus Siculus, Couvade men- 
 tioned by, ii. 273. 
 
 Diomedes, ii. 77. 
 
 Dionvsos, ii. 65. 
 
 Dioskuroi, ii. 91. 
 
 Aiim'/ua, ji. 136 n. 1. 
 
 Dipavansa (history of Buddhism in 
 
 Cevlon), i. 196. 
 Directorium humanae vitse, ii. 225, 
 
 228. 
 
 Swot, ii. 165 n. 1, 184 n. 1. 
 Diumpais, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 div, ii. 149 n. 1. 
 diva, ii. 137 n. 2, 148. 
 do (two), ii. 223. 
 Dobrizhofer, ii. 278. 
 doctor,symbolic emblem of the,i. 314. 
 Sui&eKa, ii. 51. 
 dog, ii. 42. 
 Dolores, i. 355. 
 Domenech, Abbe" Em., i. 309, 310. 
 
 Manuscrit Pictographique Amer- 
 icain by, i. 309 n. 2, 310. 
 
 Dominican, religious zeal of the 
 
 and Franciscan friars, i. 320. 
 I'M/ !,?, ii. 39. 
 doniii, ii. 39. 
 domus, ii. 39. 
 donkey, ii. 42, 230. 
 
 Story of the Donkey in the Lion's 
 skin,"ii. 230. 
 
 dor, ii. 40- 
 
 Dorian immigration, ii. 112. 
 Dornroschen, ii. 154. 
 Dowson, Prof, ii. 294. 
 Dreamland, ii 219. 
 Dribliika, ii. 178. 
 drimhita, ii. 27. 
 
 Driptabalaki Gargya, story of, u. 
 336 n. 1.
 
 870 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 DRU 
 
 Druids, ii. 298. 
 Dsungary, i. 265. 
 du (two), ii. 51, 223. 
 du (to burn), ii. 185. 
 Dualism (in Parsiism), i. 152, l'.~\ 
 ducere, ii. 256. 
 dughdhar, ii. 21. 
 
 duh (to milk) root of dnhitar,ii. 24. 
 duhitar, ii. 21, 24, 25, 28, 108. 
 dukte, ii. 21. 
 dum, i. 137. 
 duo, ii. 51. 
 duodecim, ii. 51. 
 Durga (Commentary on the Niruk- 
 
 ta), ii. 180 n. 1. 
 durrys, ii. 40. 
 
 Dustoor, i. 117, 119, 166, 171. 
 Du Tertre, ii. 277. 
 t'ux, ii. 256. 
 dviiilasa, ii. 51. 
 
 dvHiu, dvandvam (pair), i. 137. 
 djrar, dvaras, ii. 40. 
 drnu, ii. 51. 
 dwi deszimti, ii. 51. 
 dwi-lika, ii. 51. 
 Dyaus, i. 78 (deus, the bright), 353- 
 
 355, 358, 360, 361; ii. 21, 72,91, 
 
 13G, 137 n. 2, 179. 
 
 Arusha, child of, ii. 135, 136. 
 dyav-an, ii. 157. 
 
 Jiifie, ii. 79 n. 2. 
 
 Svut (two), ii. 51. 
 
 Svia (to dive into), ii. 79. 
 
 Dyotana, ii. 90. 
 
 ivcrfj.il ijAi'oU, ii. 79. 
 
 Dvu (Jupiter, sky, day), i. 235; ii. 90. 
 dyu (to be brilliant), ii. 90, 137 n. 2, 
 157. 
 
 EAR, to, ii. 43. 
 Karth, ii. 98, 107, 136, 152, 266, 
 230, 331. 
 
 Erinyes, daughters of, ii. 152. 
 East, position of women in the, ii. 345. 
 
 all important religions sprung up 
 in the, i. 333. 
 
 East India Company, Pr. vii. ; i. 7, 
 185, 187, 274; ii. 3"01, 304, 305. 
 
 the Veda published under the 
 patronage of the, ii. 305. 
 
 Eastwick, Prof., ii. 226. 
 
 Eating, representation of, i. 314. 
 
 ech, ii. 42. 
 
 echidna, ii. 167, 182, 183. 
 
 - X w, ii. 42. 
 
 Echo, ii. 157. 
 
 *>>, ii. 60, 70. 
 
 Eckhardt, Christian mysticism of 
 
 and Tauler, i. 277. 
 Edda, ii. 77, 107, 108, 110, 111, 187 
 
 189, 192, 193, 198, 217. 
 
 the Old (collected bv Saeraund), 
 ii. 192. 
 
 Young (collected by Snorro Stur- 
 lason), ii. 192. 
 
 Eden, Garden of, i. 153, 154. 
 Edessa, i. 90. 
 Edomites, i. 371. 
 >jepo/'oms, ii- 151. 
 
 eyx^o?) H. 42. 
 
 Egypt, Pr. xiii.; i. 4, 91, 142, 150 
 159, 183, 219, 266, 317, 321, 363: iL 
 3, 208, 2-29, 288-290, 295. 
 
 Arabs in, ii 289. 
 
 Caste in Ancient, ii. 295. 
 
 early Civilization of, i. 266. 
 
 Countries south of, ii. 208. 
 
 In the Arabs adopted the Cop. 
 tic figures, ii. 288. 
 
 Koman province, ii. 290. 
 Ei, ii. 243. 
 
 Eichhoff, ii. 48 n. 1. 
 eidolon, i. 354. 
 eifiul?, ci6i/r a , ii. 133. 
 
 Cl/COCTl, J5. 51. 
 
 eiAtopey, ii. 29. 
 tivarepes, ii. 29. 
 
 elpos, ii. 173. 
 
 ekadasa, ii. 51. 
 
 ekas, ii. 51. 
 
 ekatara, ii. 243. 
 
 El (strong;, i. 359, 360, 371. 
 
 Eliot, Translator of the Bible intc thi 
 
 Massachusetts language, i. 316. 
 Elis, ii. 78. 80-83. 
 Eliun i highest), i. 359, 369. 
 
 eAAepa, ra, ii. 170. 
 
 Eloah. i. 369. 
 
 Elohim, i. 341, (worshippers of),3Si. 
 
 365, 369, 370. 
 eAins, ii. 26. 
 Elysian field, i. 230. 
 em, ii. 18. 
 iniu, ii. 18, 61. 
 
 ci'aXioy, ii. 47. 
 
 IvSioi, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 yvju.a, ii. 80. 
 Endymion, ii. 78-83, 157. 
 
 myth of Selene and, ii. 79 sqq. 
 evSva>, ii. 79. 
 
 iwcavorof , ii. 93 n. 1.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 371 
 
 ippea, ii. 51. 
 
 ensis, ii. 46. 
 
 eph, ii. 42. 
 
 Eorosh, ii. 133 n. 1. 
 
 Eos (L'shus, 'Hois), i. 355, 357, ii. 
 
 75, 76, 78, 84, 85, 87, 99, 104, 105, 
 
 137 n. 2, 151, 156, 157 
 'Huis, ii. lOi n. 1, 179. 
 Ephnum Syrus, i. 90. 
 Ef ic age or literature, i. 16. 
 
 poems of India, ii. 75. 
 Epmieiiides, ii. 70 n. 1. 
 Epmietheus, ii. 70. 
 
 fcpO-o, ii. t&. 
 
 equus, ii. 42. 
 er, ii. 45. 
 
 ipa.IJ.ai, epaw, ii. 137 n . 2. 
 
 Eraii, i. 32 n. 2, 140 n. 1. 143, 147 
 
 n. 1, 149. 
 Eranier, i. 143. 
 
 eparot, ipa.Tfiv6y, ii. 137 D. 2. 
 
 Erebus, ii. 181. 
 
 epcai/w, ii. 151. 
 
 fo, ii- 137 n. 2. 
 
 erida, ii. 43. 
 
 epcxxud,/, ii. 137 n. 2, 151. 
 
 Erinnys, Erinys, ii. 70 n. 1, 151-153, 
 
 199. 
 Erinyes, daughters of the Earth, ii. 
 
 152. 
 
 of Skotos, ii. 153. 
 
 'Epu'xvj, 'Epixus, ii. 137 n. 2, 179. 
 
 epi.ov, ii. 173. 
 
 Eris, ii. 64. 
 
 epit (sirife), ii. 151. 
 
 Eros, ii. 14, 69, 78, 127-130, 133, 136, 
 
 137 n. 2, 138, 151. 
 
 son of Aphrodite, ii. 136. 
 
 oldest of the Greek gods, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 
 myths of, ii. 136. 
 
 is the dawning suri, ii. 128. 
 
 child or Zeus, ii. 134. 
 pos, ii. 136 n. 2. 
 
 'Epuy, ii. 128-130, 134, 136 n. 1 and 
 ii, 2, 137 n. 2, 138. 
 
 fp<rr,, ii. 86 11. 2. 
 
 ipvdpos, ii. 108. 
 
 Eshem-dev, i. 145. 
 
 Eshvar Chandra Vidyasagar, ii. 309. 
 
 esnii, ii. 18. 
 
 Es-Sirat, bridge over the Moslem 
 
 hell, ii. 264. 
 r0j, ii- -W- 
 
 Esthonian legend, i. 333, 334. 
 EBUS, i. 22. 
 
 FAL 
 
 <$te" (statum), ii.61. 
 
 Ethnic psychology, German period* 
 
 ical on, ii. 262. 
 Ethnological caste (in India), ii. 318- 
 
 320. 
 
 Society, Transactions of the. i. 
 42 n. 1 ; ii. 29 n. 1, 280. 
 
 Etliologicnl researches, ii. 261. 
 Etymologicum Magnum, ii. 74 n. 1, 
 
 92 n. 1. 
 Eudemos, ii. 70 n. 1. 
 
 euxav<7T05, ii. 93 n. 1. 
 
 Kunuuus, Swineherd, ii. 19. 
 Eumenides, O. Muller's Essay on 
 
 the, ii. 70 n. 1. 
 Euphrates, i. 90, 97, 145. 
 
 i/irAdxajios, ii- 105 n. 1. 
 
 Europe, name of, ii. 99 n. 1. 
 Eurydike, ii. 99, 125, 126, 158. 
 Eurymede, ii. 99. 
 Eurynome, ii. 70 n. 1, 99. 
 Eurvphaessa, ii. 99. 
 eipif?, ii. 66, 98. 
 Eurystheus, ii. 112. 
 Eurytion, ii. 182. 
 Eustathiuss, ii. 170 n. 2. 
 Evenos, ii. 68. 
 
 Evil spirit, is represented with horns 
 and a tail in New Holland, ii. 267. 
 Ewald, i. 140 n. 1, 338. 
 ewe, ii 42. 
 
 efesrt, ii. 69. 
 
 Exodus, i. 124, 304. 
 eye, ii. 243. 
 
 FABLES, ii. 145,210, 224-226, i30, 
 231, 258, 267. 
 
 Animal (Beast), ii. 210, 267. 
 
 Aryan, ii. 231. 
 
 Chinese, ii. 231. 
 
 Greek, ii. 146. 
 
 Lafontaine's, ii. 225. 
 
 in Pha;dros, ii. 231. 
 
 dePilpay, ii. 226. 
 
 Sanskrit, ii. 225. 
 Fabliau, French, ii. 273. 
 fad, ii. 40. 
 
 Fafnir, ii. 108, 167. 
 
 Fahian, i. 210 n. 1, 215, 255, 857 
 
 ii. 263, 202, 293, 299, 339. 
 faihu, ii. 42. 
 fairy, fairyland, ii. 154. 
 Faifv tales, Eastern, ii. 258. 
 Faith, idea of, in the Veda, i. 41. 
 fallere, ii. 63.
 
 872 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 IAN 
 
 Fan, Fan-lon-mo (Brahma) ' 259, 
 
 294, 2U8. 
 farali, ii. 42. 
 fassradh, ii. 44. 
 Fate, i 240. 
 fatlier. ii. 21, 39. 
 father-in-law, ii. 29. 
 faths, ii. 37. 
 
 Fausboll, i. 186, 197 251 n. 1. 
 faut, il me, ii. 63. 
 feadbh, ii. 32. 
 Fel-to(Veda), i. 259. 
 fel, lellis, ii. 172. 
 feld, ii. 43. 
 Fenriswolf, ii. 194. 
 t'eoii, ii. 25. 
 Feridun, i. 94, 97, 100, 176, ii. 167. 
 
 identified br Burnouf with Thrae- 
 taoua, i. 96,*97, 99, 100. 
 
 Fick, A., ii. 186 n. 1. 
 tidvor, ii. 51. 
 field, ii. 43. 
 figures, ii. 284-294. 
 
 Our figures borrowed from the 
 Arabs, ii. 284. 
 
 discovered, according to the 
 Arabs, by the Indians, ii. 284. 
 
 the Arabs had two sets of, ii. 287. 
 
 Nine by Boethius ascribed to 
 the Pythagoreans, ii. 285. 
 
 Coptic bv the Arabs adopted 
 in Egypt, ii."289. 
 
 Gobar or Neo-Pythagorean in 
 Europe long before the Arabs in- 
 vaded Spain, ii. 291. 
 
 The Greek allowed by Khalif 
 Walid to use, ii. 288. 
 
 Hieratic, ii. 293 n. 1. 
 
 Coincidences between the Indian 
 and the Hieratic , ii. 293. 
 
 Indian were originally the ini- 
 tial letters of the Sanskrit nu- 
 merals, ii. 287, 288. 
 
 fihu, ii. 42. 
 
 Fijians, i. 58. 
 
 filia (suckling), ii. 25. 
 
 Fin, Pr. xiii. ; i. 234 n. 2. 
 
 Finland, i. 234 n. 2; ii. 237. 
 
 Finnish Mythology, i. 234 n. 2. 
 
 Firdusi, Pr. xxx.; i. 79, 90, 92, 95- 
 
 97,99, 122,178; ii. 167. 
 Fire, emblem of tho Divine power, i. 
 
 167. 
 Fire-worshippers, i. 158, 159, 167. 
 
 do not worship the fire, i. 167. 
 - number of, i. 159. 
 
 GAD 
 
 fithal, ii. 42. 
 llamma, ii. 79. 
 
 Flemish popular tales, ii. 227. 
 flos, floris, ii. 128. 
 Flourens, i. 186. 
 
 Fo (Buddha), Pr. xiii.; i. 212 n. L 
 foal, ii. 42. 
 
 Foe Koue Ki, i. 254 n. 1, n. 2, 262. 
 Folda, ii. 43. 
 
 Folkeeventyr, Scandinavian, ii. 217 
 Folklore, ii." 195-205, 209. 
 Fontainebleau, forest of, ii. 232. 
 forest, ii. 40. 
 Forstemann, ii. 48 n. 1. 
 Fo-to, Fo (Buddha), i. 268, 293, 294. 
 Foucaux, i. 186, 203, 230 n. 1, 254 
 n. 3, 255, 278. 
 
 L'entant egare, i. 230 n. 1. 
 Fouquet, Pr. xv. 
 
 four ages of the world, i. 149-151. 
 
 stages of meditation preparing to 
 Nirvana, i. 249. 
 
 verities of Buddha, i. 247. 
 
 yugas of the Bralimans, i. 151. 
 Fox, Fables of Keyiiard the, ii. 210, 
 
 267. 
 France, Couvade in, ii. 273. 
 
 Hellequin of, ii. 232. 
 
 languages of, ii. 252. 
 Franciscan, religious zeal of Domin- 
 ican and friars, i. 320. 
 
 frater, ii. 21. 
 Fredegond, ii. 110. 
 Frederic the Great, ii. 169. 
 Fredun (Feridun), i. 98, 100. 
 Freycinet and Arago's Voyage to the 
 
 Eastern Ocean, i. 312. 
 frigere, ii. 86. 
 frigidus, ii. 72. 
 frog, ii. 244-246. 
 
 story of the, ii. 244 sqq. 
 
 used as a name of the sun, ii. 245. 
 
 Bheka, Bheki, in Sanskrit, ii. 246. 
 Frontenac, Count de, i. 311. 
 Froschkuiiig, story of the, ii. 244. 
 frost, ii. 86. 
 
 frus, ii. 86. 
 
 fui, ii. 61. 
 
 I'ula, ii. 42. 
 
 fumus, i. 96. 
 
 Future, Belief in a state, ii. 263-267 
 
 Skuld, TO. fieAAojTo, ii. 61, 152. 
 
 GABARS(Parsis),i 159. 
 Gabet, i. 261. 
 Gadiii, ii. 333.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 373 
 
 GAD 
 
 Gadhi, king of Kanyakub//a, fa- 
 ther of Vijvamitra.' grandfather, 
 through his daughter, of Parasu- 
 rfuna, ii. 333. 
 
 Gwa. ii. 66 (progeny of), 70 n. 1. 
 
 Gaelic, ii. 4-'5, 244. " 
 
 Giigannatha's Vivadabhangarnava, 
 ii. 33 n. 1. 
 
 yagati ;aiidante), i. 83 n. 1. 
 
 yaio. ii. 65 II. 1. 
 yaAcoj, ii. 2.). 
 
 Gaina's collection of American hiero- 
 glyphic MSS., i. 320, 321. 
 
 Gamailagni, father of Parasurama, 
 ii. 333. 
 
 f/amatar, ii. 29, 30. 
 
 yan^po?, ii. 21), 30. 
 yajxeiv, ii. 30 11. 1. 
 
 Gan, root to </anitar, genitor, yeverrip, 
 
 ii. 22, 39. 
 Ganaka. lather, king, ii. 39,255,328. 
 
 king of Videha, famous for his 
 learning, though a Kshatriya by 
 birth, became a Brahman, ii. 328, 
 336, 337. 
 
 Gandharvas, ii. 101,102. 
 
 Ganges, i. 57, 97, 213, 259; ii. 114, 
 
 125, 223, 21)7, 338. 
 </ani, //ani (mother), ii. 35, 39. 
 (/anitar, #anitri, ii. 21,22. 
 ganra, ii. 42. 
 gad, ii. 42. 
 Gaokerena, i. 154. 
 Gaomaezo (Nirang), i. 164. 
 gards, ii. 40. 
 Gargva, renowned reader of the 
 
 Veda, ii. 336. 
 Garshasp, i. 96. 
 Garutmat, i. 28, 362. 
 gaspadorus, ii. 38. 
 oa-pati, ii. 39. 
 Gatha, ballad, i. 122, 294-298. 
 
 dialect, i. 298. 
 yaii, caste, ii 297. 
 
 Gautama /Siikya-muni (Buddha), 
 son of Suddhodana, i. 284 
 
 clan of the Gautamas, i. 206. 
 gavesh, to inquire, ii. 27. 
 javeshawa, research, ii. 27. 
 javish/i, battle, ii. 27. 
 Gayatri, i. 19. 
 Gayo-maratan, i. 150. 
 Gayomars, i. 172. 
 Gaznevides, dynasty of the, i. 94. 
 Gellert, story ' of Prince Llewellyn 
 
 and his dog, ii. 229. 
 
 QUO 
 
 gener, ii. 29. 
 
 Genesis, i. 131, 140-157", 335, 363, 
 364, 307. 
 
 and the Zend-Avesta, i. 140-157. 
 
 MSS. of the do not carry us 
 beyond the tenth century afer 
 Christ, i. 148. 
 
 genitor, genitrix, ii. 22. 
 Geoflrev of Monmouth, i. 195. 
 
 ys'/M'pou," i. 133. 
 
 Gerard of Cremona, ii. 291. 
 
 Geras, ii. 64. 
 
 Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II.), ii. 285 
 
 <2&6. 
 Gerhard, Paul, sacred songs of, i. 3 
 
 Prof. (Greek Mythology), ii. 7 
 n. 2, 144. 
 
 German folklore, ii. 201. 
 
 god, ii. 231, meaning of the word 
 god, 148. 
 
 goddess (Hell), ii. 233. 
 
 language, ii. 62. 
 
 History of the,ii. 27 n. 1, 48 n. 1. 
 
 legends, ii. 168. 
 
 Mahrchen, i. 331, 332; ii. 233. 
 
 mythology, ii. 73, 81, 196. 
 
 Parca? (the Nornes), ii. 152. 
 
 Germany, Comparison between Nur- 
 sery Tales of Germany, England, 
 and India, ii. 244. 
 
 Gershasp, i. 176. 
 
 Gervones (rVuoi-ifr), ii. 182. 
 
 Gesenius, i. 132, 140n. 1. 
 
 Gesser Chan, ii 266. 
 
 Gesta Homanorum, borrowed from 
 the Hitopade*a, ii. 229. 
 
 Geta;, Burning of the widow among 
 the, ii. 259. 
 
 Getavana, i. 204. 
 
 geVer, ii. 29. 
 
 ghnrma, ii. 109. 
 
 ghrishvi, ii. 42. 
 
 chntaiis, ii. 129. 
 
 ghritasnas, ii. 129. 
 
 Ghumbars (bimestrial holidays), i 
 165. 
 
 Gihon, i. 154. 
 
 girna, millstone, pi. girnos, hand- 
 mill, ii. 43. 
 
 Girnar, Kdicts of Asoka on the rocki 
 of, i. 253, 294, 299. 
 
 Glaukos, ii 99. 
 
 gloaming, ii. 161, 162. 
 
 glos, ii. 29. 
 
 #nati, knowledge, i. 121. 
 
 Gnosticism, i. 251.
 
 374 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 00 
 
 eo, pi. gavas, ox, cow, ii. 26, 27, 42. 
 
 Goat, ii. 42. 
 
 Gobar (dust) figures, ii. 287, 288, 
 
 290-293; similarity between the 
 Gobar figures and the Sanskrit 
 
 numerals, ii 288. 
 Gobi, i. 254, 289. 
 
 God, Adam, son of, i. 347. 
 
 The name of is claimed for the 
 Brahmans as early as the Brah- 
 mana period, ii 33"l. 
 
 bright of Heaven, Light (In- 
 dra), i. 152; ii. 224. 
 
 Creation of Gods, prelude to the 
 creation of Man, ii. 331. 
 
 friend of Abraham, i. 367- 
 
 German word , its derivation, 
 ii. 148. 
 
 Hostanes and Plato about the 
 existence of one invisible , Pr. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 The Gods in Iceland believed to 
 die, ii. 190. 
 
 Names of, i. 351-4, 358-363, 366- 
 373. 
 
 The name of the same in India, 
 Greece, and Italy, ii. 222. 
 
 Gogerly, Dr. I , i. 192. 301. 
 
 go-go-yuga, ii. 26. 
 
 goose, ii. 42. 
 
 gopa (cowherd), ii. 26. 
 
 Gopa (cowherdess), wife of Buddha, 
 i. 207. 215. 
 
 gopayati, ii. 26. 
 
 Gorakpur, i. 210. 
 
 Gorgon, ii. 1, 139, 178. 
 
 gorod, ii. 40. 
 
 Gorresio, Chevalier's Italian transla- 
 tion of the Kamayawa, ii. 335. 
 
 go c h/ia (cow-pen, stable), ii. 28. 
 
 gosh</d (assembly), ii. 28. 
 
 goshu-yudh, ii. 2~7. 
 
 gospod', gospodin, gospodar, ii. 38. 
 
 gospodarz, ii. 38. 
 
 Gotama (Gautama), ii. 33 n. 1. 
 
 Gothic Bible of Ulphilas, ii. 249, 
 250. 
 
 gotra (originally hurdle), ii. 27. 
 
 name for caste, ii. 297. 
 gotra, herd of kine, ii. 27. 
 Gottling, i. 313. 
 govedar (cowherd), ii. 26. 
 govjado, ii. 26 (herd), 42. 
 ow, ii. 42. 
 
 gows (cow), ii. 26. 
 goyuga, ii. 26. 
 
 GRI 
 
 Grandmother, Venerable, ii. 189. 
 
 Grand Veneur, ii. 232. 
 
 Granth, i. 179. 
 
 granum, ii. 43. 
 
 Grassmann, ii. 90 n. 1, 108 n. 1. 
 
 Graul, Dr., ii. 301. 
 
 Greece, dialects of, ii. 166 n. 1. 
 
 genealogies of the dynasties of, i 
 327. 
 
 gods of, ii. 162. 
 
 heroes of, i. 274. 
 
 History of (Grote), ii. 2. 
 
 mythological Language of, ii 
 125. 
 
 Laws and customs of, ii. 259. 
 
 Migrations of Cecrops and Dan- 
 aus into, i. 327. 
 
 worship of nature in, ii. 146. 
 
 The Veda contains the true the- 
 ogonj- of, ii. 199. 
 
 Greek alphabet employed for nu- 
 merical purposes, ii. 2U4. 
 
 gods, ii. 73, 76 n. 1; (Eros, oldest 
 of the Gr. g.), 138 n. 2, 149, 154 
 199, 206. 
 
 heretics, i. 362. 
 
 of Homer, ii. 251. 
 
 modern, i. 298; ii. 75, 133. 
 
 months, names of, ii. 80. 
 Greenland, ii. 275. 
 Greenlander, belief of the in life 
 
 after death, ii. 264. 
 
 Grethel, ii. 212, 236. 
 
 Griffith, l j r. xviii. 
 
 Grihva-sutra, ii. 34, 134 n. 1. 
 
 Griniblot, i. 192, 194, 195. 
 
 Grimhild, ii. 109, 101. 
 
 Grimm, i. 79, 80, 333, 334; ii. 13 n. 
 1, 25, 35 n. 1, 37, 48 n. 1, 61, 62 
 67, 79 n. 1, 81, 85 n. 1, 90, 134, 148 
 154, 196, 197, 207, 208, 217, 221 
 223, 226, 236, 237, 258, 259, 268. 
 
 The brothers (Jakob and Wil- 
 helm), ii. 207, 208, 217, 223. 237. 
 
 Jakob, ii. 134 n. 2, 196, 197, 255, 
 259. 
 
 on Burial, ii. 259. 
 
 Burning of the Dead, ii. 35 n. 1. 
 
 on German (Teutonic) Mythology 
 ii. 13 n. 1, 67, 79 n. 1, 81, 85 n. 1. 
 196. 
 
 History of the German Language, 
 ii. 27 n. 1, 148. 
 
 Essay on the origin of Language, 
 i. 333. 
 
 law of, ii. 90.
 
 INDEX 
 
 375 
 
 GRI 
 
 Grimm, Essay on the God of Love. 
 
 11. 134 n. 1. 
 
 Mahrchen, ii. 154, 208. 217, 221, 
 223, 237, 258, 2G8. 
 
 grip, gris, ii. 42. 
 
 prod, ii. 40. 
 
 Grote, i.327; ii. 2 (History of Greece), 
 
 12, 14. 15 n. 2, 66, 69. 
 Grotetend, i. 85, 88, 127, 129, 260. 
 
 ypii/ey, i. 154. 
 
 Guatemala, i. 317, 322-324, 326, 327 j 
 ii. 269. 
 
 Aborigines of, ii 269. 
 
 Popol Vuh, sacred book of the 
 people of, i. 322. 
 
 Gucumatz, i. 329. 
 
 Gudrun, ii. 108-110. 
 
 Guiana, British, ii. 269. 
 
 Guinea, the devil is represented 
 white on the coast of, ii. 281. 
 
 Guizot, ii. 252, 296, (History of Civil- 
 ization). 
 
 gulth, ii. 46. 
 
 Gundaharius, ii. 110. 
 
 Gundicarius, ii. 110. 
 
 Gunnar (myth of), ii. 108, 109, 112. 
 
 Gunther, ii. 110, 112. 
 
 Gushtasp, i. 86, 94, 147. 
 
 Guzeraii. i. 161, 169, 175. 
 
 translation of the Zend-Avesta, i. 
 169, 174. 
 
 gwisk, ii. 44. 
 Gvlfi's Mocking, ii. 194. 
 yuvij, ii. 39. 
 Gvotisha, i. 111. 
 
 HABERE, ii. 60. 
 hafr, ii. 42. 
 
 Hagene, ii. 108. 
 
 haims, ii. 40. 
 
 hairda, ii. 27 n. 2. 
 
 Hall. Dr. FitzEdward, i. 224 n.. 1; ii. 
 33 n. 1. 
 
 oX, ii. 47. 
 
 Ham, language of, ii. 253. 
 
 hamea, ii. 42. 
 
 Han, dynasty of, i. 254. 
 
 han, to" kill, ii. 171. 
 
 han-ta, ii. 171. 
 
 Haoma, i. 154. 
 
 bapta hendu (sapta sindhu), i. 81. 
 
 Haran, i. 147, 148, 156. 
 
 bar-at, ii. 46. 
 
 Hardwick's Christ and other Mas- 
 ters, i. 20, 49-60. 
 
 HEL 
 
 Hardy, Spence, i. 186, 192, 202, 217, 
 223, 251 n 1, 278, 285, 301. 
 
 Eastern Monachism, i. 251 n. 1, 
 278. 
 
 Manual of Buddhism, i. 278. 
 hari, ii. 175. 
 
 Harit, Haritas (Seven Sisters), ii. 46, 
 129, 131, 132, 136, 137 n. 2, 138 n. 
 2, 179, 199. 
 
 Harlequin, ii. 232, 259. 
 
 Harley, Lord, ii. 92. 
 
 Harold Fairhair, ii. 189. 
 
 Hartung, ii. 53 n. 1. 
 
 haru-spex, ii. 172. 
 
 Hastings, Warren, i. 182. 
 
 Hang, Dr. Martin, i. 101-115, 117- 
 125, 126 n. 1, 134, 137-139, 143, 160. 
 
 Essavs on the Sacred Language 
 ... of the Parsees, i. 115 n. 1, 134. 
 
 A Lecture on an Original Speech, 
 i. 126 n. 1. 
 
 Havilah, i. 145. 
 hazanra, i. 81; ii. 51. 
 Heaven, i. 329, 330, 335; ii. 224, 257, 
 266. 
 
 belief in the bright gods of, ii. 
 224. 
 
 heart of, i. 329, 330, 335. 
 
 different ways to ascend from 
 earth to, ii. 266. 
 
 Hebe, ii. 88. 
 
 Hebrew, i. 11, 22, 130, 131, 142, 143, 
 
 145, 147, 151, 160, 195, 352; ii. 8. 
 
 225, 226. 
 
 translation of Kalila Dinina, ii 
 225, 226. 
 
 verb " bara," i. 132. 
 Hecate, Hekate, i. 358; ii. 75. 
 Hecuba, ii 154. 
 
 Hegel, i. 20, 282; ii. 139. 
 
 logic of, i. 282. 
 
 's Philosophy of Religion, i. 20. 
 Hegelian laws of thought, Pr ix. 
 beiter, ii. 42. 
 It, ii. 51. 
 
 cxarepo?, ii. 243. 
 
 fKtn6v, ii. 51. 
 
 'Efcaro!, 'Eico7T)/?oAos, U. 75. 
 
 upd?, tKDpo, ii 29. 
 Helena, ii. 9, 138 n. 2. 
 Helgi, ii. 189. 
 Helios, ii. 73, 78, 99, 156. 163. 
 
 cattle of (days), ii. 163. 
 
 jjAtos, ii. 75 (/WXeiiei), 79, 129. 
 
 Hell, i. 47; ii. 194, 233, 2fi4, 288- 
 
 bridge of, ii. 204.
 
 876 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 DEL 
 Hell, German goddess, ii. 2-3-3. 
 
 is cold to the northern, hot to the 
 eastern nations, ii. 282. 
 
 Hellas, ii. 138, 147. 
 
 Hellen, ii. 69. 
 
 Ilellequin, ii. 2-32, 259. 
 
 Helps, A. (History of the Spanish 
 
 Conquest in America), i. 236, 239 
 
 n. 1, 324 n. 1. 
 Jitiap, ii. 105 n. 1. 
 Hemera, ii. 76. 
 ijnrv, ii. 67. 
 ti'Seifa., ii. 51. 
 
 Heng-ho ( Ganges), i. 259. 
 Hengist, followers of and Horsa, 
 
 ii. 138. 
 
 Henotheism, i. 347, 350. 
 heord, ii. 27 n. 2. 
 'Hut, ii. 128. 
 
 JTTO, ii. 51. 
 
 Hera, Here, ii. 112 (worship in Ar- 
 
 gos), 177. 
 Herakltitos ( Heraklitus), Pr. xxviii. ; 
 
 ii. 10, 11, 258. 
 Herakles. i. 239; ii. 88, 89, 96, 107, 
 
 111, 112, 145, 146, 169, 181, 183, 206. 
 
 twofold character of as a god 
 and a hero, i. 239 
 
 death of, ii. 88, 107. 
 
 myth of, ii. Ill, 112. 
 
 names of, ii. 88. 
 
 solar hero. ii. 88. 
 
 a real Witrahan, ii. 183. 
 Heraklidae, Herakles national god 
 
 of the, ii. 112. 
 Herat, bazaars of, ii. 258. 
 herbalist, sj'mbolic emblem for an, i. 
 
 314. 
 
 Hermanfried, ii. 110. 
 Hernianricus, ii. 111. 
 ipnr)Vfv<a, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 Hermes. Pr. xxx. ; i. 360, 365; ii. 15, 
 
 146. 183. 
 
 Trismegistus, Pr. xxx. 
 
 Ep.-i.ij?, -Epufias, ii. 137 n. 2, 138 
 
 n. 2. 
 
 Hermippus of Alexandria, i. 88. 
 fpTTfrov, ii. 42. 
 Herse (dew), ii. 78, 85, 86. 
 ep<T7,, ii. 86 n. 2, 87 n. 2. 
 Hesiod, thcogony of, ii. 65 n. 2, 182. 
 Hesperides (Evening Star), ii. 64. 
 fcrna, ii. 87 n. 2, 137 n. 2. 
 Hesus (Ksus), i. 23. 
 it, ii. 51. 
 U0tf, ii. 86 n. 1. 
 
 rrrs 
 
 Hieratic, ii. 293 n. 1 (figures, in- 
 scriptions, sy-tem), 293 n. 1. 
 
 Hieroglyphic MSS. of America, i 
 320, 321. 
 
 Hieroglyphics, Mexican, i. 317. 
 
 iepo*, 1. 133. 
 
 Highlands, tales of the West, ii. 237- 
 247. 
 
 i/ceTeVto?, Zeus, ii. 70. 
 
 Hjmala, forest of, i. 285. 
 Himalaya, i. 02, C4; ii. 30, 113. 
 Himalayan countries, i. 254, 289. 
 
 mountains, i. 255. 
 Himvaritic inscriptions, i. 371. 
 Hindu gods, ii. 76. 
 
 the ancient believed in immor- 
 tality, ii. 263. 
 
 Monasteries, in China, i. 290. 
 
 Moon, Hindu representation of an 
 eclipse of the moon, ii. 269. 
 
 philosophy and religion, i. 185. 
 
 physiognomy, difference in the 
 phvsiognomv of the Hindu popu- 
 lation, ii. 321. 
 
 theatre, ii. 113 n. 1. 
 
 widows, the supposed Vaidik au- 
 thority for the burning of (Wil- 
 son), ii. 35 n. 1. 
 
 Hindustani, i. 116; ii. 196, 221, 223, 
 244, 258, 320 (a Sanskrit dialect). 
 
 hiorS. ii. 27 n. 2. 
 
 Hiouen-thsang, i. 13, 197, 202, 210, 
 215, 232, 233, 249. 251. 255. 200- 
 265, 267-272, 288, 293; ii. 339. 
 
 biography of, i. 232, 251, sqq. 
 
 740 books in 1,335 volumes, trans- 
 lated bv, i. 272. 
 
 life and travels of, i. 197,260, 288 
 
 itriro.JovKO\os, ii. 26. 
 
 Hippokentaur, ii. 1, 139. 
 
 Hipponoos, ii. 171. 
 
 IJTTTOS, ii- 42- 
 
 hiranyam, ii. 46. 
 
 toTtup, ii- 86 n. 1. 
 
 History of Central America, i. 311. 
 
 of the Christian Church (Nenn- 
 der), i- 278. 
 
 of Christianity (Dean Milman), L 
 282 
 
 of Greece (Grote), ii. 2. 
 
 legendary histories of India, ii. 
 299. 
 
 of the Five Nations (Colden), i. 
 311. 
 
 of Ancient Sanskrit literature 
 (Max Muller), i. 1 n. 1, 9 n. 1, 10
 
 INDEX. 
 
 377 
 
 HIT 
 
 n. 1, 28 n. 1, 38 n. 1, 106 n. 1, 107 
 n. 1, 362 n. 2, 373 n. 1. 
 
 Hitopadesa, i. 308; ii. 225, 227-231. 
 
 Hoang-ho (Yellow River), i. 263. 
 
 Hb'der, ii. 107. 
 
 Hodgson, Brian Houghton, i. 186- 
 190, 192, 196, 197, 277, 279 n. 1. 
 
 Hodr, ii. 109. 
 
 Hoeili, i. 232 n. 1. 
 
 Hoei-ser.g, travels of, i. 255. 
 
 Hog, ii. 42. 
 
 Hogni, ii 109. 
 
 Ho-kialo (Vyakanrana), i. 292. 
 
 Holmberg, i. 334 n. 1. 
 
 KAnt, ii. 172. 
 
 Holtzmann, Prof., i. 128. 
 
 Homa, i. 176 (Le Dieu Homa), 96. 
 
 Homer, i. 21, 25, 87, 90, 129, 133, 
 373; ii. 11, 21, 47, 60, 69, 70, 76, 
 78, 82, 89, 104, 105, 140, 150, 151, 
 163, 173, 181, 193, 199, 250, 251. 
 
 Greek of, ii. 251. 
 
 Hymn. Merc., ii. 183. 
 
 Voss, translator of, ii. 142. 
 Homonyms, ii. 71. 
 
 Hong Kong. i. 300 n. 1. 
 
 Horae, ii. 57. 
 
 Horsa, followers of Hengist and, ii. 
 
 188. 
 
 horse, ii. 42, 129-132. 
 hortus, ii. 40. 
 Hospodar, ii. 38. 
 Ilostanes, Pr. xxx. 
 hostes, ii. 185. 
 Hotars (reciters), i. 105, 106, 106 n. 
 
 1 (sapta hotars, see Hotri). 
 Hotrasanisin, i. 106 n. 1. 
 Hoiri, priest, ii. 36. 
 Hottentots, ii. 208, 210, 215, 267. 
 
 their stories of Renard the Fox, 
 ii. 210, 267. 
 
 Howard, Mr., i. 101, 114, 117. 
 
 Hrolf Ganger, ii. 188. 
 
 Hue, Abbe", i. 187 n. 1, 261, 276, 281. 
 
 Hudibras, Sir, ii. 272. 
 
 luiu, ii. 43. 
 
 Hnmboldt (Alex, and Wilh. v.), i. 
 
 232, 2o6, 320 ; ii. 147, 270. 
 Huns of Attila, ii. 110. 
 Hun-Ahpn, i. 332. 
 Hun-Ahpn-Vuch, i. 329. 
 hund, ii. 42. 
 Hungarian, i. 189, 190. 
 Hungary, i. 189, 190, 294. 
 Hunter (Annals of Rural Bengal), 
 
 Pr. xviii. n. 1. 
 
 ICE 
 
 hurdle, ii. 26, 27. 
 
 luis. ii. 42. 
 
 Hussain Vaiz, ii. 225. 
 
 Huzvaresh translation of the Zend 
 
 A vesta, i. 87, 89, 91, 92. 
 hvaitei, ii. 43. 
 hveit, ii. 43. 
 Hvergelmir, ii. 205. 
 hvft, ii. 43. 
 hva, i. 128. 
 Ilyde, Professor at Ox ',-' ; n;0 
 
 wei, Zeus, ii. 72. 
 iiypa Ke\evda, ii. 47. 
 in<>5, ii. 29 n. 1. 
 Hymettos, ii. 88. 
 
 hymn (Mantra), i. 10, 12, 13, 15, 17 
 18, 25, 28, 30, 33, sqq. 
 
 to Agni, i. 33. 
 
 from the Atharva-veda, i. 40. 
 
 tolndra, i. 30. 
 
 to the Maruts (Rudras) i. 34, sqq 
 
 to Ushas, i. 36, 37. 
 
 to Varuna, i. 39, 43. 
 virep, ii. 27 n. 1. 
 
 iiirepnopar, i. 240. 
 virepVeir, ii. 66. 
 
 v'/iaiVtu, ii. 44. 
 Hypnos, ii. 64, 66. 
 IITT'O, ii. 30 n. 1. 
 iis, ii. 42. 
 
 TACK and the Beanstalk, story of, 
 <J ii. 265. 
 
 Jack the Giantkiller, ii. 212. 
 Jacob, Pr. xi.; i. 364, 365. 
 Jacob, son of Leis, i. 94. 
 Jaggernath, i. 57. 
 Jahve, i. 156. 
 Jain, i. 179. 
 Iambics, i. 16. 
 janitrices, ii. 29. 
 Japan, i. 157. 
 Japhet, i. 145. 
 
 language of, ii. 253. 
 Jardine, Joseph, i. 303. 
 jatrew. ii. 29. 
 
 Java, idea of a bridge of hell In, n. 
 
 264. 
 
 javai, ii. 43. 
 Javan, i. 145. 
 Jaxartes, i. 154, 156. 
 Iberians, i. 313 ; ii. 273 (Couvadf 
 
 among thei. 
 Iceland i. 240; ii. 10, 77, 187, 194, 
 
 249. ' 
 
 Missionaries in, ii. 189, 190.
 
 378 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ICE 
 
 Iceland, the Norsemen in, ii. 187- 
 194. 
 
 discovered, peopled, civilized by 
 Norsemen, ii. 189. 
 
 pagan poetry of, ii. 190. 
 
 religious svstem of, ii. 191. 
 Icelandic, ii."l87, 190-192, 193, 217 
 
 Edda, ii. 217. 
 
 remains of Teutonic heathendom 
 only found in, ii. 187. 
 
 lia, ii. 101 (Ai</a, Pururavas son of), 
 
 104, 136. 
 Idaeus, ii. 111. 
 I5aio ? , ii. 88. 
 Idas, ii. 68. 
 i$7)?, derivatives in -uov and -<r^, ii. 
 
 150. 
 
 Jehangir, ii. 33. 
 
 Jehova. Jehovah, i. 124, 132, 341. 
 Jemshid, i. 94, 96, 97, 99, 178. 
 Jeremiah, i. 343, 365, 367. 
 Jesuit, Pr. xvi.; i. 301; ii. 278. 
 
 missionaries, i. 301 (in China and 
 India), ii. 278. 
 
 Jethro, i. 364. 
 
 Jews, sacred books of the, i. 3. 
 
 number of, i. 158, 212 n. 1. 
 
 Persian Captivity of the, i. 159. 
 
 religion of the, Pr. xii.; i. 54, 
 110 (began with sacrifice). 
 
 bridge of hell imagined by the, 
 ii. 264. 
 
 Jewish divines, i. 132. 
 
 ideas, i. 90, 146 (in the Koran). 
 
 traditions in, i. 156. 
 Jin, i. 367. 
 
 Ikshvaku, race of, ii. 334. 
 Ilpa, Ilya, ii. 204. 
 
 im, ii. 18. 
 
 Immi'rtality, i. 45, 46 n. 1; ii. 263- 
 265. 
 
 belief in, among the Choctaws, 
 ii. 266. 
 
 the Greenlanders, ii. 264. 
 
 the ancient Hindus (in per- 
 sonal immortality, immortality of 
 the soul), i. 45, 46 n. 1; ii. 263. 
 
 secured by a son, i. 45. 
 Indians of South America, 
 
 ii. 264, 265. 
 
 Mandans, ii. 265. 
 
 New Hollanders, ii. 266. 
 
 impedimenta, impelimenta, ii. 184 
 
 n. 1. 
 
 imperator, ii. 256. 
 Irca, i. 239; ii. 112 n. 1. 
 
 ING 
 
 incestnm, ii. 289. 
 
 incluta, ii. lOOn. 1. 
 
 India, Animals, names of domesti*, 
 
 the same in England and in , ii 
 
 41. 
 Arithmetic came to the Arabs di 
 
 rectly from, ii. 290. 
 
 burial in, ii. 35 n. 1. 
 
 civilization, early, of , i. 266. 
 
 Dialects, popular d. of , i. 299. 
 
 Fables, migration of, from to 
 Europe, ii. 226, 229. 
 
 History of, i. 202. 
 
 Language of, i. 11, 21, 357; ii. 
 163. 177, 221, 225, 22, 320. 
 
 Laws and customs in, ii. 260. 
 
 Legendary history of, ii. 299. 
 
 Turanians in before the Aryan 
 conquest, ii. 320. 
 
 India (see West Indies), ii. 277, 279. 
 Indian (of America), Pr. is.; i. 309- 
 313, 315, 319 ;ii. 264, 271. 
 
 of Central America, i. 309. 
 
 love song, i. 315. 
 
 inscriptions, i. 313. 
 
 picture writing, i. 312. 
 
 Red Indians, i. 310. 
 
 Superstitions of the Sioux In- 
 dians of North America, ii. 271. 
 
 tribes, i. 311 (Schoolcraft on 
 -), 317. 
 
 sacred writings of the, i. 309. 
 Indica of Megasthenes, i. 230 n. 2. 
 Indische Studien, i. 114 n. 1; ii. 134 
 
 n. 1. 
 
 Indra, i. 19, 25, 27, 28, 30-32, 42, 43, 
 47, 68, 98, 152, 153, 235, 243, 358, 
 360, 362; ii. 27, 73, 91, 93, 103, 120, 
 123-126, 133, 167, 174, 176-180, 
 183, 231, 232, 321, 322, 325, 327-330. 
 
 bow of, ii. 121, 123. 
 
 Brahman created, ii. 330. 
 
 Fight between andVritra, i. 152. 
 
 Horses of, ii. 133. 
 
 Hymn to, i. 30 sqq. ; ii. 321. 
 
 Name of of Indian growth 
 (Jupiter Pluvius), ii. 179. 
 
 flibhu epithet of, ii. 126. 
 
 Storms, god of, ii. 231. 
 indu, ii. 179. 
 
 Indus, i. 62, 81, 140 n. 1, 143, 154, 
 
 245, 271. 
 
 induviae, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Infanticide, ii. 310, 311, 313. 
 Ingnas, subordinate demons, i. 43 
 
 n. 1.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 379 
 
 INS 
 Inscriptiones (Orelli), i. 83 n. 1. 
 
 Helvetica (Mommsen), i. 23 n. 1. 
 Inscriptions, Acluemenjan, i. 89, 
 
 119,260; ii. 284-294 
 
 of Ardeshir, i. 89. 
 
 Babylonian, i. 113. 
 
 Baefro-Pali, ii. 293. 
 
 Greek, i. 371. 
 
 Hieratic, ii. 293 n. 1. 
 
 Hieroglyphic, i. 317, 321. 
 
 Himyaritic, i. 371. 
 
 Kapurdigiri, ii. 293. 
 
 Sassanian, i. 89. 
 
 Sinuitic, i. 371. 
 
 Taxila, ii. 293. 
 Instinct, divine, i. 368. 
 
 religious, i. 346. 
 insula, ii. 47. 
 
 Joannes de Piano Carpini, ii. 270. 
 
 Job, book of, i 130, 229, 356, 357. 
 
 Jocaste, Jokaste, ii. 159, 165. 
 
 Joel, Rabbi, translator of Kalila 
 Dimna, ii. 225. 
 
 Joguth Chundra Gangooly, Pr. xxi. 
 n. 1. 
 
 John of Capua, ii. 225. 
 
 Johnston, Sir Alexander, i. 191. 
 
 lole, ii. 89. 
 
 lolkos. ii. 68. 
 
 -i<av, derivations in -uav and -i8>j?, ii. 
 150. 
 
 Jones, Sir William, i. 66, 80, 89, 116, 
 183, 186, 219; ii. 208 (on Zend- 
 Avesta), 299. 
 
 lonians, i. 327. 
 
 Jonnunrek, ii 111. 
 
 Jornandes, i. 195 ; ii. 111. 
 
 id?, poi on, ii. 89. 
 
 Joshua, book of, i. 132, 363. 
 
 Jotunlieim, ii. 205. 
 
 I-an, i. 61, 155. 
 
 1. jnian, i. 84 (nations), 145, 148, 154, 
 157; ii. 201 (woi Id-tree). 
 
 Iranic language, ii. 8. 
 
 Ireland, ii. 247, 252. 
 
 Celtic vernaculars of, ii. 252. 
 Irenl'ried, ii. 110. 
 
 Irish, i 2-5 n. 2 (Old); ii. 21, 39, 42. 
 
 44, 48, 163 (St. Patrick converted 
 
 the), 
 iron, ii. 45. 
 
 Iroquois country, i. 311. 
 Isaac, Pr. xi. ; i. 151, 155, 367. 
 Isaiah, i. 91. 
 
 Iana created by Brahman, ii. 330. 
 Ufendiyar, ii. 107. 
 
 RAM 
 
 ishira, lively, i. 133 n. 1. 
 
 IffTup, ii. 87 n. 2. 
 
 Uvara (Lord) of the Yogins, i. 225. 
 
 tToAos, ii. 42. 
 
 Italy, language of, ii. 252, 256. 
 
 laws and customs in, ii. 259. 
 
 literature of, ii. 12. 
 
 name for God the same in India 
 Greece., and , ii. 222. 
 
 Itineraries of the fifty-six (Chinese) 
 
 monks, i. 256. 
 Julien, Stanislas, i. 13, 186, 197, 202, 
 
 203 n. 1, 210 n. 1, 232, 233, 255, 
 
 260-262, 273, 274, 278, 288, 289, 
 
 291, 292,299; ii. 231. 
 
 Collections of fables discovered 
 in Chinese by, ii. 231. 
 
 Pelerins Bouddhistes, i. 210 n. 1. 
 Jupiter (dyu, sky), i. 23, 25, 30, 235, 
 
 358,361; ii. 162,179,206. 
 
 Optimus Maximus, i. 358. 
 
 Pluvius, ii. 179. 
 
 sub Jove frigido, ii. 72. 
 Jurmann, i. 132 n. 1. 
 
 Justi, Dr. F., i. 139; ii. 100 n. 1. 
 
 Justinus Martyr, Pr. xxviii. 
 
 Ixtlilxochitl, i. 321. 
 
 Izinganekwane nensumansumare 
 nezindtiba zabantu (Nursery 
 Tales of the Zulus, by the ReT. 
 H. Callaway), ii. 206 n. 1. 
 
 KABUL, i. 268. 
 Kabulistan, 5. 266,271. 
 kadamba tree, ii. 121. 
 Kafir dialects, ii. 215. 
 
 race, ii. 208. 
 
 .Kaitra, month (April), i. 112. 
 fcaksh (with vi), ii. 99. 
 akravaka, ii. 121. 
 Kalantaka, monastery of, i. 212. 
 
 <caXc, ii. 31 n. 1. 
 
 Kali, ii. 75, 307. 
 
 Kalidasa, Hr. xviii.; i. 67; ii. 98, 
 
 113. 
 
 Kalila Dimna, ii. 225. 226. 228. 
 Kaliyuga, the laws of the writtd 
 
 bv 1'anwara, ii. 348. 
 Kaljush (Koljush, Kolosh), i. 334. 
 Kalpa, i. 268. 
 Kalyke, ii. 78, 80. 
 xaXj.TTw, ii. 80. 
 Kfuna, ii. 134 n. 1, 135, 136. 
 Kamchadals, ceremonial sine of, ii 
 
 270.
 
 380 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 HAM 
 
 Kamschatka, ii. 275, 277 n. 1 (Ko- 
 
 riaks of). 
 /Tandala, lowest outcast, must live 
 
 out of town, son of a Sudra 
 
 father and a Brahmanic mother, 
 
 ii. 338, 340, 341. 
 /sTar.Jra, i. 235. 
 /iTandragupta, i. 14, 220, 221. 
 Kanjur (Bkah-hgyur, Kah-gyur), 
 
 i. 1P9. 
 
 Kanne's Mythology, ii. 68 n. 1. 
 kans, ii. 41. 
 Kanva, i. 35. 
 Kanyakuboa, Gadhi, king of, ii. 
 
 333. 
 Kapila, 5. 214, 223-228, 250; ii. 246, 
 
 300. 
 
 ap' orisms of, i. 228; ii. 246. 
 
 an Atheistic philosopher, tolerated 
 by the Brahmans, ii. 300. 
 
 Sutras of, i. 224. 
 Kapilavastu (substance of Kapila?), 
 
 i. 206, 210, 213-215, 219, 222, 233. 
 
 KOlTTpOS, 11. 42. 
 
 Kapurdigiri, Edicts of Asoka pre- 
 served on the rocks of Dhauli, 
 Girnar, and , i. 253, 294. 
 
 numerals in the inscriptions of, ii. 
 273. 
 
 fcarana, ii. 297. 
 Karnaga, i. 32. 
 
 Kopes jJap^apopiavoi, ii. 173. 
 
 Karia, ii. 78, 80. 
 
 Kaf'pai, i. 1 4 7 n. 1. 
 
 karta (pit), i. 47. 
 
 Kartikeya, ii. 120. 
 
 karwar,'i. 59, 60. 
 
 Kashmir, i. 254 (Buddhism spread 
 
 to), 270, 289. 
 
 Kasi, A/yatanatru, king of, ii. 336. 
 Kaacrvu, ii- 44. 
 Kasyapa, i. 280, 292; ii. 332. 
 
 Compiler of the Abhidharma of 
 the T ripi/aka, i. 280. 
 
 Parasurama gives the earth to, ii. 
 332. 
 
 Kasyapiyas (Kia-ye-i), i. 292. 
 
 iea.Ta.<rvia, ii. 44. 
 
 featur, ii. 132. 
 
 featvaras, ii. 33. 
 
 Kahayana, i. 14, 212 (disciple of 
 
 Buddha). 
 Kaunos, ii. 68. 
 caurn, ii. 43. 
 Kdiishitaki - brahmana - upanishad 
 
 (edited by Cowell), ii. 36 n. 1. 
 
 KLO 
 
 Kansika, ii. 335. 
 
 Kelly, W. K. (Curiosities of Ind*>- 
 European Tradition and Folklore), 
 ii. 195 n. 1, 196-198, 201-204. 
 
 Ke-Loo, i. 308. 
 
 Kenaon promontory, ii. 88. 
 
 Kephalos, ii. 84-86/87, 88, 106. 
 
 Ker, ii. 64. 
 
 Kerala, law in, ii. 314. 
 
 Kerberos (the dark one), ii. 180-183, 
 186 n. 2. 
 
 identification of, with the San- 
 skrit sarvara, ii. 180. 
 
 Keresaspa, i. 96 ; ii. 167. 
 keturi, ii. 51. 
 khad, i 83 n 1. 
 Khai Khosru, i 32 n. 1. 
 Khalifs.i. 94, 171; ii. 285, 288, 289, 
 291. 
 
 Almamun, ii. 285, 289. 
 
 Almansur, ii. 289. 
 
 Omar, i. 171. 
 
 Walid. ii. 288. 
 Pandas, i. 82, 83, 121. 
 
 period, i. 105, 111. 
 .K"Aandoga. i. 83 n. 1. 
 AViandogya-upanishad, i. (39 n. 2; ii. 
 
 336 n. 2. 
 
 fc/iardis, ii. 27 n. 2. 
 Khasgar, i. 271. 
 Khian-Lung, i. 189. 
 Khi-nie, travels of, i. 256. 
 khor, ii. 167. 
 Khordeh Avesta, i. 171. 
 Khorene, Moses of, i. 99. 
 Khosru Nushirvan, ii. 225, 230. 
 Khoten, i. 271. 
 khvar, ii. 167. 
 Kidd, Prof., i. 302. 
 Kimchi, K. D., i. 131. 
 King, i. 179, 303, 304. 
 
 the five kings of the Confucians, 
 Yih, Shoo, She, Le Ke, and Cbun* 
 Tsew, i. 179, 303, 304. 
 
 kingship, ii. 39, 255. 
 
 words for, ii. 255. 
 Kingsborough, Lord, i. 317. 
 Kingsley, ii. 218. 
 
 Rinnan", number cf Parsis b, i 
 
 159. 
 
 Aitras. ii. 129. 
 Klaproth. i. 261. 
 Klemm (Dr. Gustav), ii. 269. 
 <cAe'os (sravas, cluo), i. 259. 
 (cXriroi, ii. 100 n. 1. 
 Klotho, ii. 152.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 S81 
 
 KNI 
 Knig'aton, History of Ceylon, i. 251 
 
 n. 1. 
 
 Knobel, i. 140 n 1. 
 know, to, ii. 249, 250. 
 Koijush (Knljush, Kolosh), i. 334. 
 Ko-Io-keou-Io (Riihula), i. 258. 
 Kolosh (Kaljush, Koijush), i. 334. 
 
 KoA.n-09, ii. 79. 
 
 KW.UT), ii. 40. ^ 
 
 Kon ungfr, Kongr, ii. 255. 
 
 Keippen (Die Religion des Buddha), 
 
 i. 190 n. 1. 
 Koran. Pr. xii., xiv. ; i. 6, 13, 22, 179, 
 
 372. 
 
 Koriaks in Kamtschatka, ii. 277 n. 
 Kbros, Csoma de, i. 186. 189, 190, 
 
 192. 
 
 Kosala, i. 213. 
 kraal, ii. 209, 214. 
 Krapf, i. 301. 
 Kravya-ad (xpea^-fSia), ii. 44. 
 
 Kpeio'/idyot, 11. 44. 
 
 Kriemhilt, ii. 107, 110. 
 
 Kriasva, i. 96. 
 
 Krishna, ii. 75, 307. 
 
 Kritavirya, ii. 332. 
 
 Kronos, i. 91, 237, 355; ii. 11, 70 
 
 n. 1. 
 Kp<5i-09, KpcmW, Kpon'Sijs, ii. 150, 
 
 151. 
 Kshatriya, i. 204, 206, 259; ii. 297, 
 
 321, 329-333, 335-340, 342, 346, 
 
 353. 
 
 Buddha bv birth a , 5. 206. 
 
 expressed in Chinese by Tchali, i. 
 259. 
 
 color of the is red, ii. 321. 
 
 the cause of their destruction, ii. 
 332, 333. 
 
 Manu was by birth a Ea^anya or 
 , ii. 335. 
 
 Vivasvat, the father of Mann, is 
 called the seed of all the , ii. 
 335. 
 
 kshayathira, ii. 38. 
 
 kuce, ii. 42. 
 
 KuAic races, . 233 n. 2. 
 
 Kufah, i. 92. 
 
 Kuhn, i 83 n. 1, 132 n. 1, 133 n. 1; 
 ii. 27 n. 2, 47 n. 1, 48 n. 1, 61 n. 1, 
 83 n. 1, 90 n. 1, 93 n. 1, 100 n. 1, 
 103 n. 1, 108 n. 1, 137 n. 2, 139, 
 165 n. 1, 172, 175, 177, 185 n. 3, 
 197-199, 203, 204. 
 
 Zeitschrift fur vergleichende 
 Sprachforschung, i. 83 n. 1, 132 
 
 LAN 
 
 n. 1, 133 n. 1; ii. 27 n. 2, 47 n 
 
 1, 61 n. 1, 83 n. 1, 108 n. 1, 139. 
 
 165 n. 1, 172 n. 2, 175, 177, 185 
 
 n. 3. 
 Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers. ii. 
 
 103 n. 1, 197. 
 kula, caste, ii. 297. 
 Kulins, ii. 345. 
 Kirna (ground), ii. 43. 
 Kurukshetra, ii. 101. 
 Kushrta (embodiment of Soma). ii 
 
 201-203. 
 
 Kusika, royal race of the, ii. 333. 
 Kusinagara, i. 210, 213. 
 Kusti, i. 164. 
 Kutsa, i. 32. 
 kwety-s, ii. 43. 
 A'yavana, ii. 124. 
 Kv<av, ii. 42, 183. 
 Kyrene, myth of, ii. 68. 
 
 AAA2, ii. 11. 
 Laban, i. 363. 
 Laboulaye, i. 217. 
 Lacedogna. ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Lachesis, ii. 152. 
 
 Aa^vcs, \a\vri, ii. 45. 
 
 lacruma, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 Ladon, ii. 157. 
 
 Lafontaine, fables de, ii. 225, 230. 
 
 Lalos, ii. 164, 165. 
 
 >au'. to bark, ii. 183. 
 
 Lakonic, ii. 128. 
 
 lal, ii. 261. 
 
 Lalita-Vistara (Life of Buddha), L 
 
 197, 202, 205, 210, 254 n. 3. 
 Lama of Thibet, i. 187, 190. 
 lana, ii. 47. 
 Landresse, i. 257. 
 Lane, i. 132. 
 Language of the Achnemenians, L 
 
 79, 85. 
 
 nature of the Chinese, i. 290. 
 
 former divisions of, i. 21. 
 
 families of, i. 22. 
 
 German, ii. 62. 
 
 history of the German, ii. tt 
 n. 1. 
 
 no nnw , ii. 253. 
 
 monosyllabic, i. 22. 
 
 Kssav on the Origin of, i. 333. 
 
 science of, Pr. xi., xix., xxi.; ii. 
 244, 248, 252, 253, 257, 260. 
 
 Lectures on the Science of (Max 
 Miiller), ii. 39 n. 2, 43 n. 1, 93 n. 
 1, 129 n. 1.
 
 382 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 LAN 
 
 Language, Semitic, i. 337 n. 1. 
 
 survey of (M. Miiller), i. 233 
 n. 1. 
 
 Turanian, ii. 71 n. 1, 176 n- 1. 
 
 Veda, language and rainmar of 
 the, ii. 301. 
 
 laniger, ii. 173, 178. 
 
 Lankavatara, translated by Burnouf, 
 
 i. 279 n. 3. 
 Laomedon, ii. 112. 
 >aoj, ii. 11,26, 165 n. 1,185. 
 Lao-tse, Pr. xiii., xxvi.; i. 50, 53,184, 
 
 212, 254, 263, 289. 
 
 followers of, i. 212 n. 1. 
 
 religion of, Pr. xiii.; i. 184. 
 
 works of, i. 263. 
 XOL . i p >i, ii. 165 n. 1. 
 Lapland, ii. 8, 237,241, 263. 
 
 rubbing of noses, salutation in the 
 Alps, ii. 261. 
 
 Laps, i. 233 n. 2. 
 Las Casas, i. 318. 
 
 Lassen, i. 85, 88. 127, 128, 183, 202, 
 260, 292, 2i)6, 338; ii. 24, 185 n. 1. 
 Latin grammarians, i. 237. 
 
 old, ii. 53. 
 
 Latmian cave, ii. 78, 80, 83. 
 
 Latinos, ii. 78, 80. 
 
 Latona, ii. 80. 
 
 Lauer (Svstem of Greek Mythology), 
 
 ii. 79 n. 2, 139. 
 lautia, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Law, ancient (Mr. Maine), ii. 256. 
 Laws of Kaliyuga, written by Para> 
 
 sara, ii. 348. 
 
 of Manu, i. 17, 50,67; ii. 299, 
 302, 304, 337, 339, 347. 
 
 old Sutras, or law books, ii. 302. 
 Lazarus, Prof., ii. 262. 
 Lecompte, Pr. xv. 
 
 Aeyei,., ii 70. 
 
 Igendarv history of India, ii. 299. 
 Legends, "i. 192 n. 1 ; ii. 154-169, 195, 
 210, 242, 243, 258, 311. 
 
 Aryan, ii. 243. 
 
 Basuto, ii. 210. 
 
 German, ii. 169. 
 
 Greek ii. 154-169. 
 
 Indo-European, ii. 242. 
 
 and theories of ihe Buddhists (Sp. 
 Hardy), i. 192 n. 1. 
 
 l,egerlotz, i. 83 n. 1; ii. 93 n. 1. 
 Legge, James (The Chinese classics 
 
 edited by), i. 300 n. 1, 301, 302, 
 
 303. 
 
 LHC 
 
 Legra'id d'Aussy, ii. 273. 
 Ao .1. 27 n. 1. 
 Leis, Jacob son of, i. 94. 
 Le Ke (Record of Kites, fourth king) 
 
 i. 303. 304. 
 
 Leontophontes, ii. 184. 
 Leophontes (Aoi<5vn)s), ii. 165 n. 1, 
 
 184, 185, 186. 
 
 Lepsius, Dr. (alphabet of), ii. 216. 
 Leto, ii. 80. 
 Lettish, ii. 26, 42. 
 Lcukadian mountains, ii. 88. 
 Leukippides, ii. 91. 
 
 Lewis,"srrG!'c.ri.'327; ii. 265. 
 Lewis, account of the belief of tb 
 
 Mandans. ii. 265. 
 Lhassa, i. 189, 261. 
 Libya, Kyrene in, ii. 68. 
 Lichadian islands, ii. 88. 
 Lie-has, ii. 88. 
 lib, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Linus, i. 73. 
 
 lip, to anoint, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 A;, fat, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 AYoxo;, ii. 166 n. 1, 184 n. 1. 
 Lita?, ii. 70. 
 Lithuanian, i. 80; ii. 18, 19, 21, 28 n. 
 
 1, 30, 37, 38, 40, 42-44, 51, 61, 100, 
 
 224, 323. 
 Littre, i. 186. 
 Livre des Sauvages, i. 309, 311, 
 
 317. 
 Livre des Lumieres, compose 1 par le 
 
 Sage Biipay. ii. 226. 
 Llewellvn, Prince L., and his hound 
 
 Gellert, ii. 229. 
 Lobeck, ii. 14 n. 4 (Aglaophamus), 
 
 177 n. 1 (De Prothesi et Aphse- 
 
 resi ). 
 
 lo-che (rar/as, dust), i. 298. 
 Logos, Pr. xxviii. 
 Ao-yos, ii. 69. 
 Lohrasp. i. 147. 
 Lok, Loki. ii. 107, 233. 
 loky-s, ii. 42. 
 Ionian, loma.-iya, ii. 173. 
 Longobardi, Jesuit, Pr. xvi. 
 Lord of the azure surface, i. 329. 
 of the green planisphere, i. 329. 
 lorica, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Lotus de la bonne Loi (Burnouf), i 
 
 218 n. 1, 244 n. 1, 249 n. 1, 250 a 
 
 1, 277. 
 
 Lubbock, Sir J., ii. 29 n. 1. 
 Latino, i. %8; ii. 75.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 LUC 
 
 lucru, lucrum, ii. 63. 
 Ludlow, Major, ii. 37 n. 2. 
 Luna, i. 358; ii. 75. 
 Lunar race, ii. 78. 
 
 zodiac (Xakshatra), i. 112. 
 
 Lun Yu (conversations between Con- 
 fucius and his disciples, lirst Shoo), 
 i. 304, 306. 
 
 luo, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 lupus, ii. 42. 
 
 Lutheran missions in India, ii. 301. 
 
 Lycia, ii. 08, 73. 
 
 Apollo falsely called son of 
 
 (Aviojye<TJs), ii. 73. 
 
 Lycurgus, Lvkurgos, i. 72; ii. 11. 
 Lyell, Sir C., ii. 221. 
 
 \.Vxr)yevrj<;, ii. 73. 
 
 AUKOS, ii. 42. 
 lymphis, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 TV/f A, to fashion, ii. 22. 
 
 JM Mabillon, ii. 212. 
 
 Mac, ii. 63. 
 
 Macedonian conquest (occupation) 
 
 of Persia, i. 89, 95. 
 MacLennan, J. F. (On Primitive 
 
 Marriage), i. 4 n. 1 ; ii. 260. 
 MacPhie of South Uist, ii. 239, 242. 
 madhu, ii. 172. 
 Madhusudana, ii. 336. 
 Madras, ii. 301, 309, 310, 350. 
 
 Correspondence between an ortho- 
 dox Brahman and the Editor of a 
 native newspaper at , ii. 309- 
 314. 
 
 mag, ii. 63. 
 
 Magadha, i. 194, 210-212, 221, 296; 
 ii. 342. 
 
 Caste of the Magadhas, ii. 342. 
 magath-s, ii. 63. 
 
 Magian, Pr. xxx.; i. 23 (sacred 
 
 books of the ), 117 (religion). 
 Miigism, i. 48, 148. 
 magus (son), ii. 63. 
 Mahiibharata, i. 50, 67, 83, 155, 279; 
 
 ii. 125, 321 (about the color of the 
 
 Indian castes). 
 Malifuleva, ii. 75. 
 Malifuifima. compiler of the Mahil- 
 
 vansa, i. 196. 
 M:\liasena, i. 196. 
 Mahavansa, i. 191, 196, 252. 
 
 history of Ceylon. 191. 
 Mahcndra, Parasurama retires to, ii. 
 
 332. 
 Mahi, ii. 72. 
 
 MAS 
 
 Mahimata, ii. 108 n. 1. 
 Mahinavat, ii. 27. 
 Maliinda, son of Asoka, i. 194, 195. 
 Mahmud the Great (Gaznevide), L 
 
 94. 
 
 Mahommed, see Mohammed. 
 Mahratti, ii. 320. 
 Malirchen, i. 331; ii. 154, 196,197. 
 
 208, 221-223, 233, 258, 268. 
 Maid, ii. 03. 
 Maigrot, Pr. xvi. 
 Main, K., i. 111. 
 Maine, Mr. (on Ancient Law), ii. 
 
 256. 
 Maitri, love, all virtues spring from, 
 
 i 2!8. 
 
 makhshi, ii. 42. 
 Maxpo?, ii. 66. 
 makshika, ii. 42. 
 Malabar, i. 271; ii. 172, 314, 350. 
 
 coast, i. 271 ; ii. 172. 
 
 law on marriage in, ii. 314. 
 Malacca, i. 302. 
 
 Malay, i. 22, 57; ii. 260, 205, 280. 
 
 islands, language of the, i. 22. 
 
 peninsula, ii. 200, 280. 
 
 stories from the districts ii. 
 205. 
 
 wild tribes of the, ii. 200. 
 Malavo-Polvnesians, ii. 205. 
 Malcolm, Sir John, i. 100. 
 Malika (King), i. 359. 
 /oiaAAo?, ii. 177 n. 1. 
 maluna-s, ii. 44. 
 
 Man. ii. 193, 278. 318, 331. 
 
 Ainos or Hairy Men, ii. 277 n. 
 1. 
 
 Men created out of an ash-tree, 
 ii. 193. 
 
 the Creation of the Gods was 
 prelude to the creation of, ii. 331 
 
 Manah, i. 372. 
 
 Mandakini, ii. 120. 
 
 Maw/ala, ii. 175. 
 
 Mandan's belief in a future state, ii. 
 
 265. 
 
 Mandshu, i. 192. 
 Manes, ii. 200. 
 Manetho, i. 321. 
 Mani, i. 219. 
 Manichseans, i. 219. 
 Manners and Customs of the Parseea, 
 
 The (bv Dadabhai Naoroji), L 168 
 
 n. 1, 161. 
 
 On, ii. 248-283. 
 
 Mannhardt, ii. 197.
 
 384 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Map 
 Mams, ii. 88. 
 
 Mantra (hymn), i. 10, 105, 107, 111; 
 
 ii. 280, 3"14. 
 Manu, i. 17, 27. 50, 67, 83, 92, 347; 
 
 ii. 36 n. 1, 37 n. 1, 99 n. 1, 126 n. 
 
 1,299, 302, 304, 305, 315, 316, 322, 
 
 329, 335, 337, 339-342, 347, 348. 
 
 by bir.h a Rayanya or Ksha- 
 trfya, ii. 335. 
 
 the father of Manu was Vivasvat, 
 ii. 335. 
 
 hymns of, i. 27. 
 
 laws of, i. 17, 50, 67, 347; ii. 299, 
 302, 304, 337, 339, 340, 348. 
 
 Manuscrit Pictographique AmeYicain 
 (by Abbe" Domenech), i. 309, 310, 
 317 n. 1. 
 
 manushya-deva (human god), Brah- 
 man, ii. 331. 
 
 MaimsXritra, i. 151. 
 
 Maol a Chliobain, ii. 212. 
 
 mfira, i. 205. 
 
 Marco Polo passing through China, 
 ii. 272. 
 
 mare, ii. 48. 
 
 marei, ii. 48. 
 
 Maria, i. 310. 
 
 Manias (our Lord), i. 359. 
 
 Marpeesa, ii. 69. 
 
 Marriage, i. 4 n. 1; ii. 260, 307, 309, 
 312-315, 318, 337, 340, 341. 
 
 on Primitive (bv MacLennan), i. 
 4n. 1; ii. 230. 
 
 Marriages prohibited not only by 
 caste, but also by pedigree, ii. 
 345. 
 
 Mars (Marut), i. 25, 30, 355. 
 Martinez, i. 312. 
 martya (man), ii. 27. 
 mam (desert), ii. 48. 
 Maruts (storms), i. 27, 34-36, 68, 98, 
 354, 355; ii. 200, 323, 327, 330. 
 
 Brahman created bv, ii. 330. 
 
 hymn to the, i. 34-36. 
 
 Indra with the host of the, ii. 
 327. 
 
 Mary, stories of the Virgin, ii. 207. 
 Massachusetts language, translation 
 
 of the Bible in the, i. 316. 
 MatAnga, i. 254. 
 malar, ii. 21, 22. 
 Matarisvan, i. 28, 238, 362. 
 /narr)v, ii. 177 n. 1. 
 mater, ii. 21, 108 n. 1. 
 mathair, ii. 21. 
 aiali, ii. 21. 
 
 MEX 
 
 Maudgalyavana, disciple of Buddha, 
 i. 212. 
 
 Maurice's Lectures on the Religion 
 of the World, i. 21. 
 
 Maury (Histoire de? Religions de la 
 Grece antique), ii. 144, 145. 
 
 Maya, i. 91. 
 
 Maya, Mayadev!, Mayavati, i. 206, 
 215. 
 
 Mazdao, i. 124. 
 
 Mazdiashna Religion, i. e. the Wor- 
 ship of God, i. 169, 172, 173. 
 
 Media, i. 79, 84; ii. 168. 
 
 Median, ii. 167, 168. 
 
 dynasty, ii. 168. 
 
 king, ii. 167. 
 
 Medics (Melicse), ii. 184 n. 1. 
 meditor, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Medusanim monstrum, ii. 178. 
 Meghrab, mathematicians of the, ii. 
 
 292. 
 
 mel, mellis, ii. 172. 
 fi.e\$uv, ii. 177 n. 1. 
 Meleager, ii. 106, 169. 
 
 MeAeraw, 166 n. 1, 184 n. 1. 
 
 melin, ii. 44. 
 Memnon, ii. 84, 103. 
 Mencius, i. 55, 304, 306 n. 1. 
 
 fourth Shoo, the work of, i. 304. 
 Mene (the moon), ii. 73. 
 Menelaos, ii. 9, 77. 
 
 Menenius, i. 96. 
 Menostios, ii. 182. 
 Mensa Pythagorea, ii. 285. 
 Mercury, i. 219. 
 Merv, i. 95. 
 Me>y, Mr., ii. 36 n. 1. 
 Meshech, i. 145. 
 
 Metaphysics, i. 280, 281 ; ii. 76 
 n. 1. 
 
 of Aristotle, ii. 76 n. 1. 
 
 Abhidharma, Buddhist system (or 
 Basket) of , i. 280,281. 
 
 Metempsychosis, i. 44, 199. 
 
 not in'the Veda, i. 44. 
 jurJTTjp, ii. 21, 22, 74. 
 metre, i. 82, 83; ii. 261. 
 Mexican, i. 51, 317, 318, 321; ii. 248 
 
 n. 1, 270. 
 
 hieroglyphics, published by Lord 
 Kingsborough, i. 317. 
 
 nature of the ancient writing 
 i. 321. 
 
 representation of an eclipse of tha 
 moon, ii. 269. 
 
 Mexico, Pr. xiii.; i. 309, 816, 317
 
 INDEX. 
 
 385 
 
 MEX 
 
 320, 321, 323, 334: ii. 248 n. 1, 
 
 269. 
 Mexico and the Mexicans (by Ty- 
 
 lor), ii. 248 n. 1. 
 Miau-tze (soil children), ii. 272. 
 inicco, ii. 42. 
 Michel, F., ii. 273. 
 Middle Ages, Guilds of the, ii. 343. 
 
 ancient stories of the, fi. 164. 
 Mignet, i. 186. 
 
 Mileoin, i. 341 (worshippers of), 
 
 359. 
 
 Mi-le, family of, i. 272. 
 Miletos, it. 09. 
 Milinda, Dialogue between and 
 
 Nagasena, i. 285, 286. 
 mill, millstone, ii. 43,44. 
 rnille, ii. 51. 
 Milman, Dean, i. 282. 
 Mimamsa school, philosophers of the, 
 
 ii 336. 
 
 Mimir, ii. 204. 
 Minerva, i. 30; ii. 162. 
 Ming-ti, Emperor, i. 254. 
 Minnefiinger, i. 16. 
 Minokliired, i. 91. 
 Minos, ii. 68, 99 n. 1. 
 Minyans, the, ii. 68. 
 Missionaries, Baptist in Seram- 
 
 pore, i. 301. 
 
 Buddhist, i. 192. 
 
 Christian, ii. 280. 
 
 _ preaching against caste, ii.296. 
 
 Icelandic ( in Iceland), ii. 189, 
 190. 
 
 Jesuit, ii. 278. 
 
 in India and China, i. 301. 
 
 in India, ii. 304, 305. 
 
 Protestant, ii. 349. 
 
 Roman Catholic, ii. 349. 
 
 We.' ley an in Ceylon, i. 192, 
 217, 301. 
 
 Missions in India, Lutheran, ii. 301. 
 Mistletoe, ii. 201, 204 (healing virtue 
 
 of the). 
 
 Mitchell, J. Murray, i. 87 n. 1. 
 llitra, i. 27, 28, 43, 91, 235, 362; ii. 
 
 <?5, 99. 
 Mlefc/Ma, the Veda published by a, 
 
 ii. 305. 
 mlyn, ii. 44. 
 Mnaseas, ii. 70 n. 1. 
 Mnemosyne, ii. 105. 
 Moallaka of Zoheyr, i. 372. 
 Mobed (priest of the Parsis), i. 166. 
 Modern i'arsis, i. 158-178. 
 
 VOL. ii 25 
 
 MOR 
 
 Modjmil, ii. 168. 
 Moe, ii. 217. 
 Moflat, i. 301. 
 
 Mohammed. Pr. xii.; i. 91, 182. 184 
 215, 367, 372. 
 
 doctrine of, i. 91. 
 
 the Expected, i. 215. 
 
 successors of , i. 182. 
 Mohammed ben Ibrahim Alfazari, 
 
 translator of the Siddhanta of 
 Brahmagupta, ii. 289. 
 Mohammedan, Controversies of the 
 Brahmans with the, ii. 304. 
 
 Hindu converts admitted into 
 society, ii. 351. 
 
 conquest of India, i. 256. 
 
 Number of, i. 158, 212 n. 1. 
 
 Paradise, i. 287. 
 
 Persia, conquest of, i. 95. 171. 
 
 Spain, invasion of, ii. 285, 288. 
 Mold's edition of the Shahuanieh, i. 
 
 92. 
 
 Moksha, deliverance of the soul from 
 all pain and illusion, i. 279. 
 
 mola, ii. 44. 
 
 mollis, ii. 172. 
 
 Moloch, i. 341 (worshippers of), 359. 
 360. 
 
 Mommsen, i. 23 n. 1. 
 
 Momos. ii. 64. 
 
 Monachism. Spence Hardy on East- 
 ern, i. 192. 
 
 Monedo, i. 315. 
 
 Mongolia, i. 187, 190, 197, 234, 287. 
 
 Buddhist literature of, i. 197. 
 
 View of Nirvana in, i. 287. 
 Mongolian, i. 190 (language, versi< a 
 
 of the Buddhist canon), 192, 198, 
 
 260. 
 
 Mongolia tales, ii. 2GG. 
 Monmouth, Geoffrey of, i. 195. 
 Monosvllabic (Chinese) language, i. 
 
 22, 257. 
 Monotheism, i. 27, 28, 337-374. 
 
 Semitic, i. 337-374. 
 monstrum Medusa-urn, ii. 178. 
 
 villosum, ii. 178. 
 month, i. 43. 
 
 Moon, myths and names of the, i 
 235; ii. 73, 79, 83. 
 
 representation of an r.clipse of the 
 ii. 269. 
 
 worshippers of the, i. 341. 
 more, ii. 48 
 
 Morgen, ii. 90. 
 Morley, David, ii. 291.
 
 386 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 MOB 
 
 Moros, li. 64. 
 
 Morrison, i. 261. 
 
 Mortal, gods in Iceland, ii. 190. 
 
 Mosaic, i. 125 (religion), 131 (cos- 
 mogony by Browne), 334. 
 
 Moses, Pr. xii., xxvi. ; i. 45, 125, 132, 
 133, 142, 343. 364-367; ii. 2d7. 
 
 God of, i. 367. 
 
 sacred records of, Pr. xii. 
 Moses of Khorene, i. 99; ii. 168. 
 Mosul, i. 92. 
 
 mother, ii. 21, 39. 
 
 mother-in-law, ii. 29. 
 
 mouse (mush, f*0s, uius, mus, mysz), 
 
 1. 77; ii. 42. 
 Movers, Pr. xii. 
 mri, to die. ii. 48. 
 nu-iilu, ii. 172. 
 
 Mrityu, ii 181, 330 (created by 
 
 Brahman), 
 mucha, ii. 42. 
 Muir, Dr. J., Original Sanskrit Texts, 
 
 published by, i. 19 n. 1, 41 n. 1,46 
 
 n. 1, 47 n. 1 ; ii. 295 n. 1, 317, 321, 
 
 330, 334, 335. 
 muir, ii. 48. 
 
 mukta (unconditioned), i. 225. 
 muli. ii. 44. 
 
 Muller, H. D., Ares by, ii. 70 n. 1. 
 Muller, Max, Essav on Comparative 
 
 Mythology, i. 239 n. 2. 
 
 History of Ancient vSanskrit Lit- 
 erature^ i. 10 n. 1, 362 n. 2, 373 n. 1. 
 
 Lectures on the Science of Lan- 
 guage, ii. 39 n. 2, 43 n. 1, 92 n. 1, 
 
 2, 129 n. 1. 
 
 Letter to Chevalier Bunsen, ii. 71 
 n. 1, 176 n. 1. 
 
 Survey of Languages, i. 233 n. 1. 
 
 Todtenbestattung bei den Brah- 
 manen, i. 31 n. 1; ii. 36 n. 1. 
 
 Muller, Otfried, on the Eunienides, 
 ii. 70 n. 1. 
 
 Prolegomena zu einer wissen- 
 schaftlichen Mythologie, ii. 14 n. 
 1, IB n. 1 
 
 mus, mus, i. 77; ii. 42. 
 
 musca, ii. 42. 
 
 Muses, the, ii. 66. 
 
 mush, niashika (mus), i. 77: ii. 
 
 42. 
 Musur-dabagban mountains, i. 266. 
 
 Slid, ii. 42. 
 
 Mykense, ii. 112. 
 lu/Xi), ii. 44. 
 trie, ii. 42. 
 
 NAN 
 
 Mysticism, Christian of EckhanS 
 
 and Tauler, i. 277. 
 Mystics, i. 225. 
 Myth, see Apollo, Daphne, Endy- 
 
 mion, Herakles, Kephalos, Selene, 
 
 etc. 
 
 Mvthological (Mythopoeic) Age. ii 9. 
 Mythology, i. 148, 233 n. 2, 311, ii. 
 
 1-155, 159, 222, 241, 258, 259. 
 
 of Central America, i. 311. 
 
 Aryan , ii. 83, 257. 
 
 Comparative, ii. 1-141, 222, 241. 
 
 Finnish, i. 233 n. 1. 
 
 German (Teutonic), ii. 13 n. l,67 f 
 79 n. 1, 81, 85 n. 1, 259. 
 
 Greek, ii. 14 n. 4, 79 n. 2, 82, 142- 
 153. 
 
 Hindu, ii. 75. 
 
 Manual of (Cox), ii. 154, 155, 
 159. 
 
 Nursery Tales, the patois of the 
 ancient mythology, ii. 258. 
 
 Philosophy of (Schelling), ii. 144. 
 
 of the Puronas, ii. 75. 
 
 of the Veda, ii. 75. 
 Mythopa-ic (or Mythological) Age, 
 
 "ii. 9, 21, 52. 
 pvdot, ii. 69, 81. 
 
 "V["A instead of na (no), i. 298. 
 
 -L^ na, suffix, ii. 173. 
 
 nahh, ii. 45. 
 
 nabhas (nabha), i. 298. 
 
 nabha, nabhi, ii. 45. 
 
 naca, ii. 48. 
 
 nacho, ii. 48. 
 
 Nachor, i. 363. 
 
 nadh, ii. 45. 
 
 Nadi (river), i. 27. 
 
 Naeke (Opusc.), ii. 170 n. 2. 
 
 Nagasena, Dialogue betweer Miliuda 
 
 and, i. 285, 286. 
 nah (nabh, nadh), ii. 45. 
 nalian. ii. 45. - 
 
 Nali uas, migrations of the, i. 327. 
 Nahuatl, ancient written i.u gua^t 
 
 of Mexico, i. 323. 
 nak, nas (nox), i. 77. 
 nakis, ii. 27. 
 
 Nakshatras, Lunar Zodiac, i. 113. 
 Nami, i. 32. 
 Namu/n, i. 32; ii. 186. 
 nanandar, ii. 29. 
 Nandas, Dynasty of the, i. 14. 
 Nanna, ii. 109.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 387 
 
 NAO 
 
 Saoroji, Dadabhai, i. 158 n. 1 (the 
 manners and customs of the Par- 
 sees, The Parsee Keligion), 101, 
 163, KM, 160-168, 169, 174 (Guze- 
 rati Catechism translated by). 
 
 napat, ii. 31, 79. 
 
 a pain napat = the sun, ii. 79. 
 napti, ii. 31. 
 
 Narada, messenger of Indra, ii. 124. 
 
 Niirada, ii. 33 n. 1. 
 
 na, night, nox. i. 77. 
 
 Nasrallah, ii 225. 
 
 Nastika (Nihilist), i. 281. 
 
 National Period of Language, ii. 12. 
 
 Nature, i. 226, 360; ii. 147 (worship 
 
 of). 
 
 natus, ii. 28, 72. 
 naus, nfivas, ii. 48. 
 nava, ii. 51. 
 navan, ii. 45. 
 Navarette, Pr. xvi. 
 Navarre, Couvade in, ii.'273. 
 navis, ii. 48. 
 iiavva/j, ii. 200. 
 Navadi, a Brahman defiled by a, ii. 
 
 350. 
 
 Nayer, a Sfidra, ii. 350, 
 Neander, History of the Christian 
 
 Church, i. 219 n. 1,276, 278. 
 Nebo, worshippers of, i. 341. 
 ve/?pi's, ii. 8li n. 1. 
 necto, ii. 45. 
 nefo. ii. 31. 
 
 Nemaean lion, ii. 182. 
 Namesis, ii. 64. 
 ueo, ii. 45. 
 vi, ii. 45. 
 Neophytus, mathematical works of, 
 
 ii. 292. 
 Neo-l'ythagorean, ii. 286-291. 
 
 The Arabs received their figures 
 from the, ii. 290. 
 
 Boethius ascribed nine figures to 
 the, ii. 285-288. 
 
 Indian figures adopted by the, ii. 
 288. 
 
 Inventors of ciphering, ii. 286. 
 
 Nought (0) known to the, ii. 290. 
 
 Schools of the, ii. 280, 289-291. 
 Nepal, Buddhists of, i. 277, to, ii. 
 
 339. 
 
 Buddhist writings of, i. 282. 
 
 Canonical books of, i. 249 n. 1. 
 
 School of the Svabhavikas in, . 
 278. 
 
 nepos, neptis, ii. 31. 
 
 NIB 
 
 Nereus, ii. 162. 
 
 Nergal, worshippers of, i. 341. 
 
 Nenman, i. 95. 
 
 Nerioseiigh, i. 96, 134. 
 
 Nerval, (Jerard de, ii. 36 n. 1. 
 
 vTjtfw, ii. 45. 
 
 Neumann, C. F., i. 244 n. 1 (Cat* 
 
 cliism of the Shamans), 281. 
 Newdegate, Mr., ii. 349. 
 New Holland, i. 42 n. 1 ; ii. 267. 
 
 representation of the evil spirit 
 with horns and tail in , ii. 2U7. 
 
 New Hollander, ii. 267 (belief in a 
 
 heaven and a hell). 
 New Spain, native historians of, i. 
 
 318. 
 New Zealander, rubbing of noses, 
 
 way of salution of the, ii. 261. 
 niba (beautiful), i. 128. 
 Nibelung, Nibelunge, ii. 108, 110. 
 
 Ill, 187. 
 
 heroes of the , ii. 187. 
 
 written down at the end of th 
 12th century, ii. 110. 
 
 Nibhaz, worshippers of, i. 341. 
 
 nid, to .scoff, ii. 27. 
 
 Nidhoggr.ii. 205. 
 
 Niebuhr, i. 127, 214, 297, 327; ii.41 
 185 n. 2. 
 
 Nit-pan (Nirvana), i. 259, 294. 
 
 NiHheim, Nirlhell, ii. 194, 205. 
 
 Niflung, see Nibelung. 
 
 nift, ii. 31. 
 
 Nigada(Nivid), i. 108. 
 
 Nigban (Nirvana), i. 230. 
 
 Nighanfu, ii. 72. 
 
 Night, i. 77, 314 (symbolic emblem 
 of); ii. 70 n. 1, 80,"83, 135, 152, 232 
 
 Nihilism, i. 230, 243, 280 ( Buddhism 
 not free from the charge of'), 281 
 
 Nihilist, i. 284. 
 
 Nihilistic philosophers, i. 286. 
 
 Ni/im'vas (suniimim bonum), i. 27 1. 
 
 Nineveh, 1'r. xii. (monuments o. ), 
 i. 5, 76, 2f!7, 374; i cuneiform in- 
 scriptions of Babylon and ), ii. 
 280 (sculptures of). 
 
 nine, ii. 224. 
 
 Nirang (urine of ox, cow, or she- 
 goat), i. 16:3-165. 
 
 Niruktit, i. 75; ii. 98 n. 2 (published 
 by Hoth), 181 n. 1. 
 
 Nirvana, i. 213, 227-230, 245, 246- 
 249, 250, 259, 276-287, 294. 
 
 blowing out, extincticn of 
 i. 279.
 
 388 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 KB 
 
 Nirvana, the meaning of , i. 276- 
 287. 
 
 four stages of meditation before, 
 i. 249. 
 
 Nirvata (calm, without wind), i. 279 
 
 n. 2. 
 Nirvritti (cessation, passiveness), i. 
 
 278, 279. 
 
 nisa, nox, vv. i. 77. 
 Nishadas, guild of fishermen, ii. 342. 
 Nisroch, Pr. xii. ; (image of), i. 341 
 
 (worshippers of). 
 niun, ii. 51. 
 
 Nivid(Nigada). i. 107-110. 
 Noah, i. 150, 151, 155. 
 foeu, ii. 85. 
 vofj-nt ii- 27 n. 1. 
 noinen, i. 354. 
 nomina and numina, i. 83. 
 Nornes, the three, ii. 152, 205, 234. 
 Norris, Mr., ii. 294. 
 Norse, Old , ii. 42, 43, 79, 188, 260. 
 
 tales, ii. 154, 197, 237, 238 
 (l)asent). 
 
 Popular Tales from the , ii. 217- 
 236 (Dasent). 
 
 Norsemen in Iceland, the, ii. 187-194. 
 Northern gods, ii. 197. 
 
 heavens, ii. 227. 
 
 hell is cold, ii. 282. 
 
 mythology, ii. 201. 
 Northmen, i. 62; of Scandinavia, ii. 
 
 154. 
 Norway, ii. 188, 189, 191, 223, 226, 
 
 237, 239. 
 Norwegian refugees, ii. 189. 
 
 storv of the Master Thief, ii. 228. 
 
 tafes, ii. 223, 230. 
 
 Noses, rubbing of, custom of saluta- 
 tion in New Zealand, ii. 261. 
 
 Nothing, i. 229, 281. 
 
 Notre Dame de Grace, i. 355. 
 
 nought (citron, zephiro, zero, *unya), 
 ii. 284, 289, 239, 294. 
 
 novem. ii. 51. 
 
 Nri&akshas, ii. 134. 
 
 nuh, ii. 224. 
 
 numen, i. 354; ii. 76. 
 
 Nuraenius, ii. 290. 
 
 Numerals, ii. 49-51, 284-294. 
 
 Sanskrit, ii. 288-2J4. 
 
 in the Bactro Pali, and in the Ka- 
 purdigiri inscriptions, ii. 293. 
 
 Nunziata, i. 355. 
 nurus, ii. 29. 
 
 Nursery tales, ii. 206-216, 244 246, 
 358 259. 
 
 Nursery tales, comparison cf the 
 of Germany, England, and India, 
 ii. 244. 
 
 Zulu, ii. 206-216. 
 Nushirvan, i. 93,94; ii. 229. 
 Nyaya philosophy, ii. 303. 
 VVKTO, (v{ j, ii. 133. 
 
 >'05, ii. 29. 
 
 Nyx, ii. 64, 66, 76. 
 
 vvf (i/uxTa), i. 77; ii. 133. 
 
 OCTAVI ANUS, ii. 229. 
 octo, ii. 51. 
 Odin, i. 183, 219, 240; ii. 108, 189. 
 
 190, 194, 231, 233, 234, 238, 259. 
 'Robin Hood a disguise of Wodan 
 or ,ii. 259. 
 
 Sigurd, descendant of, ii. 108. 
 
 sons of, ii. 189. 
 Odoacer, ii. 110. 
 odot, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 
 05txr<7euy, ii 9, 11, 166 n. 1, 184 n. L 
 CEdipus, ii. 159, 165, 16G. 
 
 Mr. Bread's explanation of th 
 myth of, ii. 165 n. 1. 
 
 oi, ii. 42. 
 
 Oibareus, i. 127. 
 
 o!a, ii. 62; oida, ii. 249, 251. 
 
 Oigour Tartars, i. 265. 
 
 oiicelos, ii. 30 n. 1. 
 
 oucos, ii. 38. 
 
 oIvT), ii. 51. 
 
 oU, ii. 42. 
 
 Oizys, ii. 64. 
 
 Okeanos, ii. 64. 
 
 Okini, Kingdom of, i. 267. 
 
 OKTUI. ii. 51. 
 
 Oldneld, Mr, i. 42 n. 1; ii. 266. 
 
 olfacit, ii. 184 n 1. 
 
 Olympian, i. 25,159, 239; ii. 11, M. 
 
 fables, i. 159. 
 
 gods, i. 25, 239 ; ii. 66. 
 
 mythology, ii. 11. 
 
 OX. a<7eu 9 , ii. 166 n. 1, 184 n. 1. 
 
 Om, i. 203. 
 
 Omar, i. 93, 94. 171. 
 
 <!>Ho!ia.yOL (ciju.o-e5<o), ii. 44. 
 
 Oneiroi, ii. 64, 66. 
 
 Onondajra (Oswego River), i. 311. 
 
 OKOS, ii. 42. 
 
 Ophir, i. 145. 
 
 Oppert, Jul., i. 128, 266. 
 
 theory of the invention (f tb C* 
 neiforin letters, i. 267. 
 
 oppidum, ii. 4(3. 
 , ii. 85
 
 INDEX. 
 
 389 
 
 OPT 
 
 Optimus Maximus, i. 358 (Jupiter), 
 
 360. 
 
 oradlo, oralo, ii. 43. 
 orati, ii. 43. 
 Orcus, ii. 53. 
 Oreitliyia, ii. 1. 
 Oilent und Occident, i. 23 n. 2; ii. 
 
 100 n. 1, 186 n. 1. 
 Oriental figures and Gobar figures, 
 
 ii. 287. 
 Ormazd, Ormuzd, i. 24, 25, 116, 124, 
 
 128, 136, 138, 146, 150, 152, 153, 
 
 156, 158-160, 164, 167, 168, 170, 
 
 171. 
 
 Yasht, i. 124. 
 Oromazes (Ormuzd). i. 171. 
 Orotal, Orotulat. i. 371. 
 Orpheus, i. 73; ii. 99, 125, 126, 158, 
 
 159, 179, 199. 
 Orphic hymns, ii. 70 n. 1. 
 
 line, ii. 14. 
 'Opeos, ii. 182. 
 'OpSpios, ii. 183. 
 
 oas, cock, ii. 183. 
 
 oi] (swallow), ii. 183. 
 i>pdpo{iu>v : 6p9po/<oi'TT)s, ii. 183. 
 Orthros (op9po), ii. 182, 183. 
 105, IOTOS, derivative suffix, ii. 130. 
 osilu, ii. 42. 
 
 Ossianic poems, ii. 210 n. 1. 
 Oswego Kiver (Onoudaga), i. 311. 
 Ovpavi-n, i. 372. 
 
 OvpactW, H. 79. 
 
 Oipa>"5c, Ouranos, i. 235; ii. 65 n. 1, 
 
 79, 153. 
 
 ovis, ovjza, ii. 42. 
 Ox, ii. 42. 
 
 (XTJKIJ (Uvflayini), ii. 290. 
 Ozi-s, ii. 42. 
 
 "T)A (to protect), root from which is 
 
 A derived father, ii. 21, 22. 
 
 Pachacamac, i. 239. 
 
 pad (pada), TTOUS, pes, i. 83 n. 1. 
 
 pada, ii. 43. 
 
 Padan Aram, i. 364. 
 
 padapaiikti, name of a metre, i. 83 
 
 n. 1. 
 
 Pagan religion, i. 51, 52. 
 world, i. 236. 
 pa.9as, ii. 175. 
 
 irayyeveriap, ii. 88. 
 
 Painless tree, i. 154. 
 pala, ii- 22. 
 
 Palaca flour, i. 203 n. 1. 
 Palaephatus, ii. 182. 
 
 PAB 
 
 pa-laka, ii. 22. 
 
 Pali, i. 191-195, 197, 198, 251 n. 1, 
 260, 285, 295, 299. 
 
 works of Ceylon, i. 285. 
 
 sacred language of Ceylon, i. 191. 
 paltr. ii. 28 n. 1. 
 
 Pamir, i. 146 (plain of), 271 (plateau 
 of). 
 
 Pan, ii. 157. 
 
 Pandya and his Fishflag, storv of, ii 
 311. 
 
 Pangenetor, ii. 112. 
 
 Panini, i. 83, 119, 294 (classic San- 
 skrit of), ii. 98 n. 1. 
 
 Pawis, ii. 183. 
 
 pafiA-u, ii. 51. 
 
 PaiUalas, Pravahana Caivali, king 
 of tlie, ii. 336. 
 
 Pafil-atantra, ii. 225, 229. 
 
 pantha, ii. 40, 47. 
 
 Pantomimes, Harlequin of our 
 Christinas, ii. 232. 
 
 paotr (boy), not putra, ii.28 n. 1, 30. 
 
 paotrez, girl, ii. 28 n. 1. 
 
 papiilangi, heaven - bursters, name 
 for foreigners in Polynesia, ii. 266. 
 
 paper, papier, ii. 20. 
 
 Papua, Pr. xxx.; i. 59. 
 
 Par (root), ii.22. 
 
 Paradise, serpent in, i. 153. 
 
 of the Zoroastrians, i. 153. 
 paramita, i. 204. 
 
 Parasara, grandchild of VasiahfAa, 
 ii. 335. 
 
 the laws of the Kaliyuga written 
 by, ii. 348. 
 
 parasu, ii. 46. 
 
 Parasurama, great hero of the Brah- 
 
 mans, ii. 332, 333. 
 Pare*, the (Jerman (the three 
 
 Nornes), ii. 152. 
 
 Teutonic, ii. 61. 
 parens, ii. 22. 
 
 Par.yanya, ii. 327, 328, 330 (created 
 bv Brahman). 
 
 Parjanya, Ueber ( Biihler), i. 23 n. 2. 
 
 Pariah^ the lowest proud to pre- 
 serve his own caste, ii. 345. 
 
 formerly obliged to carry a bell to 
 give warning to the Brahmans, 
 ii. 35C 
 
 their name derived from that bell, 
 ii. 350. 
 
 Brahmans in the south of India 
 as black as, ii. 321. 
 
 Paris of Troy, ii. 164, 168.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 FAB 
 
 Parisbnd, i. 297. 
 Park, ii. 238. 
 parler aux yeux, i. 312. 
 rarwa}-a, i. 32. 
 
 Parsee, Parsi, of Bombay and Yezd, 
 i. 87, 135. 
 
 language, i. 91, 92, 115 n. 1, 118, 
 134. 
 
 life, description of, i. 162, 163. 
 
 religion of the, i. 161. 
 
 four ages of, i. 150, 151. 
 parsza-s, ii. 42. 
 
 Participle, formation of the Greek 
 
 fern, past, ii. 133. 
 Parvati, ii. 75. 
 s , ii. 67, 85. 
 
 Past ( Vurdh, TO. yeyovdra), ii. 61, 152, 
 
 205. 
 
 pasu, ii. 42. 
 
 patar, pater, narijp, ii. 21, 22, 74. 
 pMth, pathi, pathas, ii. 40, 47. 
 n-dtfos, ii. 47 n. 1. 
 pad ( husband ),patni, ii. 37-39. 
 Patois, ii. 196, 258. 
 jmros, ii. 40. 
 patria potes.tas, ii. 254. 
 pattin, ii. 37. 
 paurusheyatva, human element in 
 
 revelation, i. 18. . 
 Pausanias, ii. 68, 69. 
 pavana (wind), ii. 157, 254. 
 pa-j'u, ii. 22. 
 Pazend, i. 122. 
 
 pecu, pecus, pecku, ii. 25, 26, 42. 
 pecudium, ii. 25. 
 peculiar, peculium, ii. 25. 
 pecuiiia, ii. 25. 
 iriSov, (pedum), ii. 43. 
 Pegasos, ii. 1, 139, 175. 
 Pelilevan, i. 93. 
 Pehlevi or Huzvaresh, i. 89-91, 96, 
 
 119-121, 134-138, 148, 169, 171, 
 
 174; ii. 225. 
 
 translation of the Zend-Avesta, i. 
 119, 120, 134, 136, 137, 169, 174. 
 
 Peiren, ii 170. 
 
 Peleiades of Dodona, i. 358. 
 
 Peleus, ii. 32. 
 
 Penelope, ii. 53, 193. 
 
 penki, ii. 51. 
 
 ireVre, ii. 51. 
 
 n-evflo?, ii. 47 n. 1. 
 
 Period, dialectical, ii. 9, 12. 
 
 mythological (mythopoeic), ii. 9, 
 52. 
 
 national, ii. 12. 
 
 PIG 
 
 Period, Rhematic, ii. 8. 
 
 Trepxcoc, ii. 86 n. 1. 
 
 Perkunas, i. 23. 
 Persephone, ii. 70 n. 1. 
 Perseus, ii. 159, 164, 166. 
 Persia, kings of, i. 95 ; ii. 225 
 
 language of, ii. 221, 252. 
 
 literature of ; ii. 3, 12. 
 Persian epic, ii. 107. 
 
 translation of the Indian falilea, 
 ii. 225, 226. 
 
 religion, i. 92 ; revival of the 
 religion and literature, i. 88. 
 
 sun, name of, ii. 167. 
 
 Peru, Pr. xiii.; (religion of) i. 236, 
 
 239, 317. 
 perum, ii. 43. 
 Peruvian, ii. 112 n. 1. 
 pes (TTOU'S, pad, pada), i. 83 n. 1. 
 Peshawer (Pou - lou - cha - pou - lo), 
 
 Purushapura, i. 268 ; 270. 
 Peshdadian dynasty, i. 99. 
 petora, ii. 51. 
 Petta Pittei, children of the house, 
 
 name of the 6'udras in Tamil, ii. 
 
 353. 
 Petzholdt, T. (das Buch der Wilden), 
 
 i. 310 n. 1, 311. 
 Phaedros of Plato, ii. 1, 2, 14, 70. 
 
 fables in, ii. 230. 
 
 0ae./a, ii. 100 n. 1. 
 
 Phainis, epigram on, ii. 10. 
 
 Pharmakeia, ii. 1. 
 
 Pharsalia of Lucan, i. 23 n. 1. 
 
 ^eXco, i. 96. 
 
 M P , i. 96. 
 
 Philology comparative, n. 48 n. 1 
 
 (Manual of), 139 (Journal of), 148, 
 
 152, 224, 257. 
 Philosophy, Nyaya Sankhya,Vedan- 
 
 ta, ii. 303. 
 Philotes, ii. 64. 
 0<i/?os, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 Phoebus, ii. 73,167; Phoibos Apol- 
 
 lon, ii. 83. 
 
 phon, phonies (killer), ii. 171. 
 Phorkys, ii 70 n. 1. 
 
 <t>pa.rrjp, ii. 21; </>parpia, ii. 39. 
 
 <t>t)o>>ep6';, <l>96vos, ii. 177 n. 1. 
 
 (pvia, ii. ! I- 
 
 Pichardo's collection of American 
 
 MSS., i. 321. 
 Pictet (Les Origines Indo-Euro* 
 
 pe"ennes), ii. 32, 48 n. 1. 
 Pig, ii. 42. 
 Pi^avana, ii. 334.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 391 
 
 PIL 
 
 Pilpav, les fables de, ii. 226. 
 Pindar, i. 3, 71, 240; ii. 14, 70. 
 Pippal (Peepulj, Pippala, ii. 201- 
 
 203, 223. 
 Pishon, i. 154. 
 nia pes, ii. 51. 
 pitar, pitri, ii 21, 22, 27. 
 Pitris, ii. 200, 202. 
 Pitys (pine-tree), ii. 157, 158. 
 Piyadasi, i. 253. 
 
 Planets, worshippers of the, i. 341. 
 Planudes, mathematical works of, ii. 
 
 2i>2. 
 Plato, Pr. xxx.; i. 90, 171; ii. 2, 5, 
 
 14, 138, 153, 231. 
 Platonic ideas, ii. 76 n. 1. 
 Plotinus, ii. 295. 
 Pluto, ii. 109, 233. 
 
 pod, pons, pont, ponte, puente, ii. 20. 
 pcena, ii. 254. 
 Poetry, dramatic, i. 16; elegiac, i. 
 
 16;" rhymed in Kngland, i. 16- 
 rhythmical, ii. 261. 
 
 iroiflv, i. 132. 
 TTOiV'!" ^awv, ii. 26. 
 
 pole, ii. 43. 
 
 TroX jnoto ye /> "pen, i. 133. 
 
 1'oliars or Puliyars, i. e. flesh eaters, 
 
 ii. 322. 
 jroAtck, ii. 47. 
 jroAKj, ii. 40. 
 pol-lingo, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Polo-na! (Benares), i. 258. 
 7ru>A<K, ii. 42. 
 TroA <5e"K>i?, ii. 100. 
 Polvnesia, Polynesian, Pr. xiv., 
 
 xxxii.; ii. 214, 215, 264, 266. 
 Polyonomy, ii. 71. 
 
 jroXus, iroXAoi, ii. 171. 
 
 Polytheism, Pr. xviii. n. 1; i. 26, 28. 
 
 pomtis, ii. 51. 
 
 pons (see pod), ii. 20, 40, 47. 
 
 ponti, ii. 40. 
 
 Pontus, Couvade in the, ii. 279. 
 
 ponttts, 7-orro?, ii. 47, 79. 
 
 Popu! Vuh (book of the people), i. 
 
 30 n. 1; ii. 270 
 pore, rropKo?, porcns, ii. 42. 
 Poseidon, Uo<rfi5wi>, ii. 32, 151. 
 ird<ris, ii. 37. 
 potens, ii. 37. 
 potestas, patria, ii. 254, 255 regia, 
 
 255. 
 
 botis (irons), iroTwa, ii. 37. 
 
 Po-to (Avadana), i. 292. 
 
 PBO 
 
 Potri, i. 106. 
 
 Pott, ii. 48 n. 1, 83 n. 1, 185, 186 n. 
 
 3, 198. 
 (Ktymologische Forschungcn), 
 
 48 n. 1, 186 n. 3. 
 Pou-lou-cha-pou-lo (Purushapura, 
 
 Peshawer), i. 268. 
 Pounishaspa, father of Zoroaster, i. 
 
 176. 
 
 jroiis, i. 83 n. 1. 
 presidium, praesiliutn, praesul, ii. 
 
 184 n. 1. 
 
 Prar/apati, i. 30, 70, 71, 83 n. 1. 
 Praryna-paramita, (perfect wisdom* 
 
 i.'280, 283, 284. 
 Pra&etas, ii. 33 n. 1. 
 Prakrit, i. 295, 299; ii. 120, 133. 
 Prasenat/it, king of Kosala, i. 213 
 
 246. 
 
 Pratihartn, i. 106. 
 Pratyeka Buddha, i. 203, 285. 
 Pravahana 6'aivali, ii. 336. 
 pravara (caste), ii. 297. 
 Pravritti, i. 278. 
 Prayers, Litre, called daughters tf 
 
 Zeus, ii 70. 
 
 of immortality, ii 263. 
 
 Preller (Greek Mytliology), ii. 14 n. 
 
 4, 136 n. 1, 144, 170 n. 1. 
 Premare, Pr. xv. 
 Present (Verdhandi, TO on-o), ii. 61, 
 
 152, 205. 
 
 Priam, Pramos, ii. 84, 164. 
 Priests, i. 9, 106, 166 ; ii. 315 319, 324- 
 
 326, 328, 332, 336, 343, 344. 
 
 four classes of in India, i. 9. 
 
 their contests with the nobility, ii. 
 319, 328. 
 
 degraded position of the Parsea 
 , i. 165. 
 
 Prinsep's theory of the origin of the 
 Indian figures, ii. 287, 294. 
 
 prish, prishat, prishita, ii. 86, 86 
 n. 1. 
 
 pj-isni, ii. 86 n. 1. 
 
 Prithivi (p/ithvi), the Earth, broad, 
 i. 27,235; ii. 71. 
 
 privatus, ii. 53. 
 
 Proetos, ii. 170. 
 
 irpoxa;, ii. 86 n. 1. 
 
 Prokris, ii. 85, 87, 88. 
 Prometheus,!. 240; ii. 179. 
 Proserpina, ii. 109, 233. 
 prosie, ii. 42. 
 
 Protogeneia, ii. 80, 84, 96. 
 Provencal, ii. 73.
 
 892 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PEO 
 
 Proverbs, translation of, i. 316, 356. 
 cp6( , irp<^{, ii. 36, 86 n. 1. 
 prush, prushva, prushva (drop), ii. 
 
 86, 86 n. 1, 87. 
 Prussian, Old , ii. 32, 37, 42, 52. 
 
 Ilre'puis, ii. 134. 
 
 pa, ii. 157, 254. 
 
 pullus, ii. 42. 
 
 pulu, ii. 171. 
 
 punire, punishment, ii. 254-256. 
 
 pupil, sj-mbolic emblem of, i. 314. 
 
 Purana, Cosmogony of the, ii. 3. 
 
 Mythology of the, ii. 75. 
 
 The Veda and Law books over- 
 rule the, ii. 316. 
 
 puri, ii. 40. 
 
 Purohita (priest), purohitl (priestly 
 
 government), ii. 325, 334. 
 puru, ii. 171. 
 Pururavas, ii. 78, 98, 100-104, 113- 
 
 116, 118, 119, 123, 125, 330. 
 purusha, i. 284. 
 Purushapura (Pou-lou-cha-pou-lo), 
 
 Peshawer, i. 268. 
 Purushottama, ii. 116. 
 purva, ii. 171, 172. 
 Pushan, one of the old gods, ii. 331. 
 putra, ii. 28 n. 1, 30. 
 irOp, ii. 271. 
 
 Pyrrha, jr/po, ii. 11, 69. 
 Pythagoras, i. 219; ii. 10. 
 Pythis, ii. 69. 
 
 QAHOLOM, i. 329. 
 qanhar, ii. 21. 
 
 quan-fang (wife-catching), ii. 260. 
 Quatremere, i. 93. 
 quatuor, ii. 51. 
 Quax-Cho, i. 329. 
 Queen, ii. 39. 
 Quiche", i. 309 n. 1, 323, 324, 326, 
 
 327, 329, 332, 335, 336. 
 quino, ii. 39. 
 quinque, ii. 51. 
 quirn, ii. 44. 
 qvairnus, ii. 44. 
 
 T> ABENSCHLACHT, ii. 110. 
 -I.* Race, different, origin of caste 
 
 (ethnological caste), ii. 317-320, 
 
 321, 323. 
 ra.9, ii. 39. 
 
 Rajragriha, i. 210, 212, 213. 
 R&9anya or Kshatriya, ii. 306, 335. 
 Ra.9aratnaiarl, i. 191. 
 Rayarshis, royal bare s, ii. 328. 
 
 ra//as (Ip che), dust, i. 298. 
 raryata, ii. 45. 
 Ra//avali, i. 191. 
 Raghunandana, ii. 33, 34 n. 1. 
 Rahanumaee Mazdiashna, Guide of 
 
 the worshippers of God, i. 166. 
 Rahat, i. 282, 285. 
 Rahula (Ko-lo-keou-lo), sen of Bui 
 
 dha, Pr. xxiv. ; i. 258. 
 Rajendralal Mittra, Babu, editor of 
 
 the Lalita-Vistara, i. 197, 203, 295 
 
 297. 
 Raj pootana, Vakeels of, ii. 36 n. 2, 
 
 37 n. 2. 
 rnk, ii. 45. 
 
 Ram (exalted), i. 359. 
 Ramayana, i. 50, 67; ii. 335. 
 Rampsinitus, story of, ii. 227-229. 
 Ranha, i. 154. 
 rap, ii. 100 n. 1. 
 
 panTCd, ii. 45. 
 
 Rasa, i. 154. 
 
 Kask, i. 79, 117, 160. 
 
 Rasta Khez, i. 174. 
 
 Rathwiskare, i. 105. 
 
 rava, ii. 100. 
 
 Ravana, ii. 109. 
 
 Ravenna, battle of, ii. 110. 
 
 ravi, ii. 101. 
 
 Rawlinson, Sir Henry, i. 88, 127-129, 
 
 260. 
 
 red, ii. 100. 
 Red Indians, Red Skins, of North 
 
 America, i. 309-312, 317, 322. 
 redivia, reduo, reluvium, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 regere, ii. 256. 
 regia potestas, ii. 255. 
 reich, reiks, ii. 39. 
 Reinaud, i. 256. 
 Reinecke Fuchs, Renard the Fox, ii. 
 
 210, 267. 
 Religion, Arvan, Pr. xiii. ; ii. 257. 
 
 Buddhist," i. 189, 190 n. 1, 202. 
 
 Census difficult, religious, i. 159. 
 
 All important sprang up in th 
 East, i. 183. 
 
 classification of, i. 21, 23. 
 
 Mankind divided according to, L 
 158. 
 
 of Mexico, Peru, Pr. xiii. 
 
 Parsee , i. 158 sqq. 
 
 Science of, Pr. xi., xix.-xxi. ; L 
 373 
 
 truth in all, i. 54. 
 Remus, ii. 166. 
 
 Rgmusat, Abel, Pr. xvi. n. 1 ; i. 2&&,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 393 
 
 REN 
 
 257, 261,2112 (first Chinese scholar 
 of his time). 
 
 Renan, Ernest, i. 337-345, 355, 357, 
 360, 365-367, 369-374. 
 
 Resurrection, belief in, i. 45, 125. 
 
 Revelation, idea of, i. 17, 18, 226, 
 368; ii. 299,300. 
 
 rex, ii. 39, 256. 
 
 Rhea, ii. 151. 
 
 Rhematic Period, ii. 8. 
 
 Rhine, treasure of the Nibelunge in 
 the, ii. 109. 
 
 Rhyme, i. 16. 
 
 rhythm, ii. 261. 
 
 ri, ii. 39. 
 
 Ribhu, ii. 126, 179, 199, 200. 
 
 Rich, i. 10. 
 
 ridu-pa, ii. 172. 
 
 JGj0uvan, i. 32. 
 
 Rig-veda, Pr. vii.-ix.; i. 2, 6, 8,10, 
 15-17, 47, 70-72, 73. 75, 76, 78, 
 97, 101, 105, 152, 155, 238, 372; ii. 
 22, 33, 34, 35, 84, 86, 90, 98, 100, 
 101, 103, 108 n. 1; 126, 129-135, 
 171-176, 177, 178, 180, 203, 306, 
 314, 321, 322, 324-326, 328. 
 
 only real Veda, i. 8, 373. 
 
 Veda of (1028) hymns, praise, i. 
 10, 72,110, 116, 152,372; ii. 314, 
 315. 
 
 contains 10,402 to 10.622 verses, 
 153,826 words, 432,000 syllables, 
 i. 10, 11. 
 
 age of the, i. 11, 13, 74. 
 
 Translation of the (Wilson), ii. 
 326 n. 1. 
 
 tfifcika, ii. 333. 
 
 riksha, ii. 42. 
 
 Rimmon, worshippers of, i. 341, 
 
 359. 
 
 riogh, ii. 39. 
 tfishi, i.7, 17, 36, 47, 75, 107-109; ii. 
 
 200, 300, 305, 306. 
 road, ii. 40. 
 
 Robert of Reading, ii. 291. 
 Robin Hood, ii. 169, 259. 
 Roer, Dr., /iThandogya upanishad, 
 
 translated by, ii. 336 n. 2. 
 rohita, ii. 131/132. 
 Rojas, Don Juan de, i. 325. 
 Roman Alphabet, i. 322. 
 
 Gesta Romanorum, ii. 229. 
 
 language, ii. 249. 
 
 law, ii. 254. 
 
 legends, ii. 157. 
 Romance dialects, ii. 17-19, 60 
 
 SAK 
 
 Romance, nations, i. 361; ii. 20. 
 
 romasa, ii. 98. 
 
 Romulus, i. 297; ii.164, 166. 
 
 Rosen, Dr. Friedrich, i. 6; ii. 304. 
 
 Rosvred, story of, ii. 223, 224. 
 
 rot, ii. 101. 
 
 Roth, Prof., i. 32 n. 1, 41 n. '*, 47 n. 
 
 1,85,97; ii. 35 n. 1,86 n. 1,9? 
 
 n. 2. 
 
 Burial in India, ii. 35 n. 1. 
 
 Nirukta, ii. 98 n. 2. 
 
 ru, ruber, rudhira, rufus, ii. 100, 
 
 Ruclaki, ii. 225. 
 
 Rudra, Rudras, Pr. xviii. (Siva), i. 
 
 34-36 (hymn to th>3 Maruts), ii. 73, 
 
 330 (created by Brahman). 
 Rumpelstilzchen, ii. 154. 
 rupa (form), Rupee, rupya (silver), 
 
 U* .175. 
 rusat, ii. 175. 
 Russia, i. 233 (Buddhism in), iL 
 
 252. 
 Rustem, i. 94, 95; ii. 107. 
 
 OABALA, ii. 181. 
 
 Sabaoth, worshippers of, i. 341, 
 
 355. 
 
 sabara, ii. 186 n. 2. 
 Sabism, Haran, metropolis of, i. 148. 
 Sacrifice, human, i. 57. 
 Sacy, Sylvestre de, ii. 225, 226. 242. 
 Ssemund, collector of the Old Edda, 
 
 ii. 192. 
 
 Sagal, citv of, i. 285. 
 sahasra (hazanra), sahasram, i. 81; 
 
 ii. 51. 
 
 saihs, ii. 51. 
 St. Augustine, Pr. xi., xxx. ; i. 26, 
 
 54. 
 
 St. Benedict, ii. 212. 
 St Christopher, ii. 163. 
 St. Cyprian, Pr. xxx. 
 St. Hilaire, Barth<?!emy, i. 179 n. 1, 
 
 (Le Bouddha et sa Religion), 181, 
 
 184, 186, 192, 198, 201, 202. 205, 
 
 207,213,218,222,230,244,250. 
 St Martin, M. L. Vivien de, i. 210 
 
 n. 1, 271. 
 
 St. Patrick, ii. 164. 
 s;\k ha, different texts, i. 15. 
 Saktri. ii. 334. 
 Sakuntula, i. 67. 
 Sakya, i. 183 200, 213, 214, 223, 295, 
 
 296. 
 clan, fam ly of the, 206, 213 214.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 S.iK 
 
 Sakya, Mun< (Buddha), i. 214. 
 sal, saliia, ii. 47. 
 Sain, is 95. 
 samadhi, i. 204. 
 jSamana, Pr. xxiv. 
 Samanians, d3'nasty of the, i. 94. 
 Samanta, lakes of, ii. 332. 
 Samarkand, i. 267. 
 Sama-veda, i. 8 (to be sung), 72, 
 
 110. 
 
 Sama-veda-sanhita, i. 9, 15. 
 Sambara, ii. 186 n. 2. 
 (Sami, ii. 201. 
 Samoan islands, ii. 271. 
 Sanhita, collection of hymns, i. 10, 
 
 13, 109; ii. 305, 315. 
 Sankara, ii. ^04. 
 
 Afcvrya, ii. 339. 
 
 Sankhya, Pr. xv.; i. 214, 215,223, 
 243,250,279,284. 
 
 philosophy, i. 214, 215, 243, 250, 
 279,284. " 
 
 sutras, i. 223. 
 
 system, Pr. xv. ; i. 222. 
 Sanskrit alphabet (42 single letters), 
 
 i. 291; ii. 288. 
 
 Chinese dictionary, i. 288. 
 
 of the Chinese Buddhists, i. 297. 
 
 fables, ii. 225. 
 
 grammar, i. 115; ii. 252. 
 
 grammarian, ii. 133. 
 
 Mythology, ii. 73, 139. 
 
 Numerals, ii. 51, 287, 288, 294. 
 
 Chinese translations of texts, i. 
 288-299. 
 
 translation of the Zend-Avesta, i. 
 119, 135. 
 
 Santa Cruz del Quiche", i. 323, 336. 
 
 Santo-Tomas Chiehicastenango, i. 
 323. 
 
 San Vicente de Chiapas y Guate- 
 mala, i. 323. 
 
 Bap (root), sapiens, ii. 243. 
 
 Sapientia Indorum Veterum, ii. 
 225. 
 
 Sapta, ii. 51. 
 
 Sapta Hotars, i. 106 n. 1. 
 
 Bara, ii. 47. 
 
 Sarama, Sarameya, ii. 138 n. 2, 181, 
 183. 
 
 Sarawyu, the dawn, ii. 151, 152, 179 
 199. 
 
 Sarasvati, i. 62; ii. 327. 
 
 Barbara, ii. 186 n. 2. 
 
 Sardanapalus, i. 100. 
 
 arff, ii. 42. 
 
 SEO 
 
 Sariputra, i. 212. 
 sarpa, i. 154; ii. 42. 
 sarva (so-po), i. 299; ii. 172. 
 sarvara, sarvari (night), sarvalkii, 
 
 ii. 180, 181. 
 Sassanian, bilingual inscriptions of 
 
 the emperors, i. 89. 
 
 coins, i. 89. 
 
 dynasty, i. 87, 91, 148, 159. 
 
 epoch, i. 87 n. 1. 
 
 language, i. 90, 92. 
 
 period, i. 119,121, 153. 
 
 religion of the, i. 87 n. 1. 
 
 translation of the Zend-Avesta, i. 
 89. 
 
 Zoroastrian books preserved by 
 the, i. 171. 
 
 satam, ii. 52, 132. 
 
 Satan, i. 153,164; ii. 233. 
 
 Satapatha brahmana, i. 155; ii. 328, 
 
 331, 336. 
 Sathoual, i. 312. 
 Sattra, i. 112. 
 
 Satvayuga, mythical age, ii. 348. 
 Saudasa, ii. 334, 335. 
 /Saunaka, i. 14. 
 avara (savara), ii. 180. 
 Savitar (Savitri), i. 235; ii. 135. 
 Saxon, ii 45 (Old ), 188, 241, 297, 
 
 318, 320. 
 
 Sayana-AA-arya, i. 6, 7, 73, 75. 
 scandere (sca[d]la), i. 83 n. 1. 
 Scandinavia, Northmen of, i. 62. 
 Scandinavian Edda, ii. 107. 
 
 Folkeeventyr, ii. 217. 
 
 inhabitants of Norway, ii. 223. 
 Schelling, i. 229; ii. 144,155. 
 Scherzer, Dr., i. 324. 
 Schlegel, F., i. 67. 
 
 Schleicher (Formenlehre der Kir- 
 chenslawischen Sprache), ii. 39 
 n. 1. 
 
 Schmidt, J. J., i. 190. 
 
 Schoolcraft, i. 317. 
 
 Schuld, schuldig, ii. 62, 63. 
 
 Schwanbeck, i. 230 n. 2. 
 
 Schwartz, ii. 197. 
 
 school of, ii. 349. 
 
 Science of Religion, Pr. xi., xix., xx., 
 
 xxi., xxvi. 
 Scvthian race, Couvade among the, 
 
 ii. 272 n. 1. 
 
 widow burning am ng the, I.. 
 ' 259. 
 
 sea, ii. 47, 48, 274. 
 sedere, ii. 184 n. 1.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 SEI 
 
 Seitripotti, ii. 310. 
 Selene, i. 358; ii. 73 (myth of and 
 
 Kmlymion), 78, 80, 83, 156. 
 Seleucidie, i. 90. 
 Seleucus Nicator, i. 14, 220. 
 Self, subjective, absolute, i. 242,243. 
 Belva, ii. 29. 
 Semitic character, i. 338. 
 
 customs, ii. 200. 
 
 languages, i. 21, 337, 352, 361, 
 369, 374. 
 
 monotheism, i. 337-374. 
 septem, ii. 51. 
 
 Septuagint, i. 11, 130, 132,149,195 
 
 (chronology of the), 
 septyni, ii. 51. 
 Seraphim, i. 154. 
 Serosh, i. 124; ii. 133 n. 1. 
 serpens, serpent, i. 152 ( Azhidahaka), 
 
 153, 154 (sarpa), 329, 332; ii. 42. 
 Serv Azad, from Merv, i. 95. 
 sestra, ii. 21. 
 
 Seven Rivers (India), i. 62, 81,84; 
 , ii. 77. 
 
 sew, to, ii. 44, 45. 
 Bex, ii. 51. 
 
 Shahar (dawn), i. 357. 
 Shahnameh, Persian epic bv Firdusi, 
 
 i. 79, 92 (edited by Mohf), 95, 96, 
 
 99 (transl. by Atkinson), 100; ii. 
 
 167. 
 shall, should, skal, skald, skuld, 
 
 skiilda, soil, ii. 62. 
 Shamans, Pr. xxiv.; i. 3, 234 n. 1, 
 
 244 n. 1, 281. 
 
 Buddhism of the, Pr. xxiv. 
 Shapur II., i. 159. 
 
 shush, ii. 51. 
 
 She (Book of Poetry, third King), i. 
 
 303, 304. 
 sheep, ii. 42. 
 
 Shem, i. 145, 150, 342, 358; ii. 253. 
 
 Shemite, i. 361. 
 
 Shet, i. 359. 
 
 Shiraz, Gobar figures known at, ii. 
 
 293. 
 
 Shishne, king of Egypt, i. 183. 
 shito, ii. 43. 
 Shoo (writing), four Shoos , i. 303, 
 
 304, 306. 
 
 Shoo (Book of History, second), 
 
 King, i. 303, 304, 306. 
 Siam, i. 22, 193, 234. 
 sibac, i. 331. 
 sibun, ii. 51. 
 iiddha, i 215. 
 
 Siddhanta of Brahmaguita, ii. 289. 
 Siddhfirtha, name of Buddha iu his 
 
 childhood, i. 206. 214, 215. 
 Siegbert, ii. 110, 111. 
 Sifrit, ii. 106, 107, 111, 112. 
 Sigurd, i. 240; ii. 106-112, 167, 187, 
 
 194, 259. 
 Sikh, i. 179. 
 Siksha, i. 298. 
 Simeon, ii. 225. 
 Sin, consciousness, forgiveness of, I 
 
 40. 
 
 Sinaitic inscriptions, i. 371. 
 Sindhind, Great, ii. 289. 
 Sindhu, ii. 305. 
 
 Singhalese, i. 191-195, 198, 285. 
 Sioux, superstitions of the, ii. 271. 
 sister, svasar, qanhar, soror, svistai 
 
 sestra, siur, ii. 21; Weird- Si stew 
 
 ii. 152. 
 
 sister-in-law, ii. 29. 
 sisu, ii. 134. 
 Sita, ii. 109. 
 CTITOS, ii. 43. 
 siuja, ii. 44. 
 siur, ii. 21. 
 
 Siu-to-lo (Sudra), i. 259. 
 siv, siuv-u, siwu, ii. 44. 
 /Siva (Kudra). Pr. xviii.; i. 69, 70 
 
 ii. 13,75,307,310,311. 
 no trace of in the Veda, ii. 307 
 Si-yu-ki, i. 270. 
 skald, etymology of, i. 83 n. 1. 
 mcaAcMtr, ii. 271. 
 skand, i. 83 n. 1. 
 Skotos, The Krinyes daughters of, ii. 
 
 70 n. 1, 153. 
 
 Skuld (Future), ii. 61, 152, 205. 
 Sleeman, Colonel, ii. 352. 
 Smerdis, i. 127, 128. 
 Smith, Vernon, i. 275. 
 Smoking, the Parsis abstain from i. 
 
 168. 
 Smrfti, tradition, i. 17; ii. 33 n. 1, 
 
 299. 
 
 Sneewittchen, ii. 154. 
 snocha, ii. 29. 
 Snow-white, ii. 223, 224. 
 snur, smisha, ii. 29. 
 sobaka, ii. 42. 
 socer, socrus, ii. 29. 
 Sol, ii. 79. 
 Solar, ii. 78 (race), 93 (heroes), 9 
 
 (deity), 107 (myth), 
 solium, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 Soma (Uorna), i. 28, 46 (prayer to),
 
 396 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 SOM 
 
 103 (sacrifices to), 104 (taste of), 
 
 154, 176, 235; ii. 131, 174, H5, 178, 
 
 201-204, 322, 326 (guardian of the 
 
 Brahman), 330. 
 Somadeva, ii. 242. 
 son, ii. 30, 150. 
 son-in-law, ii. 29. 
 Song-yun, i. 255. 
 
 Sonne, ii. 83 n. 2, 103 n. 1,175, 177. 
 Sono (I am), sum (sunt), sunt, soy, 
 
 son, suis (I am), ii. 17, see sum, 
 
 18. 
 
 Sophia, i. 91. 
 Bophos, ii. 213. 
 soror, ii. 21. 
 
 South Sea, i. 51 ; ii. 271. 
 BOW, su, ii?, sus, su, svinia, suig, ii. 
 
 42. 
 
 spa, <r7ra/<a, ii. 42. 
 Spain, Couvade in , ii. 272, 274, 
 
 279. 
 
 Iberians of North, ii. 272. 
 
 Invasion of the Mohammedans 
 into, ii. 285. 
 
 Speir, Mrs., i. 253. 
 
 Spell, Fate and, i. 240. 
 
 Spentomainyu, i. 138. 
 
 spider (urwanabha, dpd^vri. aranea), 
 
 ii.45. 
 Spiegel, i. 32 n. 1, 82 n. 1, 84, 86 n. 
 
 1,89-92, 117, 119, 122, 135, 136, 
 
 138 n. 1, 143-157 (Eran). 
 gpiritus lenis, ii. 86 n. 2. 
 Spottiswoode, i. 233 n. 1. 
 Sprenger ( Das Leben .Mahommad's), 
 
 5. 215 n. 1. 
 Spring, mythological traditions 
 
 about the, ii. 232. 
 araddha, i. 42. 
 wamana, i. 204, 205, 233 n. 2, 259 
 
 (Chavnen). 
 Sravaka, i. 203. 
 Sravas (/cAeos, cluo), i. 259. 
 Sravasti, i. 204, 213 (capital of 
 
 Kosala), 259. 
 
 firotriva (Srauti), i. 103; ii. 345. 
 Sruti "Revelation, i. 17; ii. 299. 
 frvarn, ii. 186 n. 2. 
 stairo, stairi, orerpa (sterilis), ii. 42. 
 Stan-gyour, i. 234 n. 3. 
 stare, ii. 61. 
 Sthana ^place), i. 299. 
 Starkius, ii. 225. 
 steer, sthura, staora, raGpos, taurus, 
 
 stiur, taura-s, tour, tor, ii. 42. 
 Stevenson, Dr., ii. 320. 
 
 sthavira (thaira, elder), ii. 303. 
 
 Stone- Age, ii. 282. 
 
 Storiology, ii. 247. 
 
 Storms ("Maruts), i. 27, 68, 97; ii 
 
 58. 
 Strabo, Couvade mentioned by, ii. 
 
 272. 
 
 Straparole, ii. 228. 
 Stromata of Clemens, Pr. xxix. n. 
 
 1,2; i. 230 n. 1, 362 n. 1. 
 Sturlason, Snorro, collector of the 
 
 Young Kdcla, ii. 192. 
 Styx, ii. 70 n. 1. 
 tu, to beget, root of sunii, sunufl 
 
 suta, ii. 25, 28 n. 1. 
 Subjunctive, i. 78. 
 Subrahmanya, i. 106. 
 Succoth-benoth, worshippers of^ i. 
 
 341. 
 
 Sudas, ii. 325, 334. 
 Suddhirattava, ii. 34 n. 1. 
 /Sud.lhodana,i. 233, 284. 
 Sudra, blouse, i. 163, 164. 
 Suclra (Siu-to-lo), i. 252, 259; ii. 179, 
 
 305, 306, 315, 318, 321, 329-331, 
 
 337-342, 345, 346, 350, 353. 
 
 Vedic authority for the degraded 
 position of the . ii. 305. 
 
 was born from the feet of Brah- 
 man, ii. 306. 
 
 modern word, only once used in 
 the Veda, ii. 306, 321. 
 
 on marriages between S. and 
 Aryas, see iMarriages. 
 
 the color of the S. is said to be 
 black, ii. 321. 
 
 called in Tamil, the Petta Pittel, 
 children of the House, ii. 353 
 
 Dynasties, ii. 339. 
 Sudraka, ii. 36 n. 1. 
 Sufi, Sufiism, i. 182, 276. 
 ui, ii. 175. 
 
 sum (I am), asmi, esmi, ahmi, /i/*, 
 ycsme, iin, em, ii. 18; see sono (I 
 am), 17. 
 
 Sun, names of the , Surva, Savitri, 
 Vishnu, Mitra, Eros, (Jrvasi, Ar- 
 vat, i. 235; ii. 84, 131, 224, 245, 
 246. 
 
 religion of <he, i. 236. 
 
 worshippers of the sun, i. 341. 
 
 William Tell, last reflection of tha 
 sun -god, ii. 232. 
 
 sunn, sunus, ii. 28 n. 1. 
 sunya (Nought), ii. 284. 
 suuyata, annihilation, i. 278.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 397 
 
 S&N 
 
 Sflnyavadin, i. 281. 
 
 Buparna, ii. 134. 
 
 Superstitions, ii. 271. 
 
 Eupplicium, ii. 254. 
 
 Supvabuddha, i. 206. 
 
 Surinam, Arawaks of, ii. 276. 
 
 Surya (sun), i. 27, 235; ii. 73, 131. 
 
 Susravas, i. 33. 
 
 suta, ii. 25. 
 
 Sutra (Aphorism), i. 10, 12-14, 17, 
 74, 102, 107, 108, 111, 179, 193, 
 220, 224, 280, 284, 303; ii. 44, 173, 
 302. 
 
 period, i. 14, 220. 
 
 of Kapila, i. 224. 
 
 discourses of Buddha, i. 193, 280, 
 284. 
 
 compiled bv Ananda, i. 280. 
 
 of the Jains, i. 179. 
 
 Suttee (widow, burning), ii. 33, 36 n. 
 
 2, 37 n. 2. 
 
 svabhavat, by itself, i. 278. 
 Svablu\vika,"i. 278. 
 Bvadharmatikrama, ii. 336. 
 svaihra, svaihro, ii. 29. 
 svaw/ra, ii. 129. 
 Svara ( Hera), ii. 177. 
 svasar, ii. 21, 24. 
 rvasru, svasura, ii. 29. 
 sva^ti, joy, happiness, ii. 24. 
 Svayamblui, self-existing, i. 347. 
 svekr, svekrvj, ii. 29. 
 veta, ii. 43, 99 n. 1. 
 Svetaketu Anineya, ii. 336. 
 Swabian dynasty, i. 16. 
 
 epic (Nibelunge), ii. 187. 
 Swanhild, ii. 111. 
 
 Sweden, i. 233 (Buddhism in), 234 
 
 n. 1; ii. 237, 252 (language of), 
 
 255. 
 
 Swendsen, Brynjulf, ii. 192. 
 Swift, ii. 92. 
 sword, ii 46. 
 Byala, syali, ii. 29, 32. 
 *vava, it. 132. 
 S'ykes, Colonel, i. 275. 
 Sylvester II., Pope, ii. 285. 
 Synonyms, ii. 71; synonomv, ii. 
 
 "71. 
 Sj'riac translations of Greek and 
 
 Christian writers, i. 90. 
 Syrinx, ii. 157. 
 szeszi, ii. 51. 
 Bzimtas, ii. 51. 
 uu. ii. 42. 
 
 THA 
 
 , ii. 184 n. 1. 
 -"- Ta Heo, Great Learning, second 
 
 (Shoo), i. 304, 306. 
 taihun, taihun taihund, ii. 51. 
 Taittiriya-sanhita, ii. 134 n. 1. 
 takshan, ii. 40. 
 Tamil, i-193 (conquerors of Ceylon), 
 
 ii. '^(, 353; Tamulian people, ii. 
 
 172. 
 
 Tamor of Sathoual, i. 312. 
 Tanjur (Bstan-hgyur, Tan-gyur), L 
 
 189. 
 
 Tantra, i. 234; ii. 302, 307. 
 Taoism, Chinese religion, i. 50. 
 Taoist, i. 179. 
 
 Tao-sse, temple, i. 212 n. 1. 
 Tao-te King, i. 179. 
 Tar, derivative suffix, ii. 22, 31. 
 
 rdpao-cra, rapaL(r<reiv, ii. 48. 
 
 Tartak, worshippers of, i. 341. 
 
 Tartars, manners of the, ii. 270. 
 
 Tartar-Khan, i. 265. 
 
 Tatis, caste of the, ii. 345. 
 
 Tauler, i. 277. 
 
 taurus, raCpoj, H. 42, see steer. 
 
 Taxila inscriptions, ii. 293. 
 
 Tcha-li (Kshattriya), i. 259. 
 
 Tchou-fa-lan, i. 254. 
 
 Tecum, i. 325. 
 
 Te'icTwf, ii. 42. 
 
 Tell, William, ii. 169, 232. 
 
 Temptation and fall of man, i. 151. 
 
 ten, ii. 223. 
 
 tenere, auxiliary verb in Spanish, ii. 
 60. 
 
 Teo Amoxtli, sacred book of th 
 Toltecs, i. 326. 
 
 Tepepul, i. 325. 
 
 Tepi, ii 214. 
 
 Terah, i. 147 n. 1, 155, 340 (descend- 
 ants of), 363. 
 
 Teraphim, i. 363. 
 
 Tesoro de las Lenguas Quiche 1 , Cak- 
 chiquel v Tzutohil, i. 323. 
 
 TesteVa, i."316. 
 
 TeVrape?, ii. 51. 
 
 Tetzcuco, royal family of, i. 321. 
 Teutonic gods, i. 23^ 183; ii. 187 
 233. 
 
 laws, ii. 259. 
 
 mvths, mythology, Pr. xii.' i 
 240; ii. 13,"76, 193," 259. 
 
 textus, i. 303. 
 flaWao, ii. 48, 79. 
 Tt anatos, ii. 64.
 
 398 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 TUB 
 
 Thebes, Talcs of T. and Argos, ii. 
 
 154. 
 
 detiv, ii. 149. 
 
 Theism, Henotheism, i. 347. 
 eXu,, i. 96. 
 Themanites, i. 371. 
 Theodoric the Great, ii. 110, 112. 
 Theodorus, i. 371. 
 Theodotus, i. 371. 
 Theogony, ii. 66, 76, 82, 182. 
 
 of Hesiod, i. 65 n. 2, 76. 
 
 the Veda is the of the Aryan 
 races, i. 76. 
 
 e<r<k (0u), i. 238, 365; ii. 149 (ety- 
 mology of). 
 0>ip, i. 96". 
 Theseus, ii. 169. 
 Thetis, ii. 32. 79. 
 Theuth, ii. 70. 
 Thibet, Buddhism in, i. 254; ii. 339. 
 
 Lama of, i. 187. 
 
 languages of, i. 22. 
 
 Buddhist literature of, i. 196. 
 Thibetan translation of the Buddhist 
 
 Canon, i. 188. 
 Thlinkithians, i. 334. 
 Thor, ii. 189, 190. 
 ftia-'f. ii- 184 n. 1. 
 Thoth. i. 219. 
 Thracians, burning of widows among 
 
 the. ii. 259. 
 
 Couvade among the (6pif')cia,l0ioj), 
 ii. 272 n. 1. 
 
 Thraetaona (Feridun), i. 96-100, 
 
 151,155; ii. 167. 
 Ihreis, ii. 51. 
 Thrinakia, ii. 163. 
 Tlirita, i. 176. 
 Thugs, i 273. 
 Thuringia, ii. 110, 222. 
 Ihusundi, ii. 52. 
 Ovyarnp, ii- 21, 74. 
 6vpa, ii. 40. 
 Tibareni (Ti^opijw? ?<<*), Couvade 
 
 among the, ii. 274. 
 Tigris, i. 99, 140 n. 1, 143, 145. 
 Till Eulenspiegel, ii. 210. 
 timrjan, ii. 39. 
 Tinnevelly, i 301. 
 Tirthaka,"i. 280 n. 1. 
 TC^WU, ii. 149. 
 Tithonos(the setting sun) i. 357. ii. 
 
 84,104, 157. 
 Tcbit, i. 145, 146. 
 Todd, Colonel ii. 36 n. 2. 
 
 TVA 
 
 Toltec, Teo-Amoxtli, sacied book of 
 the. i. 326- 
 
 Torelore, king of, ii. 273. 
 
 Torngarsuk, the land of perpetual 
 summer, ii. 264. 
 
 To/aka, i. 296. 
 
 Totem, crest of an Indian warrior, i. 
 313. 
 
 Trachys, ii. 88. 
 
 trahere (traire). ii. 24. 
 
 Traitana, i. 98-100. 
 
 tra : varika, ii. 176. 
 
 Transmigration and metempsy- 
 chosis, i. 199. 
 
 trayas, ii. 51. 
 
 Trees, the two Trees, in the Garden 
 of Kden, the Gaokereua, and the 
 Painless tree, i. 154. 
 
 tres, rpeis, li. 51. 
 
 Treta-age, ii. 330. 
 
 rpuceJaAos, ii. 183. 
 
 Tripitaka (the Three Baskets), Pr. 
 
 xi., xiv.; i. 23, 179, 184, 280, 281 
 
 n. 1. 
 
 Tpi<TioM<iTo?, ii. 183. 
 Trita, i. 96, 97; ii. 167. 
 Trithen, Prof., ii. 180. 
 TpiVo?, ii. 105 n. 1. 
 Tritsus, Vasisli^/m leader of the 
 
 white-robed, ii. 334. 
 Trojan war, i. 327 ; ii. 84, 154, 162. 
 Troy, ii. 82, 84, 164. 
 trvs", ii. 51, 224. 
 Tsal-in, i. 254. 
 
 Tshiroki alphabet, ii. 210 n. 1. 
 Tuck, Friar, ii. 1G9. 
 tuggo, ii. 184 n. 1. 
 tiiisasta, ii. 52. 
 tukstantis, ii. 52. 
 Tulan, town of, i. 335, 336. 
 tun (town), zaun, ii. 27. 
 Turanian, Allophylic or tribes, ii. 
 
 253. 
 
 languages, i. 21 ; ii. 8, 71 n. 1, 
 176 n. 1, 253. 
 
 religion, i. 22, 341. 
 
 Turas, a class of Sudras, ii. 345. 
 
 Turkic, Turkish, i. 22, 91. 
 
 Turkistan, i. 271. 
 
 Tumour, i. 186, 190-192, 196, 252,n. i 
 
 Turvaytlna, i. 32. 
 
 tusimtons, ii. 52. 
 
 tvai, tvaitigjus, tva-lif, ii 51. 
 
 tvaksh (taksh), i. 132. 
 
 Tvashter, ii. 327. 
 
 Tylor, researches into the Early Hi*
 
 INDEX. 
 
 399 
 
 TYf 
 
 tory of Mankind, ii. 112 n. 1, 
 
 248-283. 
 
 Typhoon, ii. 182, 183. 
 Tvphon, ii. 2. 
 Tzakol, i. 3-29. 
 Tze-Kung, i. 308. 
 Tze tze, i. 305. 
 Tzite tree, i. 331. 
 Tzutohil, i. 323. 
 
 UDGATAK, i. 105, 106 n. 1. 
 Udumbara, i. 203 n. 1. 
 Uocayinf, ii. 2.40. 
 U&iakanyana, ii. 211, 212, 213. 
 U/dakula, ii. 215. 
 ukhshan. ukshan, ii. 42. 
 Ukuhlonipa, ii. 215. 
 Ullilas, i. 21, 79, 90; ii. 249. 
 Ulvsses, Ulyxes, ii. 163, 184 n. 1, 
 
 i93, 232. 
 line, ii. 42. 
 
 Unity of God, i. 339, 365. 
 Universe, emanation from Brahman, 
 
 i. 226; 205, 303. 
 Unknown God in Greece,!. 239. 
 unus, undecini, ii. 51. 
 Upali, compiler of the Vinaya of 
 
 the Tripifeka, i. 280. 
 Upanishad, i. 242; ii. 204, 336. 
 Upliam, Ed., i. 191. 
 Ur of the Chaldees, i. 147 n. 1, 148. 
 ura, ura-bhra (laniger), uramathi 
 
 (wolf), urana(ram), urani (sheep), 
 
 urana (protector); ii. 173, 174, 
 
 173 ; see urna. 
 Uranos (Varuna), i. 355, 360; ii. 11, 
 
 22, 65, 66. 
 Ilrna (wool), urwanabha, uroa-nabhi, 
 
 urna-vabhi (spider), urnavu (goat, 
 
 spider), ii. 45, 173-175. 
 uro, ii 137 n. 2. 
 ursus, ii. 42. 
 uru (eupv), tirii&i, ii. 98. 
 Uruvilva, i. 211. 
 urva, urvi, urvivA, ii 71, 98, 99. 
 Ur-asl, i. 235; ii. 98-104, 113-117, 
 
 119,120,122-125. 
 ush, ushna, usra, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 Uslia, ii. 136. 
 Ushapati, ii. 136. 
 Ushas (dawn), i. 27, 36 (hymn to), 
 
 68, 78; Ushiisa( Aurora), 235,355; 
 
 ii. 99, 100, 128, 135, 137 n. 2, 179. 
 Usikulumi, ii. 213. 
 Ut (hell), i. 42 n. 1. 
 Uzembcni, ii. 213. 
 
 VED 
 
 TTAGASANEYIN, i. 83 n. 1. 
 
 Vaiileha, caste of the, ii. 341. 
 Vaidya, caste of the, ii. 341, 342. 
 Vai.4kha, month, i. 112. 
 Vaisal!, i. 210, 213. 
 Vaisya (householder), caste of the, 
 
 ii. 37, 306, 321. 323, 330, 331, 338. 
 
 340-342, K46, 353. 
 from the thighsof Brahman, ii. 306. 
 
 color of the V. is yellow, ii. 321. 
 
 or Arya, forms the bulk of the 
 Brahmanic society, ii. 323. 
 
 the Vaisya caste in modern India, 
 ii. 340. 
 
 Vaiva-svata, i. 46. 
 
 Vawzsar/a, ii. 345. 
 
 Vangj'ida, i. 32. 
 
 vap, ve, wab (to weave), ii. 44. 
 
 var, vri (root), ii. 65, 127, 173, 174. 
 
 vari, ii. 48. 
 
 variyasi, ii. 99. 
 
 vama (color, caste), ii. 175, 176, 297. 
 321. 
 
 Yarnasahkaras, mixed castes, ii. 
 340. 
 
 vami, gold, ii. 175. 
 
 Varuwa (Uranos), i. 27, 28 (hymn 
 to), 38-44, 47, 235, 355, 358/302, 
 373; ii. 22, 65, 97, 99, 179, 308, 
 309, 345, (created by Brahman). 
 
 varvara, ii. 172, 173, 177. 
 
 vas (vasis), vasum, ii. 133. 
 
 vas (van, ushi, vat), ii. 130. 
 
 vas (root), ii. 87 n. 2, 137 n. 2. 
 
 Vasishf/ia, i. 36, 40; ii. 100 (superla- 
 tive of vasu), 101, 308 (cow of), 
 325, 334, 335. 
 
 Vasra, ii. 177. 
 
 vasti, vastra, vestis, ivQrjs, fassradh, 
 
 gwisk, ii. 44. 
 vastu (JOT"), ii. 40. 
 vasu, bright, Superlative Vasish^a, 
 
 ii. 99. 
 
 Vasu, ii. 131, 327, 330. 
 vasupati, ii. 108. 
 
 vat (van, vati, vat), ii. 130. 
 vatsa, ii. 42. 
 
 Veda, oldest Book of the Aryans, i 
 4, 5, 24. 
 
 revealed by Brahman, therefor* 
 called Sruti (revelation), 1'r. i. : i. 
 17; ii. 299, 300. 
 
 of the highest authority for the 
 religion of the Brahmans, ii. 299, 
 
 300, 303, 316. 
 
 few Brahmans can read and un-
 
 INDEX. 
 
 VED 
 
 derstand it, and none could edit it, 
 ii. 300, 305. 
 
 Veda, caste, no authority for the sys- 
 tem of the castes in" the, ii. 305, 
 306. 
 
 English translation of the, ii. 305. 
 
 idea of faith in the Veda, i. 36, 
 41. 
 
 fourVedas, i. 8. 
 
 hvmns and songs of the, i. 4, 25, 
 26", 121, 220; ii. 44, 76, 132, 152, 
 201, 204, 232, 305, 306, 308, 328. 
 
 belief in personal immortality in 
 the, i. 45; ii. 263. 
 
 Language of the, ii. 18, 21, 257, 
 301. 
 
 Language and Grammar of the 
 Veda different from the common 
 Sanskrit, ii. 301. 
 
 Life after death, pravers for, ii. 
 263. 
 
 Marriage on, see Marriage. 
 
 No metempsychosis in the, i. 44. 
 
 mvths, mythology of the, ii. 76, 
 97." 
 
 formerly only One Veda, ii. 330. 
 
 on Widow burning, see Suttee, 
 Widow. 
 
 Vedanta, Pr. xv.; (system) i. 226, 
 
 276; ii. 303 (philosophy). 
 Vedantin, i. 22(5. 
 Vedic (Vaidik), Calendar, i. 112, 
 
 113 
 
 Ceremonial, i. Ill ; ii. 34. 
 
 paradise, ii. 200, 201. 
 
 period, i. 70; ii. 199, 315, 337. 
 
 sacritices, i. 102-105. 
 
 Theogonv and Cosmogony (by 
 Muir), i. 41 n. 1. 
 
 Vega, Garcilaso de la, ii. 112 n. 1. 
 
 Vei alphabet, ii. 210 n. 1. 
 
 veihs, ii. 38. 
 
 vellere, ii. 174. 
 
 vellus, villus, volna, vulla, ii. 174. 
 
 Vena, caste of musicians, called so 
 
 from Vina, lyre, ii. 341. 
 Vendidad, i. 84, 86 n. 1, 87 n. 1, 118, 
 
 145, 164, 171, 174, 177. 
 Venus, ii. 162. 
 
 Verdhandi ( Present), ii. 61, 152, 205. 
 Verona or Bern, ii. 110. 
 verto, ii. 61. 
 vesa (house), ii. 38. 
 Vesta, ii. 137 n. 2. 
 vest.fi, ii. 14. 
 Veytia, i. 320, 
 
 TUB 
 
 vicus, ii. 38. 
 
 vid, ii. 87 n. 1, 249. 
 
 Videha, ii. 328, 329, 336, 341. 
 
 vi-dhava, husbandless, ii. 32, 53. 
 
 vidua, viduare, viduus, viduvo, 
 
 vdova, widow, ii. 32, 53. 
 vidvan, vidushi, ii. 133. 
 Vieh, ii. 25. 
 vieo, ii. 44. 
 viginti, ii. 51. 
 
 Viffiiana-Bhikshu, i. 224 n. 1. 
 Villemain, i. 186. 
 villosus, villus, i. 174, 176, 177 n. 1, 
 
 178. 
 
 vfna, the lyre, ii. 341. 
 Vinaya (first basket of the Tripi- 
 
 faka), compiled by Upali, i. 193 
 
 280. 
 
 Vingolf, ii. 194. 
 vinsati, ii. 51. 
 Viraf, i. 91. 
 Vis, vaisva, ii. 37, 323. 
 Vishnu, Pr. xviii.; i. 69, 71, 235; ii. 
 
 13, 33 n. 1, 75, 116, 307, 310. 
 Vishmtsarman, ii. 242. 
 Vishuvat, equator or central day, i. 
 
 112. 
 Vispaiti, vispati, vispatni, ii. 38 
 
 323. 
 Visparad or Vispered, i. 118, 171 
 
 174, 177. 
 
 Vistara (Vistara), i. 298. 
 Vistasp Nusk, i. 171. 
 Visvamitra, ii. 325, 328, 333, 334, 337. 
 Visve Devas, ii. 328, 330. 
 vltaprish<Aa, ii. 129. 
 vitulus, ii. 42. 
 
 Vivada-bhangarnava, ii. 34 n. 1. 
 Vivanhvat, Vivasvat, i. 95, 96, 176- 
 
 ii. 335 (father of Manu). 
 Volcker, ii. 105 u. 1. 
 Voss, ii. 142- 
 Vratyas, ii. 329. 
 vrika, ii. 42, 173. 
 vrish, ii. 86. 
 vrishan, ii. 99 n. 1, 134. 
 Vrit, ii. 61. 
 vritha, ii. 177 n. 1. 
 Vritra, i. 31, n. 1, 152 (fight between 
 
 Imlra and ), 153; ii. 93, 178, 179 
 
 182, 183, 136. 
 Vulcanus, i. 354; A. 162. 
 vulf, ii. 42. 
 Vulgate, i. 130. 
 vulla, ii. 174. 
 Vurdh, ii. 61, 152, 205.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 401 
 
 VYA 
 
 Vy&ghra. ii. 289. 
 
 Vyakarana ( Ho-kia-lo 1 ), i. 298. 
 
 Vyasa, ii. 310 
 
 WABOJEEG, Adjetatig of, i. 313. 
 Walid Klmlif, ii. 288. 
 Walton, Bryan, i. 132. 
 Warburton," i. 45. 
 
 War-ru-gu-ra (evil spirit), i. 42 n. 1. 
 weave, to, ii. 44. 
 Weber, A , i. 97. 
 Wedding-ring, ii. 279. 
 Weird sisters ii. 152. 
 Welcker (Greek mythology), ii. 137 
 
 n. 2, 142-153, 155, 1<J8. 
 Weniaininow, i. 334. 
 werden, ii. 61. 
 
 Weslevan missionary, i. 192, 217. 
 Westergaard, i. 84," 117, 120, 122, 
 
 143, 160, 251 n. 1. 
 West Highlands, Popular tales of the 
 
 (J. F. Campbell), ii. 237-247. 
 West Indies, Couvade in the, ii. 277, 
 
 279. 
 
 wheat, ii. 43. 
 wich, ii. 38. 
 Widow, vi-dha\'A, vidua, viduvo, 
 
 leadbh, vdova, widdewu, i. 57; ii. 
 
 32-37, 25!t, 307, 30!), 312-314. 
 
 on burning (Wilson, Grimm, 
 Roth Bushby), i. 57: ii. 32-37, 
 259, 307, 309." 
 
 the Kig-veda does not enforce the 
 burning of, ii. 34, 309. 
 
 marriage not prohibited by the 
 Veda, ii. 307, 309, 312-314. 
 
 wienas, wieno lika, ii. 51. 
 wiesz-patis (lord), wiesz - patene 
 
 (lady), ii. 38,323. 
 Wife, capture of wives, ii. 260. 
 Wild Huntsman (Grand Veneur), ii. 
 
 231. 
 
 wilka-s, ii. 42. 
 Wilkes, i. 58. 
 Wilkins, i. 66. 
 Wilson, H. H., i. 7, 30 n. 1, 34 n. 1, 
 
 73 (translation of the Kig-veda), 
 
 116, 202,214, 2-22,278,292; ii. 33 n. 
 
 1, (on widow burning), 35 n. 1, 36 
 
 n. 1, 113 n. 1, 299, 32(5 n. 1, 330. 
 Wilson, Dr., in Bombay, i. 301. 
 Wind, Fan, pavaria, ii. 157. 
 Windisclnnann, i. 140 n. 1, 150, 154; 
 
 ii. 168, 168 n. 2, 4 (Zoroastrian 
 
 studies). 
 Winning, ii. 48 n. 1. 
 
 VOL. n. 26 
 
 TIM 
 
 Winter, ii. 57, 232. 
 
 wissen, ii. 249. 
 
 wiz, ii. 43. 
 
 Wodan. i. 23, 183, 219; ii. 259. 
 
 Woepcke (Me'moire sur la Propaga- 
 tion des Chiffres Indiens). ii. 284- 
 294. 
 
 wolf, i. 47 (the destroying); ii. 42. 
 
 Woman, marriage and position o! 
 the in India, ii. 312, 346. 349. 
 
 Wordsworth, ii. 57, 58, 104, 119 n. 1. 
 
 worship, to, ii. 257. 
 
 Wrangel, i. 334. 
 
 Wuotan, ii. 85. 
 
 XBALANQUE, i. 332. 
 Xenophanes, i. 362. 
 Xibalba, i. 331; ii. 268, 269. 
 Ximenes, Father Francisco, i. 323, 
 324, 325 (Tesero de las LenguM 
 Quiche", Cakchiquel y Tzutohil), 
 323. 
 t^ov, ii. 92 n. 1. 
 
 Y"AC8AVALKYA, ii. 329,336. 
 * Ya</ur-veda, i. 8, 9 (to be mut- 
 tered), 72, 108, 110; ii. 101, 314. 
 
 Yayur-veda-sanhita, i. 9,15. 
 
 Ya'gya, i. 108, 109. 
 
 Yak, i. 203 n. 1. 
 
 Yama (Yinia), i. 28,47 (Article on 
 by Ur. Muir, 47 n. 1, 96, 97, 
 150/238, 362; ii. 97, 181, 199, 200, 
 202, 203. 330. 
 
 Yamuna, ii. 305. 
 
 Yarkand, i. 271. 
 
 Yuska, i. 73, 74, 82 n. 1. 
 
 Yasua, i 86 n. 1, 119, 122, 136, 143 
 174, 176, 177. 
 
 Commentaries on (by Bur- 
 nouf), 119, 122, 143. 
 
 yataras, ii. 29. 
 vava, ii. 43. 
 Yaxartes, i. 266. 
 Yazashne, i. 171. 
 veh, ii. 42. 
 Yemen, i. 340. 
 Yen-thsong, i. 232 n. 1. 
 Yesht, i. 86 n. 1. 
 Yezd i. 87, 92, 159. 
 
 Number of Parsis in, i. 159. 
 Yezdegird, i. 93. 
 Yggdrasil, ii. 202, 204, 205. 
 
 Yin (Book of Changes, first), King, 
 
 i. 303. 304. 
 Yima-Kshaeta, i. 96.
 
 402 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 TOD 
 
 rodha (warrior), li. 27. 
 Yogin, i. 181, 225. 
 voni. ii. 35 n. 1, 36. 
 Yuga of the Brahmans, the four, i. 
 
 151. 
 
 Yupanqui, ii. 112 n. 1. 
 Yunnan, ii. 272. 
 Yuvasa, ii. 98. 
 
 yABD (present), i. 353. 
 Li Zabd-allah. i. 353. 
 ZaI. i. 95. 
 Zaotar, i. 105. 
 
 Zarathustra, i. 86, 88-90, 95, 121, 
 124, 151 (see Zoroaster). 
 
 his language, i. 88, 95. 
 
 his doctrine, i. 88. 
 Zarthosti Community, i. 169. 
 Zarvan, i. 91. 
 
 Zaun (tun, town), ii. 27. 
 
 Zasi-s, ii. 42. 
 
 #a, ii. 43. 
 
 fiv, to live, ii. 149. 
 
 Zijx (Zen), Zjfr, ii. 149, 157 (see Zeus). 
 
 zena, ii. 39. 
 
 Zend, i. 80-83, 85-88, 95, 116-122, 
 126-13!), 143, 145, 156, 157, 161, 
 164, 165, 169; ii. 18, 19, 21, 42, 43, 
 51, 133 n. 1, 167, 185. 
 
 an artificial language ( ?), i. 80. 
 
 its relation to Sanskrit, i. 81, 82. 
 
 its numerals up to 1,000, i. 81. 
 
 origin of the name , i. 82. 
 
 its relation to the language of the 
 cuneiform inscriptions, i. 87. 
 
 its grammar, i. 118. 
 Zend-Avesta, Pr. xi.,xiv.; i. 23, 24, 
 
 61, 78, 79-100, 126, 130, 131. 134- 
 136, 139-157, 160, 164-170, 174- 
 177, 179, 184, 373; ii. 33, 167 n. 1, 
 186 n. 2, 202, 208. 
 
 reduced to writing before Alex- 
 ander, i. 80, 88. 
 
 composed in the eastern provinces 
 of Persia, i. 146. 
 
 Zenodotus, i. 371. 
 
 ZTJR 
 
 zephiro (nought), ii. 284. 
 
 Zerdusht, i. 90 (see Zoroaster). 
 
 zerno, zernov, ii. 43. 
 
 zero (zephiro), ii. 284. 
 
 Zeus (Zev), i. 23,25, 78, 237, 239, 
 240,353, 354, 358-360, 362, 365; 
 ii. 1, 11, 14, 15, 21, 66, 70, 72, 78, 
 80, 83, 88, 97 n. 1, 111, 134, 137 n. 
 2, 146-151, 162, 179, 193, 222. 
 
 zlato, zoloto, ii. 46. 
 
 Zoega, ii. 142. 
 
 Zohak, i. 97, 99; ii. 167, 168. 
 
 Zoheyr, Moallaka of, i. 372. 
 
 Zoroaster (see Zarathustra and Zer- 
 dusht, Zurthosth), i. 23, 25, 80, 86, 
 88, 117, 120, 121, 125, 142, 146- 
 149, 156, 158, 159, 161, 164, 168, 
 171, 175, 176, 219, 373; ii. 249. 
 
 born in Arran V i. 146. 
 
 writings of, i. 117. 
 
 followers of (fire worshippers), i. 
 159. 
 
 faith of, i. 159. 
 
 teaching of, i. 175 
 Zoroastrians, their abode in India, i. 
 
 84. 
 
 ancestors of the, ii. 52. 
 
 their books, read by Hermippus, i. 
 88. 
 
 destroyed by Alexander, i. 88, 171. 
 
 their ceremonial, i. 105. 
 
 their gods, i. 83. 
 
 their paiadise, i. 153. 
 
 their religion, Pr. xi. ; i. 135, 152, 
 171. 
 
 their sacred writings, Pr. xxxii. ; 
 i. 160, 184. 
 
 their separation from the worship- 
 pers of the Vedas, i. 82. 
 
 Zulu, Pr. xx.; ii. 206-216. 
 
 Nursery Tales, ii. 206-216. 
 
 Animal fables among the , ii. 
 210. 
 
 Zurthosht, i. 164, 170 ( Asphantaman 
 Anoshirwan), 172, 173 (see Zoro- 
 aster).